The Beginning Of An End

Chapter 35

Loki and I walked through the door and the moment we stepped through, the dam broke. And I felt everything. The very essence of who I had been disintegrated into nothingness. The fire that had once burned in my veins was extinguished, leaving behind an emptiness so profound I thought I might vanish entirely.

I tried reaching for Loki's hand as the surroundings began crumbling down like an earthquake was about to swallow us whole. But my hand never reached his as we began falling down at incredible speed, through infinite darkness.

What felt like a whole eternity stretching out, I was falling. I no longer saw anything around me until I finally landed on what felt like the ground but looked nothing like it. And just as I landed, I realized that the will-o'-wisp from Alfheim was, indeed, predicting my future.

There was no beginning, no end. Just the void.

It wasn't the darkness that unsettled me but rather the absence. No sky to anchor the heavens, no ground to steady my steps. The void was infinite, stretching in every direction, pressing against me like a suffocating weight. Time didn't move here; it unraveled, slipping through my grasp like grains of sand in a storm.

I looked around myself and noticed Loki sitting just a few places away from me. Although distance meant nothing here. His figure was a faint outline against the nothingness, shifting like smoke on a nonexistent breeze. He had been silent for an eternity, or perhaps it was only moments.

I couldn't tell how much time had passed. It had been forever. It had been a second. The void made such distinctions meaningless. But one thing was for certain - Loki did end up finding me to bother me even in the center of a boundless void. I couldn't help but smile.

"Well, Loki, nice to see you again," I said. Almost instantly, he turned around and his face beamed with joy. Without a word, he got to his feet and ran towards me before slamming his body into mine as he wrapped his arms around me.

I fell back due to his sheer weight crashing into me. I hugged him back and I started laughing as I felt this intense calm spread through my being. Peace because I knew that now that he was here, I would be okay.

"I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!" He screamed and then leaned back, looking directly into my eyes. "I was here for eternity!" He whined.

"Time is really weird here, right?" I joked and his face softened as he realized he wasn't alone in feeling that way. "I missed you too. I am so glad I found you again." I said, now softly.

"I told you that you will never escape me," he chuckled, now vastly more calmed down. He leaned back down and pulled me into a deep kiss and I relaxed even more which apparently was possible. I realized then what an absolute chaos to my life Loki was back in Astral but, here, he was the only peace I'd known.

Eventually, he pulled back and with a big sigh of relief, he sat next to me and I quickly joined him. Suddenly, sitting in the void for an enormously long time didn't seem like such a chore.

"Ugh, I've been here for so long I memorized every miserable detail of this... whatever this is." He gestured vaguely at the void, though his hand dissolved into shadow as he moved

"That long? I've managed to do the same after only being here for about a second." I shrugged, chuckling. Loki looked at me, a bit confused.

"How are you so... jolly? We are in the void." He frowned lightly.

"Well, now that you're here, we'll get out. We always do. That's what you told me." I said, still smiling.

He managed a smile back and sighed once more, "you're right." He stared off into the distance before adding, "it's been a while since I was trapped somewhere for eternity." He joked before laughing. I snorted as I remembered that not long ago he was also trapped in a cave in the Norse world too.