farewell
The rumbling ceased, replaced by a silence that outweighed the battle itself.
A dense curtain of dirt and dust rose where the beast once stood, obscuring the result of the final impact. Sue and Chia descended gently, their auras still flickering faintly, exhausted but with the certainty of victory in their gazes. They knew they had hit the core. Nothing could survive that.
-It's over
Sue muttered, though she didn't let her guard down.
The wind began to dissipate the gray cloud. And there it was.
The Whistler, the legend of terror, was shattered.
Now, that mountain of bones had collapsed, reduced to a fragmented torso and broken limbs crumbling into ash. At first glance, the silhouette still looked menacing, a shadow that refused to go away. Sue and Chia tensed their muscles, ready to finish him off if he moved one more time.
-Hold on
Arcadio's voice was a hoarse whisper.
The veteran had put Esmeralda down, but would not let go of her hand. He, who had seen so much death, recognized when a life was dying.
-She has no time left," said Arcadio.
said Arcadio
-There is no hatred in what is left of him. Just... the end.
Esmeralda broke free from Arcadio's grip and ran a few steps forward, stopping at a safe distance, but close enough for her voice to crack as she cried out.
-Where is he?!
tears of frustration and fear ran down his dirty cheeks.
-You said you knew where he was! Where is my brother?! What have you done with him?!
The monster did not answer. It did not roar, it did not threaten. It just looked at her with its many remaining eyes, which were beginning to close one by one, going out like candles at the end of a vigil.
Then it happened.
It was a brittle sound, like the sound of a fine crystal goblet falling to the floor.
Crack.
The mask, the grotesque face that had terrorized the region, began to crack. It was not crumbling like rotting flesh, but shattering as if it were an empty shell, a dirty glass finally yielding to the truth. The shards fell, tinkling softly against the stones, revealing what had always been hidden beneath.
And beneath the nightmare, there was a face.
It was not a demon, nor was it an ancient monster.
It was the face of a young man. Ordinary, ordinary. The face of someone who had been born into a modest family on the plains, under a roof full of violence. A boy who should not be more than twenty years old, with disheveled hair and a tired expression. He was pale, translucent, as if his existence barely clung to this plane.
Esmeralda's scream died in her throat, replaced by a choked moan that hurt everyone present more than any physical injury.
-...Little brother?
The young man opened his eyes. They were no longer the eyes of Doom. They were human eyes, brown and sad, filled with an unfathomable melancholy.
-Esme...
Her voice was a wisp of air, raspy and weak, but unmistakably hers.
-No... it can't be....
Esmeralda took a step back, shaking her head, trembling violently.
-You didn't... You were lost... You told me to hide....
-Excuse me
the young man tried to raise a hand towards her, but he had no strength. His arm was beginning to dissolve into wisps of smoke.
-Forgive me. That day... when he raised his hand to you, I was blinded by anger. I killed him to defend you, Esme, but I only got grandfather to curse me to this.
-Bullshit!
she shrieked, falling to her knees in the mud.
-It's a lie! You're not him! He's coming back!
-I lied to you...
he continued, ignoring his own disappearance, his eyes fixed on her with aching devotion.
I told you to play hide-and-seek...I told you to count to a thousand and not come out...because I didn't want you to see me. I didn't want you to see what I was turning into.
Esmeralda covered her mouth with both hands, sobs shaking her small body. The truth, cold and cruel, settled in her heart with the weight of a slab. That monster, that thing that had haunted her, that had destroyed everything in its path... it had always been him.
Chia, watching from behind, felt a lump in her throat that prevented her from breathing. Suddenly, the cruelty of fate became apparent. The monster's obsession, the way he always seemed to know where Esmeralda was but never caught her, the twisted psychological game....
All this time, the monster tormenting Esmeralda and her brother, was the brother himself.
The old man had tried to keep the girl after the curse, but she escaped to follow her brother into exile, refusing to leave him alone with his bag of bones. Over time, however, the darkness began to eat away at him, to warp his body and mind.
The game of hide-and-seek was not a whim. It was a desperate protective measure. Just as he did when they were children so she wouldn't see him get beaten by his parents, he re-purposed the game every time the beast was about to take over.
He made his sister hide so she wouldn't see what he was becoming.
-Don't cry, Esme?
the young man's face began to crack as well, turning pale light....
-You've already won the game. You found me.
-I don't want to win! I don't want to play anymore!
Esmeralda shouted, crawling towards him, trying to grab his hand, but her fingers only went through the cold mist.
-Come back! Please come back!
-I'm tired already, Esme?
he whispered, with one last sad smile, the smile she remembered from the evenings before the world shattered into pieces
-Thank you for looking for me.
With a final sigh, the human form fell apart. There was no magical explosion this time. Just dust. Dust and absolute silence.
Esmeralda stood hugging the empty air, weeping over the barren earth where her brother had died twice: once when he turned into a monster to save her, and once now, when he was finally free.
Sue and Chia stepped forward, the protective instinct screaming at them that they should comfort the girl, that they should hug her and tell her that everything would be all right, even if it was a lie.
But Arcadio, his face somber, stopped them with a glance. He shook his head slowly, a solemn and definitive gesture.
This was not their moment. They should not intervene.
Minutes passed that seemed like hours. Esmeralda's crying was the only sound in a world that had lost its color.
She wept over nothingness, embracing the memory of a brother who had fought his own demons just to keep her safe.
Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet shook. It was not a violent tremor of battle, but a sickening shudder, as if reality itself was having chills. The night sky began to crack, revealing a static white void behind the stars. The trees of the forest began to blur, becoming blurred lines of smeared ink.
-We have to go
Arcadio's voice cut through the air, urgent but strangely resigned.
-The Whistle was the Core. Without it, this Dungeon, this "Game," cannot stand. It's all going to collapse.
-We can't leave it here!
Sue shouted, turning to Esmeralda, who was still kneeling, oblivious to the end of the world around her.
-Esmeralda, let's go! We have to get out!
The girl didn't answer. She didn't even seem to hear them.
Sue and Chia ran towards her. Arcadio didn't stop them this time.
Maybe because he knew they needed to see it to believe it.
Maybe because, deep down, he hoped he was wrong.
Sue got there first. She reached out to grab the girl's shoulder, to shake her and make her react, to carry her and pull her out of that crumbling place.
-Emerald, listen to me, we have to...!
Her hand came down.
And it went through Esmeralda's shoulder.
Sue froze. The chill that ran down her back had nothing to do with temperature. She looked at her own hand, then looked at the girl. Her fingers had passed through her as if Esmeralda were made of smoke, of stardust, of a projected memory.
-What...?
Sue stammered, recoiling, terror filling her red eyes.
Chia stopped dead in her tracks, covering her mouth with her hands.
Arcadio lowered his head, closing his eyes.
-She... she was part of the story
murmured the veteran, sadly.
-She was part of the Dungeon. Of the scenario the brother created.
Esmeralda began to glow. Not with the golden light of the sun or the silver of the moon, but with a faint, warm, nostalgic light. Her legs were gone. Her body was becoming transparent, dissolving into the disappearing air.
The girl stopped crying. She stood up, though her feet no longer touched the ground. She turned slowly towards them.
Her eyes were no longer red from crying. They shone with absolute peace.
-Thank you
Esmeralda said. Her voice sounded far away, as if coming from the other side of a long tunnel.
-No!
cried Chia, tears welling up in her eyes.
-Don't go! We can take you! We can...!
-Thank you for the adventure
interrupted Esmeralda, with a sweet smile, the most genuine one they had ever seen her wear
-It was so much fun. I've never had so much fun.
Her body was rapidly disappearing. Only her face and her hands were left, waving softly.
Thank you for playing hide-and-seek with me
she whispered, and her figure flickered like a candle in the wind.
-But I don't have to hide anymore.
She looked out into the white void that consumed the world, as if she saw someone waiting for her there.
-Now I can go play with my brother. Forever.
And with that promise, and one last radiant smile, Esmeralda vanished.
There was nothing left. No body, no trace, no echo. Only the silence of a world ending and three warriors standing in nothingness.
It was then that understanding fell upon them like a heavy mantle. Something that, deep down, perhaps they already sensed since they saw her for the first time in this cursed place, but they never wanted to accept.
Esmeralda was always dead.
The girl they had protected, the one who ran around the prison and played hide-and-seek, was probably nothing more than a projection of the Whistler's broken mind. A manifestation of his guilt, of his desperate desire to keep her "alive" and safe, recreating her again and again in his nightmare to continue protecting her.
But that last look...
-That last smile...
murmured Chia, touching her chest where she felt a strange warmth.
What they saw at the end, that farewell full of peace, was not the projection of a monster. That was the real Esmeralda. Her real soul, who had been waiting patiently for her brother to rest so she could take his hand and cross together towards the end.
Sue and Chia continued to stare into the void, lost in the melancholy of that bittersweet ending. Tears threatened to well up again, the weight of the world's injustice falling on their shoulders.
-Move!
Arcadio's shout brought them out of their trance like a slap of ice water.
The veteran looked at them sternly, though his eyes also glittered with a suspicious moisture. The ground beneath them began to fracture, great cracks of white light devouring the corrupted earth.
-I know how they feel. It hurts. But if we stay here to mourn, we'll be part of this forgotten history
Arcadius growled, pointing to the collapsing sky.
-This is no time for mourning! Fly!
Chia blinked, shaking her head. He was right. The Dungeon was collapsing in on itself. If they didn't get out now, they would disappear along with the remains of the Whistler.
-Yes!
Chia exclaimed, regaining her composure.
With a fluid motion, she traced a barrier around Arcadio and lifted him off the unsteady ground.
-Hold on, old man!
Sue shouted, turning her solar aura on full blast.
-Let's get out of here at full speed!
Without waiting for a response, the two sisters shot skyward. But the exit was not going to be so easy.
The sky ripped apart with a deafening sound, like old cloth tearing. Giant blocks of white "nothing" began to fall, obliterating everything they touched. It wasn't physical debris; it was the absence of existence.
-Watch out!
Arcadio shouted from inside his bubble.
Chia veered sharply to the left, dodging by millimeters a crack of vacuum that would have obliterated half his body. The movement shook Arcadio violently, who clung to the translucent walls of his protective prison with white knuckles.
-The portal!
Sue pointed out.
In the distance, the lone star that marked the exit flickered. It was shrinking. The death of the Whistler had destabilized the bridge between the worlds.
-It's closing!
Chia bellowed, her wings of moonlight flapping in despair.
-If we don't get there in ten seconds, we'll be in eternal nothingness!
-More power!
Sue commanded, her eyes glowing with wild determination.
They both accelerated, turning into comets of gold and silver. The world behind them dissolved. The cursed forest, the bones, the gray earth... all were devoured by the white static that surged forward like a hungry tide, nipping at their heels, gaining ground with every heartbeat.
A tentacle of residual darkness, the last spasm of the dying dungeon, emerged from the abyss trying to grab Arcadio's bubble.
-Don't even think about it!
Sue turned in mid-flight, without stopping her ascent, and launched a concentrated flare. The fire didn't burn the tentacle, it merely pushed it long enough for the static to reach it and wipe it out of existence in a silent blink of an eye.
The portal was only a few feet away, but now it was barely the size of a small window.
-We're not going to fit!
Arcadio shouted, watching the light frame vibrate unsteadily, collapsing over its own edges.
-Yes, we will fit!
roared the sisters in unison.
They held hands again, synchronizing their auras to take up less physical and metaphysical space. They did not slow down. On the contrary, they plunged suicidally into the closing rift.
-NOW!
The world behind them disappeared in a blinding white flash. They felt an immense pressure, as if they were being compressed by a hydraulic press, followed by a bone-chilling absolute cold and then... heat.
They crossed the threshold of light in a burst of energy, shooting out into the cool, real night air just as the portal sealed with a dull pop behind them, cutting off a straggling lock of Sue's hair.
They landed hard, rolling across the damp earth and kicking up a cloud of dust in a forest clearing. Sue and Chia lay on their backs, breathing deeply, filling their lungs with air that didn't smell of death or old bones. Arcadio's bubble gently dissipated, letting him fall to his feet, though he had to prop himself up on his knees and vomit bile from the dizziness of dimensional travel.
-We made it...
gasped Sue, wiping sweat and dirt from her face.
-Look
Chia said, her voice strained again.
Looking up, they realized they were not alone.
The perimeter of the forest was illuminated by hundreds of tactical flashlights and military vehicle spotlights. But it wasn't just guns pointed into the darkness.
Further back, in a makeshift safe zone, police and army medical units were tending to the few civilians who had managed to escape before the total collapse. Silver thermal blankets could be seen draped over shivering shoulders, paramedics rushing with stretchers and officers taking statements from shocked survivors.
An expectant silence filled the front lines. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of soldiers armed to the teeth, equipped with volunteer forces and containment teams surrounded ground zero, pointing their weapons toward the entrance of the dungeon that had just disappeared.
Seeing them emerge alive from the portal just before it vanished, a murmur of disbelief rippled through the ranks.
Sue and Chia exchanged a weary glance, watching the transport trucks, ambulance lights swirling in the distance and officers giving orders over the radio.
-Well
sighed Sue, dropping her shoulders and allowing her aura to fade away.
-Looks like the reinforcements arrived.
-Late
Chia added, crossing her arms as she watched a medic tend to a child in the distance.
-but they arrived.
