The days stretched like worn parchment, each hour another fraying edge on Derrick's already-thin patience.
Classes continued—rigid, cold, indifferent.
In Monster Classification, he stared at etchings of creatures he'd once been eager to name, his mind a thousand miles away. The chalk scraped across the slate board like bone against tombstone, and Professor Thalmar's droning voice was muffled beneath the echo of his mother's shallow breathing.
"Derrick," Darc whispered from beside him, nudging his arm. "Are you alright?"
He slightly turned to half-way face him, but didn't answer. Just showing his sleep-deprived eyes and face full of dread and despair.
Darc was a little taken aback by his bestfriend's current state, but he Steeled his resolve to do anything to make it better.
"Well... you always would cheer me up, so if there's anything I can do to help you, just name it. Besides this is our last year before we're allowed to join the exploration team! It was you who even convinced me to join it in the first place instead of continuing my studies."
Hearing this did bring a small nostalgic smile to his weary face.
"It definitely shouldn't have been that hard to persuade you." He said raising his eyebrow.
Darc's cheeks blushed a little but he didn't shy away from the conversation. "Yeah, I know I was just a scared and fat little boy, but you befriended me and helped me conquer my fears of monsters and the dark when no one would even talk to me. So I'll always owe you one."
Derrick's eyebrow further raised higher and asked with a sarcastic voice, "Was?".
Darc's face turned into that of a ripe tomato, and he buried his head beneath his arms as Derrick laughed.
'Thank you...Darc. I really needed that.'
The rest of the day now wasn't too strenuous since his humorous encounter with his best-friend, but Derrick still preferred if he could just walk out and leave.
In Devil Studies, when the instructor spoke of ancient temptations and soul pacts, Derrick bit his lip until it almost bled, looking at the clock and wishing that the class could go by faster. He couldn't recall a single word from the last fifteen-minutes.
"Focus, Berg. I can see you day-dreaming. Whatever it is can't be more important than a Devil tearing you and your family to shreds."
He nodded stiffly.
But he didn't care.
Lunches became dry loaves he never tasted. Evenings were hushed shadows as he walked home under the violet hue of the lightning barrier's flickering edge. And nights…
Nights were the worst.
Derrick now had to move his parents to two different bedding since their conditioned has worsened so much.
He sat between their beds, fingers curled around cold cloth and half-drained bowls. His mother could no longer eat on her own. His father barely opened his eyes.
The healer hadn't returned.
So he prayed.
On the first night, he whispered into the void with hands clasped, seated infront of a sigil of the Creator.
"Please. God. If You exist… save them. I will do anything, even give up my dream of joining the exploration team and become a pope to serve you."
He continued
But there was no response.
On the second night after cleaning his parents and feeding them dinner, he folded his hands around a broken charm of light, using it as a focal point.
Derrick had taken inspiration from one of his invocation classes. Although they don't teach ways to communicate with the dead or cast a magic spell, he thought by mimicking the ritualistic divination set up, he could use it as a medium to help get his prayers through to the Omnipotent and Omniscient one.
He repeated the prayer ten times.
Still Nothing.
'Am I praying to a God that doesn't exist.'
The third night, he lit incense, offerings of dried root and sun-bleached petals from the memorial gardens.
All the same, only silence was his answer.
On the fourth day, he stole into the butchery before dawn and traded a week's worth of ration coupons for a black goat-like creature—young, trembling and wide-eyed.
As he walked home from the butcher's, Darc was outside practicing his swordmanship as a form of exercise, becoming a little more self-conscious of his rotund appearance.
He saw Derrick quickly walking towards his housing with an animal that should've been used for meat.
He decided to silently follow him and stick his nose in Derrick's business.
After Derrick got home, he went to the tower's back grounds to see if anybody was there, and fortunately it was empty.
He grabbed a dagger out from his belt-buckle, and just as was about to carve the beast's neck out, Darc came sprinting out of the bushes nearby and tackled him to the ground.
As Derrick tried to speak in defiance, A smack struck him across his cheek.
"Whatever the hell you are that's possessing my friend, get out now!"
Darc straddled on top of him, and began to deliver a myriad of hits. And his slightly chubby fingers combined with the strength of his swords training quickly caused Derrick's face to swell up.
Not wanting to get pummeled any longer, Derrick pushed Darc off of him, and quickly punched him in the eye, immediately knocking him out. As Darc fell to the ground, he thought that the City Of Silver's dark sky had been graced with the presence of shining stars.
***
Darc slowly opened his eyes to the pitch black and stormy sky. A huge pressure quickly assaulted his head as soon as he sat up, and his right eye began to throb uncontrollably.
He gently put his hand over it saying, "Anghhh...What hit me?"
A voice came from the ground right beside him. "You should be asking who hit you."
Darc looked to his left, and saw Derrick with a dark and swole face.
Darc felt he did not have any spare energy left, and chose to curse the demon with words.
"I don't know why you have chosen my best friend's body, but take me instead. He's too much of a good person, he doesn't even still from grass vendors every once in a while. "
Derrick looked off into the distance for a moment, and calmly said, "Darc, My parents are dying - I'm not possessed. I'm trying to find a way to get the Creator to hear and listen to my prayers."
Darc was visibly shocked. He didn't even think his friend was having such a rough life at home. He wanted to comfort him, but to be honest - he didn't completely know what to say in such a situation except "I'm sorry."
Derrick turned his head and a sarcastic and self-pitying smile weighed on his face. "What are you sorry for? You didn't make my parents ill. You didn't choose for their life to turn out this way." His hands trembled as he spoke, and Darc could tell that the only thing he could currently do to help Derrick, was aid him on whatever he was doing.
He slowly stood all the way up, regaining his balance and spoke with an intense determination. "I'll help you with your sacrifice to the creator to get his attention."
Derrick's eyes widened, and his face gradually started to go to a soft smile, as tears streamed from his eyes. Which combined with the swelling in his face, made for a comedic sight. "Thank you...Darc, really. Thank you."
Darc reached out and put his hand on Derrick's shoulders with a smile. "It's my duty. This is what friends are for after all."
They went to re-capture the goat-like creature from the outside yard, and began the process there.
The ritual was messy and desperate, with blood spilling everywhere . Darc held the animal in place as Derrick stabbed it in its neck. Thick blood started to quickly pour out onto the ground, slightly spraying Derrick's face in the process.
Darc looked away, not having thick enough skin to be able to watch such a bloody scene. Derrick didn't care on the other hand, with his apathetic gaze showing one as high as a God looking down at the lowest ants.
He carved the sigil shown in his religious textbooks, spilled the warm blood into the basin beside him, and prayed in a voice louder than any before.
"…Great Omniscient and Omnipotent God. The Lord that created everything. The Creator. Please, spare them. Even if you have to take me, just heal them and let them stay alive!
Darc slightly shot a side gaze at Derrick, but ultimately didn't say anything as to not interrupt the ritual. He then lighted the animal's body on fire with a match, and watched as it slowly burned into nothingness in front of him.
Minutes with by and no divine answer was granted.
Finally, the blood dried and the candles burned down, yet there was still no voice.
He almost even laughed out of despair. Almost.
Darc looked at Derrick and was about to speak, but Derrick just calmy shook his head no and started cleaning up the carnage on the grass.
After an hour of cleaning, Derrick eventually spoke.
"It's no wonder that God didn't respond to me. We do live in this city after all."
Darc's ears perked up at this, and quickly asked: "What do you mean?"
"I mean that if God still cared for us we probably wouldn't still be in this city. There would be no need for an exploration team because God would provide for us. But we're left here in this city of darkness all alone, with no light to guide us and no power to keep us safe. God has abandoned us."
Derc went into a state of contemplation after hearing this, and ultimately found no reason or fact that could refute this statement.
That night, after ensuring his parents had drifted into another restless, fevered slumber, Derrick wandered into the study, drawn by instinct—or something more primal.
'I might as well go ahead and start cleaning and selling all of their belongings to help support myself from now on.'
His father's desk sat unopened for years. But desperation can unlock what grief hides.
He tore open the drawers, one by one, until he found it buried beneath a bundle of weathered manuscripts and a rusted blade wrapped in waxed cloth.
A crystal sphere. Beside it with a small piece of parchment paper that had three lines of words and a small sentence at the bottom of it. The words were written in a language that Derrick hadn't seen before. It appeared to be a dialect that the City Of Silver did not know about!
The small sentence on the bottom right corner however, was written in Jotun. It read: 'One is 'his' degeneration and negative personality, the other is 'his' divinity, soon 'they' will combine to awaken God.'
Derrick had no clue with any of it meant, but he got the feeling if he read that sentence out loud, an unknown consequence would come upon him.
The crystal ball was roughly the size of a child's skull, resting in a base of blackened brass shaped like entwined roots clutching it from below. Its surface was cool to the touch, impossibly smooth, and shimmered faintly even in complete darkness.
Instead of being perfectly transparent, it held within a swirling milky fog, laced with a purple hue that throbbed subtly, like a slow, patient heartbeat.
His breath slightly caught in his throat at the alluring sight of this object.
He staggered back to the sickroom with it in hand. When his father's eyes fluttered open, Derrick knelt beside him.
"Dad… what is this?"
The weathered man blinked slowly, as if peering back through years of dust.
"A relic… from my ancestor's time that had been passed through our family for generations," he rasped. "Grandfather said it had once said it let our ancestors commune with… God." After he finished his sentence he began to loudly cough, beckoning Derrick to give him some herbal tea.
After he helped his father, Derrick stared at the crystal, his reflection warped within.
That night, with trembling hands, he placed it before him. Lit two candles and sat cross-legged in the silence. The air was so still it almost felt heavy.
He placed his fingers on the sphere and closed his eyes.
And spoke:
"God… if You hear me… please answer. I've tried everything. I'm done begging. I just… need something, anything!"
Once more, there was only silence.
Then—
A feint whisper.
The crystal throbbed beneath his fingers, a purple light glowing faintly. The air chilled and shadows thickened.
And then, within the sphere, an image began to swirl into form—
A tree, vast and elegant, rising into an unseen sky. Its bark was blood-red, smooth like flesh and speckled with eyes that blinked slowly. From its branches hung lurid, seductive fruits that pulsed as though breathing. Between the leaves, flowers bloomed in shades too decadent to name—fragrant, narcotic, too beautiful to be holy.
Derrick couldn't move, his mind frozen in allure.
The tree pulsed once. Then twice.
Then, its branches reached toward him—as if inviting him to take something.
Derrick heard the echo of a child's laughter ring through the back of his mind. In that instant, the crystal ball blazed with a brilliance that rivaled the lightning tearing through the storm-wracked sky. Before he could recoil, a formless force seized his spirit and dragged it inward, pulling him into the depths of the orb like a whisper swallowed by a hurricane.