Eleanor Deveena

Spindly fingers stretched from malleable darkness as they caressed Eleanor’s hair. She ran as much as her muscles pushed her, still feeling the creature hot on her feet. As she felt its soft caresses, Eleanor’s hairs stood up on end. Cold sweat ran down her nape to her back.

Her legs burned as her muscles strained to escape the black. Eleanor’s lungs burned from overexhaustion.

Its footsteps sounded like tipping glass. Ping ping ping rang in her ear. Everything it touched was consumed by a sort of fleshy shadow. The creature was right behind her, breathing madness down her neck.

The corridors seemed to stretch on forever. Was Eleanor trapped with this thing, destined to run forever?

Tears fell as she realized this possible nightmare. Her internal mana ran rampant with fear. Running into an intersection, she grabbed the edge of the corner to pull her momentum forward into the left. Her finger grazed a red rune, accidentally overcharging it with mana.

As the creature ran by the overcharged rune, a blast of crimson electricity blitzed the shadows. A feminine screech pierced Eleanor’s ears. Dumbfounded and awestruck, she gazed dumbly at the flailing darkness wriggling in pain. She noticed her left hand twitching with red static.

I can fight back! She thought, a smirk crossing her face. I can fight back!!! Eleanor nearly squealed, before muttering a curse as the shadowy anomaly, like a Curtain that covered the Veil, drew its blackness back towards itself, regenerating.

“G̛͡͠į̧͟͢͞v̶̡̢ȩ̸̴ ̨͡i̶̧̢͜͞t҉́͟͡͡ ̷́҉b͏͟͠͝a̴̢͘͢a͘a̵̵̷̛͞ą̷̀͝a̧͘͟͜c̵̡̛k̢͠!҉́” It bawled, its voice like a feline cat’s, both feminine and wrong. It flailed its skinny limbs like an overgrown infant.

She watched in morbid fascination as this atrocity had a temper tantrum, screaming out in a strange language she felt she might understand.

It twisted its ghastly neck, the ever-changing but blank features of its face grew brighter, like a dying supernova being consumed and torn open by a black hole.

Eleanor watched, enchanted by the beauty of the dying star. Like an eye, it gazed upon her mortal and simplistic self, and judged her unworthy.

The girl yawped. “Hrk!” A sudden spiking pain penetrated her cranium, like her mind itself was splitting open. She quickly looked away from the blinding light and ran.

“What...the hell was that?!” She whimpered, scurrying away from the downed abomination. Making sure to overcharge a run by her, Eleanor ran through the corridors with fervent madness.

The Curtain contorted itself up, like a puppet that rearranged its strings. She heard its limbs cracking like glass creaking.

She placed several more rune traps as she ran ahead of the freak. Glancing behind her, she realized The Curtain had dodged every lightning attack from the overcharged runes.

The monster wasn’t just obsessive but intelligent as well. The same trick wasn’t going to work twice.

“Ì̀Ţ͢ ̵̷̵̡͏Ś̵͞H̶̡͝Ơ̵̕͟U̶̢҉̷L͞Ḑ̵̀̀͠ ̴̵B͘͜͞͡E̶̕ ̷̴͡͡M̷͠҉̢I̧͟I̷̷̕Į̵Ì̴͠҉ĮN̷͘E̵̡E̸̡͢E͏̸͝!҉̷͝҉”

“What the hell are you?!” She seethed, “An ex-boyfriend?!”

Its spine grew splinters and spiked through the ceiling. The limbs mutated and multiplied, growing into arachnid-shaped appendages. It avoided the runes altogether as it started to crawl across the ceiling at high speed.

It hurled towards Eleanor and extended its shadowy claws to her.

“No!” She screamed, grabbing mana from a rune. Do what Elsie does! Eleanor thought as everything went in slow motion. Using the mana within her to latch on to the mana inside the rune, she turned it into a shield. Manipulating mana without a conductor was an extremely difficult thing to do, but Eleanor managed it.

The red mana sizzled under Eleanor’s cracked fingers. A massive translucent crimson shield pushed back against The Curtain. A wispy hand burned as the mana shield sizzled with hot mana, burning The Curtain.

“W̨҉̷̨͠r̷̛͘ý̢̧͢͡g̸̶̶a̡͝a̸̡҉͠a̕͞a̧a̷͝a̴̷ḩ̵̸”

“Burn! Dammit! Burn!” She screamed. Wriggling on the ground, it glared upon her person. The nova sparked with rage. Even as her mind started to split apart at the seams, she screamed “BURN!”

Eleanor manipulated the weaves of mana with intense ferocity, turning it into a lightning storm that tormented The Curtain of the Veil.

Her hands, still twitching from the intense mana, grappled on the Curtain’s face. With an animalistic ferocity she didn’t understand, her right hand plummeted into the nova eye, pulling it apart.

“Just DIE already!”

“I̧͜T̛͘S͘͢͜͏ ̵̨̀͞M͝I̶͢Ņ̨̧̀E͏͏̵͠͡ ̴̀̕Ḿ͘͝I̸̢̨̢͟N̷̶͢E͡͞ ́͜I͜͜͠T̡̢̛̀Ś̴͜͡S͢҉҉̸S̶͡͡ ̢̛͡M̶͜͡Ỳ͡ ̶̕B͟͢͟O̶̶҉̵̨D̷̕D̡̛͞D̸̸̢̀͝Ỳ̵̨̕͜Ý́̕҉Y҉̷Ỳ̶̵̢͞”

“No, it isn’t! JUST DIE!”

Eleanor became consumed by anger fueled by primal fear, tearing apart The Curtain’s core by stripping apart the weaves of mana and chaos inside the creature. If she had paid attention, Eleanor would have realized she started to understand The Curtain.

The gravitational oscillation reforged and healed the cracks within Eleanor’s arms, slithering parts of itself onto her. Darkness and light fused into each other, breaking apart at its seams as Eleanor mercilessly clawed her way at its core.

A weakened feline cry for mercy didn’t register in her ears. The Curtain, once predator now quarry, felt its grip on reality loosen, slowly being torn apart by this false mortal.

Possessed by adrenaline, she finally punctured its nucleus. A massive fissure of bright light and drowning black overwhelmed the corridor, flinging Eleanor back like a ragdoll.

Everything went black soon after that.

….

A gulp of air nearly drowned the redhead’s lungs as she gasped for life. Her mouth felt dry and sticky. Touching the surface beneath her, she realized her body was on something made out of concrete and metal. It wasn’t very comfortable.

She was on a bench, in Poima’s garden. Her eyes transfixed on the orb on her lap, cracked and torn open. Feeling the tiny shards of glass on her palms, she carried the pieces and placed them on the bench by her left side.

Her hair felt sticky and slimy. Hesitant fingers pressed her forehead. She had been sweating while in the memory fragment.

She glanced around, noticing several shards of ice on the floor, ground, and walls, like a massive fight happened. The runes around her had been drained empty and the ground near them scorched.

“...veronica?” Her voice was hoarse. Although she called her name, the one she quickly grew to depend on during this journey was gone. Eleanor felt a sense of loss she couldn’t fathom. Was it loneliness? Sadness? Dependence? Or all of the above?

It was the fear of loss. That possibility that she lost the shoulder she had been relying on frightened her.

Standing up, a wave of vertigo hit her, as if she had been upside down for hours at a time. Her stomach swirled into itself and vile nearly bloated out of her throat.

Biting her molars, she pushed back down the fear and nausea that overwhelmed her. She had to be strong. She had to find Veronica.

She couldn’t afford to be a damsel in distress.

Elsie. Veronica...I’ll find you both. I’ll make sure you’re okay.

Veronica Leylon

Earlier…

It was a battle of attrition. Who could outlast the other. Michael nearly keeled over from exhaustion, but he surrounded himself with traps that would knock Veronica out in a single well-placed blow.

Veronica had the advantage in stamina, but had to rely on the runes around her to attack Michael. She was slowly running out of charges to use.

She had to end this quickly. Deciding to end the battle through a risky gamble, she placed her hand on the final charged rune by the concrete wall on her right. Feeling the swell of mana course through her veins, she jumped towards Michael, clad in crimson static.

Her plan was, if she clad herself in defensive magic, hurl herself toward Hernold, and snatch the wand, she could turn the tables.

Risky but viable.

Michael’s eyes widened as black-and-white death headed towards him like a bullet. His arm cracked as Veronica bulldozed through the dozen ice traps he placed around him. Her hand snaked on his right hand. Her hand, physically enhanced by mana, crushed his wrist.

In one fell swoop, she stole his wand and pummeled him straight to the ground, nearly knocking him out. She raised the wand and aimed straight at him and channeled magic to freeze him before noticing blue runes etched on the side of the wand. Aiming at his nose, she wanted him to asphyxiate.

The azure-colored runes glowed and in an instant her spell deflected. Ice encased her nose and mouth, blocking off her oxygen.

No! She squirmed, realizing too late that even Michael’s wand was booby-trapped. Veronica’s nails vainly clawed at the ice, slowly succumbing to drowning unconsciousness.

Her knees buckled. She dropped to the grass. Little by little she stopped feeling the sensation of the greenery beneath her.

The last thing she saw was a bloodied Michael looming over her. His creepy smile sent shivers down her spine. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

E...leanor…