The Hands of the Abyss

"Sit," Heise commanded, gesturing to a high-backed chair carved with intricate runes. The chair buzzed as if it were alive, waiting for Ru to take its place.

"If this goes wrong, I'm holding you responsible," Ru muttered. He hesitated, but he sat down nonetheless. His fingers gripped the chair arms tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"Are you ready?" Heise asked. "

"Ready," Kaero replied, leaning comfortably against a nearby table. He was on the hunt for entertainment.

"Like he said," Ru said, swallowing hard. "Just do it."

"As you wish," Heise said, and gave two soft applauses. "This is for your safety," he said. At that moment, the chair responded to the applause. Its straps moved and tightened around Ru's wrists and ankles.

"I hope you don't stuff that cheap lollipop in my mouth," Ru said with irony.

"Your memory is good," Heise said, smiling. And he slowly raised his hand.

The air around them was trembling at that moment, as if the fabric of reality were bending to his will.

"This won't hurt," he said, but his tone was far from reassuring.

"Comforting," Ru replied dryly, his voice laced with sarcasm. But before he could say any more, Heise's hands began to glow with a soft light.

There was some movement on Heise's lips as Kaero and Ru's eyes locked on the light. The light grew brighter with Heise's silent magic. It turned into a spinning sphere that was resting right on his palm.

Kaero's pupils became large.

He wanted to hunt the sphere of light. While his hips were swaying involuntarily, he was holding his tail with his hand and trying to stop himself in this way.

Ru's breath caught as the sphere vibrated.

"Close your eyes," Heise instructed, his voice low and steady.

Ru hesitated, then complied, his long lashes brushing against his cheeks. The moment his eyes shut, Heise's hands moved forward, the orb of light hovering just inches from Ru's face. The air grew warmer, and Ru could feel the magic brushing against his skin like a gentle breeze.

Heise's fingers twitched, and the orb began to unravel, tendrils of light snaking out and wrapping around Ru's head. The tendrils spiraled inward, focusing on his left eye. Ru's breath quickened, his chest rising and falling rapidly as the magic seeped into him. He could feel it—cold and sharp, like a shard of ice pressing against his mind.

"Stay still," Heise murmured, his voice barely audible over the hum of magic. His brow furrowed in concentration as he guided the tendrils deeper, searching for the source of the sigil's power.

Ru's hands clenched tighter on the arms of the chair. "It's... cold," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I can feel it. It's like... something's stuck in my eye."

"It is," Heise replied, his tone clipped. "A fragment of the genie's power. A crystal, perhaps. It's what binds you to the sultan."

Ru's jaw tightened, but he didn't respond. The cold was spreading now, creeping through his veins like frost. He could feel the crystal—sharp and unyielding—lodged deep within his eye. It pulsed faintly, as if alive, and with each pulse, a wave of dizziness washed over him.

Heise's hands moved again, and the tendrils of light tightened their grip. "I'm going to extract it," he said. "This might... sting."

Before Ru could protest, Heise's fingers flicked upward, and the tendrils yanked. Ru gasped, his body jerking violently as a searing pain shot through his eye. He clenched his teeth, a strangled cry escaping his lips as the crystal began to shift. The pain was unbearable, like a knife being twisted in his skull.

"Almost there," Heise muttered, his voice strained. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he focused, his hands trembling slightly. The tendrils of light glowed brighter, their golden hue shifting to a blinding white.

Ru's vision blurred, tears streaming down his cheeks as the crystal inched closer to the surface. He could see it now, even through his closed eyelids—a shard of light, sharp and jagged, emerging from the depths of his eye. The pain intensified, and he let out a choked sob, his body convulsing in the chair.

"Hold on," Heise urged, his voice tight with urgency. "Just a little longer."

With a final, forceful tug, Ru screamed, his body arching as the shard erupted from his eye in a burst of light. The pain was blinding, a searing white heat that consumed him for a moment before everything went dark. He collapsed into the chair, his body limp and unresponsive.

The world around him blurred, as if he were submerged in water. Shapes and colors melted together, indistinct and out of focus. A heavy, suffocating blackness pressed in on him, muffling his senses. His ears rang with a high-pitched buzz, drowning out all other sounds. He could barely make out the voices around him, distant and distorted, as if they were speaking through a thick wall.

"Ru!" Heise's voice cut through the haze, sharp and urgent, but it sounded far away, like an echo in a cavern.

"Are you alright?" Another voice, softer but no less concerned—Kaero, perhaps. Ru couldn't be certain.

"Are you still there?" The words were faint, almost swallowed by the relentless buzzing in his ears.

Ru tried to respond, to reassure them, but his tongue felt heavy, his throat dry. The voices grew quieter, fading into a dull, crackling static that filled his head. He felt as if he were sinking, the ground beneath him giving way to an endless void.

Then, suddenly, the void shifted. It was as if a black hole had opened beneath him, its pull relentless and unforgiving. He was dragged downward, tumbling through darkness, his body weightless yet heavy with dread. The fall seemed to last forever, a chaotic swirl of sensations—cold, heat, pressure, and then, finally, impact.

He hit the ground hard, the force knocking the breath from his lungs. Pain shot through his limbs, sharp and immediate, jolting him back to awareness. Groaning, he forced his eyes open, blinking against the dim light. Above him, two bright stars shone, their silvery glow piercing the darkness like twin beacons.

Ru lay there, his mind struggling to piece together what had happened. The ground beneath him was smooth and cold, its surface unyielding yet strangely comforting. He glanced around, his vision still hazy, the world around him a blur of shadows and faint light. The silence was profound, broken only by the sound of his breathing.

'Wherever you go, there you are,' a voice whispered in his mind, soft and resonant. It wasn't Heise's voice, nor Kaero's. It was something deeper, older, as if the very air around him had spoken. The words lingered, their meaning elusive yet strangely comforting.

Ru frowned as he tried to make sense of the voice. He felt a strange sense of clarity, as if the words had cut through the fog in his mind. He was here, wherever "here" was. And he was alive.

He looked up at the stars above, their silvery light steady and unchanging. They seemed closer now, their light brighter, almost beckoning him. He felt a strange pull, a connection to them that he couldn't explain.

"What do you mean?" Ru whispered, his voice barely audible in the vast emptiness. "What do you want from me?"

The answer came not in words but in a sudden, high-intensity tremor that shook the ground beneath him. Ru's breath hitched as the world around him seemed to shift. Had the stars moved? Or had he been pulled upward? He couldn't tell. The sensation was disorienting, a dizzying swirl of motion and stillness.

When he tried to sit up, the ground softened beneath him. It was like sand... No, definitely it was ash. The fine, powdery substance shifted and crumbled under his weight, swallowing his hands as he pressed them down for support. The stars above seemed to grow larger, their light intensifying as if they were rapidly approaching. At the same time, Ru felt like he was sinking, the ash ground pulling him down, as if some unseen force wanted to bury him beneath it.

Panic surged through him as he began to struggle, his movements frantic and uncoordinated. The ash around him seemed to come alive, forming into hands—cold hands that rose from the ground and grabbed at him. Their grip was unyielding, their touch icy and relentless.

He tried to scream, but a dry, scaly hand covered his mouth.

They clawed at his arms, his legs, and his torso, pulling him down and pressing him deeper into the ash.

Ru thrashed against their hold, his heart pounding in his chest. The more he struggled, the tighter their grip became.