Future of Calamity [Under Rewrite]

Chapter 43 - The Earthpulse

"Velvet, wake up."

The coarsely rough yet soft feeling met her body with its comforting grip, as the voice - sweet as honey - cooed from above. The girl's limbs shifted, rolling over the silky texture with a grumble.

"Just... let me sleep a little more, Celica."

The sensation was light and hollow, a numbness in the movement, while any thoughts were in a disoriented jumble. Words flowed out without command.

The disembodied voice hummed with a restrained chuckle, mature but feminine. "You rascal," it playfully echoed, "Don't you remember the task I entrusted you with?"

"The task...?" Velvet tiredly repeated, a sudden buzz erupting that trickled over the mind, and her head fidgeted across the pressing warmth.

"Yes. I asked you to take care of him."

A gasp slipped out, and the heavy eyelid flicked open with the firm, familiar command; replacing the nostalgic chatter of a beloved sister. The sightless stare of obsidian glass met gold. Seres.

She could feel the beating within rise to eardrums.

Like the crackle of grain, static slowly building with the dream that fell to darkness in a blink: an abrupt rush of air finally filled lungs. Piercing needles waving over skin akin to a bubbling coastline, senses returned. The mind stilled, and then she could think.

Velvet awoke to a world of blinding blue. A glare of ominous, immense light bounding all around in its ethereal hue. The harsh texture of jagged edges and a smooth glossy surface met the brush of a palm, and the world was scentless; just the repetitious flow of breath rising to fall. Blinking away the fatigue, lazed gold scanned the mysterious realm from where she lay, while the sore grip pushed up from the strange rock beneath. Dotted like still clouds, crystalline rock hovered in place among the endless azure void, humming softly in pulsing waves.

"Where... am I? Did they... kill me?"

Another push, and the screech of ground steel came, and Velvet flicked to the weathered leather in hand. She frowned, as the burnt sheen of a three-pronged kunai glanced off in goldish-brown, and only the old trickle of blood stained its poignant edge.

"Sarid..."

With a despairing sigh, the daemoness flipped the blade and sunk it into a pocket - neighbouring the small flower she knowingly kept, and that golden memorial comb. Another one lost, and so did the graveyard of trinkets grow.

"K-Keep him with you, he is of upmost importance, I can tell."

"He's just a stranger, too kind for his own good."

"You must. Please, he is no ordinary malak, one you may be able to figure out."

"...If he gets in my way, or becomes a nuisance, he dies."

Velvet let a self-chidden 'tsk' trail out, the irony of her first accepting words painful to recall. Her eyes fell to the ring bound at her middle finger. "...Guess I couldn't finish your request, Seres..."

A subtle fizzing came from behind. And the senses were stained with dread, the familiar urge rising in her chest at the dangerous sensation.

Laphicet lay motionless, sprawled against the dark crystal floor with an expression of unconscious discomfort; black speckles of miasma buzzing about his still body like flies. Violent shudders flared across the boy as his temperature burned hot. She lunged over, hurriedly swiping away at the crackling darkness zipping about the young malak, and held him close. "Bad fever," she muttered, placing a delicate palm across his forehead.