The Erembour

She’d begged, she’d argued, and she’d threatened. She’d tried everything except holding her blade to Neomon’s throat and forcing him to use his Noctrya gifts. The option was becoming increasingly appealing as she continued to stare at the back of his head. Gritting her teeth and clenched her fists as she reminded herself they had to remain allies; they had come too far to turn on each other now. 

The dunes were becoming steeper, and as they climbed, Avea looked up and saw that they were no closer to reaching the Obscurous. "Neomon, enough ... we don't even know if we are going the right way", she heard herself say. Neomon halted in front of her, his shoulders tensed so she knew he was listening as his back remained facing her. “The crone said that your Noctrya gifts were the key to finding the Obscurous." She couldn't figure out why Neomon was resisting his Noctrya gifts when it was the only way to find the Obscurous. You must listen to the sands to hear the secrets of the stars; the crone's words were as clear as the moonstone hanging from her neck. Neomon turned, his onyx eyes burning with anger as he stared at Avea, who refused to take another step forward. She was angry now, the words flying out of her mouth before she could think better of them. "And instead we are walking aimlessly around this wasteland because you're too much of a coward to face your gifts", she was shouting now, her fists clenched so tightly that her nails were biting into her flesh.

"Coward."

 Neomon stared back at her for a long moment; his shadows seemed to darken, emanating off of him with their own seething rage. "A coward?” he spat, as though the word were a poision on his tongue. “You have no idea what it's like to grow up with these powers, to be told that they weren't a gift but a death sentence". The violet flare erupted in his eyes, and Avea gasped, taking a step back. Neomon lifted his lips into a cruel smirk. "See, you can pretend not to be scared, but you don't know real fear until you're forced to watch others with the same abilities hunted and exiled into this prison; that's if they didn't go mad first..." his shadows were spiralling around him, his eyes were engulfed by the violet flare.

 "But the crone said..."

 "I've seen it." It was the pain that cracked through his voice, that seemed to rack through his entire body, that made Avea breathe. "Which one?" Neomon's shadows banked slightly at the question. "What?" he asked. Avea gave a deep breath. "The crone mentioned that there were three Umbraki who went mad," she said.

 The councilman.

The guard.

The child.

She’d been blind not to have seen it. He'd known one of them, loved one of them. She recognised that kind of agonising rage that she could see burning in his eyes as he beheld the veil. It was the kind of wrath that didn't listen to reason, that only wanted to destroy everything in its wake ... including oneself. Neomon gave a shuddering breath, as though it might expel some of his anger. "It doesn't matter; they're gone, and this curse has brought me nothing but pain." He turned away from her, giving her the cold shoulder. 

“I don’t need the sands to tell me anything; my shadows will show us the way,” he hissed, his voice a low, lethal venom. His mask had cracked completely, revealing the true anger that had been secretly lurking inside him, like a deadly viper lying still and unmoving, finally baring its fangs. Avea knew something else all too well, hidden in the cold, narrow slits of his onyx eyes… fear. 

That’s all anger was a mask; for anger was far easier to face than one's grief. 

Shadows coiled around Neomon’s arms, and in a rageful scream he threw them out. Avea watched them shoot across the sands in many directions, like the needle points of a compass. “I don’t need the stars to navigate”, he snarled, storming ahead, his shadows like flames wicking off him in anger. They both knew it was a futile attempt; his shadows could only stretch so far. Not enough to cover an entire desert. Neomon, however, wouldn’t hear of it, following the swathes of shadow that aimlessly wafted over the sands like smoke without direction. 

Neomon closed his eyes, eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration as he listened to his shadows murmur. However, they were beyond the veil now, and Avea could see that, for whatever reason, Neomon’s shadows couldn’t guide them; he’d stop every couple of steps, twitching his head, straining for any hint of direction towards the Obscurous. He was only draining himself; the physical strain grew evident, his eyes glassy, a waxy sheen of sweat on his pale face, and his veins more pronounced as he struggled to control the shadow trails that had begun to wither. The strong arrows of shadow, straight and direct, were now limping over the craters and sunken sands, unable to hold themselves upright. Evaporating before their eyes until there was only one puny shadow trail left; Avea could feel Neomon’s desperation to cling to this skinny thread of a shadow as they followed its trail, which was rapidly weakening until it was eventually snuffed out like a candle's flame. A strangled noise came from Neomon’s throat as his pitiful wisps of shadow drifted into nothingness. 

“Neomon,” Avea said gently. 

“No, I can make another.” 

“You’re losing your strength; at this rate, we might as well lie down on the sand and let the veil devour the Umbratus moon!” 

Neomon whirled around, in a blind rage, throwing an arrow of shadow at her head. Avea ducked, letting the shadow graze her hair as she rolled into the sand. The aim was sluggish, and Neomon’s shallow panting was a clear sign that the veil was draining him. She needed to get him angry, to break through the haze of fear and denial that had poisoned his mind. “This is exactly what Morpheus wants. He relies on your fear to control you, and you’re letting him.” “You know nothing!” Neomon screeched; his eyes flared violet. Avea wasn’t backing down. “Why did he show you that hourglass, Neomon? Because he knew it would scare you, and it should. Every grain that rises is another bit of your moon taken.” 

“I’m warning you!” 

“What is your fear going to cost you?” 

The words echoed between them; a chasm might as well have separated them. Allies forced together for one bleak goal: to find the truth that would set them free. Neomon’s irises flickered; the haze was clearing from his mind. Avea stepped towards him; that’s when she felt the sands shift slightly beneath her feet. Barely perceptible to the eye, but they both caught it. Curious, she knelt closer, and the sand revealed one word.

Turn back.

They both stared down at the two words; the arrangement of letters made her stomach coil with a sickening, oily dread. Avea's heart pounded as the moonstone around her neck suddenly shone brightly; a searing light like a flare burst through the stone. "Neomon, look", she whispered. The sand shifted again ...

Run Nightshade.

“Who’s Nightshade?” Avea asked, but Neomon wasn’t looking at her; his eyes glistened with tears. “It can’t be,” he whispered. The words disappeared, and Neomon’s eyes flared with violet light, as bright as she’d ever seen before. He practically lunged toward the sands, his fingers lightly tracing where the words had been. As though the words were a precious memory he wanted to hold onto. He extended his hand out over the sands, and the grains of sand began to rise, swirling around them. Suddenly, his neck snapped back, eyes locked on the stars. The sands glowed a vibrant indigo, and Neomon’s eyes became pools of darkness reflecting the stars, despite the starless sky. He’d pierced through the veil and was speaking to the stars. 

Hope swelled in Avea's chest, until the ground shook beneath them and broke the trance. The sand erupted beneath them, throwing Neomon's body through the air. Breaking through the sand barrier, a pointed nozzle splayed open and unleashed a horrifying war cry, revealing rows upon rows of small, razor-sharp teeth. "What is that?" Avea screamed, “I thought they were a myth”. Neomon gasped, the whites of his eyes straining against the dark rims. The ground shook again, and another broke out in front of them. “Oh god”, Neomon breathed; he didn’t waste a second grabbing Avea’s hand and sprinting away, but there was nowhere to hide. The body of a colossal sand worm burst from the sands, sending a spray of sand toward them like a tidal wave. “Neomon?!” Avea shouted as they ran, feet pounding in tandem with her own heartbeat. 

The sand hit them hard, sending them flying, crashing against the ground. They turned on the ground, breathing heavily; Avea's gasps became strangled in her throat as they frantically crawled away from the beasts, keeping low to the ground. “They’re Erembour, sand worms that were a gift from the ancients to the Umbraki, proud, majestic creatures sworn to guard the Asterlayna,” Neomon spoke through ragged breaths, but there was a reverence in his words. All Avea could think was that there was nothing majestic about these creatures. “My father said that the Umbraki and the Erembour were one, as close as brothers, and then one day they vanished. Many believed that the Erembour sensed the veil and went to destroy it … but never returned.” “The only thing they are going to destroy is us,” Avea snapped. 

They were both thinking the same thing; they were surrounded.

"Your shadows led us into a worm nest?!" Neomon glared at her; however, he remained silent, conceding the argument. “These are nothing like what my father described”, he replied. “That’s what you're worried about?!” Avea screeched. The sand worms answered with a shrill scream, tearing from the ground, heeding the summoning cry. Sand sprayed them from every direction. “There’s something not right”, Neomon said, over the sound of blasting sand. The sand worm erupted, a slimy, fleshy body that tunnelled out of the ground. Its body was so pale and pellucid that you could see its strange, distorted skeleton, grotesque as its frame shifted. They resembled corpses, and all Avea could think, staring into their hollowed sockets, was that these creatures were not majestic. 

“Why? Because they’re not the same as the ones from your father's bedtime stories?” Avea stood up, unsheathing her daggers. “We need to get out of here.” They were surrounded; the only way out was through. Neomon managed to stand, drawing his double spear as shadows coiled around the middle hilt. “There’s a groove in their top vertebrae; it’s the only way to disarm them. The vertebrae are sensitive, but they have fast regenerative abilities, so we’ll have to be quick.” Avea’s moonstone shone brightly as she unsheathed her daggers, glinting with the promise of violence. 

"Neomon?" she turned, but he was already gone. Spear in hand racing towards a sand worm that roared, saliva spurting from between its many rows of teeth. His shadows circled him, hoisting him onto the worm's back; he didn’t hesitate, his double spear slicing through the worm's spine with lethal accuracy. Black blood sprayed from the worm's insides, and it let out a wail as its body swayed slowly in the air, then crashed down. The points of his spear dripped with the worm's thick black blood. Avea’s focus narrowed down into cold, exacting movements. The sand worms were slow enough to leap off their backs; beneath the sand, however, they were fast, breaking through the surface without warning. Her blades sliced through the necks of the sand worms, black blood spraying from their napes. The smell was putrid and made her retch; the worms had clear exoskeletons, making their top vertebrae visible. She could’ve sworn she felt her blades shudder, like they were repelled by the touch as she severed the vertebrae. Neomon was ahead; she could only see his spear twisting through the air, so in tune with it that he caught and threw it so seamlessly it barely touched his hand. It was a strange spear, erasing its shape as it spun through the air, drawing from nearby shadows before plunging into the sand worms' necks. 

Avea ran along the backs of the sand worms; her blades were an extension of herself, one and the same. Swift and agile, her blades sliced through the thin outer layer of the worms' exoskeletons, and the worms dropped to the sand with a deafening thud. They cleared a path, but there were too many, and the fallen worms didn’t stay down long. Twitching on the sand, the wounds slowly resealed themselves before rising like corpses, only more vicious. Standing atop the sand worm, Avea could see the entire sand-worm swarm. Neomon was right; something was unnatural about the way they moved—thrashing and erratic, almost as if they had no control over their own movements. Even as one of the sand worms dove beneath the sand, it was suddenly yanked back, charging toward Neomon; it was like puppets on strings being tugged in different directions. 

They’re being controlled. 

The moonstone around her neck glowed brightly. Avea clung tightly to the sandworm, finding the groove; she tore into the worm's spine, but this time she instinctively held up the moonstone, shining its searing light into the worm. Nestled in the sandworm's ribcage was a festering dark mist, writhing inside the cage of bone and shrinking and hissing away from the moonstone's light, which erupted, sensing the dark parasite, confining itself to its dark crevices. “There you are,” Avea hissed. She shoved the moonstone's light further into the fleshy wound, feeling her hand become slick with black blood. She heard the echo of screams in her ears, forcing the black mist to leak out of the wound. Almost slithering out, Avea couldn’t tell what the parasite was; it had no form nor shape, yet it was sentient. Clawing at the sandworm's contorted back, shrieking at the moonstone’s light, “Where did you come from?” Avea asked, unable to mask her disgust, holding up her daggers. The parasite convulsed, forming contorted limbs before snarling, out of the darkness … out of fear. The light of the moonstone collided with the echoes of screams that did not belong to the parasite, but were something of anguish. The parasite hissed at the burning moonlight, then evaporated. The moonstone’s light then dimmed; it had sensed the dark parasite within the creature. 

The sand worm transformed; the purple veins disappeared, and its midnight flesh became celestial silver, glowing faintly as though it answered only to the night sky. A calmness returned to its eyes, and the worm released a gentle hum. “Now why would someone put you guys here?” Avea asked. Unless … They were protecting something. The moonstone shone again.  The worm's eyes, once empty, now held awareness; it understood her words. 

The Obscurous. 

Avea’s eyes lit up, and the sand worm released another hum, finally cured of the parasite. “The Obscurous … you’re protecting the Obscurous!” The Erebrum reflected the moon's silver, its quiet power ancient and calm. These were the majestic beings that Neomon recalled from his father's tales. 

Suddenly they felt a great shaking beneath them. 

“Run while you can”, she whispered. The Erebrum released a distressed hum; it didn’t want to abandon its brothers and sisters. “Please”, Avea whispered, stroking its side. She leapt from the sand worm’s back before it dove back beneath the sands, clinging onto another

“Retreat,” Neomon screamed. The sands began to cave inward, and Avea felt the world tilt. “Whoa”, she clung to the ridge, a groove in the other worm's exoskeleton, dangling over the gaping hole in the ground. The moonstone began to glow, a searingly bright light, as though she’d captured the entire moon around her neck. As she stared down, rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth appeared, so wide she couldn’t see its edges. “We’ve woken up the mother”, Neomon screamed, also dangling precariously over the mother worm's monstrous mouth. 

“On the count of three, let go.”

“What? No!” Avea cried, shaking her head. 

“My shadows will catch you; you have to trust me.” 

" Trust you? Is that a joke?” 

Neomon’s eyes stared straight into hers, surprisingly unguarded. “No”, he said, and yet Avea felt herself nodding. She squeezed her eyes shut. 

“One,” the mother worm roared, spittle flying from her ferocious mouth. 

“Two,” the youngling sand worms roared, standing with their queen. 

“Three…”