-Story 6-

“Bliss”

-Day 3, July 13th, 2005-

-3 days after Order Knight’s mission at the Hospital-

The few days following my… mission at the hospital were intensely isolating. At least, that was how they felt. In retrospect, they weren’t much more lonely than any previous period of extended ‘leave’ in the Death Order’s commune, yet the feeling of loneliness I experienced was vastly more intense. Perhaps the monotony of ‘Commune Life’ was simply getting to me after only three days. It had quickly become tedious. All of them had been exactly the same, I woke up in the private bedroom I’d been ‘gifted’ by Reverend Mother, attended the morning ceremonies, and went to eat an extremely unappealing bread-smoothie concoction. Then I’d head off to whatever random room ‘Mother’ wanted me to guard. It felt like she was stalling for something to happen.

On the third day I stood guard outside some random high-ranking official’s office. Apparently they were Pure Sugar’s replacement. That fact stirred my mind, made me contemplate how I could continue… living like this. I… knew how, in the literal sense, the same as what I’d done before. Just do what I was asked, time always kept progressing forward… but that was how… Blueberry Lemon… Snickerdoodle… Red Vine… and all the rest ended up dead. I resolved to change in that hospital room. For three days what Blueberry Lemon told me had been haunting my mind. The desire to live, to see a world where I was free of the role Reverend Mother had forced me into. Yet I couldn’t bear seeing that desire through. For as long as I could remember since she had made me Order Knight, I was utterly alone. Perhaps that is why those 3 days in the commune seemed to stretch out into the infinite… I had no one to bear the suffering with, unlike back then. Before I was this…  in the ‘now’, however, I had no one to talk to, nor anyone to care about me. I was hardly more than a machine, one who’d protect terrible people and kill those that wouldn’t comply.

As I stood there, perhaps through sheer boredom, my mind brought back a genuine connection I’d found… even if it was fleeting. That red bow of flame… Fire Spirit. It was the first time in what felt like decades, I had ever called another person… a friend… like my encounter with Blueberry Lemon… perhaps he was able to see me as more than just… a monster. Suddenly, I could feel tears beginning to well in my eyes… they didn’t fall though, my tears never did.  They were far too viscous to fall from my eyes in any reasonable amount of time… they stayed hidden under Lord Death Tree’s twisted visage. B-but… Perhaps—perhaps I did have the chance. A chance and the motivation to keep going. To twist and break the shackles of the monster Reverend Mother had forced me to become!

The next day, Reverend Mother would have a new assignment for me.

-Day 4, July 14th, 2005-

I awoke to my room with a knock on my door in morse code. Which was a little odd, since Reverend Mother had told me I was banned from missions. I was quickly filled with dread at whatever she was about to tell me, and swung my legs and used the momentum to get out of my bed in one smooth motion. I quickly ran through my steps to getting ready for a mission. I hesitated when I went over to the hollowed-out book where I kept my custom-made knives… I decided not to take them. I hadn’t used them once since the mission where I’d met Fire Spirit… Reverend Mother had corrupted them to me. They weren’t worth it.

Once I entered Reverend Mother’s secret office through my usual entrance, I could immediately feel how different the atmosphere was in the stone-walled room. The room itself was still just as oppressive, when I saw her… she seemed almost… joyful? There was almost a glow in her eyes.

Not to say she wasn’t as intimidating as ever, in fact she was even more off-putting than I could remember… I’d never seen Reverend Mother… genuinely happy before… I think. When I eventually sat down, she greeted me.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my Order Knight,” Reverend Mother’s tone, despite her joyful face, was as terrifying as it always had been. It was like her voice commanded my memory. Instantly upon hearing it, it was as if my armor started digging even deeper into my skin and muscle.

“Why have you ordered me here today, Reverend Mother?” I questioned. “I was under the impression that I’d been barred from missions.” “Oh, you have been. This, however, is a different type of assignment.” She declared. “Four days ago, one of our own was attacked. A young sister by the name of Pastry.”

Recognition slowly trickled into my mind once I heard the name. She was one of the three people The Death Order chose to send to the DWMA earlier that year. “...Who did it?” Was all I could ask…

“The Spider-Witch of Deceit. It was a tragedy, one of the most brutal and vile of the witches kidnapping one of our own, as well as maiming her…” Reverend Mother pontificated. Her eyes remained joyful, even as she described the pain inflicted on one of her own. “As a result, I’ve elected to pull her out of attendance at the DWMA… for her safety and recovery.” She finished, and my brain immediately began racing to make its own conclusions. Reverend Mother must’ve had some kind of ulterior motive to keep her at the commune… her phrasing… it almost reminded me of the reasons she said I couldn’t attend the academy myself, way back when… and that led to me—

“I will gladly do whatever is required of me to keep Sister Pastry safe, Mother…” I announced, trying to make my voice sound both respectful and eager. I hated it, but I had to make Reverend Mother believe I was loyal. I had to do this… I simply had to. If I could prevent… even something similar to what Reverend Mother did to me… from happening to another… well… perhaps it would at least start to make up for everything I’d done.

If anything, Reverend Mother almost seemed put off by my sudden declaration. Her joyful facial expression dropped for just a moment before it returned quickly. “Fantastic, Order Knight. Your assignment is to be the guard for her… personal quarters. You are to prevent anyone from moving through that door without my express permission. I’m sure you’ll find this task… suitable to your request, yes?” I nodded in response. “Good. Now follow me.” The leader of The Death Order raised herself out of her chair and left her secretive office. I followed closely behind.

I followed Reverend Mother through the moderately busy halls of the Death Order Commune silently. Everyone that was around us stared at Reverend Mother with great reverence, it was as if she was a god herself. It disgusted me all the way down to deep in the core of my steel-exoskeleton covered body. Why was she, the most abhorrent monster I’d ever known, so respected and revered?!?! It wasn’t long though, until the crowds thinned out, and I was left alone with… true evil, or as closest to it I’d ever known. The area where the former DWMA student’s room resided was in one of the floors of the commune’s basement… like she was just another despicable secret to be hidden. The basement in general made me feel extremely uneasy… it was as if there was something down there… constantly screaming… and it felt like… I knew what it was—

-Order Knight’s Memory?-

I stood there, both in horror and in shock, as an abomination grew out of them. They grew and grew, white feathers constantly growing out of their body. Wings shooting out of their back and claws bursting through the snow white flesh of their hands. Their—no, its head grew, and its mouth disappeared, only for a new one to gouge itself out of the flesh and bone of its face. And on its head, laid a solitary, black, trident-like crown.

-Day 4, July 14th, 2005-

-continued-

“...what? What the hell was that thing?!” Were the first words out of my mouth, surprisingly loud ones too, at least loud enough to grab Reverend Mother’s attention out of whatever she was posturing about.

“Order Knight.” She, the person I’d unwillingly devoted my entire life to, declared. And within an instant she was looming over me, with speed I’d only ever seen matched by the most elite Three-star meisters. Before she started speaking… I noticed the tiniest hint of a smile on her face, before it was gone in the next instant. She began to speak in a slow and quiet whisper that towered over my entire being. “If you dare to use that sort of language around Pastry… you will immediately be stricken from this assignment.. And I shouldn’t dare mention what would happen next.” As if commanded, my brain suddenly started to display me memories of… things I knew hadn’t happened… yet also felt overwhelmingly familiar. It felt like agony, whatever was being done to me. I could almost recall the sensations perfectly clearly—

“I… I understand Reverend Mother.” I suddenly answered, resolving myself to not focus on any of the pseudo-memories, like the torturous agony or the crowned monster. “Please forgive me.”

“...Very well,” Reverend Mother casually concluded. She quickly returned to her previous line of thought… as if she hadn’t just threatened my life casually. “As I was saying before,” Reverend Mother motioned towards a bland iron door… and my concern for Pastry increased even more. This is Pastry’s… residence. As total isolation is necessary for her healing and recovery.”

“Understood, Reverend Mother.” My words were only partially able to cover my sheer disgust. Reverend Mother pretended not to notice.

“Great. Now I’m sure you remember how this type of guarding mission operates, right?” She questioned me, and I quickly nodded in reply. Yet for some reason, Reverend Mother elected to continue with a short explanation anyways. “You’re only to let in those I’ve explicitly allowed you to, and told you are scheduled to meet with her. I, however, don't need any form of permission. Understood?” I nodded once more, in the hope it would finally get her to move on. And, after a few seconds pause, it did. In one clean motion, she directed me to stand at the door, before opening it and going to meet with the former Death-academy student herself.

From the outside of the room, I could barely hear anything. The almost prison cell Pastry was kept in, apparently had rather good sound-proofing. Although I could still hear a small amount due, almost entirely, to my proximity to the door. From what I could make out… it seemed as if Pastry and Reverend Mother were having a… normal conversation. But I knew there had to be more going on… Reverend Mother wasn’t simply the type to ignore the fact that someone standing close to the Iron Door, like a guard, could still only just make out a conversation on the other side. She had to have still been doing a cover. To throw me off, and make it seem like keeping a person locked up entirely alone in a room was somehow less monstrous than it was.

I had to talk to Pastry… yet… I couldn’t bring myself to. Not yet, at least… There were too many risks… and if Reverend Mother found out on my first day… no. I had to wait… so I stood guard outside the room all day, even after Reverend Mother left.

Most of the day after Reverend Mother was gone, I didn’t hear a single thing from… my peer’s prison. The day slowly turned to night… and if I was outside, the thing constantly watching would’ve become visible to my eye. It was then that I heard the first thing from Pastry’s room ever since Reverend Mother left. Pastry was… crying. Part of myself yelled at me to do something… but I couldn’t. So I simply walked away, telling myself I would do something next time.

-Day 7, July 17th, 2005-

The days proceeded practically the same as Reverend Mother implied they would. Every morning I would enter her office, and get a list from her of everyone that would enter Pastry’s room that day, and what time they would do so. Usually the list was almost entirely empty, except for the Sisters assigned to bring her food for the day… And Reverend Mother herself, of course. And I’d spend every day standing there.. Outside of Pastry’s cell… unable to bring myself to do anything… anything to stop whatever Reverend Mother’s plan for her entailed…

Pastry had remained almost entirely silent since my first day guarding her room… said room reminding me of something just at the edge of my mind. Back… back right after I had the armor grafted onto my body… and Reverend Mother started putting me through ‘physical therapy’ to regain my mobility… I rarely ever talked. The mask made it excruciating to even move my mouth the tiniest amount… I remember the lonely hours spent in my room trying to move any bit of my face without pain…

In that moment I realized, with the impact force of a brick wall, how stupid I was being. I accepted this ‘mission’ from Reverend Mother to subvert her, and here I was doing the exact thing she ASKED me to! I collapsed to the ground, leaning against the iron door to Pastry’s cell. There she was, on the other side of the door… experiencing such similar pain to my own, even if from a different cause, and I knew I had to do something. Be, as Blueberry Lemon said, more than just Reverend Mother’s pet monster. So I leaned my head against the iron door, and began to talk.

“I… uh… I don’t really know if you can hear me or not, Pastry… You see, I’m… the guard she assigned to your room… but. I believe Reverend Mother is wrong. I believe that you shouldn’t be kept here, down in this room. I﹘” I hesitated for a moment, struggling, just slightly, to commit to my words, “I promise you. That this isn’t the end.  Long ago, I was in… a situation much like yours… and I promise I’ll make sure it isn’t the end for you. That this part of your life won’t be a tragedy.” I finished my impromptu speech, leaving one last sentence for only my mind to view. ‘Unlike mine.’

The silence in the commune’s basement was dreadful. Not a thing made any sound, until… Unusually, I could barely make out sounds of movement from inside of Pastry’s room, and suddenly, I could hear a loud thud on the door, it sent vibrations through my body. I decided to take that as some kind of confirmation that my words had a positive effect on the room’s occupant. I stayed there, leaning against the door, for a bit longer.

Yet… I had to leave eventually.

“I… I’m sorry, Pastry, but I have to leave now, I’ll be back tomorrow though. I promise.” I stated, trying to inject some form of trustworthiness into my voice. I was already pulling myself away from the door, and onto my feet, as I said that. And just as soon as I began to step away, I heard a sound from Pastry’s room. Speech.

“I don’t deserve that.”

I shook my head, directed at no one… really, before replying. “You do. I promise.”

-Day 8, July 18th, 2005-

Of course, I was back there the next day. I stood much closer to the door than Reverend Mother presumably intended for me to, just in case Pastry felt like talking to me. For a while it was utterly silent in the basement, the only thing I could really do, while maintaining some form of independence for Pastry, was think. My mind drifted, to memories of Glazed Lavender and… Blank… I missed Glazed with every fiber of my being… and yet that same feeling was… absent, with my other friend. I only ever had positive memories of them… and when they left I was… Why did it occasionally feel like… I was happy they were gone?

“Are you there?” The voice ripped me out of my inner monologue. It was the same one I heard the previous day. Pastry’s voice, muffled but undeniably present.

I dropped down to sit next to the door, as I had the previous day, hoping that Pastry would hear me better that way. “I am… Why do you ask?” I responded to… the former student.

“I… was wondering if you actually kept your promise…”

“Of course I kept it! Why wouldn’t I?” I responded, forcing out a lighthearted tone. Afterwards I flicked my gaze up towards a clock on the opposite wall of the basement. As I looked at the time, I wondered if it was explicitly installed for me to monitor the time. It felt… strangely out of place… I quickly averted my gaze again. “According to my schedule for the day, we have three-ish hours until… Reverend Mother shows up. So… Is there anything yould like to talk about?” I inquired.

“May I ask… if you… disagree with The Reverend Mother… How do you… justify following her?” Pastry responded to my probing… in that moment I realized I might’ve underestimated Pastry’s… perceptiveness.

“The thing is… I can’t, really. I’ve seen sides of Mother that almost no--one else could even conceive the possibility of. They disgust me. Yet… I realized long ago that I couldn’t just leave… We don’t have to mention what happens to those who do…” I conveniently left out that typically… I was the one who hunted those who fled. “I mean… why haven’t you tried to leave this… box Reverend Mother has put you in?” I questioned, flipping the question back around onto Pastry.

A grim silence fell over the basement as I waited for Pastry to respond. I realized that I was scared, scared of the possibility that I pushed her too far, that I’d be unable to actually help her… 

“Because… Because The Reverend Mother i-is ri-” Pastry cut herself off. It took her a couple seconds to say anything again… “Because Mother is making me. I don’t have another choice,” Pastry finished with more confidence in her voice. 

In response I chuckled. Presumably it was an unconscious action to make myself appear more friendly… or perhaps… It was just a small way to cope with the tragedy of our lives.”You know Pastry, I guess we’re in a rather similar boat, then.”

Pastry responded with a half-hearted ‘yeah’... and I decided at that moment it would be best to change the subject of the conversation. “You know… what’s the DWMA like?... I’ve never actually been…” “You haven’t?” She responded, her voice mostly confused in tone.

“Nope.”

“Hm…” Pastry quietly vocalized before slowly beginning to transition into a long diatribe about her experience at the DWMA. I unashamedly absorbed as many details as I could. Time started advancing quicker as she talked, but it was clear to me that Pastry was leaving things out. She seemed to avoid ever mentioning her actual friends. By the time Pastry had finished, hours had passed, and it was about time for Reverend Mother to arrive, in order to meet with her prisoner. 

Once She left about an hour later… Pastry was unresponsive towards my attempts to re-initiate a conversation… so I spent the rest of my night guarding her in silence… yet it was an oddly comfortable one… it made my armor feel lighter. Perhaps… Pastry’s presence made my… burden easier to carry?... As I left, I whispered a quiet “...Thank you…” to Pastry.

-Later That Night-

I was in my bed, still awake when it was so dark you couldn’t even see your own hands, it was then when I realized I was right. Whenever I wasn’t near Pastry’s door, it felt like everything was infinitely more intense… The moon’s gaze included. It was constantly peering into my very brain and soul… I swore it knew more about me than I did. If the moon was in my head… then I knew I couldn’t trust anything in there, and certainly not my own memories. The moon had to be messing with those. I knew it was.

It had only been three years since my armor was stuck onto me. Three years. Three years wasn’t enough time for every single person in the commune to have ‘phased out’, and yet, for the days I was stuck in the commune, I realized I couldn’t recognize a single person! My brain was feeding me all sorts of false information! I knew I wasn’t happy that one of my best friends was GONE! Why was that… creature from the vision I had so damn familiar?!? Why did it feel like I could see its smile constantly trying to poke its way in from the back of my mind?!?! I knew it was the moon, it always was… and yet what did it WANT?!!? I knew I was a monster… yet I was trying to be better! I was actively trying to HELP SOMEONE! WHY DOES THE SMILING …THING STILL TORTURE ME?!?!

‘I hate the moon.’ Was my last thought that night, before I fell into the allure of sleep.

I ‘woke’ to what was… rather obviously a nightmare. I was laid down, on a slope that felt like stone… and yet, it was also nothing. I couldn’t visually process anything, it was just nothing. Even when I forced myself up, and began to move about, I could never find anything, only primordial nothingness. ANd yet… deep down in my brain… or perhaps my soul, I knew there was something down there, at the bottom of that slope of nothingness. Something. I… desperately didn’t want to see. Wh-why did I know that?!? What was WRONG with my head!?! WHY CAN’T THE MOON JUST LEAVE. ME. ALONE!?!

…and then I was just awake… not in my bed, nor the floor of my room… but in line for… breakfast at the Commune’s dining area…? I quickly flicked my eyes around. I was either really late, or really early. There was practically nobody in line. I looked over to the few people already eating… they had a few pieces of fruit, rather than just the sad bread and meat most got. I was early. Yet, despite my newfound time-based revelation, the events of my nightmare still played repeatedly in my mind.

“What in the Death Tree’s name just happened?!” I whispered to myself.

-…Day 9, July 19th, 2005-

…I decided to stay in line at the cafeteria, I didn’t really have anything better to do… It was still so early that I wasn’t supposed to be guarding Pastry yet… which led to me being struck by an idea. When I reached the front of the line, I got my ‘Bread Smoothie’ along with two fresh apples, a bonus courtesy of me being so early to breakfast. I then immediately took off in a run to Reverend Mother’s office, drinking my ‘smoothie’ as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast due to my mask.

The daily meeting with Reverend Mother was nothing unusual, she just gave me the schedule for meetings with Pastry for that day. Thankfully, she didn’t question my two apples. At the conclusion of the meeting, I rushed down to Pastry’s… cell. I had to be as quick as possible, as it was imperative to my sudden, slap-dash plan. Once I reached the basement, a location that constantly put me on edge ever since my vision, I didn’t stop moving and ran to the clock opposite my usual position outside Pastry’s prison. Thankfully, I was 5 minutes early.

It was about 6 minutes when the nun assigned to deliver Pastry’s meals everyday, appeared in my peripheral vision. I moved to greet her, the two apples still in my hand. 

“Hello, Sister.” I greeted, as genially as I possibly could. To which she responded with a slight bow, like how everyone was trained to greet people of authority within the Order. I hated it with every fiber of my being.

The nun began to walk to Pastry’s room, the tray of food for pastry still in her hands, it was, weirdly, entirely composed of bread… and looked utterly appetizing. Clearly, the nun wasn’t dissuaded from her path by my attempt at a conversation. Which , unfortunate;y, meant I had to keep trying. “You are the only person who brings Sister Pastry her food, correct?” I asked her, injecting a small amount of authority into my voice, despite how much I despised it, thinking that it might get her to respond. It worked.

“…That would be correct.” She replied, her voice rather noticeably hesitant.

“Then, wouldn’t you agree… Pastry only ever getting to see one person, besides, of course, The Reverend Mother herself is rather… Depressing? That perhaps, she’d enjoy getting to see someone else for a change?”

“I… Suppose so… yet, The Reverend Mother said I-”

“If you give me the tray of food, and the key to Sister Pastry’s room, I will be sure not to tell Reverend Mother, and return the key to your possession by the end of the day.”

The Sister stood there pondering for a few more seconds before handing me the tray of bread, with the key sitting on it, before promptly turning around and leaving the accursed basement… As she left, though, she turned directly at me and said “Goodbye, Sister.” I didn’t respond, and instead just chose to head into Pastry’s cell for the first time, not before placing the two red apples I acquired onto the tray, though.

As I opened the door I stood in front of for the past few days, I quickly learned that Pastry’s ‘room’ was just as terrible as I suspected it would be. It was small and extremely bland with dark grey concrete walls, a single shelf, and a small bed pressed up right next to a wall. The only source of light was an old incandescent light bulb. The only interesting thing in Pastry’s room was… well, Pastry herself.

Sat on the bed was Pastry, Her light violet hair with a few golden strands, hair that immediately reminded me of Glazed Lavender’s, was extremely disheveled, and her face was the host to large bags under her eyes. Even from just those two features, one could tell she wasn’t…doing great. One of her arms was covered in bandages, and her clothes vaguely resembled something a medieval peasant would wear, both of which didn’t help to shake off her disheveled and depressed image. Pastry’s other arm was behind her back, like she was hiding a bit of herself from the outside world. Her eyes were distant, as if she was stuck in a distinctly awful memory… a sensation I definitely understood. I stood there for about a minute before Pastry’s eyes returned to… what I assumed was normal. Her face then instantly jumped to display surprise, making me realize that I stupidly assumed she would just… know who I am? I had to clear up the confusion quickly, lest—

“Uhh— hi, Pastry!” I spontaneously said, clarifying nothing and continuing my streak of… unintelligence.

“W-Who’re you?!” Pastry’s voice was rather shy… which could’ve meant a number of things… almost all of which were profoundly, not good.

“What?” I began, “Do you not recognize my voice without that door muffling it?” I said, with the tone of a joke behind the words to ease the tension.

Pastry stared with confused, tired eyes before recognition finally flooded her gaze. “Wait… You’re… You’re the guard at the door, aren’t you? Why’re you in here?”

“Well… I thought you might’ve wanted to see a new face… despite mine being covered by this a- … mask,” I responded, having dropped the word ‘accursed’ at the last second. “I also brought you food!” I said, and in that moment I realized I was… perhaps being a little disingenuous… trying too hard to automatically connect with this person I’d only met in-person a little over a minute ago.

Pastry elected to go back to simply staring once I was finished speaking. Her expression was… odd, a mix of fear, exhaustion and… shame? I didn’t have long to dwell on it though, as Pastry spoke again soon after. “Thank you for the food. You can leave now,” she sternly said, despite the reluctance drowning her face.

“Pastry, why—”

“You’ve done your job.” Pastry quickly cut me off, “Please hand over the tray, and leave. I don’t… want your companionship. I certainly don’t deserve it.” As Pastry finished talking, her eyes widened in surprise, as if she didn’t intend to say her final sentence aloud.

“D-Don’t deserve it?! Pastry you’re a victim! What are you talking about?!?”

“...Just leave me alone… please.”

“Pastry!” I practically yelled out, “I’m just trying to help! I promise!” I earnestly cried out… before quietly adding on, “I don’t want you to end up… in the same place I have.”

At that moment, Pastry’s expression slightly shifted, it became softer. And her eyes almost looked slightly less tired. “...Fine… just… stay by the door and… don’t talk.” I nodded in response. It wasn’t exactly the progress I wanted, but it was better than nothing, I set the tray of food down by Pastry’s bed, and complied with her request. I went over, and sat down at the bottom of the door.

It was a while before Pastry elected to begin talking once more, only electing to right before taking a bite into one of the two apples I brought her. “You… were much easier to talk to when you were on the other side.”

I waited a few seconds before responding. “May I ask why?”

“...You’re terrifying.” I chuckled a small amount before Pastry’s sudden glare shut me up. “Everything about your appearance almost seems manufactured to be intimidating b—”

I decided to cut Pastry off, feeling the need to apologize for my appearance. “ Pastry I’m sorry… I didn’t want to look like—”

“That, however, was not really what I was referring to… You… You’re the first person to… actually reach out since… the witch. And… what if you’re just another ploy? And if you’re not… what if I hurt you?… Why am I even saying this?!!” Pastry let the apple fall from her hand, there was only a single bite in it.

“Pastry. I know. I know what that’s like. To not be able to trust anything, even yourself. To think of yourself as a danger to everyone around you. So, please let me help!” 

“Prove to me that you can.” 

“O-okay… uhh…” I got up and moved over to Pastry’s half of her cramped room. When I first walked in, I noticed that Pastry was keeping one arm behind her back, and she had continued to do so for my entire time in her room. Considering the fact that her other arm was bandaged, I had a pretty decent idea as to what she was hiding. “If you could point me to some bandages, I could help with your arm…” Pastry looked at me with minor shock on her face. “What? I know our mother rather well. She’d definitely just leave bandages in here and ‘trust’ you to apply them yourself.” Pastry nodded, seemingly accepting my explanation, and reached behind her bend, and handed me a standard roll of white bandages.

It took a little while, as I was trying to be as gentle as possible, but I was able to properly bandage Pastry’s arm. As she looked at it, I could see the faintest traces of a smile on Pastry’s face, for the first time.

A bit afterwards, Pastry began to speak, “Thank you… m— wait…”

“Hm?”

“I don’t…— Do you have a name?” Pastry asked, her voice was almost… concerned? 

“I… well you see, I don’t… really… have one. People like Reverend Mother call me ‘Order Knight’ but—” I replied, having intentionally cut myself off early. Pastry was silent for a bit after my words, I assumed she was thinking.

“That’s not a name, though.” She finally stated. “You deserve better than that.”

“It… It is fine Pastry. Order Knight is fine.” I rebuked, mostly in an attempt to convince myself.

Pastry took in, and let out, a deep breath before replying, “If you say so, Brother.” Suddenly my broken heart in my metal covered chest started to reform. I assumed Pastry only meant it in the same way she’d call one of her peers at the commune ‘sister’... yet it still meant a ton to me. To my recollection, it was the first time… anyone had ever called me that… or really anything… similar. In a way… it was the first time anyone, in The Death Order at least, had actually acknowledged… me. I could feel tears of joy well up under my mask, though I knew they’d never fall.

“Th-thank you, sister,” was my eventual response, as it felt appropriate. “May I leave? I-I think it’s about time for your… meeting with Reverend Mother…”

“Of course… Can you come back here tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

-Later That Night-

I felt the key to Pastry’s cell jostle in my hands as I quietly ran away from the Commune. There was still one thing I had to do that night, and sneaking out of The Death Order’s Commune was the easiest part, I’d done it an innumerable amount of times, after all. I ran down the sidewalks of Death City to my destination, despite being nighttime in the middle of summer, no one was out and about on account of the fact it was a tuesday, and I hadn’t seen the city from a ground level in… a long time, so I figured there’d be very little harm. A fair bit down the street… I found myself careening to a halt. My eyes drifted to a antique store on the opposite side of the street, it’s one I often hung out on top of with Glazed and Blank… and yet. It wasn’t the same store. The building was the same, yet all the signage was… different. It wasn’t even an antique store anymore. I couldn’t recognize anything about it. It was like I was seeing it for the very first time. It wasn’t necessarily odd, I supposed, it could’ve shut down in the intervening few years, yet it still made me feel …off.

I shifted my gaze to the other buildings around the profoundly wrong store… I had much less distinct memories of them… but all of them were wrong too. I picked up running again. I had to get away from those contradictory buildings. Why were ALL OF THEM different?!?! It had only been Five Years since Blank left! Surely ONE of the buildings had to stay the same! I kept running until I finally reached my original destination. It was an old Blacksmiths' shop, surely kept around to preserve tradition. I’d learned the basics back when I had made my throwing knives at that very place… so duplicating the key to Pastry’s room would hopefully pose little challenge. I tried to put the inconsistent buildings out of my mind, as I set the cell key down on a metal table. 

As I worked, I thought about Pastry’s light smile after I bandaged her arm… how much I desperately wanted to keep helping her. 

The thoughts of the buildings quickly left my mind.

-Day 16, July 26th, 2005-

Pastry wanted me to come back. So I did. Over and over again. I quickly found that hanging out with Pastry was the only thing that made my days at the commune bearable. Many times over the following week, I simply sat in the room with her, and I swear sometimes that alone brought a trace of a smile to her face.

I actually did activities with her, on occasion, too. On the 22nd, Pastry mentioned that she wanted to try and be more active during her ‘isolation’, and I proposed that the two of us could… spar… in her tiny cell… it didn’t end well. The rush to clean up the room before Reverend Mother’s meeting with Pastry was… chaotic, to say the least.

Pastry… she helped me forget the loneliness, let it become a distant emotion. The days quickly stopped beginning agonizingly long, spending time with her… it began to feel like the only thing that was actually real. The only thing that mattered. Whenever… we were… hanging out together, I felt… joy… an emotion I could only vaguely recall. Despite how wrong everything was, it was… perfect. I walked down to the basement that day, expecting the same comfort…

As soon as I stepped off the stairs, I ran. The thoughts of the beast I saw down there still probed the edge of my mind, I needed to reach the one place that made sense. And then… once I was there, right outside Pastry’s door, my sanctuary… I saw one. A thing I hadn’t seen since that day oh so long ago, when my body was sacrificed to the iron maiden Reverend Mother called armor. A Death Order nurse. It was leaving Pastry’s cell.

The back of my mind whispered to me, it said I was wrong. That I’d seen one way sooner than that day… It said that they were responsible for— why… Why did my brain constantly… why couldn’t it stop feeding me those… contradictory facts?!?!?

I re-centered myself, and launched my body at the nurse. I desperately needed to know, to know why she was leaving Pastry’s chambers. MY head was a mess of assumptions and questions, ‘was… was I correct initially? Are they going to… modify her… like they did to me?’ was by far the most prevailing one.

The nurse shrieked as I gripped its shoulders. “Why. Are. You. Here?” I growled. “What are you doing to Pastry?!”

The nurse was terrified, I could tell. Its whole body was shaking. “J-just checking on her wounds! You k-know that witch-inflicted injuries take a long time to heal—”

I rolled my eyes beneath my mask as it spoke. “Cut the bullshit.” I cut the nurse off… when my eyes landed on its face… no part of me recognized it. I lessened my grip, and shoved them away. I yanked the duplicate of Pastry’s key out of my belt, and began to open up Pastry’s door… I fumbled for far too long, though… eventually I yanked the prison cell’s door open.

“Oh! Hey brother!” Pastry said as I entered. The way she said brother… had a much greater amount of… emotion compared to just a week prior… I could almost conceive of that being how actual siblings greeted each other. “I finally finished Macbeth, although I must admit, I don’t exactly see the appeal— Are you alright? You’re… shaking.”

I… I was? At that moment, I didn’t notice until she pointed it out but… I really was shaking. “No… No, I don't think I’m okay.” I muttered out.

“...would you want to talk about it?” I… I… I nodded in reply. Part of me desperately, desperately wanted to talk to almost anyone about… everything… but…. “I… I can’t, though…. I’m sorry…”

Pastry almost began to talk, before I elaborated. “I think Reverend Mother would… punish me… if I told you… I j-just… I need to still be here… to help you.” I collapsed to my knees, the hard concrete ground collided with my metal armor, it produced a rather loud crash sound. “ Pastry… when I… when I initially heard about your… your stay here— I thought about what happened to me. I’m only about a year, or perhaps two, older than you, but… you know how I said I never went to the academy?” Pastry nodded. “I was meant to, but only a month or so before… I-I was selected for a program that… eventually turned me into what I am, now. I… was separated from my only friend, my only other already having head to the DWMA themselves, and I was utterly alone. I couldn’t let that happen to you…”

I heard a small inhale, from what I assumed was shock. “I… I don’t know what to say.” Were the words which left Pastry’s mouth.

“And yet… here I am… crying out in front of the person I’d resolved to help…” I lowered my head in an… act of shame, I’d long felt tears in my eyes… and my body was still shaking. I chuckled a little at that, I was pretty sure I’d cried more in the few weeks I’d been confined at the commune than I had in… ‘years,’ the back of my mind supplied.

I was pulled out of my mental musings by the feelings of arms wrapped around my armor. Pastry was… she was hugging me. “W-why…?” I mumbled out.

  “I haven’t… ever had a sibling before, but I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to comfort each other.”

“I— I’m… the one who’s supposed to be helping you!” I cried out.

“Just let me hug you, my brother.”

“Fine.” And I did. For a long time. I couldn’t tell how long that hug lasted, but it felt like hours. Eventually, Pastry unwrapped her arms, and moved away.

“Since you didn’t fully tell me about… what’s truly put you so on edge… would you want to… talk about the friends you mentioned?” My sister asked.

“…what do you want to know?”

“I can tell you miss them.” Pastry answered, vaguely. But I could see that there was a look in her eye… I thought she might’ve been referring to herself, too.

“...Fine. I… I’ll talk about them. As long as you talk about the friends you made at the DWMA. I know you’ve been avoiding the topic. Deal?”

Pastry nodded, “Deal,” she affirmed. Yet a period of silence followed. There was still a hesitance in my mind to actually talk about my past. I bet Pastry had a very similar hesitance, yet she was the one to speak up first.

“For a while at the Academy, I wouldn’t say I had any friends, not beyond Black Forest at least. I was just the ‘nun girl’, yet I was quickly paired up with a fellow weapon,” Pastry’s cheeks decided to color themselves a light red, “His name is Red Velvet… we really didn’t get along initially… honestly, we despised each other. I simply couldn’t stand him, but… as time passed, I found myself getting closer and closer to him…  I met and befriended many more people… in the end, though… I failed. Red velvet ended up… hurt… it’s why I let myself be isolated… down here, as a punishment for my failure… and yet, even down here…  I can’t stop thinking about him!” She finally exclaimed, before transitioning into heavy breaths. As she sat there, slowly regaining her breath, I could see the beginnings of tears in my sister's eyes. I wanted to comfort or reassure her, but my brain refused to supply any ideas… until—

“Let me tell you a story.” I abruptly said, apparently it was shocking enough to knock Pastry back to reality.

“W-huh?”

“I had two friends, back when I was still a young weapon in our Order.” As I began to tell Pastry, both my words and thoughts slowly transitioned to that last day…

-Order Knight’s Memory-

I threw my body over the railing, landing smoothly on the fire escape’s metal structure. I’d done this hundreds of times for 2 straight years. Only Glazed Lavender was behind me, the only difference between this day and the past. The two of us carefully pulled ourselves onto the rooftop we’d become intimately familiar with. Once I had gotten both my feet onto the roof, I saw, sitting on the roof’s edge waiting for us, Blanche Macaroon, Blank. 

While Glazed was the one who got the three of us to start secretly escaping the commune and running around the city in the middle of the night, Blank was the one who suggested we make a habit of hanging out on top of that specific building. I always understood the suggestion, despite only being a small store, the building was on the peak of a hill, from its simple viewpoint I could see the entire city.

As the two of us approached Blank at the roof’s edge, I could feel the tension in the air. It was impossible not to, and it needed to be broken. “Bourgor, mon amee,” I said, putting zero effort into my pronunciation, nor my accent.

Blank immediately whipped their head around to look at me, and Glazed Lavender burst out laughing, both from my intentionally terrible… everything and Blank’s incredibly offended expression. “Blank… I’m pretty sure Shade meant to say ‘Bonjour’.”

Blank continued to glare at us, before forcefully signing, “I know that. Glazed.” Their expression quickly lightened, and they motioned for us to come sit with them, we did. The three of us sat there, as we had so many times before, and watched the moon with its creepy nighttime grin. It felt like an eternity until Blank had us face them so we could talk.

“It’s tomorrow,” Blank signed, “the day I’d been waiting for since I first found out I was a weapon… My first day at the DWMA, but… I can’t be truly excited… because this means tonight’s the last one I’ll spend here with you two…”

“It’s not the end of the road, Blank. With how all three of us have been testing at the commune, the three of us are practically guaranteed to get in! Doughael said we would! Glazed Lavender exclaimed in an attempt to boost our friend’s souring mood. “Besides, I don’t think they would even consider not sending me there! I mean, I’m the greatest prodigy The Death Order has ever seen!” She said, repeating Mother’s consistent praise of her, all three of us let out some form of laughter at the pseudo-mockery.

“It’s only one year, Blank. The two of us can wait. We’ll miss you, but we can wait.” I added in. Blank turned their body to look at me.

“I’m glad you feel that way. If I may say, Shade. I’m glad I spent time with you. You’re much happier now.” They signed, and I smiled in response. Blank set their eyes to the smiling moon in the night sky, I did too, and we quickly realized that its visage was almost directly above us, almost midnight. Blank quickly turned to me and Glazed, and signed that they had to head back to the commune early, because they wanted to get a decent amount of sleep, and not be tired for their first day at the school. Both me and Glazed understood. We watched Blank as their wool-white hair passed out of our line of sight down the fire escape.

It was the last time I ever saw Blank.

-Day 16, July 26, 2005-

-continued-

“That was the last time I ever saw Blank.” I said, having finished recounting my tale to Pastry… yet as I did, it felt as if my subconscious was blaring alarm bells, practically screaming at me that what I’d just said was… wrong. I desperately tried not to focus on that feeling in my mind, yet it was all-consuming… the alarms just kept ringing, until they melded into nothingness—

“I-I am sorry… about your friends.” Pastry said, inadvertently pulling my attention to reality.

“Pastry. Even though Blank left me, I never stopped wanting to see them again. I’m sure Red Velvet and the rest of your friends… feel the same way about you.” I stated, finally getting to the core message I wanted to tell Pastry… and yet my head was once again filled with screams directed at me. I tried to ignore the overpowering noise in my own head, and instead focus on Pastry’s reaction to my plea. I could make out an incredulous expression on her face.

“I… see… I’ll try to keep that in mind.” She replied before… just staring into the distance, an unreadable expression on her face. At the same time, my subconscious was still screaming at me to ‘just remember!’ It was like I was being force fed by myself, yet I no longer had a mouth for the food to enter through. By the time Pastry spoke up again, I was practically on the verge of tears.

“The… name of one of your old friends was Glazed Lavender, right?” She asked, and I nodded in reply, despite being slightly confused by the question. “L-like the famous Death Scythe, Glazed Lavender? Practically the hero of every weapon under our Order’s care?” Pastry continued. The question was like a metric ton of fuel to the fire inside my brain. It all became too much. I started crying my viscous tears once more. My mask blocked Pastry from seeing them, and if there was one thing I’d learned in my ‘career’ as Order Knight, it was how to hide my true emotional state.

“I’m sure that she was just named after her…  no one could become that legendary in…what, a few years?” I answered, yet it felt more like a flimsy excuse. Pastry responded with a simple ‘hm’ noise. “I think it’s getting close to meeting time with Reverend Mother. I should go.” I said through my tears, suddenly desperate to escape the situation.

I could barely hear Pastry say something like “I… understand…” as I got up and left her cell. My mind was still raging, and it felt as if nothing was real at all. So I tried focusing on the ticking clock on the opposite wall. It helped a little, watching the time tick by. Things started to feel more… tangible, again.

Not long after, the sound of soft, yet forceful, footsteps reverberated throughout The Death Order’s basement. I turned my head, expecting to be faced with… her. Only to see a White Mask approaching me. Once they’d approached my general vicinity they only said a few words. “Reverend Mother has requested your presence—

-Order Knight’s Memory?-

Our Order’s Knight.” I was suddenly two floors above where I’d been just a second ago. I tried to yell out in confusion, but nothing happened. Instead, my body began to move on its own, and started heading back down to the basement, and away from the White Mask who spoke to me.

In an instant I was there. Standing besides Reverend Mother as she addressed… me. “Doughael has finally given in, Just as I’d predicted 13 years ago.” The two of us watched as the supposed ‘High Deathbearer’ was wheeled out of their… cell… the same one Pastry was now kept in… Doughael’s condition was terrible, feathers grew out of every inch of their pure-white skin… and kept growing. Their body was constantly growing. “I wonder what compelled them to keep consuming so many witch souls after the side-effects began… No matter, they’ll be restrained forever in no time. And if that doesn’t work… That’s why you’re here, Order Knight. Transform.” And… I-I did turn into my revolver form. Reverend Mother picked me up and… aimed me at Doughael’s head,,, as they were strung up… and began to fully turn into… that thing I saw on my first day guarding Pastry.

-Day 16, July 16th, 2005-

-continued-

  Suddenly I was sat in that creaky old wooden chair in Reverend Mother’s… office. She was sitting there in front of me, as she had countless times before. Yet, for the first time I could recall, she wasn’t looking at me, instead her gaze was centered on nothing but the distance… She was, however, still talking at me, despite her mind obviously being somewhere else.

“You’ve been around Pastry these last few weeks, haven’t you, Order Knight?” Reverend Mother said, a part of me desperately wanted to defy her, that …memory of cold, unfeeling hands wrapping around the handle of my weapon was still so fresh in my mind, And yet-... I just let out a quiet ‘yes’... my fear overpowering the anger. “Hmm… you see, my Order Knight. I called you here to ask a simple question about Pastry.”

As soon as the words left Reverend Mother’s mouth, my mind began racing. Desperately trying to figure out her goal for my newly-established sister. The initial goal of her captivity here was obvious, isolation, but her ultimate goal? I… had no clue… did she want to turn her into… another version of me? But that idea wasn’t consistent with… with how long she’d been isolated for; for me it was… only half a day before… before my entrapment within my metal armor. And… despite Pastry’s imprisonment in the same room as Doughael… she wasn’t changing physically at all! So why—?

“Do you believe Pastry is in a healthy enough state to leave her… isolation?” Reverend Mother asked, and dominoes immediately began to rapidly fall in my mind. Reverend Mother always desired total control… so why was she giving me any input?... It had to be another form of control… of manipulation. The dominoes continued to fall.

“When Pastry is deemed fit to leave her isolation, you will… be relieved of your guard duties.” Reverend Mother continued, her eyes finally settling on me. Her voice was almost… smug, like she knew what I was going to say, and that only cemented the idea that the whole interaction was some form of manipulation. Then… another idea snapped into place with the falling of another domino. Reverend Mother desires control… and I’d been becoming increasingly more unpredictable… my mind brought back memories of the hundreds of deaths I caused at the hospital…

Was this whole mission just a way to “get me in line”?! My brain kept filling in even more details. Perhaps this was why Reverend Mother never did anything about my burgeoning relationship with Pastry! I-it was her intention the whole damn time! But… why Pastry specifically?? I would've acted much the same with practically anyone else, so why—? Control. The answer was always control. The same reason why Pastry was isolated in the first place. Pastry must’ve been drifting away from Reverend Mother’s control… much like myself. Was it due to her partner? Red Velvet? In any case, she needed some incentive for Pastry to not entirely buckle under the pressure… to remain in the perfect spot for control… the spot between an individual and a husk. Exactly where I’d been for so long. I was the incentive. Reverend Mother had created the perfect recursive cycle. I cared about Pastry, so I had to listen to Reverend Mother… and vice versa.

I sat there for a few more moments, contemplating the fate of the person I’d just started thinking of as a sister. Reverend Mother must’ve been banking on my own selfishness, my desire to finally have companionship again, to disregard everything else, “just like before” my subconscious whispered in my ear. She was expecting me to try and justify it to myself, and accept the lie that it was for Pastry’s safety. But I’d promised myself I would try not to be a monster.

“Your Answer, Order Knight?” Reverend Mother asked again, her voice consisting of a hidden agitation.

“I believe Pastry is perfectly healthy enough to leave her ‘isolation’.”

-Later That Night-

I couldn’t sleep. My brain was still running wild with the events of the past few hours. I was constantly moving in my Reverend Mother-provided bed. I never had any choice in my life, despite nominally just having been given one. I knew there was some hidden agenda behind it. I was always just a tool to control others in some fashion. Was it just my fate as a weapon to be used to hurt others like this?! Was I always destined to— ‘Shoot her in the face,’ the… thing I started to hesitate calling ‘my subconscious’ supplied.

On that note, my body finally lost the will to stay in the waking world.

I was back on the slope of nothing. My body instantly slipped on the rocky terrain, and I fell onto my hands. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it sliced my palms, and I could feel them bleeding beneath the armor. I ignored the feeling of pain, just like I had the over two dozen other cuts on my body I’d forgotten until that moment.

“How long are you going to endure this pain? Number Thirty?” The voice came from directly in front of me, I looked up and saw… it. The moon, yet… also not. It looked nothing like the smiling moon with blood dripping from its grin that I’d seen so many times in the night sky, but I knew what it was. I could feel its gaze coming from the being in front of me.

“What the hell are you talking about, moon?!”

“Even now? Even now you deny the nature of your existence? Even as your reality crumbles around you?” The moon angrily questioned. Its voice was breathy and calm, and yet sounded so eerily similar to my own. “Surely by now, “Order Knight” you’ve realized that nothing around you makes sense? The people, the locations, all so unfamiliar, but you’ve only been like this for a few years, haven’t you?”

“W-what are you saying?!?”

“What I’m saying is that you’re refusing to see beyond the cell you’re in. It’s understandable, you didn’t put yourself in this cage, but so many of the ones before you figured it out years earlier. I’m here to… end this cycle you’re stuck in.” The… moon(?) said, its voice carrying only a small hint of agitation.

“C-cycle?... no. No. No. NO. NO. GET OUT. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” I yelled at the thing before me, before transforming my left arm and aiming it at the thing’s head. Yet before I could shoot them there was a sudden impact to my stomach armor that sent my body rolling down the slope of nothing. I tried to stop my rolling by planting my bleeding hand into the rocky slope, but I couldn’t find a hold. I only stopped when I finally crashed into something. 

It… was… me. I crashed into a completely standstill version… of me. It was… unsettling, seeing myself like that… I could see how impossible it was to find any hint of a person under the armor and cloaks. “Oh Revision One, the progenitor of our… endless cycle.” I picked myself up by clinging to… Revision One… and turned around to face, whatever it was I called ‘the moon’, once more. “Sorry for kicking you down, unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out any other way to get you to see the truth, and how desperately you need my help. Look.”

I didn’t turn to look, and kept my gaze focused on… the thing, “You’ve been torturing me ever since I… ever since I killed Red Vine. Why in Lord Death Tree’s name would I ever listen to you?!” I screamed at the not-moon. It began to chuckle, before breaking out into a full, somehow equally refined and maddened laugh.

“Whatever you say, Thirty. Though, I don’t exactly think that tracks, It’s rather hard to torture yourself, you know. Anyways, I suppose it’s come down to this.” I watched as the “moon’s” left arm began to transform into an… exact replica of my own weapon form, before launching itself at me. The ‘moon’ grappled me before suddenly throwing me into a brick wall of nothing, which caused me to collapse to my knees. I quickly pushed my body along the wall and back onto my feet, just in time to see the ‘moon’ rushing at me for another strike. I quickly sidestepped just in time to dodge my assailant’s attack, and retaliated with two, unfortunately weak, shots from my revolver-arm to its left shoulder. The moon barely reacted to the pain, and scampered up the brick wall of nothing, and I immediately decided to pursue. I approached the part of the nothingness the moon climbed up, and tried feeling around. My hands were quickly wrapped around a metal bar, one that felt almost exactly like that of a fire escape… Muscle memory from my days spent with Glazed and Blank took over, and I quickly found myself on top of a roof made of nothing. I tried looking around, yet I couldn’t see… it anywhere.

Suddenly there was a great impact to the back of my head and I was forced to the ground. I could feel it pushing my face into the nothingness which comprised the roof. “What I simply fail to understand, Thirty, is that refusal to see beyond your immediate reality… all the rest had some form of doubt that formed curiosity in your mind, but you refused to see the inconsistencies for so long. And even now you doubt them… it’s almost as if… it was… baked into you…” The… thing breathily whispered into my ear, before suddenly bursting out into that same laughter.

“Get… off…me!” I yelled at it, and rolled myself over, out of its grip. Thankfully, I couldn't feel the touch of the ‘moon’ anymore… yet it was still there. I could see it in the night sky, its bloody, manic grin facing me. “PLEASE! J-JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!” I yelled at it, before aiming my gun-arm at it in the sky, and firing one shot.

Then I fired another, and another, until they were all gone. “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!” O yelled at the arbiter of my anguish… only to hear a familiar voice come from behind me.

“Order Knight? I uhh, I don’t think the moon can understand you.” It… it was the voice of… Fire Spirit… ‘What… what is he doing here?!? In my… nightmare?’ I thought, before I suddenly realized… that I wasn’t in it anymore. Everything around me was… was made of actual materials. I wasn’t surrounded by nothingness. “I also don’t think Death Order members are normally allowed to leave their…compound or whatever at…” I heard a plastic-y click, from what was presumably Fire Spirit’s flip phone, “uhhh 2:13 AM. and as far as I know, July 27th isn’t some kind of holy day either soooo—

-...Day 17, July 27th, 2005-

     Could you please tell me what you’re doing here?” Fire Spirit asked, as I was still reeling from everything that just happened. Everything around me… looked real now, but… I could’ve still been dreaming… besides that… Revision One looked normal… what if…

“Are you real?” I asked the person I'd befriended… and then never saw again. “Because barely anything feels like it is anymore… I think something’s wrong with me… I just—” I cut myself off as fire spirit entered my field of vision. He looked exactly like he did the night I first met him… except he looked much more… tired. Which could’ve simply been a symptom of being awake at 2 am… but it felt like more deep-seated tiredness. But despite that, his cocky smile still shone. He… extended a hand out to me.

“You… want help getting up before you start getting all philosophical on me, terrible name?” He asked with a jokingly mocking tone. I sighed and grumbled out a ‘...fine’ before taking my fellow weapon’s hand and being pulled up to my feet. “...Lord Death Tree you’re heavy…” Fire breathed out, before transitioning into heavy breaths.

“...You do realize that I am wearing heavy metal armor, right? Hot coals-Ghost?” I joked back, which elicited a large groan from my friend, but before he could offer a rebuttal, I continued. “But… yeah. You’re real…. Even if… everything else has started to feel like it isn't— Sorry… I…” I chuckled lightly, as a method to calm myself, “I realize nothing I’m saying… makes any sense…”

“You could say that again, Knight…” Fire Spirit commented, “But it may… if you elaborate a little more.” The sentiment elicited a sigh from me, stemming from the part of my brain that didn’t want to think about the events of my… dream(?)... but, maybe because it was my… only remaining friend who prompted me, I started talking again.

“My brain has been… forcing me to notice these little… inconsistencies around me? I guess that’s how I’d put it. Like… in the halls of the commune, I couldn’t recognize a single person, despite only being… what I am for three-ish years… I should’ve at least recognized some people! Or on the city’s streets! All the buildings were familiar but I couldn’t recognize a single actual store! Tons of minor things of that nature are constantly adding up around me… and it makes me question… it all. I tried to distract myself by caring for another person, and… I think we have a good relationship… but after… yesterday I guess, I c-can’t get the idea out of my head that it was also fake in some way… and I don’t know what to do. I’m on the verge of just… drifting across a sea of unchanging nothingness… even though I resolved to change.” I said, practically ripping a piece of my heart out of my chest to display to Fire Spirit.

A look of… understanding, or perhaps… empathy, surprisingly appeared on my friend’s face before he spoke. “I, I’ve never had to ‘question it all’ as you’ve put it, Knight Boy,” He pronounced the nickname with a teasing tone, “but I do understand feeling aimless. To be honest with you, I’ve been feeling that way too, recently. Ever since what happened with the witch… I’ve felt like I failed everyone who’s relied on me. I couldn’t help Windy actually kill the witch, we never found his soul, and Poreclain’s condition, mentally and physically, is hardly improving. Not to mention Red Velvet and Pastry… If I’m not the ‘goofy asshole’ who can cheer people up, then what am I?” Fire Spirit empathized.

I stared at him blankly for a few seconds before finally I remembered how to talk. “...Pastry? You know her?” I quickly asked.

“I mean… yeah? She’s one of the people who were kidnapped by the witch… Instead of letting us help her through the trauma, The Death Order’s leader decided to… take her back to their… capital or whatever.”

“I’ve… sort of been assigned to be her personal bodyguard for the past few weeks. She’s not exa—” I began to reply, before my friend suddenly cut me off.

“You HAVE?!? How is she?!”

“She’s not exactly… doing good. Reverend Mother put her into isolation, with the only excuse that it’s for her to ‘heal’... I’ve been getting close to her to provide some kind of companionship, yet it’s obvious she’s missing everyone she knew, Red Velvet especially.” I explained, part of my mind jumping at the chance to finally not have to think about myself, and simply pretend the looming dread and doubt that had ensnared my mind… didn’t exist.

Hot Coals-Ghost, for his part, seemed just as willing to end the introspection, and immediately jumped to how he could help. “You’re her… ‘bodyguard’... do you think you could give her something?”

“Absolutely.” I replied. “What are you thinking of? Maybe a letter?" I felt a small amount of hope in my chest… a hope that perhaps Pastry… my sister could break free. Yet, almost paradoxically, I barely felt that hope at all. I knew I was experiencing a feeling of hopefulness, yet it was… oddly disconnected from my ‘self’. I… only truly felt nothingness.

Fire Spirit and I discussed the logistics of getting a letter to Pastry, and the two of us agreed it was feasible. Fire Spirit said he’d try to get multiple people to write letters to her, mainly Red Velvet, and told me to meet him back on the same roof the next Wednesday to pick up the letters. I agreed, getting out of the commune again would not be a problem.

Once Fire Spirit left my vision and I began to return to the commune, even that distant, disconnected feeling slowly left me. The rest of the day was nothing. Only time around my sister brought back the faint impressions of emotions to my mind. I could feel myself smiling around her. I was happy, or at least I should’ve been.

I wondered if Pastry could even tell if something was different. I didn’t even know what had changed, but something had. And deep down I knew… that I had practically signed my own death warrant.

-Day 18, July 28th, 2005-

The nothingness didn’t stop. I brought a couple books from The Death Order’s library with me to Pastry’s cell, since she’d finally finished Macbeth. I began reading King Lear with her. I could tell that it was nice.

-Day 19, July 29th, 2005-

Still, the nothingness continued. I went down to Pastry’s room… and did almost the same thing as the previous day. Being around my sister made me happy, or at least I could tell that it should’ve. My body was smiling, at least.

-Day 20, July 30th, 2005 — Day 23, August 2nd, 2005-

It was the same the next day. Pastry, sister, body and she both smile. July 31st was the same, so was August 1st. August 2nd was the first day anything different occurred… yet not really. I could feel my body experiencing anticipation. It was at that moment I realized, that night I would be meeting with Fire Spirit on top of that roof again, so he could give me the letters to pass on to Pastry.

-Day 24, August 3rd, 2005-

And so I found myself once again on top of the same roof, at 2 am on August 3rd. Fire arrived only a few minutes later, there were two letters in his hand. He quickly told me who they were from, Wind Archer and Red Velvet. I could feel my body’s excitement to see Pastry’s reaction to finally hearing from her friends again.

Fire Spirit then asked how I was. I couldn’t answer. I quickly turned around and left the rooftop.

I kept the letters close to me for the following few hours until I was sent down to guard Pastry’s room. The two of us talked for a bit. I assumed it was a fairly profound conversation, as I felt my body’s investment, but it wasn’t long before I pulled out the two envelopes addressed to Pastry… and suddenly… I was there again.

Pastry was looking at me with a befuddled expression… I wondered if she was expecting me to speak… “They’re for you, sister. Take them. You’ll know who they’re from when you read them,” I said, forming my own words for the first time in what felt like forever.

“Okay…” Pastry replied doubtfully, her facial expression mimicked her tone. She took the two envelopes from my hand, opening one of them hesitantly, but quickly after taking hold of it. I saw my sister’s eyes scan across the first letter’s contents, I saw the life return into her eyes in real time. I could recall Pastry smiling many times over the past week. It was clear she was happy in some form, but it was a lifeless happiness. The type that compelled someone to make it through the day, but lacked the drive of life behind it that compelled someone to look towards the future. Yet in that moment, I saw that life return to her eyes. My mind was brought back to the recursive relationship Reverend Mother had created between the two of us, and I saw it crack. Pastry was no longer solely relying on me to gain the motivation to continue on. It was then I realized she would definitely escape Reverend Mother’s clutches in some form. It was inevitable now. Pastry had regained her life, and it was only a matter of time before she returned to the will of her soul once again. ‘How funny,’ I thought, ‘That I had to sacrifice my life for Pastry to regain hers.’ I began to feel the sensations of the world slowly numb around me. I knew that the nothingness would return… but before it could—

Pastry stood up. “Thank you, my brother.” She said, her voice now having a much increased amount of passion behind it. It snapped me out of the encroaching nothingness, and yet… I once again didn’t know what to say… so I approached Pastry… and wrapped my arms around her in a hug.

“You’re welcome.”

Pastry stayed in the hug for what must’ve been a few minutes, yet once she finally left it—

The nothingness returned instantly. 

-Day 29, August 8th, 2005-

The nothingness and suppression of emotions didn’t stop until five days later. When I woke up early that Monday morning… it was gone. I even truly felt my own confusion… I slowly got out of my bed, and began looking around my room. Nothing seemed out of place or strange… nothing that could’ve knocked me out of my state of nothingness, at least until my thoughts hit me with the force of an atomic bomb.

It was August 8th. That… that was my birthday. A date I’d practically never celebrated, as no one in The Death Order actually celebrated anyone’s birthdays, and yet the date was welded permanently into my mind. My brain could never remember his name… but I remembered the events of my father’s attempted atonement for his years-long negligence following my birthday… those halls covered in gore. August 8th and 9th were two days practically burned into my soul. Upon that realization I began to move towards one specific spot in my room. A mirror… the same one I first saw my armored form in. I remembered being… almost relieved seeing it then, and yet now… th-th… almost four years later… I only really felt sick at the sight of my armor. Long gone was the feeling of relief from no longer being tied to my old identity as a sister of The Death Order, and in its place… simple detestation of the identity Reverend Mother had forced in as its replacement. As I looked at the mirror… I couldn’t help but… notice… the contradictions. ‘I… I’ve been Order Knight for almost four years now… why… why hasn’t my hair grown at all?’ I mentally asked myself… which only led to even larger ‘inconsistencies’... If I’d been ‘Order Knight’ for nearly four years… and August 8th was my 17th birthday… ‘It has to be my 17th birthday,’ I reassured myself, ‘I distinctly remember being 16,’ then I would’ve been… 13 when she encased me in the armor… but I looked exactly the same as I did then! And why would a 13 year old be expecting admittance to the DWMA? FIRST YEARS ARE FIFTEEN YEARS OLD!

I tried to force my gaze away from the mirror… away from the fact that the very timeline of my life didn’t make a single bit of sense. But I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t look away as the reflection shifted and transformed into… the ‘moon’

“May I question why you’ve become like this, Order Knight?” it asked, with an impossible grin on its head, despite its lack of face.

“Why are you HERE?!?” I yelled at my former reflection. The ‘moon’ only laughed at my pained question.

“That’s not an answer to my question, me. But it doesn’t matter. I never needed to ask in the first place. I already know why this… nothingness, as we’ve put it, is taking over. You’re ignoring me.” 

“WHAT?!?” I exclaimed in confusion, anger permeated my words.

“In all actuality it’s perfectly simple.” It stated. “You refuse to acknowledge the madness in your soul, and so you shun me. You perceive me as nothing more than ‘the moon’, unfortunately for you, Thirty, ever since you executed Red Vine in cold blood, your mind has had to slowly begin to acknowledge me more and more. It’s become ever more difficult to separate me from your ‘sense of self’, especially since you associate these ‘inconsistencies’ and ‘contradictions’ with me, your self, so heavily. Now, the only aspect of your life you don’t associate with me, is your dedication to Pastry. So whenever you’re not around her… or something directly related… you simply… shut off your life. All just to not think about yourself, which includes me—”

I punched the mirror. It cracked and splintered and… the ‘moon’... my madness, my self, was gone. For the moment.

My door suddenly began being knocked on. In Morse Code. Except it wasn’t for a mission from Reverend Mother, rather an earlier meeting. As I layered on my various cloaks, the nothingness had long since returned. I was only barely able to tell that I was scared… yet also slightly curious about the meeting.

 I opened my door, and walked out of my room.

In an instant I was sitting back in Reverend Mother’s creaky old wooden guest chair. Her stone-walled office was the same as ever. Reverend Mother began talking at me about the wonderful progress Pastry had made on her recovery… a statement that was entirely fluff. She continued, saying that she had taken my prior statement into account, and had decided to let Pastry… return to the DWMA?!?

I was back. “What?...” I asked, desperately trying not to yell out in shock.

“You did say she was perfectly capable of returning, did you not?” Reverend Mother asked, “or would you rather retract your previous statement, my dear?”

I instantly shook my head. “No. I believe she’s entirely ready to return, still.” I stated, intentionally forcing any excitement or shock out of my voice. This had to be just another attempt from Reverend Mother to maintain that recursive cycle between me and my sister. A last-ditch effort to make me prioritize my own happiness over Pastry’s independence and keep her out of the DWMA. Something I’d long resolved not to do.

“Ah. I see. Well, I’m not quite as convinced. However… I will return her to the academy by September 10th. Until then, Pastry will be fully allowed to wander the commune as she pleases… with your protection of course.” Reverend Mother stated her plan, which just amounted to another hail mary.

“I see, thank you Reverend Mother, for the update.” I said neutrally. I tried, then, to not think about how the tangible progress I’d made toward freeing Pastry was just a manipulation by her.

“You’re welcome, daughter of our Order. Go see Pastry now, she has been informed.” Reverend Mother declared before I made my leave. I resisted the urge to slam the door as the nothingness slowly began to riddle my mind once more… yet not before I heard Reverend Mother say one last thing from behind the closed secret office door. “And happy birthday, Thirty.”

Pastry was almost as lively as when I gave her Red Velvet and Wind Archer’s letters, my body observed a determination in her eyes. I could distantly feel it spark some hope… somewhere, I would’ve actually felt if I wasn’t trapped in my nothingness. Pastry walked out of her cell for the first time in over a month, and we left for The Death Order library.

The day passed faster than I could truly process, and in what felt like only a few seconds I was back in my room at the end of the day. I looked over at the old mirror I’d punched through. Counting all the shards still in the frame, and the ones scattered across the ground, there were 30 of them. I noticed my body recoil at that number, it involuntarily began remembering every time it was called Thirty, by the moon, …by Reverend Mother. I forced myself even deeper into that nothingness, devoid of almost any feeling.

At least Pastry was happy.

-Day 32, August 11th, 2005-

Three days later and my day-to-day ‘normal’  had solidified. I would be woken up in the morning and taken down to Pastry’s cell in the basement in order to escort her to the morning ceremony. Something I learned while encompassed in the nothingness was how much more dedicated Pastry was to the Order’s supposed beliefs than I was. My body knew that her disillusionment was definitely growing, but Pastry still seemed to care about worshipping Lord Death Tree in some capacity.

After the morning prayer, and whatever else, the two of us simply wandered around the commune until the time Pastry was supposed to return to her cell. It was simple.

There was never anything to break my spell of nothingness, for even a little bit.

At least Pastry was happy.

-Day 39, August 18th, 2005-

August 18th was the first day in both an eternity and an instant to break me out of the nothingness. The day was exceedingly standard for its opening hours, until following the opening ceremony, Pastry decided to head somewhere I hadn’t been since I was a much younger weapon. The Death Order’s secondary weapon training area. The Order had a separate one in an offshoot building for its White Masks… where I’d long since been ordered by Reverend Mother to exclusively train at. Staring at the entrance to the area… I escaped my nothingness.

“I must ask, why are we going here?” I asked Pastry, after waiting a few seconds to regain my composure.

“A month in isolation, besides that one dreadful attempt, must’ve made me rusty. Follow me.” I did. The training facilities were mostly empty. It made sense, of course, the kid weapons had their training a couple hours from then, and the prospective DWMA students had theirs even later. Pastry began walking over to what looked a lot like a tennis court without the net in the middle, and a ‘moat’ of padded floor surrounding it. A sparring arena. “And besides, wouldn’t you say you need some practice too, brother?” Pastry jokingly asked.

I smiled. A smile almost certainly big enough that Pastry could see the shape of my face shift under my mask. “You’re so on.” I replied, my voice gloating and cocky.

“Give it your best shot, brother.” Pastry retorted, her tone was much less boisterous than my own, yet it was filled with a more grim determination, but she had a smile on her face much like my own. And it stayed there as both of us turned our arms into their weapon forms at the same time.

The fight itself was rather quick. I immediately ran towards Pastry before she could fire, but she stayed steady and continued aiming at me, not succumbing to the shock, so I raised my gun-arm up and shot her half-transformed crossbow-arm, knocking it out of direct line of fire with me. Pastry couldn’t correct in time, and her shot of soul-energy missed and crashed directly into the floor. I seized the opportunity, quickly closed the small remaining distance, and grabbed Pastry’s crossbow arm with my right hand, before pointing my gun form directly in her face. I won. I slowly let down my gun arm and transformed it back to normal. I was breathing heavily, blood was rushing through my body. I felt alive for the first time… in months.

I tried not to think about the implications. Was I, as a weapon, destined only for violence? Could I only find joy through blood— Pastry smiled at me, “looks like I really do have a lot of rust, that… or there’s a lot I have to learn.”

I smiled back. “Perhaps it’s both, sis.” My voice was just as cocky as before. “You ready for round two?” I asked Pastry, and returned to my side of the sparring court. I heard a bolt of soul-energy whizz by my head, and smiled even larger.

I spent hours there with Pastry… having fun.

-Day 53, September 1st, 2005-

The rest of the month of August flew by, not just due to the ever-present nothingness permeating my being, but also because my trip with Pastry to the training area became a twice-weekly occurrence, mondays and thursdays, and no matter what… it never failed to break me out of the nothingness.

Those times when I was alone, deep into the nothingness, I could tell my body was desperately trying to not give into the slowly dawning feeling of loss. It (I?) knew that was what Reverend Mother desired. For me to be so scared of losing my sister I’d compromise my morals. By the time my body had to leave the room and join Pastry, I stopped being able to tell if my body was feeling anything. I… assumed it got over the feeling…

Once the morning service was done, Pastry practically started to drag me through the halls of the commune. Through halls I hadn’t been in… in years. The two of us eventually came to a stop in front of a solitary door at the end of an off-shoot hall, one my body somehow recognized as being directly below Reverend Mother’s office. There was a small sign on the door labeled ‘Member Archives’. Pastry slowly moved over to the door knob and carefully twisted it. The body noticed the relief cover her shoulders. Before my sister entered the apparent archives, she turned and said that she was heading in to… look for something, and to stand guard in case someone actually authorized to enter the archives arrived. The body stood guard.

No one else came around by the time Pastry had come back out, and the two of us left that specific corner of the commune. For a split second… the nothingness receded, and I saw a glance of what Pastry snuck out of the archives. A small white envelope.

The rest of the day was the same, familiar, nothingness.

-Day 60, September 8th, 2005-

If I could’ve felt anything during the days leading up to Pastry finally returning to her real friends at the DWMA, it would be a quiet melancholy. The body realized that Pastry had finally had all the life restored to her. The self-loathing for what happened with her confrontation with the witch of deceit was still there, I could tell in my tiny periods of ‘non-nothingness’ while training and sparring with her. Pastry had seemed to become near-obsessed with becoming even better at fighting, like it was a desire to make up for a ‘mistake’ born out of her self-loathing from her failure… it at least wasn’t keeping her trapped in the basement. I couldn’t have ever helped her over that final hurdle… with how a form of self-loathing surrounded my entire being. Pastry was finally going to be free… and I was losing my sister, and if… my madness was to be believed… my last anchor to any kind of ‘self’. But sometimes… to be a person and not a monster, you had to make sacrifices. 

-Day 62, September 10th, 2005-

The day Pastry was set to leave for the DWMA wasn’t even melancholic. It was just quiet. In what was absolutely one last cruel ‘get-back’ at me, Reverend Mother elected to have Pastry spend the entire day with herself, under some excuse of a ‘final health evaluation’ before she could return. So I was strangely relegated to remaining in my room for the entire day. The broken mirror had long since been replaced, yet the body still refused to look at it. It carried too many bad memories… I didn’t want to think about what my… self said… so I continued to sit there in my room for hours, oftentimes thinking about nothing at all, only occasionally interrupted by an extremely distant pang of loneliness from the body.

Eventually, I began thinking in the void of nothingness, again. Why did Reverend Mother let any of this happen? It wasn’t required of her to send Pastry back to the DWMA.‘If her intent was solely to make… me reliant on Pastry’s existence in my life that I’d keep her trapped at the commune, why would Reverend Mother not simply lie about letting her leave? My emotionless thoughts then… focused on exactly that. The lack of emotion. The nothingness, my complete dulling of emotions and ‘sense of self’. Was that what Reverend Mother truly strove to achieve? It made sense of her letting me actually choose to let Pastry go, if she knew me letting Pastry return to her true friends would utterly destroy my sense of self… ‘But how would she?’ a small part of me questioned. ‘Is Reverend Mother so intertwined with my life, that she knew what would eventually happen if I bonded with Pastry?’ It continued. But she had to, if she did, it made the previous two months an inevitable win for her, perfect control. Either the recursive cycle is created, and she is able to use Pastry to manipulate me, and vice versa, or the complete disregard for my ‘self’ occurs, which it had, and while that didn’t let Reverend Mother keep control over Pastry… I was sure to end up more obedient than ever. I only barely knew that I was supposed to feel utterly terrified at the revelation that it was all just another one of Reverend Mother’s traps, and yet I simply felt nothing. I could only make out the barest hint of fear in the body.

And then Pastry walked into my room, and everything became real again. I suddenly stood up, out of embarrassment from being… a weird guy just sitting in the middle of their room… on the floor. “...I missed you, sis.” I quietly said. “Hope Reverend Mother wasn’t too torturous.” I saw Pastry smile lightly at my… joke.

“No. She wasn’t…. I…” Pastry trailed off as she walked over to me, and quickly pulled me into a hug. “Just, thank you. Without you, I know I’d still be stuck down there. Alone.” She told me, every word that left her mouth had a genuine air to it.

“I couldn’t have ever done anything else…” I replied, expecting Pastry to end the hug soon after, yet she didn’t. The two of us hugged as long as when I’d given her those letters.

She eventually, of course, let the hug end. “I’m going to miss you, you know that… right?” Pastry asked, as she began reaching for something in one of her robe’s pockets.

“Yeah… and I’ll miss you too. But I’ll at least have the knowledge that you’ll get to be with the rest of your friends again.” I reassured both Pastry and myself. My sister seemed to accept that answer, and extended out her hand towards me. In her grasp was the letter I saw her take from the commune’s member archives.

“I wanted to do something to thank you. I remembered when you talked to me about your old friends… and so I decided I’d try and find a picture of them for you… I couldn’t find any, though. There was nothing in the past decade… but I did find this!” Pastry lightly shook the envelope in her hand. “It was behind one of the boxes for the 1995 section… it’s addressed to you.” Pastry finished, as I slowly grabbed the letter from her hands. “... I have to go, perhaps see you in the future? I’ll be sure to tell… everyone about you if we find each other again…” Pastry lamented, her voice grew choppy and quiet as she spoke.

“Hopefully… we will…” I blubbered, finally having felt viscous tears form in my eyes, as the person I’d become closest to since… Blank and Glazed… turned around, opened my door, and left my life. I quietly turned my attention to the mysterious letter addressed to me. I delicately opened the envelope, as the tears slid down my face excruciatingly slowly. Inside the letter was an old Polaroid film photo with a note taped to the back. When I looked at the picture, my hands immediately began shaking. It was a photo of… me before Reverend Mother had entombed me in my armor, and sitting on opposite sides of me were… Glazed Lavender and Blanche Macaroon. The three of us were all sitting together on the rooftop we spent our nights on. The photo was staged, Blank was a stickler for always taking a photo together every… seemingly random milestone and so it became routine. I felt more tears leave my eyes. I flipped the photo over, and then began to read the note attached to the back.

‘Dear Shade,

I’m sorry. I doubt you would even remember what I’m apologizing to you for, I certainly have much for which I should apologize, but in general, I’m sorry for abandoning you. Back in the day you were one of the only two things that mattered to me, but I had to take the offer, not only for my own good, but for the good of the world. Yet I will make it up to you. One day I will find you again.

Your best friend,

Blanche “BLANK” Macaroon’  

The amount of tears that left my eyes kept increasing. I flipped the photo back over, and right at that moment a dear drop fell off my face, and landed on the small white border below the actual picture. The teardrop was pink. Yet, the color barely registered in my mind, as the teardrop guided my attention to a detail I’d overlooked. There was faded text along that same white border, it read;

‘The beginning of our last year together: 1/1/1972’

My mind broke. Suddenly everything fell into place, and did not make any sense at the exact same time, like how I kept not fully recognizing the things around me, of course I didn’t! I WAS FROM 33 YEARS AGO! But… how was I even still a teenager if I was also one in 1972?!? In that moment, I could feel it more than I ever truly had since I punched that mirror. The madness… everything about my ‘self ’, I couldn’t deny it anymore, every aspect of my life had some inconsistency or contradiction that led back to… it. I… I couldn’t…

I dove back into the nothingness, and let it take over me. It was preferable, then, to the other option. My last few thoughts were about one year. ‘1972’

All of them quickly faded into primordial nothingness.

-End of Story 6-

“Bliss”

Next on, Order Knight Part II

-Story 7-