Amethyst Genesis: Bleeding Ruby

Black Rimmed Lake

Hal was jostled awake by Kara. Hal begrudgingly rises from bed like a disheveled tulip bulb reaching for sunlight in early spring as Kara walks out the room beckoning him to follow. He slowly trudges out of bed and stretches his joints and follows Kara out the door. As he trudges down the hallway, he looks out to the living room to see Jeta and Aria talking. As he was too far to hear anything of what they said he could only observe their mouths and facial expressions. Aria had a pair of yellow sunglasses on her forehead, a white and blue jacket, a pair of black leather jeans, and Jeta was dressed in the usual cloak and robes of an assassin.

Aria's eyebrows furrow, and she sighs and lifts a duffel bag, a backpack and lifts a case over her shoulder. "Hurry then." she sighs and walks upstairs to the surface. Jeta sighs and looks down the hallway and sees Hal. 

"I'm not changing my mind." Jeta sternly says. "Stay here." Jeta says before walking to the fridge and opens it. 

"How are you so sure that you yourself can stand your own?" Hal inquires. "Yesterday you lost." Hal remarks. Jeta stops rummaging through the fridge.

 "I lost because he was halfway to completion." "You noticed those orbs, didn't you?" Jeta says resuming his search for cheesecake. "1.4 million fragments are around. And he devoured half of them." Jeta says taking out his prize, one fresh plate of cheesecake drizzled with strawberry syrup. "It was a 700 thousand to 4. Against our favor." Jeta sighs noticing there is only one slice left. "But now he is only one. Two counting Lyra." Jeta says gobbling down the last slice. His face lit up by the flavor and his lips wiggle.

Realizing Hal was observing, Jeta swiftly turns to face the counter to preserve his dignity. He coughs and clears his throat. "Anyways," Jeta remarks, placing the plate in the sink, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and securing his sheaths on his back. "I will be back," he declares, then strides toward the stairway leading to the surface and closes the door behind him. Hal exhales deeply and collapses face-first onto the sofa. Kara approaches, offering comfort by stroking his back. "You don't agree with him, do you?" Hal's voice is muffled by the pillow. "What do you mean?" Kara responds, puzzled. "He implied you would agree that it's best for me to stay here, to be safe," Hal articulates more clearly. "You showed me something when you escaped my prison realm—that no matter how much I tried to hold you back, you would always break free," she explains, continuing her soothing gestures. "But what if I fail this time? What if Jeta is right?" Hal inquires, turning to gaze at Kara.

"And what? Another tally mark?" Kara interjects. "Logically, one death weighs so little against the death of many. And those memories, they really don't lie. Jeta has always failed his goal." Hal's eyes widen as he turns to Kara. "How do you know about that?" Hal asks Kara with concern. "Well, um..." Kara stammers, then sighs. "When that red figure entered my realm, it stored your memories. I had access to them." Kara's face flushed with shame. "In hindsight, it was an invasion of your privacy," Kara mumbles. Hal stands and walks toward the stairway. "It doesn't really matter if you're looking at a dead man's memories. They're in the past, decayed," he says. "These memories were already invaded by Jeta and Lyra." He gazes into his palms. "Heck, in one lifetime, I saw Jeta fitting me for a blouse." Hal sighs before approaching the stairs. "I don't want to risk our home; we've worked so hard this time," he says. "Kara, let's go," he calls to Kara as he walks upstairs.

Kara stands up and smiles. "I can't really stop you." She stands up and brushes her legs and follows him to the surface. "I don't want you dying on me after all." She walks up behind him up the stairs. The two are met by the door, but instead of the door the opened the day before, it's framing changed, it was no longer a rich mahogany on the top step, it was a barred steel door plastered by an odd blue glow. Kara couldn't care less; she punches a hole through the door and tears the metal in half and pushes it aside. Hal walks through to see the rays of sunlight, only to meet an infinite black expanse. "What is this place." Hal asks eyebrows furrowed. "It's different than mine I see." Kara remarks noticing the reflective black pond below, she's perplexed by the odd blue hue reflecting off the surface. Water doesn't reflect in absolute darkness. Hal and Kara look up at the sky, they weren't in a box of darkness, they were in an abyss of 12 layers, rings with the spines of each marked with a language lost to time and azure light weakly emanating to them down below. "There is only way to go." Hal sighed. "Up." Kara remarks.