Sm0l_KNY_b3tch

He narrows his eyes. "Why do you want to kill me?" He tightens his grip on the blade.

"Why does anything kill anything else? He needs to."

"I didn't say I wanted to kill you." The Heir replies and says nothing else, the leaves shifting and the chains rattling.

"It sounds like he wants to do something even worse."

"What he wants only matters if he wins, and you're not going to let that happen."

"He's coiling for another strike. Be somewhere else."

"We're on the back foot."

"The back foot keeps us nimble. Keeps us alive."

"It doesn't matter if it keeps us alive if it eventually kills us. We need to take back the momentum. We need to do something."

He stares at the Heir, who stares back. The beast's mouth is slightly open, allowing his sharp teeth to just barely catch the dim lighting. His heart beats in his ears.

His mind runs through different responses to his situation, until one sticks out.

"We're playing dead?"

"It's unexpected. It could work."

"As the Heir lunges from the shadows once more, you collapse to the ground, feigning death. He lands idrectly on top of you with his full weight, nearly crushing you into the dirt, but then... silence. Only broken by the sound of your beating heart."

"It actually worked, didn't it? Only... what do we do to make him leave? Do we keep playing dead?"

He doesn't know. He focuses all of his might into staying as still and as silent as possible.

"He sniffs at you, shifting his weight uncomfortably as his face finds yours. His breaths are hot and oppressive against your skin."

"Have you seen my freat big eyes?" The Heir asks. "Because they see you, little cub. They see your heartbeat pulsing in your throat."

His muscles tense and his eyes snap open.

"Move. Now."

He can manage just one quick movement, but it's not enough.

"But it's too late for you to move. His jaw unhinges, and he swallows you whole."

"I assume that's it then, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately for you, no. This isn't 'it'."

"You are in a dark and caustic place. A thick, fibrous lining constricts around you, its slick surface impossible to grip, your hands scabbling uselessly at your surroundings as they compress in on you. Your lungs can barely expand in such a tiny space, not that the humid, finite air grants you more than a few shallow breaths at a time."

"The liquid pooling beneath you starts to seep into your skin. You itch, then sting, then burn as the acid begins its slow work."

"When I killed you I tried to leave this place, but it wouldn't let me. "You belong down there." it screamed at me. "The world is better off without you in it."." The Heir spoke, voice muffled slightly.

"The flesh around you rumbles as the Heir begins to move, his thundering footfalls twisting you helplessly about. Your skin protests as the corrosive liquid sloshes around you, but there will be no respite for you in sight. The burning grows stronger and you can feel layers of you being peeled away."

"But you-" The Heir continued. "-You don't belong down here. You came from somewhere else. You came from out there. So I consumed your dead heart, and draped what was left of you on my back, and I threw myself against that door."

"He stops, his muscles tensing around you, and through the muffling layers of his flesh, you hear the whine of straining metal. And with a pop, he lurches forward, your body lurcing right along with his."

"His chains. He's loose."

"But even then, it denied me freedom. "You cannot fool me by draping yourself in decay. I know your true nature and it is suffering"." The Heir spat out each word, hating how he has been locked down here.

"Gravity pulls at you as you're hefted upwards, the distant creaking of ancient wooden steps barely audible over the thudding of the Heir's heart."

"And then it was gone and I was here. A new encoluse. A nicer cage. But still a prison." The Heir's anger seemed to calm down. "I learn from my wounds. You're alive now. We can leave together."

"Does that work?"

"Do you really need me to give you a definite answer for you to understand that the situation is grim? Stop him. Do something."

"You still have that steel claw. Tear through him. Before we are him. Survive."

He grips the knife tighter.

"Though you have little room to move, you use what strenght you can muster to drive the blade forward into the thick walls of tissue digesting you."

"I can feel you tearing through me." The Heir noted. "But are swift enough for it to matter?"

"Your body is violently jostled, the disruption causing burning skin to slough from raw muscle, and you hear what you can only assume is the Heir pulling against the door of the cabin."

"The cage is still locked!" The Heir grits out.

"You slice again, deeper, rooting through his meat with the tip of your blade, until at last it finds his beating heart."

"The pulling has turned to banging, as the Heir desperately throws everything at the cabin door. Your flesh screams as your reddened, spongy body is hit with fresh waves of blistering acid."

His skin has all but been melted away, barely handing onto him anymore. It burns.

"You can't hold me forever!" The Heir sounds both desperate and angry.

"Though your body is dissolving, eroding into unrecognizeable shapes, your will drives it forward. You have a target, and you will strike it."

"We're too late, aren't we? This isn't survival, this is spite."

"No. It's something better. It's fulfilling a noble destiny. Your lone functioning arm lashes out, stabbing up towards the Heir's heart."

The Heir finally stops moving. "So you found a way to kill me. Then we'll die together, and I will see you again soon."

"With those prophetic words, you do not draw another breath, your body tangled and melting in the cooling folds of the Heir's flesh. Everything goes dark, and you die."

"But at least you've saved the world. I hope."

Chapter III

The Wild

The pain is no more.

We are a path in the woods. We have no beginning, and we have no end, but something cold and unnatural sits watching us from just beyond our edge.

Around him nerves stretch into infinity, curling around and crawling up and sideways to form the vague shapes of trees and their roots. He feels every nerve like it's his own.

He feels... at ease.

His gaze pushes against our borders, curling them in on themselves, preventing them from stretching to the places they need to reach.

"No, no, no. That's all wrong. You're not a path in the woods, you're on a path in the woods. Who's even sayiing that?"

"That's not... that's not the Heir, is it? Oh no, how many times have you been here?"

"I think this is our third."

"That's bad. That's very, very bad. It wasn't even supposed to reach two. If you're at three, well... no wonder things aren't the way they're supposed to be."

"Oh, isn't that fun! He's upset.

"Of course I'm upset! The world is at stake here, as I'm sure you already know."

"Let's get out facts straight. What happened last time? What could have possibly done for things to be like this?"

His words draw him out of his calmness, almost forcefully.

However, when the Heir speaks again, it returns.

The thing that sits beyond our edge speaks his logic into us. He tries to grasp at things that cannot be grasped.

He tries to stare with wide pupils at that which can only be held from the corner of the eye or with a passing glance.

"Shut up! The rest of you, talk. What happened? What did you do?"

"Can he hears us if we talk?"

I can hear everything, little one, but you don't have to be afraid of me. There's no place where end and I begin. Nothing can hurt you here. Not anymore. You're safe.

"Oh... I like that. I don't feel so small anymore when you put it like that."

That's because you aren't small, even if you act that way. We're both so much more together than we were apart. And we can be so much more still. Vast. Unfathomable.

"If you really want to know what happened, we tried playing dead, and he ate us."

"He ate you? And now you're convinced that you're stuck together? What a mess."

He doesn't understand. We aren't convinced of anything, and we aren't stuck together. We're one. This is how we're supposed to be, can't you feel it?

He takes in a deep breath with no lungs, and feels calm. The pain from before feels small, irrevelant. The memory of the burning acid seeping into his skin and muscles and bones is barely noticeable now.

"Sure, "being one with the Heir" is pretty great, but what can we even do right now? I hope we're not supposed to just passively exist like this. I did not sign up for passive existence when we faked out own death."

This... thing watching us. What is He?

"I'm not "watching you". I'm trying to help you."

"That's not an answer to our question."

I don't know what He is. I only know that He is something, and that He wishes for you and I to tear ourselves apart.

"I do want that, but only because it's in your best interests. It's in everyone's best interest. You won't be able to slay him unless you remove yourself from him."

He wants us to kill each other.

"I don't. I want you to kill him. Don't be charmed by his faux-solidarity. You're not "in this together"."

"He's the only one who poses a threat to the world, and he's trying to make you go along with it. You don't have to enable him, especially when you have what it takes to stop him."

That... doesn't sound right.

He glances at the world around him, at the layers of nerves layered on top of a web of nerves layered on top of another web of nerves.

It doesn't feel wrong.

However, there's something else. Something that does feel wrong.

I can feel the pressure of the outside pushing in on us. What are we supposed to do about it?

We push back. It may seem like He's everywhere, but is presence isn't strenght. Otherwise He would've torn us apart by now. There must be a crack in the walls of this prison. There must be a way for us to be free from Him.

"He's trying to use you. After everything he's done, you should be able to see that. I may not have been around to witness it, but clearly you remember what happened. How about you try to remember how it all felt?"

He doesn't.

He knows how it hurt, but it doesn't hurt anymore.

Instead, he turns inward.

"You fall inward, into a network of connections too vast for your mind to occupy. Are you a path in the woods? Are you a body? Can you even grasp the fuzziest edges of the shapes that confine you?"

We can change to fill them together.

"We don't need to be everywhere. We just need to test the boundaries."

"You'd do best to remember that some wounds will never heal. Some rifts can never be mended. Even in rebirth, some things never come back the same."

"What is he going on about? What does he know about us?"

"Screw all of this, and screw this guy in particular! Always telling us what we can and can't do. Always going on and on about rules and the fate of the world. I've had enough!"

"You aren't whole. You'll never be whole again. This struggle is meaningless. Whatever you think you're doing, you will fall apart."

Something buzzes in his head, forcefully, stirred and agitated on purpose by something trying to distract him. Pain threatens to come back, but it's gently wiped away again.

We don't need to be made whole. All we need to do is find a single corner of His cage and break it.

There is a place he needs to be. He just needs to find it.

"You stretch and search and stretch and search, growing as you decay and decaying as you grow. As you strain beyond your limits, the ground around you becomes dry and unstable and crumbles into nothing beneath you."

"This place will fall apart before you find its end."

Nerves stretch once more.

"This task, whatever it is you think you're doing, is impossible."

"All he has are words. And words aren't real. We're real."

"Yeah! Ruin His day!"

I can hold us together for a little while longer. So long as you trust me.

I trust you.

Nerves intertwine.

"You won't find anything. If I have to starve you, if I have to sacrifice my world to keep the Heir at bay, I'll do it."

But he does find something. It's cold and smooth, and gently buckles, then cracks under the pressure of his consciousness flattening against it.

"Don't move an inch. Don't grow another blade of grass or harvest the remains of another dying creature so you can expand just that much further. Stop all of this right now!"

He sounds desperate now.

I'm at your side. Shatter it, and free us all.

He stares at the crack in the cage, and pushes.

"No no no no no! Stop—"

But His pleas dissapper at the sound of breaking glass. For a moment, they both gaze through the tiniest hole in the world at the place they need to be.

Is this what He kept from us? Is this why He made us kill each other?

"It's beautiful."

"We need to be there. We won't be safe until we are. We won't be whole."

"Eh... doesn't look that great. I like it better in here."

And then it's gone.

Where did it go? Why is everything so cold?

But he will never get the chance to answer him. He turns to see him gone behind him. Memory returns.

"He's gone? And... there's that mirror again..."

We've been here before. It'll be alright.

"But it feels so... bad. Like looking into it right now is going to be the end of everything."

"Yeah, don't look at it. I don't like that thing."

"That thing reeks of death."

It won't be the end.

Silence as he reaches forward. They're gone once again. The mirror always makes them leave. But he needs to see what's in it.

His skin is falling off of his body. It decays and then grows back, then it molds and grows moss and then it decays again.

He has withered.

He finds himself in The Long Quiet once again.

The vessel waiting for him is a bundle of nerves and roots vaguely holding the shape of a face.

"I am a growing chorus of contradiction. A mass of tides and ebbing and flowing all at once in more directions than my attention can bear to hold. To look at any one of them is to shift them all into something new, and to look away is to reshape them yet again."

"All of me is changing, and yet the rest of me is still the same."

"It doesn't matter how many times I go back, at least one of us always hurts the other. Doesn't that change you? Doesn't that make you worse?" He asks.

"It changes me, but it doesn't make me worse, nor does it make me care for you any less. Does it make you worse? Do you resent me?"

He thinks for a moment. "No, not really. It all seems so distant as soon as I'm near you."

"It does seem small from here. And the more we journey, the smaller each of those steps will be. but that doesn't make any of them less special."

"What do you think of this vessel?" He asks.

"This one is like a shadow of me, twisting vines in search of answers. He will make for a curious heart."

"Do not mourn him—he has found what he yearned for."

He nods. "I'm ready to go back."

The Heir nods.

Something shatters again.

Everything goes dark, and he dies.