Finding The Real You - Kaebedo

Chapter XXIII - Fear

Blood dripped down onto the pillows. Albedo could feel his consciousness fading, his sight was reduced to static and his hands went numb. He couldn't think, there was no pain. What happened before that? He didn't know. He wouldn't be able to ever know. The rest of his body went limp, there was nothing he could do now.

Kaeya stirred, adjusting his eyes to the bright room. Kaeya tilted his head up to wish Albedo good morning, but Albedo wasn't there. Broken glass and beads of blood on the glass. The rest of the blood stained the bed sheets, it wasn't like there was blood soaked into them though, just small patches of it.

He crawled up onto the bed, peering through the window. He let out an accidental yelp when he knelt on a piece of glass, muttering curses while picking the pieces out of his shins.

There was no trail, no glass, nothing. He frantically moved his head to look at the door to the room, it was closed. Clearly, this person had a lot of time on their hands to leave barely anything.

Was Albedo really correct? He believed him but he didn't think it would come this early. Albedo should be okay, right? He can just use his elemental abilities like last time. But last time didn't immobilise it, Albedo needed assistance last time.

Kaeya could feel his face start to heat up, and his eyes glossed over in worry. Why was he always like this when he was worried? Whether it be Albedo dying or him being scolded, it all had the same reaction.

Kaeya got off the bed as quickly as possible without getting any glass in his knees, and he ran to Dragonspine. What was the point of running there anyway? Dragonspine is enormous, Kaeya had no chance finding them.

He reached the same place they would always go to Dragonspine together at the camp. Another sense of déjà vu struck him, except it hurt this time. The people around him all seemed to stare, but he continued walking.

He defeated the same treasure hoarders, but this time his attacks were sloppy and had a sense of urgency to them. The treasure hoarders fell to their knees and Kaeya was off again. Following the same path, praying to every god in Teyvat that they were in the camp.

He reached the camp, there was no sound. He peaked inside, nothing. The whole place was scrapped, and no one was there. The snow had already covered up the footprints that led there.

Kaeya decided that he should go inside the mountain, taking a route that he saw on a map that he "borrowed" from Albedo. He would go back across the broken bridge, but instead of going back, he would go to the Statue of the Seven.

From the Statue of the Seven, he glided down to the small piece of land that jutted out, from there he would go inside Starglow Cavern.

During the trip he cursed Barbatos for not telling him to get help. A silly thing to do, curse a god for your own faults, but he still did it.

He glided down, barely being able to walk to a fire to heat up after that. He ran into the cave, so far it was normal activity. The usual hilichurls, seelies and ruin guards. He carefully made his way to the lowest part, hoping to find something there. It was pointless, nothing was down there but a few ruin guard pieces and ice.

Kaeya went back up the outstretched rocks, following a heating seelie for warmth, until he saw a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye.

He whipped his head around, and decided to continue inspecting the area, shivering after leaving the seelie's warmth.

He carefully made his way up the rocks, until a door caught his eye. He was at the top of the cave, and a small ledge lined the walls of the cave, leading to the door.

He pulled the lever, trying to open it. Below the lever had three slots, where items were meant to be put.

The ground vibrated and a small bang could be heard from the other side of the door. Now this was much more important to Kaeya.

He fiddled with the lever and slots, cursing out everything in existence. He shoved some rocks into the slots, messing around with an array of rocks hoping that they would work. He didn't have time to figure out what was meant to go in those.

Many cubelike rocks later, and the lever finally budged. Nothing else happened. Kaeya breathed into his hands, warming them up before making a second attempt at pushing the lever down.

He could hear panicked shuffling from the other side, that wasn't good.

He tried again, getting the lever at a decent enough angle for him to put his foot on it. He pushed down with all his body weight, and the door rolled up. He stumbled a bit, but once he saw Albedo he started running again.

Albedo was tied up to a chair, blood on the floor and cuts everywhere. There was a covering on his eyes and his mouth, and Kaeya could see the tears that soaked the eye covering.

Kaeya immediately checked his pulse, was he even meant to have one? He wasn't sure what, but something was beating there. He just looked to be unconscious, nothing worse.

Kaeya breathed a sigh of relief, before untying the mouth covering and the rope that bound his wrists together. The way he was tied up to the chair was so basic, Kaeya almost chuckled at it.

Kaeya took one of Albedo's hands, and kissed the wrist, palm facing up. Kaeya took a step back just to look at Albedo. His hair was all down so he must've been ripped from his sleep, it looked quite weird to see him that way too. Albedo, chief alchemist of the Knights of Favonius, tied up in such a way.

Kaeya went back to Albedo, everything went black.

:)

I am so sorry for the late and very short chapter, I've been finding it hard to find time to write lately. Throughout the day I'm busy and at night I'm tired so I apologise for this. I might take a very mini hiatus just to rework the plan for this book because I'm bad at this and it's definitely not at where it started lmao, it was originally meant to only have 20 chapters too.

Word count - 1018