The Perfect Path To Insanity

Chapter 76: When Death Is Not A Cage

The sweet fragrance of wildflowers enveloped thick against Jaren’s face and neck.

More petals brushed his skin with every small movement as he kept his arms wrapped tight around Grace.

He had no other choice than to make this drastic choice.

Grace died.

Even though this ’Grace’ was just as real as her. She was... she was nothing more than an illusion.

Still, his chest rested firm against hers while his fingers moved through her hair in slow strokes. "I never wanted two, Grace." He swallowed hard, pushing the words past a throat that felt lined with sandpaper.

Pulling her closer sent his shoulders shaking. Stinging pressure built behind his squeezed-shut eyes. The warmth of her body sank deep into his clothes and skin as hands trembled against her back.

Grace fluttered her eyelashes against his shoulder, gently tapping his back. "You never wanted two?"

A light, bubbling giggle broke the silence. "Ahahaha. Sorry. You look so cute right now. You wanted five, but we agreed on two, didn’t we?"

Legs gave out beneath him and Jaren dropped hard to his knees on the soft ground.

Petals stuck to his trousers and palms every time his fingers tightly clutched hers. "How can this game be so... cruel?" His voice cracked apart on the last word.

Heavy sobs tore from deep in his chest and shook his entire frame. Tears ran down his face and dripped from his chin onto their joined hands.

"How am I supposed to break free from this trance when you feel so real to me."

Grace knelt on the petals with him, her eyes level with his. "What are you saying?" she giggled. "Doofus. I’m right here. Come, give me a kiss."

She leaned forward, again. Her lips hovered inches from his. "Kiss me."

A warm breath touched his mouth.

However, Jaren hesitated. His hand shot up and closed around her neck.

"I’m sorry."

With one sharp pull, he slammed her back onto the ground.

"Jaren? What are you doing?" Her shoulders hit the earth.

His knees pinned her down as both hands tightened harder around her throat. "You’re not real. You’re not real. Not real."

He doubled over, his chest fracturing with every sob. His arms shook as he tried to hold himself together, but his vision had already dissolved into a salt-stung blur. "Grace..." The name tore out as a raw wail between gasping breaths.

Grace’s eyes widened. Tears formed at the corners and spilled down her temples. "Jaren, no. P-please—!"

Her fingers clawed at his wrists, grip turning to a useless tremble as the oxygen failed. She gasped at the empty air, her lips bruising a dark, sickly indigo. "I d-don’t—!"

Fingernails dug into his skin, leaving shallow burning lines.

With a final, stuttering kick, her heels caught the earth, scattering a cloud of petals into the stillness.

Jaren’s fingers remained fused in a white-knuckled grip, his entire frame vibrating with the effort.

Gradually, the frantic rhythm of her struggle ebbed.

Her hands slid from his wrists, and the life seemed to drain from her beneath him, leaving only a deepening, hollow chill where her warmth had been.

Thin streams of pink vapor rose from where she lay and drifted upward. Her form dissolved into the vapor until nothing remained except scattered petals on the flattened grass.

Jaren remained anchored to the earth, frozen in a hollow ache.

His hands stayed suspended in the air, trembling as if they’d forgotten how to drop.

A silent, shuddering sob wracked his frame, forcing the sweet, flowery air into his lungs in sharp hitches.

Slowly, his fingers clawed at his own skin, bunching the fabric of his trousers into tight, desperate fists.

---

Fei Ming pressed his hands flat, his skin drinking in the steady, searing pulse of the golden eye.

The heat climbed his limbs like a rising tide, stinging his nerves and flooding his shoulders until his entire upper body felt weightless.

Out of that shimmering tension, RiaKai’s voice finally broke through. ["Do it. Kill me."]

Fei Ming met that gargantuan gaze with a look of bored indifference.

He tilted his head, a dry, sharp scoff barking from his lungs. "Huh. You’re a fake," he said, the words cutting through the silence. "So why should I bother?"

Wrenching his hands away, the lingering warmth vanished instantly. "If I strike, I lose. I’m not trading my mind for a moment of bliss." He took a casual step back into the nothingness, his boots finding no floor, yet his heart didn’t skip a single, arrogant beat.

The twin suns of the golden eyes receded, dissolving into the dark.

Then, a roar of laughter fractured the silence, a physical force that hammered from every corner of the void. ["Haha! Child! Even when we rejected you, you still won’t kill us now that you have the chance?!"]

The sound thrummed in Fei Ming’s ears, threatening to shake him apart, but he didn’t flinch.

"I will," he said, his voice a cold blade. "But not in an illusion."

A mocking squint creased the massive golden orbs. [ "Child, you felt the heat of my gaze, the pulse of my blood. Do illusions usually feel this sharp?" ]

The eyes expanded with a sudden, violent bloom, filling his entire field of vision, swelling until they blotted out the dark.

Heat rolled off them in suffocating waves, baking the air until it tasted of ash.

He was a speck of dust before the looming suns.

[ "Are you afraid? Is it death you fear?" ]

Fei Ming’s hands knotted into white-knuckled fists. "I am not."

A predatory itch crawled beneath his skin, his muscles screaming to reach out and strike, but he remained an anchor in the fire, not giving in.

[ " I wonder..."] The massive golden eyes withered, pulling back into the dark. [ "What fear is left for a mortal when death is no longer a cage? I wonder...]

Fei Ming remained a statue, refusing to give the entity the satisfaction of a breath or a word.

The eyes curved into mocking golden crescents.

[ "Oh, child. Look at the mountains you have yet to climb." ] Then, they dissolved into a mist of pale pink vapor, and the floor of the universe simply vanished.

The void tilted, throwing him into a blind, screaming descent.

His stomach surged into his throat as the wind tore at his clothes, until the world snapped back into focus and his eyes flew open.

He hit the stone hard, the chill seeping through his clothes as he lay crumpled against the wall.

The pink mist lingered, clinging to his lungs and dampening his skin.

When he pushed upward, a wave of nausea and a deep, pounding pressure drilled his skull

Through the haze, he saw the Hawk officer Jaren stirring awake, accompanied by a pained groan and a hand clutching a bruised head.

Then Fateless looked at his own bruised palms. "When death is no longer a cage... tell me, RiaKai, what fear is left for a mortal like me?"

Clenching them into fists, he answered his own question. "Absolutely nothing."