Twilight of the Vast Expanses-Chapter 33: Twilight of the Vast Expanses

’Why was life always so difficult for me?

At what point did loss become the sole definition of my existence?

Why did I always suffer?

Why did I always lose?

Why did I always fail to protect?

And why was it that, even when surrounded by a lot of people, I was always pressed down by this overwhelming feeling that slowly chipped away at my sanity?

Why was I...

Lonely?’

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—A Star, a Lonely Being of Eternal Brightness, is Born From the Ashes of Devastating Destruction. The Flames thereof are Only Enhancers to its pronouncement. And When the Burning Process is Over, All Beings in the Universe Shall Bear Witness to Its Light. And they Shall Look Upward to...—

—Ad Astra.—

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Chapter 33: Twilight of the Vast Expanses.

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My mind snapped. And a clear feeling traveled through every corner of it, slowly dissolving the blur.

"Stel.."

My heart pumped deep within my chest. But strangely, it felt like the abnormal rate with which it drummed slowly reduced with each beat.

And as my heartbeat reduced, so did my breathing, causing my chest to rise and fall softly.

I could finally feel.

"Stel..."

But all my nose could perceive was the thick, iron smell of blood. The smell viciously trickled into my nostrils, disrupting the stability of my lungs.

Pain. An overwhelming amount of pain surged through me. Dawning on me like the weight of all that I had had to bear that day, finally caught up to me.

My broken ribs trembled, my nerves flared. All my veins twitched, and my muscles screamed.

Yet, my eyes remained closed.

All I could see was darkness.

A vast expanse of darkness.

And then, in the middle of that darkness, I saw a light. A strange but warm twinkling light.

That light seemed to call out to me. Whispering,

"Stella!!"

Immediately, my eyes snapped open.

-Huff- -Huff-

My breathing spiked to an anomalous degree as I opened my eyes.

It felt like I had finally woken from a long, very long dream.

I moved my neck immediately, my gaze briefly surveying the sight in which I stood.

Then, my eyes remained focused.

The direction of my gaze wasn’t linear. Instead, it focused skyward. An almost instinctual action.

The thick, dark clouds that cascaded through the skies of the backlands had melted in the cool of the night, giving way to the warm, tender rays, a glow that came from the lone silver moon that stood out in the lonely night sky, devoid of stars.

My cracked lips widened. And I licked them.

The iron taste of copper rolled inside my tongue.

It tasted like blood.

I took my gaze downward, looking past the various figures that stood around me, fixating my gaze left, the direction of the call.

"Finally back to your senses, huh, Stel?"

My gaze widened as they rested on the sight of the figure who squatted by my left-hand side, just a few inches away from me.

He held a pistol with his right hand, aiming it at the various figures that stood around us, and he supported the pistol with his left hand.

Dried blood painted the grey coat he wore, and his body was adorned with swelling bruises and fresh, blood-dripping cuts.

On his face was a freshly sleek scar that ran across his closed left eye. And his open right gaze seemed a bit... dissociated, but they smiled nevertheless. Smiled along with his bruised and blistered dry lips.

My widened eyes narrowed immediately. A frown manifested on my wrinkled forehead, contrasting with the rest of my unusually calm face.

What?

What happened?

"Took you long enough." Mangé completed with a rather weak voice, accompanied by a strained chuckle.

"What’s going on?" I asked immediately, my narrowed eyes burrowing holes in his body. "Why are you in this state? What–" 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"Why don’t you take a guess?" Mangé replied; his weakened voice couldn’t do much to quench the slightly playful edge in his tone. "Let’s start with your hands. Look at them."

My hands?

I slowly moved my neck, my gaze trailing along with the movement. And as my gaze landed on the sight of the figure clenched in my right palm, my brain released a satisfied feeling that ran through every corner of my body.

My lips widened, forming an unhinged smirk that sent shivers down my own spine.

Germaine’s body was lifeless. And his neck was tightly clenched like he was nought but a toy in my right grip.

Even in death, his face still held that indifferent expression.

But the satisfying thing was that now, that pale, indifferent facial expression was smeared crimson by his own blood. And it seemed like both his eyes were uprooted from his skull, and in its place, only two hollow, blood dripping sockets remained.

I looked further down on his body. His arms were crushed, severed from his body. His other cybernetically enhanced leg was forcefully removed.

The only thing left of the man was his head, neck and torso. And from the jagged end of his open torso, his spine protruded, doused crimson by his blood. Faint cyan glows twinkled on it, a trace of his once vibrant cybernetics.

"Ha." I let out. An extremely carthatic exclamation.

My soul was pleased. Evident by the warm, trickling feeling that dripped in my heart, like tender raindrops.

In my left palm, something squishy twitched, from which blood trailed. I unclenched my palm, widening it.

Two blood-soaked eyeballs rested on them, and the red, vein-riddled brown pupils stared straight at me.

Those scorn-filled eyes had once glared at me in an inaudible promise to deliver great pain to me. A pain that till I die, wouldn’t easily subside.

A pain that even now, as I stood tall and firmly, still gnawed at my heart.

They were the eyes of the man who had taken my family away from me.

My heart softened. Eased. And a lone tear slid down from my left eye.

Mangé chuckled once more. The faint laughter echoed, disrupting the flow of my short, bemused trance.

"It’s not every day I get to see you cry." He spoke.

"I’m not crying," I replied.

"Well, whatever you were doing, save it for later. We got a bigger threat at hand that I don’t think I can fend off by myself any longer."

"And what’s that?" I asked.

"Can’t you feel it?"

Immediately, the temperature of the once cool breeze that blew through the air of this area filled with debris of destroyed buildings and corpses skyrocketed to an impossible degree, blowing against my forehead, neck and causing my blood-drenched coat to flutter behind me.

"The Te of these sparrows." Mangé completed.

I turned my neck and gaze toward the direction of the various standing figures.

I gritted my teeth, narrowing my eyes as I withstood the weight of the Te that permeated from the bodies of the men, women and spiffs of different sizes that stood in front of me, openly spewing their hostility.

—"You really need to go, Red Nightmare."—

A smirk formed on my lips.