Ch. 143

Ch. 143
Perris's shout cuts through to my core, drowning out the last of the imposter ether wraith’s barbs.
I spin toward the sound, nearly losing my balance in the murky water, and begin to push forward with renewed purpose.
"Perris!" I call out, my voice swallowed by the mist that curls around me like grasping fingers. "Where are you?"
Another cry answers me, more desperate than the first, coming from somewhere to my left. I change direction, sloshing through water that seems to grab at my legs, trying to hold me back. The fungi-covered trees loom like sentinels in the gloom, their twisted trunks creating a maze that seems designed to keep me from my destination.
The water gradually recedes as I move toward higher ground, mud sucking at my shoes with each step. I push past hanging curtains of moss that leave cold, slimy trails across my skin, trying not to think about what might be living in their tangled fibers. The bioluminescent fungi pulse around me, their light creating shadows that dance and shift with unsettling sentience.
"Perris!" I try again, louder this time, fighting against the suffocating acoustics of the swamp. "Keep talking so I can find you!"
No answer comes. The silence that follows my call is more terrifying than any sound could be—the absence of his voice creating a void that my mind fills with increasingly horrific possibilities. Did something get him? Is he hurt? Has he been dragged beneath the murky waters by whatever brushed against my legs earlier?
I quicken my pace, ignoring the protests of my already exhausted body. The terrain shifts beneath my feet, becoming firmer as I climb a gentle slope. The mist thins slightly, allowing me glimpses of what lies ahead—a small clearing surrounded by particularly ancient and twisted trees, their trunks so gnarled they almost form faces in the bark, watching my approach with empty knot-hole eyes.
And there, in the center of the clearing, is Perris.
He's on his knees in the mud, back to me, shoulders hunched in a posture of complete defeat that I've never associated with him before. Proud, debonaire, untouchable Perris Lanore looks broken, his whole body trembling as if under some enormous weight. But he's not alone.
Surrounding him in a perfect circle stand tall, pale figures, their forms more substantial than the wraiths that pursued me, yet still somehow not quite solid. They hover inches above the muddy ground, their feet never quite touching the earth. Each wears tattered clothing that might once have been fine, aristocratic even, but now hangs from their emaciated frames in rotting shreds. Their skin is alabaster white, reflecting the greenish-purple glow of the fungi with an otherworldly luminescence that makes them appear to be lit from within.
But it's their eyes that make my stomach lurch and my blood curdle—glowing red orbs that burn in sunken black sockets, fixed on Perris with predatory intensity. They have no pupils, no whites, just pools of crimson light that seem to drink in the sight of him like they're feeding on his distress.
"You abandoned your duties," one of them hisses, the words slithering through the air like living things. The voice is hollow, as if echoing from the bottom of a well. "Left your people to suffer while you played at being human."
"Such disappointment," another adds, skeletal fingers reaching toward Perris without quite touching him. "Such waste of ancient blood."
"The line will end with you," a third intones, this one's voice higher, almost feminine, but no less terrible. "Your selfishness dooms generations unborn."
Perris pounds his fist into the muddy ground, again and again, each impact sending small splashes of dark water into the air. His knuckles are raw, the skin torn and caked with mud and dark blood, but he doesn't seem to notice or care. "Stop it!" he shouts, his voice raw with anguish. "Just stop! You don't understand!"
"We understand all too well," the first specter responds, drifting closer. "We've watched you turn your back on everything your ancestors built, everything we suffered and died to protect."
"Your people are being hunted while you play at being a real boy," the female phantom whispers, her words carrying easily across the clearing despite their softness. "So selfish, such a disappointment to the Bloodline."
I take a step closer, understanding blooming in my mind with terrible clarity. These aren't wraiths like the ones that surrounded me—they’re something more specific, more personal to Perris, but the core of the entity is still the same. These…phantoms speak to him with intimate knowledge, taunting him with failures only he would recognize, the same as they’d done to me.
"Don't listen to them, Perris," I call out, my voice steadier than I feel. "They're not real. They're just manifestations, feeding on your fear and guilt."
The specters' heads swivel toward me as one, their burning eyes fixing me with unified hatred. Perris's head snaps up at the sound of my voice, but he doesn't turn.
"Whatever they're saying, whatever you think they know about you," I continue, taking another cautious step forward, "they don't know the real you. They can't."
I'm close enough now to see the way Perris's shoulders tense at my words, the way his hands curl into fists in the mud. Something I said has struck a nerve, but not in the way I intended.
"And you’d know better? It’s you who knows nothing about me, Carlisle," he says, his voice unnaturally low and tight. "They are right. I’m a monster."
I reach out, my hand hovering just above his shoulder. "Perris, please. Let me help you. Whatever this is, we can face it together."
My fingers make contact with the damp fabric of his torn shirt, and what happens next burns itself into my memory: Perris turns on me.