Chapter 3: A crimson-haired girl

'....Ah….I see they've finally given up hope for me,' The teen deliriously thought, his stomach giving a violent lurch as gastric fluid threatened to burst from within. He felt sick, as though all the blood had drained from his body, leaving little more than an anaemic shrivelled husk in its stead. His head span, neigh it pounded, as though the beat of a drum lay embedded within its every cell, destined to replay under even the tiniest stimuli. Unconsciously Eros's form shook.

He knew this day would come.

After ten long years without improvement or change in his ability, it had all but been prophesied. His power was as useless as it ever was, never to change and grow, just as expected from a male.

Trembling hands pressed against the viciously managed body of wood that lay underneath, every millimetre of exposed flesh being engraved by the curses that had finally come to fruition, the will of the mass given form in a hateful heaven-sent retribution. The boy's chocolate brown eyes that once glimmered with the light of life appeared dull, almost hollow as if embracing the role destined for a man, that being a living corpse, one without free will, whose only purpose served to protect the predominant sex, those that held actual value to the world.

His throat felt hot, as though rasping for breath in the midst of a desert. No water was formed, no saliva to cool the boy down, he had been drained of such substance, or rather, it had been redirected to the oesophagus, where there it lay in wait for the imminent discharge of scalding acid.

Silence reigned supreme in the land, for none dared speak nor even utter jeers at the trembling youth. They were too paralysed to perform such a notion, too terrified by the reality before them and what it represented to the point where even the toppling of Eros's chair appeared to go unheard as it collided hoarsely with the land underneath, splintering into countless irreparable dregs.

This is what they had wanted, what the academy desired, the world's wish given form, and yet, it felt wrong to see Eros standing amidst the common mass of F ranks. The scene could solely be described as bloodcurdling as the ill-fated youth involuntarily gagged on the gastric discharge that now pressed against his keratin barricade, its desire to escape known to all who beheld such a repugnant sight. It hurt, it stung, his oesophagus burnt with every millisecond spent drowned by the acidic pool, and yet, Eros refused to let it free, to acknowledge the pain. His mind was too far gone for such mortal concepts to apply, as though connected by little more than a thread, his brain hung deliriously in the sky above. It was his time to go, Eros knew as such, yet his trembling knees refused to stand, he thought, neigh believed himself ready for such a call, and yet, here he was, a cowardly wreck no different from his peers. With time, however, the boy's heart grew stagnant, its beats infrequent, as though failing to replicate the calmness he once possessed.

"Those called, please head outside. There you will be guided to the facility housing the dungeon." The teacher bellowed, the apparent sympathy he once possessed for the youths now little more than a fleeting dream. Their movements were mindless as the five figures meandered their way towards the loathsome purpleheart wood door that served to seal their fate. Many wished to run, to dash towards the nearest window and leap. After all, a severe injury was better than probable death, yet they couldn't. Their legs unanimously refused their calls, as though destined, they simply moved until eventually, the group, including Eros, trespassed upon the holy land that marked the corridor.

Ecclesiastical prismatic light stained the youth bearing the name Eros, dying his every feature in their supposedly angelic grace, yet, to the boy, such mottled colours appeared profane and sinful, as though marking his body ready for the afterlife when for the moment, he was still zoetic.

Eros's brain appeared to have calmed in the brief interlude between the mirthless classroom and the supposed god-fearing plain. He was once again cognisant, aware of the world around him, more so than his peers, who, despite having experience with the dungeon, lay shivering to one side, disgruntled, their envy for the youth impossible to identify. Yet, before the boy could accomplish anything with his newfound sense of self, he would catch sight of a singular figure, a woman much older than he, one draped in the same monotonous garments as all the examiners, a being bearing the name Salina Shelly.

Immediately upon seeing the adolescent, her face, once perfectly postured into an apathetic state of being, appeared to crumple, shattering at the seams in a manner akin to glass. She didn't know he would be here, and if she had, well, it was likely the woman never would have volunteered to lead the collective to the promised land. Still, there was little she could do now asides from threatening the boy with the inevitable, a fact she relentlessly held onto, as, with one dainty finger raised to her lip, she made a motion for his silence, a fact Eros dared not care for but still abided by, for the beating of his heart that he once believed silenced continued to perpetuate throughout his mind.

"Follow me," The woman mumbled, sparing not a greeting for the trembling aggregation of useless espers. She merely adjured them on, guiding them forwards with her figure alone. The sight stained in a heaven-sent radiance appeared almost picturesque, though not in the fact the view was pulchritudinous or bewitching but rather that it was magnanimously biblical in its eerie cruelty, for like lambs to the slaughter, the teens followed their shepherd with sparse refusal, marching ever closer to their believed all but fated death. Each step lay cast back by the environment in a serene lucidity, calming the hearts of the wandering lambs with the rhythmic tune they solely produced as though finding comfort in their own actions.

That was, until they stopped, the remaining records of their journey reaching an end with one final call from the church-like construction. For now, they bore witness to a baleful sight. A monolithic creation, a testament to humanity's will to protect, to hide, for what stood before the collective appeared a structure worthy of such attributes, akin to the great tower of babel. What loomed before Eros was a door, a gateway that let free little more than despair. Its size towered over the mass, easily surpassing a height of more than fifteen metres and a length two-thirds that, coloured in a daunting shade of midnight black, it appeared to drain the hopes of all males who laid eyes upon its stygian grace, like a void of wretchedness. Flowery patterns of gold sprung forth from the edges, bearing curves that simply enticed all as if in hopes of tricking the spectators with its seemingly ornamental appearance, while embossed in the dead centre, between the seam of wretched black appeared once more the symbol of Enuma Esper academy.

However, that was not all that graced the bastion's surface, for glittering in a multicoloured radiance, sparkled countless chains, bearing a girth thicker than that of an adult male's head; such contraptions encircled the sunless monument confining it to a life of supposed imprisonment, they lay over the top one another, forming multiple layers of iron that appeared to breed in a rhythmic, grating tune, and yet, even then such chain failed to seal the world completely, for with a brisk knock from Eros's shepherd the contraption cluttered to the ground letting loose a final wail of defeat in the form of an explosive BANG!

Still, such noise could not even make the despairing youths flinch. They were too content with their ideas of delusion, the fantasy their brain had forced them into, that they were hardly paying attention to the grim reality before them, all spare for Eros, who merely watched the scene with a ringing brain, his ears on the verge of shattering from the inconceivably grand fall. Yet the boy would receive no time to recuperate, for within but moments, a new sound, more dissonant than the last, would begin its own makeshift ballad, performing its chorus with the grand bemoan of a grating door, one that appeared to desire little more than its own breaking body. The hinges that it rested upon appeared to shatter, incapable of supporting the titanic weight that rested above, bending almost to the point of utter dismay before the monolith's motions came to an abrupt halt, its split body having opened little more than one-tenth the possible distance.

"Go in. You'll meet the esper you'll be serving inside," The woman begrudgingly ordered as instinctually, the band of teens obeyed her regency. Their steps were slovenly, misplaced and without order, aimless to the highest degree. Yet, they pressed ever onwards, moving between the precipice of prismatic light and listless dimness, where the boundary between life and death intersected. This is where Eros's life would conclude. That's what the boy believed in this dingy land filled with nought but abject shade.

It was a realm titanic in stature, with a seemingly infinite volume, so much so that Eros couldn't spy the supposed corners from which caged him nor a ceiling for which to pray to. It was simply an ever-expansive land of forlorn despondence. Little light blessed the realm, and that which did was macabre, possessing a cadaverous blue hue from which the boy knew no origin. Every step Eros took resonated for but a second before dissipating in the chasmic amount of air. It was as though the area was designed to make one feel solitary, alone and isolated from the world and reality.

'This isn't the dungeon is it?' Eros inwardly questioned, having no experience with the supposedly forlorn land to which he was bound, unlike his peers, however with one glance at the zombified mass that trod mindlessly along, such assertions would immediately be answered, not by word of mouth, but their actions, they shook with every inch moved, borderline grovelling at points, though no comments left their lips, their gaze flickered between every inch of available space the land possessed, darting restlessly, to the point where the boy believed his peers manic, however, it was because they still held hope that they created such demented notions, a psychotic belief that they might be able to leave this introductory land alive. Eros would follow the deranged movements of the aggregation for what appeared to be minutes, his mind forced to entertain itself with the same delusions that befell his peers in an attempt to escape the droll, almost torturously dull world that swirled amidst his presence. However, such fantasies would conclude the instant his gaze caught sight of new stimuli.

What lay before Eros was the source of the lurid blue light, a sight that simply perplexed him to the utmost degree, for the origin did not take the form of a structure bearing elephantine proportions but instead possessed a more ghastly form, one better deserving the description ethereal, for the source of the grim illumination did not erupt from a physical body. Instead, it shimmered in the form of a rift, a tear in space and time, a construct Eros had only heard tales of from his lessons and stuttered words from his unwilling peers.

Multiple veiled figures, shaded by such unearthly luminescence, encircled the tear, their gazes focused, unending upon its empyrean form, as though it might disappear if even one of them were to close their eyes. Yet it wasn't such devout figures that Eros found his gaze drawn to but rather the form of a fast-approaching beauty, who, even though stained by the deathly blue light, wouldn't have her features unnoticed.

The girl moved with a grace only found amongst the aristocrats of esper society, those bearing a rank of B or higher. Sporting a head of silken crimson hair that fell against the very epicentre of her back in a manner akin to a billowing forest fire. Her steps were dominant and fiery, as though wishing to consume the concept of distance itself to feed the eternal conflagration that lay dormant within her heart. At the same time, her destructive ruby eyes remained solely set on the now-paralysed mass. She was tall, possessing a height equal if not greater than Eros's measly 177cm, all the while commanding a curvaceous body that the Enuma academy uniform could not obscure, yet, the dress she wore was distinctly different to that of Eros's for it was just that, a segmented dress, one not made for male use but rather that of the predominant sex.

A blouse of bland alabaster lay atop the curvaceous ladies form, trying, albeit in a vain attempt to obscure the goods that lay precariously underneath, while itself being little more than the base layer to a second floor, subsisting of the same obsidian blazer that lined Eros's petrified demeanour, however instead of rigid edges lined with fragments of gold the girls appeared frilly, as though given room to breathe, to move, not to confine and restrict like the male variation. A loose skirt of the same umbral hue trimmed with fibrous strands of halcyon fluttered underneath, forced into a state of perpetual motion courtesy of the ever-encroaching form of its master, stockings strung of midnight black stretched to the very pinnacle of the beauties thighs from which point it stopped, having failed its mission to conceal the supple blue tinged ivory skin that suffocated underneath.

Her face, twisted into an expression of ill-prepared anxiety and rage, could be described as the epitome of human beauty, possessing no flaw the boy could discern nor one he could even falsely accuse her of bearing. However, such a trait wasn't too uncommon among the upper echelons of the esper rankings.

Fierce ruby red momentarily locked with self-pitying chocolate brown as Eros found his gaze magnetised to the girl's visage. However, such a notion didn't merely erupt out of carnal desire, but instead intrigue for once more did the youth's left eye flash in a previously unheard of shade of pink, its light so feeble, so ephemeral that it failed to even disturb the ghoulish blue glow that shadowed Eros's gaze.