Illusion Mana

The tribes folk dance as though they've never seen torment, they spin and drift obliviously to their surroundings and then, in a second, they're gone. The villagers turn into smoke, and even the fire, the warmth that had felt like proof of this reality, had been extinguished. The children, the women, the scarred men, vanish into nothing. And Juewl, the woman they had been so certain of, who had been their guide and Nel's teacher, smiled at them, a sweet and still smile, one that conveyed she had somewhere she needed to return to.

Everything was gone, and looking around them now, in the night, only the remnants remain. The overgrown patches of forest, the dilapidated huts, the stains of blood long dried in the cold. Christopher stares at the empty forest, heartbroken. His eyes glazed over as if reliving something from the past. There is nothing to say, only melancholy and pity can be felt. And the knowledge sinks in of, "ah, this is reality. There is no peace in Zalisthia. There is no escape."

Yet, they wonder, what had allowed this illusion; this sweet escape from reality, from their own individual torment, from the entrapment that they knew in the military, in their own families, and in their own past.

They packed up their stuff, there was nothing left here. Wordlessly, they travel, for hours and hours, in a daze. The only sounds that break the silence are the clacking of the horse's hooves, and they never speak of what happened. They had all witnessed and become a part of something foreign to them, something that shouldn't have been allowed in this reality. To speak of it felt like treason to its memory. To admit that it hadn't been real, or perhaps it had been, and through some godly power, time and space had become irrelevant. Nel looks down at his runes, they're still there and served as proof of their time in the invisible village. Now, every time Nel would access the power of his runes, he would think of Juewl's words and remember what she had said about tradition and guilt.

During one of the stops on their journey, Nel sat beside Christopher. He hoped for some miracle, for himself to innately remember how to activate the affinity to healing mana. Calling it "mana" felt too limiting, as Nel now knew this was the all-encompassing power from a goddess.

Christopher laid on his side, humoring Nel's attempt. The adrenaline had kick-started his gift the time they were attacked but he wasn't sure of how to activate it again. So he sat there, trying to connect to the woman he had seen in his vision and slowly, the light came from his hands again. This time, Christophers wound visibly shrunk. When he got up to test his leg, he was without a limp.

The team rejoiced, they jumped up and down, some cried, releasing the sorrow they felt at the loss of the Muhabaa'a tribe.