29
There was no telling what was beyond the expanse of the dying field. There was a stillness in the air and a smell that was sharp and copper laced.
Quark was leading; at first, their steps were determined and steadfast, walking in front of Pulse for the mile before the walls came to view.
They drew near the Nightmares and there was a heavy dread that overcame him.
Every yard after that mile, his feet became slogged, slowed, apprehensive, then halting altogether.
“What are we going to do when we get there?” Quark said in an almost-whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“These are the universe's nightmares,” Quark reiterated, “The worst that the mind can conjure. If the Memory Dump department had guards, so would the Nightmares, and whoever guards it must be terrifying.”
Pulse pursed their lips together. “We will have to work on that once we get there. C'mon.”
But Quark couldn't move.
“Quark? Are you coming?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I-I just...”
“What's wrong?”
He started to pull at the strings of his shirt again; Pulse grabbed their hands.
“C'mon, tell me.”
“We have no idea what's in store,” Quark could feel the sensation of terror in his throat; it was tight, choking like a noose. “We don't know what happens beyond there. I can't even imagine what we might face. I don't want to. What if—”
“What if what?”
It didn't have to be said. The questions had lingered in the back of both their minds since the beginning of this fiasco. It was just impossible to ignore now.
“That's not going to happen to us,” Pulse said, rubbing Quark's shoulders. “We can't let it stop us now. Leo needs us.”
“I know she does, but I'm scared, Pulse.”
There was an unforeseen force that planted Quark's feet into the soil. A barrier he was finding was difficult to break through. He wondered if it was the pull again, giving him one last chance to obey. 'Obey, or there will be consequences.'
“What if we—” He stopped, trying again after swallowing a lump. “What if we turn into Ruin?”
Pulse shook their head. “We are not him. We will never be him.”
“We don't know that—”
“We don't, but that's nothing to worry about now. Leo is waiting, and we are running late.”
There it was—that smile. Assured as it was charming. There was nothing more comforting than to see that flash of poise and gallant in them, even if they didn't feel it truthfully.
Pulse was as terrified of the unknown as Quark. Where it threatened to swallow Quark whole, it drove Pulse forward.
Hand in hand, Pulse took the lead. “Have some faith in yourself,” they reminded him. “You can do this.”
Quark didn't believe so. They still felt the pull that anchored them into the ground.
Yet, Pulse was stronger.
Leo—somewhere beyond the point-of-no-return, the event horizon of the decisions so far. Once Quark started to follow Pulse, there was no going back. Then again, if he were to turn back, what would be waiting for him?
Before Leo, before Pulse, the universe Quark knew was lonely and quiet.
He recalls feeling bored and empty, because there was a drive to move forward now.
There was something to lead him by the hand—a heat that seared into his palm so lovingly as the bitter frost licked his skin.
Before, Quark never knew of the sensation of pleasure—skin, kisses, and weight—he didn't know the name of his desire.
He knows now how strange it is, to be nothing but a ball of plasma, drifting aimlessly in the galaxy.
He never knew Leo.
Finally, he walked side by side with Pulse.
Nightmares be damned, Leo needed her stars.
The guard, a metal-sheen-skinned man just shy of Pulse's height, leaned against the door, snoring, deep in the dreams of mindless abstract colors. Pulse and Quark strolled past like a stroll in a garden.
'No wonder Ruin kept escaping.'
Quark held his breath. There was fear that the darkness would steal it out of his lungs.
Transitioning from one world to black, Quark was powerless against the crushing sensation of pure nothingness; worming into his skin.
It was carving out his insides, scooping his organs into its hands and twisting them.
As always, Pulse illuminated the path forward.
‘No form of darkness dares to touch them…’
Their chest drummed like a metronome. Counting the beats grounded Quark to the pure and solid—to Pulse—and quelling the anxiety.
One beat every second. 1, 2, 3, 4... Quark hoped to track the time this way.
60, 61, 62...230. 231, 232, 233... The number was growing, and so was his anxiety.
'Please, please, I don't want to be lost here.'
Pulse Squeezed his fingers, exchanging a reassuring, gentle smile, "We got this."
Quark finally breathed—inhaling Pulse's sweet scent mingling with the smell of putrid water—and their mind felt that pull once more.
This was a whole new force at hand. Not one of control and oppression, but guidance. It was a will greater than that of the pull.
"Leo is that way," he said.
“Why do you think that?”
"It's a feeling I have, I can't explain."
“Doesn't hurt to try."
There was no telling what was 'that way,' only that Quark knew that was where Leo was; her energy was unmistakable. He swore he could hear her, whimpering, saying affirmations that were just not true.
'They're not coming. They're not coming. I'm alone as I always was.'
None of it was true. Not now, at least.
Quark and Pulse could hear the sounds; the darkness and filled their thoughts with morbid images in junction with the graphic scenery behind their eyes.
In the same strokes were the pangs of guilt; a survivor that should never have been, a lonely existence, the emptiness of abandonment, lost in a world that is overall indifferent—a yearning for connection at the end of the tunnel.
At the end of all this sorrow, there was a need for hope. There was a will to hold onto something that brought promise of tomorrow. Something better was to come. The waves of sorrow and hope went back and forth, increasing in ferocity until it made them dizzy.
"I feel something," Pulse said, ribbing their fingers together, "It's like a cloth; it's smooth and cold."
'This is it.'
There was no way of knowing what the worst thing the mind could conjure. There was a gamble—anything beyond this cloth could ambush them. Gamal's hounds could be waiting for them, and they wouldn't have time to run away or have the means to.
'I don't even know if we could return to being stars.'
"Pull it back."
Pulse ripped open the veil without a second to question Quark. From black to piercing white, a jolt to their senses. Shockingly painful for creatures whose bodies were of light.
At the least, there was sound beyond the seal; buzzing against the white-painted concrete walls and a white tile floor.
A garden welcomed them, beckoning them through the crack of sliding glass doors.
Plants half dead yet half overgrown. The buzzing came from the light's above them, casting an unnatural yellow hue that made his eyes ache.
Pulse spoke, “You ready?”
"I—I don't know," Quark admitted. "I'm not sure what to do now."
"Play it by ear," Pulse repeated the mantra. "Play it by ear..."
But in his ear was that hum of the lights.
Pulse made a face as the first wave hit them—bleach, ammonia, and a rancid organic smell permeated and floored them as they took their first steps into Leo's nightmare.
Quark had to cover his mouth; the dread churned his stomach like a whirlpool of angst creating a combination of physical ailments Quark believed impossible for a star.
A being who needs no food, water, or other substance like a human would.
That damned buzzing was driving both stars insane. The halls were polished, but the stains of unknown origin painted the walls. They were shades of red, brown, yellow, and green, faded from all the attempts to wash them away.
“Which way?”
Quark braced himself. There were only two directions: left and right; nothing made either choice appear better.
“Do we split up?” Pulse asked again.
"I don't think that's a good idea, not for a place like this."
“What is this place then?”
Recalling the memory he read, her words and cries he heard echo in his head as he read her spiraling inner monologue, he replied, "A mental hospital."
“A—A mental...” Pulse trailed off, not wanting to finish the question.
"It didn't say exactly why," Quark explained solemnly, "She didn't want to remember. She lived here for five miserable, lonely years..."
"Five years..." Now a whisper, Pulse looked to the right, listening to something Quark couldn't hear, "The kind of horrors that can come from that much time."
"Yeah." While Pulse listened, Quark rambled on with his thoughts.
He attempted to ration out the best path, "It didn't come with a map, those memories."
There were signs on the walls, "These say something, but they're not a language I know. It is like hieroglyphs... These look like worms, this one is more like linked chains. These are arrows, that's for certain. But what do they mean? What is the difference between worms and chains?"
“Pick one,” Pulse said, stern and foreboding.
"I-is something wrong?” Quark stammered. "What's there?"
“Pick a direction.”
"I-I-I don't know." Worms and chains. Worms and chains.
Worms or chains, "To the right?"
Immediately hating the decision, Pulse pulled Quark to their side. "Right, it is."
“Is that wrong?”
"Not wrong, just complicated."
Quark felt Pulse press a finger to his lips. Now he can hear it—howling filtered through bile. Vomit gurgling at the end of their pleas. It was wailing in that same Ghostly language, but this time, Quark realized what it was asking for. It wanted to eat, those were the sounds of a starving being.
"What the fuck is—" Pulse clasped a hand over Quark's mouth as they ducked into a split in the wall, luckily just big enough for the both of them to squeeze through.
The person—the creature, a monster, a patient, hobbled down the hall.
Bloody fingers scrape against the tile from arms that were too long, and they too weak to lift them; too fragile and lame to cure their ailments, those of blindness and hunger, a hunger known only by those whose stomachs bulged; they gorged on the blandest,
bulkiest food and they were still unfulfilled.
Chunky, pea-green spit-up bubbled out of the corner lips, mindlessly searching the halls—searching for what?
'These are Leo's monsters?' Quark held his breath, fearing that making any sound would be loud enough for the creature to find them. Pulse trembled; they kept their hand over Quark's mouth, daring not to breathe themselves.
Pulse squeezed him to their chest as the creature slumped past them.
Fear began to arise. It flooded them like constant bursts of solar flares.
Could these creatures harm them? Can they hurt Leo?
How are they going to get Leo out of here?
They looked at each other. Pulse could no longer muster the confidence to hide the doubt in their face. This was a dangerous situation. There was no telling what these creatures were capable of. Maybe they were in over their heads when they came here.
They were, but they made a promise to Leo they had no intention of breaking.
Pulse shook the dwarf. The creature was gone, "Stay with me, you can do this."
“We can do this," Quark amended. "For Leo."
"For Leo."
They continued forward. Brick by brick, tile by tile, nothing looked to change or move.
It was the same every step; they were lost.
They needed to turn back, but the way they came was nowhere in sight.
They had wandered so far that it was unfamiliar.
Even if the walls and floors never changed, something in the air did. It was new and worse.
'Think of something positive; no creatures can sneak up on them.' Even if they were alone, at least they had each other. Out of everyone in the possible universe, Quark was glad that it was Pulse. This journey would have been impossible on his own, but Pulse gave him that safety net.
'They are amazing. I don't understand why they take my hand so often, why they are so close to me, even now—I can feel their hip pressing into me as they draw me in.'
These thoughts kept the worst ones at bay.
'They are so kind to me, and I don't know if I deserve it. But maybe that says more about them than anything. Pulse is the Cosmic Darling for a reason, aren't they?'
In the short time they've all known each other of all the emotions Quark has felt on this journey, regret was not one of them.
'I wouldn't trade this for anything. I would go to the edge of the universe for these people.'
In the midst of fear and pessimism, out of a dire need to fill the space it carved out, there was hope.
Maybe it was that bit of hope he needed to feel the pull. It was thrust forward to a noticeable, vibrant energy that was green, with a strong scent of mint.
Run. Run to her.
At the end of the hall was a door. The only door. The only way.
The only one who could be here.
The only girl in the universe who could summon them. A girl with a soul that demanded love. A soul whose yearning was palpable. It called to them, the stars, and pulled them to her.
“Leo!”