Day's eyes opened to the utmost as his mind was overwhelmed with something that wasn't previously there…
Ceaselessly flowing knowledge.
A myriad of weathered stone buildings surrounded a narrow street where a middle aged man lay bleeding. There was a tenebrous creature looming over the man with an intense gaze in its dark, unfathomable eyes.. Its frame was imperceivable, but Day didn't need to know what it was to tell that it was powerful, to an almost unbelievable degree.
The scene stayed like this for a few moments, and then suddenly, the creature roared. The man laying below it started squirming, like he was in pain and trying to escape the thunderous noise.
Uncaring, the creature started to raise its arms into the air, and when the noise ceased– it lowered its arms at lightning speeds.
The world went dark when the boom of its fists slamming into the ground permeated the world with the sound of the man's screams.
When the material world reappeared in Day's view, the scene was different. The blood that had flowed from the man's shattered body was still there. The destruction caused by the creature's mighty fists was as well, but this time, Day's fixed gaze didn't land on that.
Instead, it focused on a building. It was different from the many others surrounding it in multiple striking ways. It was larger, and preserved, to an almost eerie degree– like it was purposefully left that way.
After Day finished taking in that sight, the scene cut once more. This time, it cut to a different view above the streets. There, someone Day couldn't see, but he knew to be the man from before, was walking on the same street with that anomaly of a building.
At the end of the street, sitting behind one of the many destroyed, stone homes, was the creature from before. It was feasting, and unfocused, but Day could tell…
That if the person walking got too close, then it would be over for him.
When Day came to that realization, time began to rewind. More, and more, and more, until Day started to understand that the new scene he was witnessing was in the same timeframe that he himself was. ***
"..."
With that, he came to a simple, and seemingly obvious, but infinitely terrifying and worrisome conclusion.
The events that transpired in that scene… They were going to happen soon. That man, whoever he was, was going to die soon.
He knew it. How he knew it, he didn't know…
Or perhaps he did?
Day took his arm off of his face and stared at the dark sky above, and then whispered under his breath:
"Doomed to Knowledge… "
"Then that means I have no choice but to go, doesn't it?"
Day groaned and slowly lifted himself off of the ground. He stood tall with his hands to his sides and his fists clenched. One of the sides of the wall he was on top of was covered in an endless sea seemingly vaster than even the Earth's oceans, and in the distance…
A tall, blood red tower that instilled fear into Day and permeated his being with the feeling that if he stared at it for too long… His mind would shatter.
Immediately after seeing it, Day immediately glanced away, a chill running up his spine.
When his lost gaze focused back ahead of him in the opposite direction, he took in the sight of the area ahead– which in Day's eyes, looked somewhat like a crater.
There was a dark city, with a plethora of half destroyed, tenebrous buildings; narrow streets, and something else.
A castle, far out in the distance. It was beautiful, like a shining star in the midst of the black of space. It was so drastically different from the rest of the area on the inside of the walls, that Day felt like it was calling to him.
But if he wanted to go to it… He had to survive.
'There's no guarantee that it's actually safe… Ugh- It doesn't matter. Anything is better than the ocean. Might as well check it out. '
He stepped close to the edge and took in the drop below. The walls really were terribly tall. It was incomprehensible that this was built, or created, by something that actually existed at one point in time.
'It's cool, but uh… How am I supposed to get down?'
Perhaps he could slowly climb down by using the same claws he had created moments before, but there was something telling him he shouldn't.
It was peculiar… He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that if he took his time, it would be too late for the man he saw in his vision. That, he couldn't have.
He promised to try his best to help people, and not only that, he had another motivator.
"If I fail, I lose my Aspect Ability."
He had gone through too much to lose his Aspect Ability so soon. All the pain, the failures, the thirst, the hunger, the sorrow, the fear…
He continued to study the wall and the lands with a certain burning intensity.
His eyes landed on the familiar place he saw in his vision. As his eyes ran over the streets, the buildings, and took in the size of in comparison to every other section of the dark city he could see… He knew it to be true.
"It's closer than I thought… I should have expected that. I have a vague understanding of how long I have, and it's not long at all…"
He focused his attention back on the wall once more, and quickly noticed something he hadn't moments before.
There was one, large plank sticking out, just close enough to the ground to where Day could simply let go and fall after.
"Was that built by somebody? What's it for? Maybe it's… I don't know, whatever."
He really was lucky, for there to be something like that right there… But maybe he wasn't at the same time, because it meant he actually had to make a choice, to jump, and reach his destination promptly… or to fail, and lose his Aspect Ability so he didn't need to suffer.
He made his choice quickly.
Maybe it was never a choice in the first place. From the moment he saw that plank, he was already formulating in his mind how he could jump and survive.
"My body's fortitude is unlike anything before… I'll… I'll cover my arm, and do it- I have to."
His body had been rebuilt, his mind the same.
From his endless suffering, and the suffering he would feel in the future… There would be only one necessary subsequent to all of it.
Bravery.
Day grimaced.
"I need to get down there fast, if I miss my chance, and the man who I saw dies… I'll lose everything. I cannot have that. The pain doesn't matter. All that matters… is that I do what has to be done."
Day's left arm overcame a profound change, and grew twofold under the warm cover of his soul's light.
He stared at the palm of his hand for a moment, took a deep breath, closed his eyes…
And then he jumped.
"..."
The howling wind battered his face and turned his hair into its plaything as he plummeted to the ground. He was fighting to keep his eyes open with all he had under the wind's tumultuous influence so he could keep his target in sight.
He didn't know if the spike was sturdy enough. He didn't know if his arm would be able to hold on after the fall.
What he did know, however, was that the fate if he couldn't save the man would be worse than death.
The guilt that the man's death would bring and the helplessness Day would feel after being stripped of his powers went hand and hand.
So Day fought not just for the man in his vision that he knew would befall a terrible fate, but also himself, and his own interests.
Wasn't that what he said to Audrey? That he wanted to try, even if he was unqualified. He ended up failing that time, so in the end, he was unqualified like he said he was, but…
That wouldn't be true forever, and this was the first step to trying to make such a reality come to fruition. This time, he would make sure that there wouldn't have to be only one person alive at the end.
Maybe that made him selfish, but Day didn't have the luxury to care anymore.
He had a goal, a conviction to do what had to be done, and the bravery to chase after what that was. So what else was there to do but try?
Failure couldn't and wouldn't slow him down. If the world wanted to stop him, it would need to do something just as if not more sinister than what the Devourer of Hope had done to his mind.
'Come on… Come on! Grab it!'
Day's arm of light shot to the side as his goal neared his speeding figure. Then, his body jerked to a complete stop as his arm wrapped around the plank jutting out of the wall.
"Ghhh!"
He groaned loudly in pain. He could feel his muscles tearing. His bones, fortified as they were, cracked under the impact of the dastardly drop.
But whoever had put this plank here had done some mighty fine work, and it held strong.
"It hurts…"
He panted heavily for a few moments as he adjusted to the pain that was enveloping his entire being in its raging flames. Then, he relaxed his infinitely tense body and allowed his arm to slide off.
He fell a couple dozen feet and hit the ground with a bang. Dust flew up all around him and obscured his figure completely.
When the dust settled, Day was alive.
His head was down, and his hair was covering his face. His left arm was bloody, broken and completely limp, destroyed by his own endeavors… but Day wasn't dejected.
He was laughing.
"Haha… I did it. I survived."
In the end, Day was still wrong.
Perhaps, there was one more thing of endless importance that came after the bravery that his suffering birthed.
Triumph.
It was foreign, but glorious.