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?"

for as long as he could,

a powerful creature I killed. I took it with me, thinking that

for an especially long amount of time. When it finally spoke, there was a hint of anguish in it. The

it's dead. I

it fell silent once

a while,

not going to be angry with me for

sigh resounded

angry with you? You are not to blame

from its creator — and eventually

Then, he asked cautiously:

though? I have never seen a creature like

seemed more in control of itself when it answered

you can say. I… I created him when I was just a lonely kid. We were together for a long

head, then frowned

a kid? A

The voice laughed bitterly.

my First Nightmare when I was twelve. It's

Sunny blinked.

into the Nightmare at twelve… of

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, even though it usually happened to someone older than the norm, not

I thought that

his throat, then said

for your loss. If it makes you feel any better, the creature tried

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

Sunny sighed.

to ask him how to survive the

strategic with how he chose his

***

days plummeting into the void. By now, he was having trouble remembering what it 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

'Maybe it was?'

it wasn't. He was

distant shimmering lights now closer and brighter, but it also felt as if the air

center of the treasure chest and training to better control the flow of shadow essence. On the surface of the lid near him was a dark longbow and a

"...You practice archery?"

eyes and glanced into