Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 37: Buzz

A lonely glyph pulsed with a pale blue light in the middle of a deserted room. Even walking into the small chamber shoved towards the bottom of the Academy sent goosebumps down Erec’s spine. He’d firmed up his resolve to push forward on this training. That gut instinct, backed by VAL’s conjectures, made him believe this was the quickest method of handling his problem.

And Boldwick agreed to let the training start immediately.

And the growing sense of danger, now confirmed by Boldwick, meant that he needed to be stronger. To be more reliable for those around him. To be an asset rather than a risk if the worst were to occur.

You want to be better than him.

A short insidious thought ran through his head. He checked his feet—still safely away from the glowing lines inside of that insidious test.

[Wow! Really going into overtime on the training, aren’t you intern? You know we don’t pay higher rates, don’t you?] VAL buzzed in his mind as Erec stared at those fuzzy glowing lines.

Boldwick closed the door loudly behind him, a bottle of wine in one hand as he took a deep chug. “I hated this damn thing as an initiate.” He snorted and spat; it landed in the middle of the glyph. Bits of frost collected on the sides of the bubbly spittle. “Dreaded it every time exams came up.”

“Why do it?” Erec asked. His memories of the first exam were still fresh—but, over time, the raw feeling of those emotions faded. He suspected in a month that they might be little more than a faint dream in his memories.

“They do it because they need to know when you’ll break. How far you can get pushed. They want you to learn how to keep going even when you’ve chopped off the rotting head of your old friend trying to tear out your throat.” Boldwick frowned before taking another deep inhale of the wine. He leaned against the wall as a sickly and sour reek of grape wafted through the room.

Erec understood the purpose and why Boldwick hated this test. But it’d proved directly capable of raising his Psyche. More than that, the way it felt was oddly reminiscent of Fury.

A shiver went through him as he looked at the circle. Walking into the glyph felt like walking into a grave—a festering hole filled with the hands of the dead reaching for his life to suck out.

[You’ve got this buckeroo!]

He pushed through and fully entered the glyph.

This time the cold hit like a wall—he looked at the puddle on the ground. Frost gathered atop it, yet not frozen. VAL said that the cold going through him wasn’t as it appeared. His temperature had never dropped too far—so he could stand through it. His teeth chattered, but he kept an expansive posture. It isn’t real.

“You’re going to kill someone,” the first voice echoed out of the shadows. It felt like a knife slipping into his ribs with sudden viciousness.

And the intent. The voice behind it, even in a whisper. Brutal and malicious, like he were a sack of flesh it wanted to rot. Erec closed his eyes and focused on the cold air entering his lungs. Far off to the side, he could hear Boldwick take another long pull from the bottle of wine.

“Give up. Give up. Give up. Worthless sack of shit.”

Erec’s teeth chattered, and yet he focused. Letting that coldness dance around in him, feeling where it came from inside his heart. That shadow gripped him. But he stared back at it.

Hate. It was all hate. That’s what it came back to. The cold self-hatred inside was only drawn out by this Glyph. It was just a different shade of the same paint of hate that came from Fury.

“If you died, the world would be better. Your friends would be happier. You’re going to destroy them one day.”

He sank to his knees, limbs numb from cold as it all seemed pointless. The shadows drifted around and sank their teeth into him. Eroded his control. If he gave way to it, would it be easier? If he let that dark storm brewing inside loose, would it absolve him of having to suffer?

Buzzing.

Damn buzzing.

Always the buzzing.

Erec grit his teeth as the shadows tore at him. He wouldn’t let it win. It didn’t matter if he would never measure up to Bedwyr. They weren’t the same. No matter how many times the Shadows compared them—

[Focus.]

—that buzzing came in as an annoying word this time. A mechanical voice. But it steadied him. It let him settle his mind and press back against the dark.

He lost the fight several minutes later—crawling out of the Glyph. Boldwick yanked him up from the ground and shoved the wine bottle in his hands. The Master Knight draped an arm around his shoulder and held him up as they stumbled back to the wall. “Well, it’s a decent effort. You got a resilient mind for a first-year.” He tipped back the wine bottle to make Erec drink it through his numb lips.

Sour red with an unknown hint of an unexpected fruit hit the back of Erec’s throat. But he let the warm liquor wash through him; it pushed back against the cold that clung to him like a spider’s web. He looked at his shaking hands, taking a few deep breaths.

The shadows left their mark, but the booze numbed it; though the words still rang in his ears, they had a certain hollowness.

He saw the pit in himself where that fire loved to burn. Cold or hot, hate in different flavors; tempered and now understood better after the test. Perhaps it wasn’t Psyche after all that was important, but this cold hate? Or, he’d already begun to lose it. But he needed to reforge himself again and again until he could handle Fury.

Erec formed a fist, fingers digging into his palm. “We have an hour?”

“Yeah, I figured I’d make sure you recovered before sending you back off—“

“Good. I’m going back in.”

— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

Boldwick dragged him back to his dorm. Erec’s entire body shook, but his focus had only honed itself on the second and third attempts. He didn’t manage to last longer than the first attempt. Yet, he felt more alive than ever, even after fording past that cold river of despair.

Though, that might have had to do with the drinking after his third attempt. After he shook from the cold and barely could hold himself together, Boldwick sat him against the wall and shared a second bottle.

Maybe Boldwick was an alcoholic. Before now, though, Erec never smelled booze on him. Yet, for the moment, Erec had just appreciated the bottle and how it numbed the raw pain the test etched into his soul. They talked, mainly of the Master Knight’s past and his time outside the walls.

Nothing that in his state Erec could quite hold on to. At the end of which, Boldwick helped him stagger back to his dorm.

As they reached the door, Boldwick patted him on the shoulder. “That’s a good lad. You did plenty of good today. Head to bed and get some rest.”

“Thanks,” Erec waved him off, taking a second to steady himself against a wall as the instructor swayed off back towards his office.

Erec took a deep breath and pushed into the room, intending to head right towards his bed while the liquor buzz still held on and made it easy.

Olivia was there alone, one leg folded over another as she read from Beowulf—the same book he’d been reading through since he got here. She paused and looked up at him, tilting her head.

“Oh, you’ve been drinking? I didn’t take you for the type.” She said, smoothly putting the book on the table. “Your face looks pale too. Rough day?”

Erec squinted his eyes at her. The way she was so poised and collected, always upright and with a carefully maintained front that hid away what was beneath. He wanted to crack that shell. He glanced at Colin’s door—closed. He got close to her, gazing down at the prim and proper woman on the couch. “What is your game?”

“Game?” Olivia asked.

“You’re spying on Colin, aren’t you?”

“Ah.” Olivia snorted and shook her head. “Perhaps a little bit. When I forge my own house, I intend to keep ties with the duchy that afforded me this opportunity. But no. I am not here primarily to ‘spy’ on Colin.” She paused, her eyes meeting his, sinking into him and breaking that facade of a collected maid. There was something there, a fascination. “You’re the one I’m interested in.”

“I—“ Erec sputtered. “Just what do you mean by that? Are you saying you’re into me?”

Olivia chuckled politely, shaking her head. “I’ve been told you have ties outside the wall. With your personality, it’s very likely you’ll reach for them in the future. You’re stubborn and disregard the words of those stationed above you. For better or worse.”

“So you’re spying on me? For who, Lyotte? For House Luculentus?”

Olivia bit her lip, tilting her head as her eyes remained locked as if she were about to pick her words carefully.

Garin slammed the door to the living room open, his eyes bright, his Academy collar undone with a flush to his cheeks. His eyes settled on Olivia and Erec close together, then a frown for a fraction of a second. He cleared his throat. “S’—oh, right, alright, I came in at a bad time?” There was a hint of nervousness and a weird tone to the words, along with a slur.

“No,” Erec said, pulling back from Olivia as he saw her face shift back to that mask of a maid. Whatever she’d thought about saying to him, it seemed she’d decided against it. She gave Garin a small smile.

“It seems our dorm has two drunkards. How incorrigible.”

“Wha—“ Garin tilted his head at Erec. “What the hell? Were you out drinking? You turned me down!”

“I didn’t mean to go drinking—“

There was a loud pounding on the door. Garin went wide-eyed and looked at the two of them. “Oh shit.” He said, running off and darting behind the couch. “I’m not here.“

Erec looked between him and the door; his sluggish mind turned. What sort of trouble did his friend get into? Should they pretend they weren’t home? If they did, whoever was out there would have no choice but to go away.

Olivia saw the indecision and shook her head. “It does not befit those of our station to ignore confrontation. We’re Knights.” She scolded before floating over to the door.