The fall was not into darkness, but into a blinding, agonizing white. A deafening shriek tore through Akira's ears, a sound that shredded her very soul because she knew, with a horrifying certainty, it was her own scream. She wasn't falling, she was burning.
Her lungs filled with smoke, thick and acrid, tasting of scorched wood and something sickly sweet, like melted sugar. The air was a furnace, searing her skin, and every breath was a gasp of pain. Her vision swam through waves of heat, distorted by the shimmering air. She was sprawled on a floor, splintered and unstable, the familiar scent of damp earth replaced by something alien: a cloying sweetness that mingled with the sharp tang of something metallic and hot.
She pushed herself up, choking, her hands instinctively clutching at her face. This was different. Horrifically different. The memories she'd seen before, she'd felt them, but they had still been distant, viewed through a veil. This was immediate. Visceral. Her own body convulsed, not from phantom pain, but from actual agony she was experiencing now.
Through the haze of heat and smoke, a scene began to solidify. She was in a room, perhaps a workshop or an alchemist's lab. Shelves of glowing vials shattered around her, their contents hissing and bubbling on the flaming wood. The air vibrated with destructive energy.
A figure lay twisted near a shattered workbench, oddly still amidst the chaos. A young woman, small and delicate, her usually vibrant red hair now a tangled mess, singed and dull. Her eyes were wide, fixed on Akira, filled with a disbelief so profound it eclipsed even the terror. A crimson stain bloomed rapidly across her simple, homespun tunic.
No. Not her. Not this.
The thought wasn't voiced, but it screamed in Akira's mind. A wave of sickening dread, far heavier than any she'd felt in the realm, slammed into her. This wasn't the burden of a stranger's regret; this was the crushing weight of her own. She felt the surge of adrenaline, not from fear, but from a desperate, agonizing impulse to undo what had been done.
She scrambled towards the fallen girl, her limbs clumsy, her breath ragged. "Lily! Lily, no!" The voice, hoarse and raw, tore from Akira's throat. It was her own voice, yet it sounded alien, choked with a terror she couldn't comprehend.
Lily. The name brought with it a torrent of fragmented flashes: shared laughter, whispered secrets under a starlit sky, the scent of wildflowers, a promise sealed with a worn, intricately carved wooden bird. The very same bird that had just triggered this memory.
The realization hit Akira like a physical blow, worse than any flame. She had been here. She had done this. Or, worse, she had let this happen.
"The greatest promise," the pervasive voice from the realm chuckled, resonating directly in Akira's skull, a chillingly calm counterpoint to the inferno around her. "The most beautiful lie. Broken, just like the bird. Just like Lily."
Akira collapsed beside Lily, reaching out a trembling hand. The girl's skin was cold, already fading. But her eyes, though glazed, still held that agonizing expression of disbelief, a silent question aimed directly at Akira. Why?
The flames roared, consuming the room, the heat intensifying to an unbearable degree. Akira felt a primal terror grip her, not of death, but of what she had done, of the horrific finality of Lily's fading gaze. The guilt was a physical thing, twisting in her gut, tasting like ash and iron. She wasn't just experiencing regret; she was drowning in it.
You abandoned her. You let her die.
The thought, undeniable and agonizing, wasn't from the voice. It was from the deepest, most corrupted part of Akira's own soul. She wanted to scream, to tear herself free, but she was trapped, held captive by her own unforgivable sin. The fire devoured everything, and the last thing Akira saw was Lily's face, etched forever with betrayal, before the inferno consumed them both.
With a violent gasp, Akira jolted upright, convulsing on the damp, silver ground of the Cursed Realm. She choked, clawing at her throat, the phantom smoke still burning her lungs. The metallic tang of fear was gone, replaced by the bitter, inescapable taste of profound self-loathing. Her body thrashed, fighting an invisible inferno, desperate to unsee Lily's face.
Eriol stood a few feet away, her silver hair shimmering, her emerald eyes fixed on Akira's contorted face. There was no pity, no comfort, only a grim, unwavering gaze.
The omnipresent voice purred, closer than ever, a chilling whisper against Akira's ear. "The truth you craved, Akira. More than just an echo, isn't it? This was yours."
Akira stared at Eriol, then back at the shifting, unyielding ground. The silence of the realm was now filled with the silent screams of Lily, forever etched in her mind. She finally knew a fragment of her truth, and it was indeed the cruelest echo of all. The weight of her past, the burden of a broken promise, had just begun to drag her down into the abyss.