Shadow Slave

Sunny stared into the void suspiciously.

"Yeah? And how come you are so concerned about my well-being?"

The voice remained silent for a bit, then answered wistfully:

"I haven't really spoken to anyone in a long, long time. It would be a shame to finally find someone to talk to, only for them to die soon. Don't you think?"

'That guy is definitely not just a simple Lost… what is his deal, really? Is he actually a human or only pretends to be one?'

Sunny thought for a bit, then said:

"I guess. And since we're on the topic… how is it exactly that we are able to talk?"

He expected the voice to change the subject or ignore the question, but to his surprise, it actually answered:

"I am not really sure. This has never happened to me before, either."

After a while, it added hesitantly:

"Have you… have you perhaps found a piece of a broken mirror somewhere?"

Something clicked in Sunny's mind.

"Broken mirror… Mirror Beast… Beastie…"

The Ascended Reflection! The shard of a mirror that the strange creature had left behind was still inside the Covetous Coffer… smeared with his blood…

'Crap!'

So the owner of the voice was the creator of the murderous Reflection Sunny had encountered on the Reckoning. That… that gave him as many questions as it had given him answers.

He couldn't really think about it right now, though, because the pressure of the Flaw was already building in his mind, forcing him to speak.

"Now that you mention it, I did, indeed, recently find a piece of a broken mirror. With the word "Beastie" written on it in a child's handwriting."

The voice remained silent for a while, then asked quietly:

"Oh? How exactly did you find it?"

did not answer for as long as he

mirror shard was left behind by a powerful creature I killed. I took it

long amount of time. When it finally spoke, there was a hint of anguish in it. The owner of the voice tried very hard to suppress it, but his pain seemed to be too deep to not seep into

it's dead.

fell

tensed. After a while, he

not going to be angry with me for killing

sigh resounded from

with you? You are not to blame for what

Beast becoming separated from its creator — and eventually dying by his hand — was extremely lucky

Then, he asked cautiously:

I have

in control of itself when it

kind of an Echo, you can say. I… I created him when I

tilted his head, then

a kid? A

The voice laughed bitterly.

my First Nightmare when I was twelve. It's rare, but does happen sometimes. Few children survive the

Sunny blinked.

into the Nightmare at twelve… of course

did know that, in extremely rare cases, the people infected by the Spell were outside of the usual age range. The entire first generation of the Awakened had been, for example. And there were cases of this anomaly to this day,

I thought that

throat,

your loss. If it makes you feel any better, the creature tried to say something before it died. Uh… we never stopped searching.

once again spent all of his soul essence… or whatever it was that allowed him to

Sunny sighed.

I didn't even have time to ask him how to survive the

strategic with how he chose

***

even felt like, to not be falling. The darkness seemed to be eternal and everpresent, as though he had always been here, in its empty embrace, and all of his actual life was just

'Maybe it was?'

wasn't. He was

were the distant shimmering lights now closer and brighter, but

sitting cross-legged in the center of the treasure chest and training to better control the flow of shadow essence. On the surface of the lid

"...You practice archery?"

and glanced