Inevitable Ascension

Chapter 8 - The Twisted Ideals of Scorched Minds

Total darkness turned to searing light as the girls smashed into solid ground, only to be swept away by the mass of lake water continuing to gush from above. The pain of Violina's still-mending wounds reignited as the liquid avalanche sent her colliding into rocks and debris.

Burning red skies greeted her when her head finally broke the surface of the flood. She gasped for air, but her lungs were met with choking smoke. Coughing hard, she stared upward at the giant funnel of water pouring straight out of thin air.

"Get away from the portal!" shouted Lux from the distance. "Make it close!"

Violina stopped resisting the current and it carried her away. Once she was sufficiently distant, the portal disappeared and the water began to settle.

Climbing to her feet, Violina's throat and lungs felt like they were being strangled. What was this place? Aside from the lake they had just created, she found herself surrounded by a desolate land. The dead earth glowed crimson, and the only sign of life was the occasional torched stump. Something far beyond fire must have done this.

"Lux! Are you alright?!"

Lux was choking on the toxic air. "If you define being on the brink of death as alright!" She ripped off the sleeve of her coat.

"What are you doing?" coughed Violina.

Lux fashioned it into a bandana and tied it around her face, covering her mouth and nose. "Here," she said, tearing off her other sleeve and offering it to Violina.

As Violina tied the thin black cloth around her face, she found it was slightly more tolerable to breathe. "Good thinking. See? This is why I let you come along."

Standing waist-deep in the water, the girls stared across the hellish landscape.

Lux put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "Nice. We've escaped the pit and can live out the rest of our lives in this eye-burning paradise."

Violina pressed on with trying to figure out a plan. "Where do you think we are, anyway?" She looked up at the sky. Only one sun blazed through the radiated clouds. "We must've gone even farther back in time. The Second Sun still hasn't arrived."

"Let's climb something," suggested Lux. "Maybe we can find some sort of civilization."

They began a short trek up a nearby bluff, the toxic winds gnawing unceasingly on Violina's wounds. Yet despite the landscape being a total wasteland, there was an element of allure to it. The sun blasted through the smoke in brilliant, fiery rays of scarlet light. In one direction was an ocean—the Western Sea no doubt. Its waves resembled blood as it reflected the sky. In another direction Violina could make out mountains in the distance; perhaps the ones that surrounded Eden?

Violina weighed her options. "Well, if we want to survive this, I'd say our best bet is to make our way toward the canyon leading to where Eden should be, but it's probably a day's travel away."

"A whole day? That's it! We're toast. In fact, we'll literally be toast within a few hours." Despite their dire circumstances, Lux somehow still found the means to make puns. "In all seriousness though, there's no way—"

"What other option do we have?" Violina interrupted. "Find a way to get back into the portal floating thirty feet up in mid-air and have another tumult of water crush us? Live out our last days in the pit?"

At these words, Lux looked empty. "You're right," she conceded. "We'd better go while we still can."

Of course, Violina wanted to tell Lux not to worry and that everything would be alright, but there was no room in their plight for hollow words of comfort. They had to push themselves, whether to death or life.