The mist became thicker as I walked. It muffled sounds, not just my feet, but even my breathing. I was in silence, complete nothingness. The deeper I walked the harder my heart pounded, but I kept at it. I kept walking, progressing further and further into the mist.

It should have been absurd, me being afraid of mist. Moonlit Night was all about the mist. I lived in this stuff. But it was still making me nervous.

Sometimes when you walk alone at night, you listen for sounds that mean nothing, and a primal part of you feels fear, that something waits for you in the dark, coming to swallow you whole. Even as an Ascendant that part of you lives on, at least at my level. But as I walked into the mist, I knew for certain that I would not be attacked. That nothing waited for me in the depths of the fog. And that was so much worse.

Because beyond the fear of creatures in the dark, for me at least, there was something deeper. That there was nothing at all. No people. No friends. No family. That I was alone and would stay alone. Forever. And the deeper I got the more the fog started to fade from pea soup to something so thick it blocked even light. First it was dim, then dark, then so black I felt like I was standing in the depths of starless space.

After the fog came the dark, and somehow, the loneliness got deeper. I wasn't just by myself. There was no one here now. Not even me. The sensation of standing somewhere even I wasn't was something completely new and awful to me. I felt panic as I had the sudden urge to look for me, the paradoxical feeling that I was lost, not from my own point of view, but like I needed to find myself or I'd be lost forever, like I'd ran away from me.

That feeling seemed like it would be the worst this would get. That I'd reached the peak of the solitude this place could inflict...and then my friends started to vanish. Not from around me, but from my heart. I knew them, could remember them, but one by one they disappeared from me, in a way so permanent I couldn't recognize the feeling they gave me as anything close to even recognition.

First was Jessie. My friend and teammate. Someone with whom I shared a promise to help her bring back her brother. Someone who had been there for me, who had saved my life. Someone who made me smile and comforted me when I was sad and who I could always count on. I kept every memory of her, every detail of our time knowing each other, but the emotions were just gone. She was a stranger.

Then I lost Benny. My best friend. The person I counted on most in the world, and who I would die for. I remembered playing games together, meeting him as a kid, time hanging out at the park or going camping or just talking bullshit. I remembered him leaving his life behind to follow me into the unknown, and how easily he did it, and how I'd promised myself deep down I'd make sure it was worth it to him. I didn't feel a thing.

Next was Callie. Who I adored. The strongest, most intelligent, most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. The person whose love I felt like a pillar of strength and support every day through our bond. The person who made me happier than I'd been in my entire life. She was gone.

Finally I lost Zeke. My uncle. My dad in every way that mattered. The drunk irresponsible frustrating impossible man who had supported me through every terrible thing that had ever happened to me. I didn't know why mom left, or even why dad did more than in passing, but Zeke stayed. He'd always been there. Keeping me safe and watching out for me, even when I didn't know it. Now he was nowhere.

There were more. More friends that vanished, more acquaintances who just...disconnected from my heart. I still remembered them, still knew the facts, but they vanished from me all the same, and I could feel the hole they used to fill growing darker and deeper.

My body shook. My eyes filled with tears, and I began to weep there, in the pitch black, as everything I'd ever loved or cared about was stripped away, leaving me empty. Not a healthy, rational kind of empty. A yawning abyss inside that howled for me to fill it, to find some way to stop the nothing from growing before it consumed everything and I just ceased to exist.

I'd always been afraid of being abandoned. Of being left behind by more than just my parents. And now I had. I'd been abandoned by everything. Everyone. They were gone in the most fundamental and profound way that I could imagine. I felt like I'd never get them back. Never be happy or safe or content again.

The fear stretched on, stoking itself into terror, and continued to deepen along with the nothingness. I fell into myself, into a bottomless well of existential dread. I kept falling... but nothing else happened. I didn't die, or feel any more pain, or suffer. I didn't bleed or die or scream. The fear was suffocating, it was consuming me, but there were no consequences to it.

I thought of Jessie. Of my friend who was so completely gone from me now. I thought of how knowing her had changed me. How she showed me that I could move past the bad things and focus on joy in my life, how she taught me to be strong even when I was hurting, like she had when her brother died.

I thought of Benny. Who had always been around, who had watched my back and supported me. Who had given everything to be my friend and follow me off Callus. Who was such a fundamental part of who I was that imagining never having met him turned me into someone I didn't even recognize.

I thought about Callie. Who showed me I was worth caring about even if some people left. Who taught me what it was like to truly love someone for the first time in my life and made my whole world ironically brighter. Who trusted me enough to convince me to take over as leader even though deep down part of her needed that to feel like she mattered, and was happy for me when I did.

I thought of Zeke. Who had supported and cared about me. Who had given up his whole life to sit on a backwater planet and watch some kid grow up, geas or not, because he cared about me. Who had sacrificed almost two decades of life as a titan of power in the universe to sit at home and listen to me whine about my day, or get me soup when I was sick, or get me out of trouble.

I thought about myself. Shane. The person that was the sum total of all those experiences, who was the being made of the memories I still had. I wasn't gone. I was still here. I'd been here the whole time, and when I realized that, suddenly, I was back. I could feel myself again, and I wasn't lost. I was just alone.

But being alone didn't change me. Not at all. Despite not being able to feel the feelings my friends and family inspired in me, the effect that had on me was still there. Even when they were gone, I was the same person. I was Zeke's nephew. Callie's boyfriend. Jessie's friend. Benny's brother, in every way that mattered.

And as I came to these realizations they came back. Jessie was standing next to me in the dark, smiling. Benny was behind me, guarding my back, Callie was by my side, holding my hand, and Zeke was watching over me from afar, keeping me safe and proud of what I was doing.

The emotions came back, one by one, and as they did, the fear receded. Because I realized that even if I lost them, gods forbid, and there was no one else. I'd never really be alone. The person that I was carried them with me. Carried them in my heart and even in my soul.

Solitude wasn't loneliness, it wasn't emptiness or isolation. It was just being by myself. The people I cared about were never gone. Not my dad. Not my mom. Nobody. They were with me wherever I went, and I didn't have to be afraid to be by myself, because that couldn't hurt me, no matter how afraid I was.

My tears dried, and my muscles eased, and the gnawing pit in my stomach filled in. Not just to where it had been before, but even more. That underlying terror of being left alone that I'd always had was gone. I'd faced the deepest, darkest pits of my abandonment issues, and realized they had no control over me.

The dark began to recede, though I didn't mind it so much anymore. I strolled confidently and happily through the blackness, and then out into the fog. I didn't know when it would finally end, but I didn't need to. I was just enjoying the quiet, and a little time to myself. There was really no big rush.

The sound came back first. The crunch of my boots on gravel and twigs. Then my sight started to return, and I was walking through a pleasant, tranquil forest. Whereas before there had been some underlying hint of threat to the peaceful tranquility, now it was just pretty scenery. I was happy to be here, to enjoy this walk through the trees.

But all good things must end. Eventually I came to a clearing, and in the center was a small golden building. A temple just like one after the first trial. As I entered, there was a flash of light, and a golden piece of metal appeared. I reached out to take it and it melded with me just like the last one had.

Part of me was surprised I'd made it out first. I wasn't sure how long I'd been in there. it had felt like eternity, or maybe a few seconds. But I'd kept walking, step by step, and I was the first one in, so I suppose I shouldn't be too shocked. I turned around, looking back at the forest I'd just walked through, and took a long, deep breath of the crisp air.

I thought I might miss the place when I left. I hoped the others had a nice time in there. Once you got past the first part it wasn't so scary. Maybe I'd come back some day. For now though, I had to move on. I turned and walked through the temple, heading for the golden doorway again, and the next step in my journey.

The trials worried me less now. I felt whole. In a way I hadn't before. There had been so much nonsense, so many little things going on. I'd felt so scattered and overwhelmed, and now I was just complete. Like my soul had sublimated and become more cohesive. It felt nice to be so much more... solid. Like anything anyone threw at me I could handle, if I needed to.

My worries weren't completely gone. i still felt them, they just seemed like they were less important now. Like I had a new perspective. I took one last deep breath of clean forest air before walking into the doorway. As the light consumed me, I smiled. I was ready for what came next, whatever that might be. I was going to win this, and no one could stop me.