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Jessaline Huayna Abetta was born on the peaks of Mount Esodo, far above the golden city of Etoria. He was not old enough to have seen what life was like on those bustling mountains full of hard-working people and their commotions. He was too young to know of their struggles, and too far from the beginning of this civilization to know that communication had long since been dead to his mother's crumbling villa. In that blissful unknowing place, he could feel a moment's peace. A moment's peace at being just young enough to not know the horrors that had occurred there simply twenty years before.
Little Abetta has only met one person in his entire life.
His own mother.
As of late however, Jesse hasn't seen much of her.
In his mother's sickness, Jesse did not visit, and did not appear by her side.
Why would he? Food would appear on the outside tables three times a day, as well as clothing and paper to draw on. The shower outside worked perfectly well, and the restroom never needed cleaning. His bed was always made, and he had never had to do anything but explore the villa over and over again.
His problems of loneliness came from his desire to see everything. Yet, in all his attempts to regard everything in sight, he had failed to regard anything of importance at all.
Jesse didn't mean to disregard the world he knew.
He was a quiet boy with a kind heart. An enthusiastic, fervent boy, but one who had no one to speak to, and one who seldom had a chance to look at himself. Without the image of himself in other's eyes, Jesse found it hard to maintain a static ego, and so, he practiced a joke of sorts his entire life without a single soul to tell it to. A joke about himself, and his mother, the only two subjects to ever exist under his eyes. A comedian he was, without an audience to hear.
Jesse's entire life, he had been a boy who had not the foggiest idea of who he was. He did not know how human reactions worked, nor how perception and society made such nonsense into sense. He had so many dreams of who he wanted to be, but all he could do was look up at the grace and wonders of the world in hopes of being an artist and abandon the responsibilities of who he was before.
In pursuit of that dream, he took no heed of the world around him.
He didn't take care of his mother while she was sick.
He took care of no one, not even himself.
He gave all of himself in hopes for a better future. A future of ignorance and forgetful shames.
But, today was a new chance. Today was Jesse's first day in another world. His dreaming work would pay off in the lands of his fulfilled sleep.
A world full of people, and sound.
A world of reactions.
There is a gust of air, icy and sharp, an honor's knife-edge sweeping that kites along the floor behind and before the body of Jesse, setting the twin firelights flickering, casting the room into fractured shadows.
Stiffened with fear, his breath lodges itself somewhere in his throat.
There is a loud slam. Behind it, a shiver, and then, nothing. The silence that follows is always worse to him. It's the silence of waiting, of a space holding its breath, listening in an air reminiscent of fungus growing on mossy walls. The silence that clutches your jaw and keeps your head close, your mouth shut, and your eyes down. A silence that clamors its final, earthy calling when the crunch of boots begin.
The steel-toes are unnecessarily brutish in their precision, each impact of step spaced out with a merciless regularity. Each boot delivers the next heartbeat of the palm-mute dereliction. Rhythm. A pattern in their sounds. The storm advances with inexorable certainty. There's a word of fabric, something thick and heavy, the reverberations of velvet and wool dragging against the floor. A soft, metallic scrape along the ground, something sharp tested against the grain of. . . something else over there. The noise prickles. Then a brief, discordant jangle as chains strike the wall, breaking the measures of their dear tempo.
A high-pitched keen, grating and edge, a slow rip on the floorboards.
Every nerve in his body thinks it's wise to run, but Jesse knows there's nowhere to go. There's not enough space for him to get up and sprint in time. He is lying still on the floor in front of the cabin entrance. He would rather be in here than out there with the beast.
'God will be the only witness to my grisly end,' he thinks.
'The presence, step by step that approaches, is not the beast. But, it doesn't matter what it is, if I stand no chance to beat it.'
Jesse knows that much.
'In the end, I'll decide on nothing. There's no reason to try so hard anymore.'
He lays there, head locked in place, unable to tear his gaze from the floorboards.
Something will happen, and he won't be forced to make a choice. Life will end, and death will change him in ways he won't be forced to bear the brunt of responsibility for.
His eyes cannot afford to fight their curiosities. His gaze raises slightly to find the boots.
They're massive, crafted with such heft they could have been hewn from stone, each step bringing them closer into the dim firelights.
The creature kneels before him.
A blade slides beneath his chin and raises his head to look up.
In Jesse's reflection, there is the visage of a curious woman. Shrouded in fabrics that shift with her movements, a deep crimson cloak lined with thick, plush fur in a shade so vivid it almost glows in the gloom. The fabric flows around her like blood frozen mid-spill, the folds and creases rich with a life of their own, an opulence that feels bygone and terrible.
Her shoulders are broad, swathed in blood-red fur that catches the light, spilling over her form in a cascade of thick, luxurious texture.
Beneath Jesse's chin is an axe. She holds it without issue in a single hand. It snarls as an object of pure, refined malice. The spectral red that lines its blade spreads sparks into the room, irritating his skin. It pulses with a life of its own, held just barely at bay by her grip, that chained beast held in check only by her will. Under her fur coat, there's a plate of softened thick armor. Lesser than steel, more like leather. A tapestry of cloth rather, the designs embroidered across the fabric exquisite, intricately rendered lions. . . no, xiezhi, and serpents that twist and curl over her form, their shapes woven with such care they seem ready to slither off the fabric. The snakes wind across her chest and down her clothed arms, scales dull in the candlelight, catching fire that makes them appear less-than-alive.
But it's her face that steals the breath from Jesse's lungs.
She looks sculpted. A war goddess forged from porcelain, her skin pale and flawless, each feature aged and chillingly beautiful. Her frame is masculine, motherly almost. One eye is closed, a darkened lid, but her other eye is a molten orange-red, a smoldering ember that cuts through the darkness and locks onto Jesse with an intensity that roots him in place. Her gaze is cold, the eye itself burningly alive. She's a stoic face, but for a fraction of a second her eyebrow lifts, the faintest trace of surprise passing over her, barely there and gone in an instant.
The air grows thick with her pressure, a heavy weight that makes it hard to draw a full breath. She is a living monolith. An embodiment of herwar bound in that fur of crimson and sketchings of shadow, that somewhat-lidded apocalyptic gaze that sees everything.
Jesse's mouth is dry. His body frail and unsteady. Jesse refuses to move, a hollow, helpless terror rooting him to the spot. There is nothing to do but wait. She studies him with an indifferent eye, gleaming with that magma glow. The other she refuses to open. Her gaze peels back the surface, scraping down to marrow and intention, lingering on his skin and shoulders. Jesse wants to look away, to retreat from the scrutiny of that cold curiosity, but he's pinned under the force of her stare like an insect under glass.
And then, without warning, she breaks the moment.
She lowers and turns away from Jesse with a fluid, dismissive grace, her voice cutting through the silence with a low and commanding growl.
???:「Follow.」
Instantly, he finds himself obeying, struggling to his feet, steps hesitant but inescapable, trailing her as she walks to the edge of the room with an almost militant poise. This statement is not a request. The words form an unbreakable thread, tugging Jesse forward before his feet even register the movement.
Without a word, the woman pauses. She raises the axe, gives it a good brush down the side, and slots it back into its place on the wall, chaining it in spot.
Jesse hasn't yet noticed the great black opening in front of them, and before he does, the wall begins to slide shut in front of the two, swallowing the gap and leaving them cloaked in a thicker brown darkness rather than the clasp of the black lights.
A quiet click echoes, final and chilling.
'I'm trapped here with her.'
The woman clicks a switch out of sight with a routine curl of the wrist. The wall opens once again, revealing a new path. A staircase stretches beyond, a winding descent of warmly lit wood, inviting yet unnervingly serene, a lullaby of sorts with wood rather than tongue.
Jesse hesitates. I don't think he's sure why.
But, she stands there waiting, framed in that soft, amber glow, her gaze just as steady, beckoning him onward into something he doesn't yet understand.
She descends the steps, each footfall reverberating through the walls, filling the silence with a slow, measured rhythm that burrows into Jesse's bones.
'I follow because I can,' he affirms to himself. Pulled in her wake as though bound by threads he cannot see, drawn like a lamb to its shepherd. Each step he takes feels like a descent into something sweet, and just a little more hollow. Jesse feels fulfilled in these hollow steps.
The stairs creak softly beneath him, and the light moves, cold but deep, casting shadows that dance along the walls. The air thickens as they descend, the wooden banister smooth beneath his fingers, polished by years of use, the grain worn to a glossy sheen. And all the while, that same sickly warmth envelops them, thick and honeyed, cloying and laced.
The light shifts as they reach the bottom, softening into a warm, sepia glow, flickering with the residue of. . . something that was there before, but is not there any longer.
The room opens up before them, sprawling and worn, like a painting done over and over again by the same dead artist's hand. It's a place built for living, yet no life stirs here. Instead, the objects seem to mourn for the absence of those who once inhabited them.
In the far corner, a tired couch sits slouched, its cushions sagging with the weight of countless bodies, the fabric worn to threads in places, bleached and faded by time. It's a derelict couch. I don't think you want to touch that, Jesse. There's rips and tears and all sorts of stains that nobody could name.
Beside it, two armchairs stand vigil, their colors dulled, flanking a low coffee table scattered with the faintest rings of ghostly stains from cups long gone. To the right, a dining table sits in perfect stillness, set with three chairs. Two adult seats, backs straight and solemn, and a third smaller chair perched at the end. Jesse- don't even think about taking a seat right now!
The walls around the table are decorated with portraits, each frame empty, staring back with blank faces. A strange. . . unwelcoming aura resonates from these frames.
At the far end of the room, Jesse notices a statue.
'She's rather pretty.'
A figure carved in warm marble and polished wood, bathed in a glow that seems to emanate from inside of her. The face is turned slightly away, so that only the left side is visible, the right cast into shadow so thick it seems almost on-purpose. Her visible eye gleams with a strange, otherworldly light, a gaze both tender and terrible, as if she sees through time, through all the sorrow and silence that weigh upon this room. Her lips are sculpted in a soft line, unreadable, a mouth that could be smiling, or mourning, or both. Her hand is extended forward, fingers just barely reaching into the room, caught in the gesture of a blessing or a warning. Beneath her, carved into the wood with reverent strokes, barely legible, are the words:
'The Moonlight Goddess blesses this home.'
But there is no blessing here. The goddess herself looks lost. Colder. A little more miserable for what has been left to rot here.
There's two doors that flank the room. One on the left. One on the right.
The left one is marked with a crude, childish scrawl: a single "M" etched with clumsy lines, the ink smudged as if drawn by a hand still learning what a crayon might be on what seems to be a paper frame. The other door is bare, unmarked save for a small light affixed just above, flickering softly. The light gives off the glow of a hearth long abandoned, its fire feeding only on the ashes of what once was. On closer inspection, there's a handprint, small and delicate, pressed around the light, the faint traces of a child's fingers stamped upon the surface like the ghost of laughter left behind. These feel like memories. I can taste their breakfast. It is bittersweet.
The woman doesn't seem to mind the dimness. She pauses, her gaze sliding to the statue, her eye narrowing with an intensity that seems to measure the goddess's worth, or perhaps mock her. Then, she glances back at Jesse, her expression a mask of something both inviting and indifferent, as if testing him, waiting to see if he will follow her a little further. The silence between the two is thick, suffocating, the walls themselves leaning in to listen, hungry to witness the next steps.
The military woman's red hair bounces down her shoulder in paths where she adjusts it; voice just as honeyed and unhurried, weighted with an authority that seems to settle on a layer of the air. She speaks only when her gaze holds Jesse's, impassive, assessing.
???:「Your room's on the left.」
Her hand gestures toward the door marked with the child's scrawl of an "M," as though this is all a matter of fact, as though Jesse belongs here, and is expected to live here without argument. He opens his mouth, trying to speak, but the words stumble over themselves, tumbling out in a strangled, awkward jumble.
"Um, thank you. . ." he manages, the sound barely resembling gratitude, more like something caught between confusion and exhaustion.
But she doesn't seem to care. She was watching for a moment, an inscrutable look in her eye that Jesse doesn't dare question. The silence is endless. It's a few days of waiting before he finally walks toward the door she pointed to, unable to shake the feeling that it's already been his home for a long time.
Jesse steps inside, and the room greets him with a warmth that nearly steals the breath from his chest.
Jessaline's new home is a small space, intimate, washed in a color that sits somewhere between dusky rose and twilight brown, the trims wrapped in a strange, comforting hue of mahogony. thatd lines the legs and base, grounding the room in a solid, steady way. Beneath his feet, the carpet is soft, a riot of color woven into shapes of unshapen puzzle pieces, vibrant yet faded, a child's vision softened by time.
The bed is tucked against the far wall, mattress unobservable beneath the piles and piles of blankets. The top comfort, a patchwork of little pirate ships sailing over teal-blue waves. Stuffed animals scattered across the pillows await him with mixed emotions- a parade of cats with sewn-on smiles, dragons with wings just beginning to fray, a frog with wide, curious eyes. All of them looking up as though they've been left here just for him. In the slightly-more distant corner, nestled near the door, is a plush husky, larger than the rest.
Jesse reaches out, patting its head almost without thinking, and it lets out a soft "boof," a sound that fills the room with an odd, disarming comfort. He presses its head again, and it gives the same low "boof" once more.
He steps back, distrusting eyes sweeping over the rest of the room, and the strange feeling of familiarity gnaws at him again. A television sits on a small stand by the wall, an old green box beneath it, the controllers tangled together, the buttons worn smooth. Games are stacked in a haphazard pile, cases scuffed, titles barely legible, their spines faded by the hands that once held them. Nearby, a small bedside lamp casts a gentle glow, the base adorned with tiny painted cats in all manner of poses. Drawings are pinned on the wall: rocket ships soaring through star-dotted skies, pirates with swords raised, cartoonish cats with playful, lopsided grins. There's something raw about them. A day pressed into each line, each stroke of crayon and marker.
Sitting on the wenge dresser is another frame, empty. A receptacle, still waiting to be filled.
Jesse glances to the light switch, flipping it off and on again, though the lamp was already lit when he arrived. A small thing, as though it's been left on expectantly.
He pulls open the dresser, and find rows upon rows of clothes: shirts, pants, soft sweaters folded neatly, waiting for their owner to return. The tops are soft and welcoming, the bottoms, choices he might have made himself if given the chance. He sifts through them, feeling the weight of each. There's memory. Comfort stitched into the seams.
Underneath these comforting finds, there are some unfamiliar ones, choices Jesse would most likely not make. Striking black tops with spikes, steel skirts, and exotic tops. He doesn't take mind of these items.
Jesse can't shake the feeling that the warmth and comfort is a trap. Like some sort of perfect replica of a place that could have been his, but isn't. There is genuine warmth here, a comfort that wraps around him, yet beneath it all lies something else. An emptiness. An echo where the space calls, a glass that has been waiting far too long for someone to fill it. The silence presses in again, thick and unyielding. It feels almost like a question, a lingering uncertainty, but what it asks, I cannot yet say.
A distant door clicks shut from beyond the wall. It seems the woman, our host, went to her room too. I don't suppose there's going to be any more conversation tonight.
'I am. . . rather tired, after all.'
There's a cocooned feeling to it all. A heat both kind and cruel, familiar and indifferent. Humid, even. Jesse takes a slow breath, letting the quiet settle into him.
His gaze drifts across each object again. Blends of wonder and weariness.
'I want a life here,' he realizes. Luckily for him, there is a life here waiting to be lived, or one that was already lived. The edges blur, overlapping like an old memory caught in a net.
From the entrance and to the right, is another door, likely leading to a bathroom. Jesse has yet to explore this place, and so turns to push open this small door.
As expected, the bathroom greets him with an unexpected brightness. The light here is clean, soft, illuminating every corner in a pristine glow that catches onto the polished ceramic of the sink, the gleaming chrome of the faucet, the faint shimmer of the tiles.
There's an almost sacred sensation to it. The kind of place where time has no room to creep in.
A rubber duck holds a toothbrush. A simple thing, pale green, the bristles untouched, stiff with newness. Next to it, a small tube of toothpaste, its cap screwed tightly shut, (also accompanied by a rubber duck to help squeeze out the contents). and beside that, a bottle of purple mouthwash, all waiting as if they knew he'd come. Luckily, the mouthwash container does not seem to be duck-themed, only a plastic container.
A little shelf above the midpoint holds other essentials: a bar of soap wrapped in thin, crinkling paper, a comb, a container of vitamins that promise to keep you healthy with a smiling caveman on the front. All things so normal, so personal, yet the sight of them feels like a society laid bare, a glimpse into a life he doesn't really recognize.
The shower curtain catches his eye. Another print of pirates, their tiny ships bobbing over cartoon waves, their eye patches and striped shirts drawn in friendly lines. It's the kind of detail that would belong in a room meant for someone else, someone younger, someone untouched by the quiet, creeping dread that settles in his chest. It feels like a place Jesse might have once loved, a place that echoes with a faint laughter he can almost remember, though again.
'It was never mine. I don't belong here.'
'I'm. . . an adult, aren't I? Too old for any of this.'
When Jesse turn to the mirror, the face staring back at him feels both familiar and foreign, caught somewhere between the then and now.
'My skin is deep and dark, like hers.'
'I see the shape of her face there, the same lines and contours that I can recall from dim memories, the edges softened by time. But there's something else, a faint tug of unfamiliarity beneath the surface, a hint of someone else who isn't here but has left their mark on me.'
He leans closer, studying the eyes looking back, dark and tired, as if they've seen more than they've known to see.
His features are young, painfully so.
''A child, or an adult maybe, though it's been years since I stopped counting.'
Jesse remembers seeing one of the gravestones back in the village marked with a, something twenty-three etched into the stone.
He remembers borrowing that age like a coat, something not quite his, but still comforting enough to keep the cold of not knowing away. But, when he look at this face, it doesn't feel right. It feels suspended, paused in a moment that never ended, a life that never quite grew past its starting point.
He straightens, looking at himself in the mirror, feeling the weight of that reflection. It's a face caught in the past, a boy's face, a man's, something that doesn't belong to anyone at all, not to any label nor to any definition. The skin beneath his eyes darkens, the line of his jaw soft and unformed, a reminder that he's grown up in a strange place, stolen time from other lives, borrowed birthdays that never felt like his own.
'When was my last birthday? Fall. Sometime in fall.'
Jesse falls victim to a soft ache that flutters and settles in his chest, a bittersweet longing for something he can't name. He reaches for the toothbrush, the smooth plastic room-temperature in his hand, and there's something soft and gentle in the small, routine act of it. He places it down, watching it rest against the sink, waiting.
'I almost forgot to give it back to the rubber duck,' he laments, but Jesse quickly arms his teeth-cleaning soldier again.
Jessaline takes a moment to himself, gazing upon the minute details of the room.
There's a laundry basket by the sink. Jesse wonders to himself when he last changed. The basket of note, is an ordinary thing. Wicker, lined with a thin, striped cloth that falls over the edges in a way that feels deliberate, all too neat. Jesse find himself reaching for it, lifting the edge of the cloth, a strange thrill crawling up his spine. Inside is a dark sweater, worn at the cuffs, with the faintest smell of something he thinks he remembers. Something like cedar.
For a moment, he remembers sitting under the shades of a tree living in a quiet corner, a scent clinging to the fabric holding onto the last remnants of warmth. His fingers press into it, feeling the worn weave of the fabric beneath his tired skin, the faint ghost of whoever owned it nuzzling against his touch. His mother owned a sweater like this.
He releases the cloth, letting it fall back into the hamper and returns his eyes to the small shelf above the sink. It's not as neat as the rest of the place. It's cluttered in comparison to the empty minimalism of the rest. Behind the essentials, there's more bottles, an assortment of chewy-looking pills in colorful containers lined up in uneven divisions as if in some ritual of care. Jesse reaches out, standing on his tiptoes and picking up one of the bottles, fingers curling around the cool plastic. You can almost feel the echo of habit here, the motions of someone who cared enough to place each item back, but not clean enough to be perfect. Imperfect, but rigidly disciplined. He sets it down, and steps back.
Every single part of this place feels comforting. Nothing is by accident. And yet.
'What instinct should I name this that gives this feeling that beneath all of this, that gives me this gnawing unease? Shouldn't I trust my God? Where in me do I produce such a sense that, by accepting this place, I'm giving myself over to something beyond me, something that has shaped itself around my life, my memories, waiting for me to become the person it expects me to be?
He lingers in the quiet a minute longer. Slowly, Jesse reaches for the toothbrush again. The tap releases a thin stream of water, cold and sharp against his hand. For a moment, he lets it run, watching as the droplets scatter across the porcelain sink. He brushes his teeth. The mint is crisp, almost too cold against the gums. He spits, watching the water swirl down the drain, and then run his hands under the faucet, splashing the coolness over his face, letting it chase away the last traces of fatigue from that heavy skin.
Jesse turns off the bathroom light, letting the darkness settle around him, softened only by the faint spill of light from the bedroom. It's quiet, so perfectly quiet, and the silence presses against him like a thin sheet, a bit suffocating in its warmth
This room is quiet and pristine, a royal waiting for years and years, an incessant hold of the breath.
'It was meant for me to step inside, to touch these small pieces of life that seem ready to pull me back into a world I was never a part of. I wonder if this is God's doing.'
The room pulsates, a life that hums beneath the stillness, and as Jesse lingers, each small detail tugs at him, fingers brushing his mind, pulling at sands he can't quite grasp
He makes his way to the dresser, pulling open the drawer and sifting through the clothes. He changes into a pair of pajamas, soft fabric, loose and warm against his skin. Feels like they just got done drying. The texture feels heavenly. He pulls the top over his shoulders, the fabric settling into place and slips him into the comfort it offers. He tosses the old clothes in the hamper, and shuts the bathroom door.
He flicks the bedroom light off and the room falls into a light dimness. But, in the corner near the floor, a nightlight glows– a small beacon in the shadows, its light spilling in gentle, golden tendrils across the carpet. He pauses, watching it for a moment, then decides to let it stay.
'I'll allow one quiet presence keeping vigil over the darkness.'
Make that two. He crosses to the bed, easing himself down onto the mattress, feeling the way it conforms to his shape. I'm sure it remembers the weight of other bodies but has forgotten their names. The pirate-ship blanket pulls up easily, the fabric brushing against his skin with the same softness he remembers from childhood.
Though, I can't quite say whose childhood it was.
'Hey,' he thinks. 'Wait a minute.'
'Have I been. . . isekai'd?'
This is a dangerous thought for Jessaline.
He laughs to himself, eyes staring up at the ceiling.
'Ah! So that's how it is!'
'Ha. . . hahah! I died! This is my new life! I've been reborn!'
He curls beneath the covers, letting the weight of the blanket settle over him, burdened and heavy, holding him in a cradle he didn't know he was craving. His eyes grow heavy, the room slips further into a soft blur, and the ceiling fades to darkness as sleep begins to pull at him, gentle and insistent. And in the quiet of this strange room, beneath the pale light that watches over him, he lets himself drift, sinking into a sleep he didn't know he needed, letting go as the world around him dissolves into shadows.
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