Until the Sun dies [English Version] [Hiatus]

Chapter 5.3 | Lauren (TW)

The final jolt threw the Walker's face against the ground. Lively and alert, she straightened up.

The oppressive forest and the gloomy mansion had given way to darkness that the little ball of light could not pierce. A purple reflection, a few feet from her, caught her attention. She approached it cautiously.

It was a heavy scarlet velvet curtain such as was found in theaters. With her finger on the trigger, the young girl raised it and slipped to the other side. A large wall whose limits she could not see stood in front of her. In comparison, the table on which makeup was piled up looked tiny. A mirror surrounded by warm bulbs completed this decor.

With her hand resting against the mirror, Lys contemplated her reflection. To her horror, Lauren realized that the psyche was distorting the Achron's face into a monster.

"Lys?" she asked.

The Walker was sure of it, she was the real girl. She felt it. Her instincts were screaming at hers.

When she heard her name, the Achron turned round.

"Lauren ?..." she said before a voice interrupted her.

"You must not talk to them," she whispered.

With a hiccup of horror, Lauren watched as Lys' mouth was sewn by an unseen being until only a pile of bloated flesh remained.

"You mustn't look at them," the chilling voice whispered again.

The Achron's eyes disappeared from her sockets, cutting off eye contact with the Walker.

"You must not listen to them," she hissed a third time.

Lys' ears were torn apart by imperceptible claws.

"You are my daughter," she concluded. "You are my puppet, just mine."

As if to end this macabre spectacle, ropes encircled the wrists and ankle of the unfortunate woman, their ends rising high in the darkness. A last tie was added around her neck. A noose.

With a brisk step, Lauren rushed to the other girl. She had to force her to wake up to leave the nightmare. Her hand struck the tender cheek of the Achron. Once. Twice. Three times. Faster and faster, stronger and stronger.

One last slap shattered the horrific dream world.

Panting, the Walker rose abruptly from the bed she occupied. She was back in reality. With a glance, she noticed that Lys was in the same state as her.

She owed her answers. Why had she volunteered when she was having these kinds of dreams?

Quickly, Lys rushed over to Lauren and grabbed her hands.

"Please don't tell anyone about what you've seen. I'll explain everything to you, but... Please, not a word," she begged in a low voice so as not to wake up their fellow students.

Suspicious, the Walker nodded her head. She had no reason to believe that she was going to give her a legitimate explanation, but she could force her to do so by threatening to reveal what was going on in her head. She didn't like the idea, but in Cigam, it was the law of the jungle. Only the strongest survived, and Lys had just revealed her Achilles heel.

The bell rang, and the Achron hurried away before the girl could ask her any questions. Lauren took a few minutes to calm down and process everything that had happened. Her pseudo-drowning, the corpses at the bottom of the water, the fake sobbing Lys, the shooting and the blood spurting out – false, of course, as false as the whole nightmare, yet so realistic that she felt bad – the trembling, the macabre theater and Lys transformed into a malleable doll.

It was too much. The young girl felt like her brain was going to explode.

Slightly staggering, she walked towards the exit of the room. It was her last class of the day, she was going to take advantage of it to take her mind off things: reading, playing video games, drawing, playing sports, everything to clear her mind and forget.

As she walked through the door, she saw Alexandre, leaning against the wall in front of her classroom. Maybe spending time with him would relax her?