Corrupted Timelines

Hearts and Souls

Amelia felt her mind being pulled out from a haze. She didn't really want to leave, though. It was comfortable here. So cold and painless, like a doctor's office. The tugging became more persistent, causing her eyes to slightly flutter open.

Calliope Mori was shaking her limp body back and forth. Amelia felt the stinging pain of her burns come back. She really wished she was still unconscious.

"Oh thank fuck..." Calliope said, sitting back.

"It looks like she is still conscious after all," a voice boomed from somewhere nearby. This really woke Amelia up. She sat up with a jolt and looked around. She flinched from the pain she caused herself.

"Don't scare her," Calliope complained to the unknown voice. Amelia finally saw the floating skull just behind Calliope. The rest of its body was cloaked in some kind of shadow. It made actually seeing them very difficult, as if she couldn't focus her eyes on them.

"Sorry about that," they said. The shadow cloak fell off of their body, revealing someone that looked like they belonged in an anime. They wore a large robe adorned with several shiny metals and jewels. Their body was nothing but a skeleton, no skin or muscle. It was like they were...

"Death-sensei, now that she is awake can we actually talk about what I came here for?" Calliope was impatient as ever, wanting to jump straight into the issue at hand. Death-sensei frowned. Wait, how did a skeleton frown?

"Now now Calliope, your friend just woke up. How about we give her a bit of time to recover?" they offered. Calliope crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"Always one to delay. And she is not my friend, just so you know." Amelia almost felt hurt by that statement. However, memories of the fight they'd just had verified that the statement was true. Friends don't throw friends around like ragdolls to get something they want done.

"You carrying her all the way here says otherwise." Amelia looked at Calliope, who was still trying to burn holes into Death-sensei, and then looked over at the robed skeleton.

"S-she did what?" she asked, her voice cracking under disuse. How long had she been out?

"It was already a great risk to bring you down into the Underworld. Mortals tend to break under the intense atmosphere down here. However, she did that to save your life and then she carried you for a full day to get you here," Death-sensei explained. Amelia felt her jaw fall onto the floor. "You two catch up, I'll be back in a few." Death-sensei vanished into a dark shadow underneath them, leaving only the two girls in the large room.

Now that Amelia actually had a moment to breathe, she took in her surroundings. She was currently in a large room, completely devoid of any furniture or defining features. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all seemingly made out of shadows. It was still solid, though.

"This is Death-sensei's chamber," Calliope broke the complete silence, "I brought you here since it is the only place you could get help. I still need you alive to Destabilize the Crystal. This wasn't because we're friends." Calliope sat down on the floor a few feet away from Amelia. She put her chin in the palm of her hand and stared up at the ceiling.

"W-well, thank you anyways..." Amelia said dryly. She flinched again as more pain shot through her body. She moved an arm out in front of her and examined the burns. There was a dark cloth wrapped around them, along with a sticky, black substance. It felt cool to the touch. Amelia began to put the pieces in her mind together.

The fabric was once a part of Calliope's clothing and the black substance was probably Shadow magic. She knew her wounds weren't life threatening, so why did Calliope go through all effort to help her? All the time they had known each other, they had been at each other's throats. Quite literally sometimes.