I'm Not Genesis
"Genesis?! What the hell are you talking about man?! Get that thing away from me!" I slapped the knife out of his weak grip and pushed him away. He looked agitated, but he couldn't do anything to me, not right now.
"Did Sky send you guys?! Is Sky on his way?!" Alex asked me next.
"He sent us, but we can't alert him because they took our radios," I clarified, watching Charlie slowly walk around me to catch a gaze at Asoh.
"Hey, I know what they did to you... they're our friends now. We don't have any enemies here, okay?" I told him. I couldn't tell what was wrong with Charlie right now, but it was like his senses were heightened and he was paranoid for whatever reason. I stepped between him and Asoh, and he immediately punched me in the face.
I absorbed the hit and grabbed onto his hands, flipping them behind his back and pinning him on the ground.
"I KILLED SHIKE! YOU CAN'T FOOL ME, GENESIS! I'LL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT!" Charlie screamed at me while I pushed his face into the ground.
"Alex, what the hell is this guy talking about?!" I shouted back at him. Alex couldn't tell either, but the man with brown hair and green eyes could.
"Genesis... if you were to ask me, I'd say he's the real challenge of this Tower. He knocked me unconscious and made Charlie fight a bunch of villagers that looked like... well, his friends. I even saw some in that pile that looked like you. Genesis hid under an alias to trick us and traumatized Charlie. He's under some sort of thought process that he killed all of his friends. It's psychotic..." He mumbled.
"Hey, you said he's under an alias? What was it... Clyde?" Asoh asked him. The man nodded with a surprised look.
"Clyde... that man was Genesis? Illya and Eirikr talked about that one... their brother. He's causing this much trouble here? Why here, of all places?" I asked out loud. As I asked, I triggered something in the mysterious man.
"Eirikr... oh shit... you guys are serious then. I haven't heard that name muttered out of anybody's mouth in so many years. What business do you have with him? He's not here, is he?" The green-eyed man asked.
"No. Who are you exactly?" I cut him off, and he finally introduced himself.
"The name is Orion. If you know Sky, then I assume you know who I am," Orion told me.
"You... why are you alive? I thought Sky killed you," I asked him again while still leaning against Charlie.
"He did. However, my soul was captured before I was erased," He admitted... and I believed him.
I should've died as well, but that's exactly what happened to me. Sky caught my soul before I left that Black Lake. I wonder if Orion ended up there as well...
"The same thing happened to me. So, just one more time, Charlie killed his friends, quote-unquote, and you met up with a nasty villain of Sky's past? We're quite the group then... what is this place?" I asked, looking around the dim room.
"A waiting room... we're set to be free in about eight days... so get comfy. There's no entertainment, but we can learn a lot about each other! I'm kidding of course, but I'm not sitting in silence forever," Orion said, sitting back down in the same spot he was in when we fell into the room.
"Danafall..." Boo muttered, pointing at the man named Orion.
His eyes were full of shock, and he even had a little tilt to his head.
"How did... where did you hear that name...?" Orion asked Boo.
In her distant mind space, Boo pointed upward toward the room we fell out of, and I began to explain for her.
"That girl with Genesis... Hikari... said two words, System Logout, and Boo hasn't been the same since. She died, and her appearance has slowly been changing to model something like Sky. She's been gaining some sense back slowly, but I guess the traumatic event of dying kind of stunted her mind a little... we saw a shrine up there with that name on it. Danafall, Eternia, Leyndell, Love, Asterio... all of those, plus a little more," I said, to which Orion nodded.
"That's my last name... I wasn't really sure what it meant, since nobody else had that last name, other than my daughter and son, but over time, I learned that it made me special. Hearing it again was... nostalgic," He said.
"So, we just wait here for eight days now?" Asoh interrupted Orion's talk, sitting on the couch about three seats away from him with her arms crossed and her legs put up.
"Hey, Shike, you said both Orion and your souls were 'captured'... what does that mean? That's like a metaphor, right? Can you really capture souls?" Chi asked me out of curiosity as Orion agreed with Asoh's previous statement.
"For me, I was decapitated. From that perspective, I watched my own head roll, and I just woke up somewhere else when my eyes closed. In a Black Lake, with no walls and an infinite sky. There, I even met Sky again. That's where he went after Illya took him, right after the fight with Providence. What about you, Orion?" I asked him.
"Same deal. I woke up after my death, but not in the Black Lake... that's not to say that I haven't been there though. The places align, but I was brought to Ultima Tower right after my death on The Isle. I guess the details don't matter, but I can approve of your story kid. So, we just spend eight days here until something happens," Orion said again.
I reluctantly sat down with the others, just watching the other door without a handle in the room.
Eight days? What a waste of time... I'll be looking of ways to get out in the mean time, but it really feels like we're stuck in here until those days are up.