Gazing into the mirror, one could still see the raw, red remnants of two hastily wiped blood streaks and, looming above them, two black, hollow eyes radiated numb despair.
Very unlike himself, with methodical, almost compulsive precision, he scrubbed the blood from his trembling hands and clammy face, desperate to erase every haunting trace of what he remembered or forgot.
He repeated this almost frantically, even when all evidence was gone, unsettled by a mounting dread.
What's happening to me?
He asked himself this question over and over, plagued by an unshakable, crushing sense of loss he could not name.
Why do I feel this emptiness tearing at me?
He could identify most of the chaotic emotions storming through his mind and their tangled causes, but this one—this aching void—made no sense.
Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Confusion—all familiar and logical. But why this aching sense of loss? And why did it cut deepest of all, eclipsing the rest? To make matters worse, he kept sensing something just out of sight—something golden flickering at the edge of his vision, leaving him reeling, desperate to grasp it but unable to reach.
Stopping in his tracks, his hands no longer frantically rubbing the long-gone blood. Was that an early manifestation of an ability?
Lifting his now clean fist, signs of scratches left on it replacing the washed away blood, Noctis started knocking on his head, as if in deep thought or as if he wanted to stop himself from drifting off, trying to remember. Walking in circles through his room.
When one had yet to fully assimilate with the fragment within the body, one would not be able to fully experience the abilities that the fragment had to offer.
This happened because the body couldn't withstand the full might of the ability, which is one reason people focused more on its symbolism in the earlier stages of the path of Authority Wielders.
As the symbolisms had far fewer negative effects. Well, most of them had.
There are not just a few examples of holders dying when first using their ability, as their bodies were simply not made for the strain and the environmental effects.
The examples Nox had read about were mostly people who could create biting cold or intense heat, freezing themselves to death, as their bodies were affected by the change in climate as much as their opponents were, leading to an early grave.
Did I use an ability of mine by accident? While asleep, to add on.
This was certainly not impossible, especially because he was in the stage of assimilation, making the fragment more and more part of his body, meaning that his abilities might flare up at random, like accidentally moving a part of one's body without thinking.
The more he thought, the more he felt this was the most likely reason for this incident.
That the seemingly positive development came to bite him this soon was truly unfortunate.
But for some reason, he felt he was forgetting something. Walking around the room, still knocking on his head.
This feeling of loss, what could have been the origin? Not getting any answers, no matter how much he thought, Nox felt a new headache coming on, this time of a different nature.
Suddenly stopping all action as if frozen in time, Nox shook his head forcefully, in an attempt to clear his disorganized thoughts in one go and start anew.
He had always been very analytical, making many aspects of his surroundings highly predictable. It wasn't that he craved understanding and controlling everything in his surroundings. No, quite the opposite in truth, he enjoyed things that happened unpredictably, which might have been a reason why he liked gambling and bets.
But this—This was simply unreasonable. If one got too much medicine, it would turn into poison. If a man dying of first was frown into the river of time, he would drown, and right now, he was getting way too much unpredictability for his liking. Too much good inevitably turns bad, and this situation was a prime example.
No, this isn't quite right, is it? What's going on with my thoughts? Sure, this situation was a bit of an oversaturation of his desires, in a quite twisted way, but was he not acting a bit too methodically?
Nox would never have described himself as a very messy person, but since awakening, he had felt his actions were a bit out of character. This could be stoked up to shock, but truly, what was going on?
It felt like his mind was slowly trying to convince him to dislike taking risks and to follow some kind of order, seeking comfort in the expected.
More and more questions were being discovered, and most of the answers he found were at best 'ifs' and 'most likelies'.
Nox could barely contain his mounting frustration. Words failed as his mind buckled under a tidal wave of strangeness and confusion, exhaustion weighing him down.
Letting out an anguished sigh, he ached for the simplicity of old days, just struggling to survive. Wait what?
In the old days, if they could even be called that—after all, that life had vanished less than two weeks ago. Chuckling bitterly, he stretched, trying to piece together a plan from the scattered remains of his calm.
After an hour of contemplation, Nox developed a strange craving.
Why do I want to go outside? This was a bit unusual for him, considering that he was not big on social interactions, and seeing suffering beggars in the street was truly not something he desired.
Not second-guessing his own mind, as that was the quickest way of going mad, Nox walked over to his closet, feeling a pang of regret as he was met by the barren land before him. There lay a thick jacket, colored the same as the other clothes he was given, with the same symbol on its shoulder.
As if on autopilot, Nox took the jacket, put it on, and started heading for the receptionist.
Whenever the students wanted to leave the building, they had to inform the receptionist, who would then give them a band with a Timer showing how long they had left to stay outside.
As a newcomer, he had a fairly short maximum time to be outside. Well, considering that the surface was pretty barren, similar to his closet, the two hours were more than enough, as one couldn't do much out there anyway.
And if he planned to reach the underground market and return in two hours, one could only call him delusional, a dreamer, or even mad, and he would have no right to complain.
***
An hour later.
Examining the small white armband with its digital countdown, Nox proceeded toward the exit, still yearning for fresh air to clear his mind.
Upon stepping outside, he encountered the familiar dark sky illuminated by a few weak stars, which were outshone by a swirling mass of dark purple material that resembled a vortex swallowing the sky above the abyss, giving the abyssal drop below a partner of sorts.
A bit of red light pressed through the Vortex of purple and black, giving it, as a whole, a weak, purplish glow, infused with a hint of red.
Averting his gaze from the Abyssal eye above, formed from billions of small particles, a certain emptiness encompassing it, not too different from Nox's current emotional state, merely propelled onward by the desire to fill the empty feeling he was now plagued with. Looking ahead, the vortex blocked half the sky because the facility was suspiciously close to the abyss.
The other half was filled with a few week stars and a dark circle, half of it blocked out by the vortex.
Surrounding the circle was a reddish glow, the light curving to illuminate the contours of the black hole far away in the cosmos. This created a sort of red halo surrounding the hole, embraced by the cold vastness of space.
One step at a time, the layer of snow was compressed under his feet, leaving clear traces of his presence. Curiously, there had been footprints before he even left. Considering the fall of snow, it couldn't have been long since he or she left.
At such an hour, it was quite a surprise to discover another fellow wanderer was taking a walk. Well, considering that the sky was perpetually dark, illuminated so weakly, and the concept of day and night was foreign to this realm, merely brought over by the elders, most of whom had died long ago.
So perhaps it wasn't too unlikely.
Not minding it, he went onward, into the endless expanse of snow, starting his journey.