Requiem for an Aberrant Chapter 26: Chapter 26- Tide of Flesh

Read chapter 26 of Requiem for an Aberrant by TheJestersGambit on NovelPedia.

At last, Cole and Ariana reached the end of the corridor. In front of them rose a staircase, narrow and spiralling upward like a double helix. Before ascending, he glanced over his shoulder, watching the corridor writhe with movement. The memory of Ariana’s doppelganger vanishing plagued Cole’s thoughts. He didn’t fully understand why they had disappeared, but knew it had occurred when Ariana had accepted her individual truth. As though the former deaths of her were no more. He clawed his fingers, ready to summon his Essentia but stopped. These creatures would only come back, as they always did. He could have vanished into his pocket dimension, escaped while Ariana led the chase, but that wasn’t a real solution. They climbed. The staircase opened into a glass bridge that spanned a chasm of sky above the silver sea. Beyond it, the remaining section of the tower rose with two people waiting at the end of the bridge. Aegis and Filoa. "Filoa!" Cole shouted. She turned, her eyes brightening. The corridor erupted. Doppelgangers poured out, grotesque and snarling. The bone-creature followed, its skeletal limbs grasping at air. "Use your Bloom!" Cole cried. “Use it!” Ariana didn’t hesitate anymore. Her Bloodcraft erupted uncontrolled, flooding her veins. Her speed doubled as she became a streak of pink-crimson light which bolted across the bridge. Cole followed, pushing his legs until they burned, falling behind. [Veilstep Increased: 1290 > 1310] Filoa, sensing the urgency, placed her hand on the bridge. The rot began to spread. Ariana made it. Cole didn’t. The glass cracked beneath him, shattering like ice. His breath vanished as the floor gave way, his stomach experiencing the brunt of the drop. Shouts echoed above him, but they were already distant. He twisted midair, managing to grab a window ledge. The glass entangled with rot cut into his palms and slid into his wound, a scream dying in his throat as doppelgangers fell after him, latching onto his leg. He kicked, but their grip was too strong. With one breath, Cole hopped through the window. ‘You’re joking? The rot got in?!' He collapsed into a solitude chamber of the tower as blood and rot leaked beneath him, running through to the end of the room and slamming the door shut behind him. The remaining doppelgangers and bone-creature barged from the other side repeatedly. Cole felt his mind slow. The Bloom's present hadn’t arrived yet. However, he knew exactly what would come. His skin on his back began to split, his wound slowly tearing open again. And from the depths of his being something crawled out. His body shivered, trying its best to keep the door closed behind him as his body crumpled on the floor of the corridor. Cole licked his lips, his breath shallow. "Just going to stand there—forget it... just answer this. How the hell are you inside the rot?" Exrase responded with his own questions. "Why do you fight? Was it not you who said you never asked to survive?" Cole chuckled bitterly, even as the door pushed harder against his spine. "You always deflect. You selfish, dumb idiot." To Cole's surprise a part of Exrase listened. "The rot," Exrase said. "It’s visualised memory, decayed and repurposed. I bloom from it." [Foreign Existence Synchronising] Blood trickled from Cole’s mouth. He coughed, but his eyes didn’t leave Exrase. The screams, the shrieks, and the cries, he heard them all. Yet, the only thing that mattered to him right now, surprisingly, was this conversation with Exrase. “You asked why I choose to survive?” Cole let out a short breath. “I don’t know the answer to that myself. Sometimes I think it’s out of hatred. And sometimes I think it’s out of love.” Exrase opened one of his many mouths but Cole beat him to it. “But since when did we need a reason to live?" Exrase expressions flickered, portraying smiles, frowns, and simple confusion. "What an insufferable answer." He vanished into smoke. Cole collapsed, his breath shaky. He hated the sense of connection. T