Amends

Chapter 5: Adjust

Back in the mine network, everything has changed; and yet, everything is the same. He can feel it. He knows it.

But right now, Ingressus needs to conquer that which ails him, and find out if there is even a speck of evidence that may just point him in the direction he seeks; but he needs to do it before his mind succumbs to settings that have since plagued his nightmares

Author's note: we're back! big apologies for the unexpected hiatus; life isn't fair and we gotta deal with it. but no matter, I am getting this crap back on track and resuming our update schedule with (hopefully) minimal interruption henceforth XD

we also return to some angsty bois. yes, this chapter was never going to be anything short of angsty based on its sole nature, however fear not; it is only one of few heccin angsty nonsense. memory lane, amirite? XD

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His feet had barely touched the cold hard ground at the base of the ladder in the network when he felt his legs tremble in anxiousness. He had prepared himself for this very moment, yet there was something about the dense, fusty smell and the cold, damp draughts that would periodically rush through the tunnels and corridors, taking his hair from his shoulders and wrapping around his chin, wisping the sides of his face. He brought his cloak around him as a chill ran up his spine and his toes curled into the floor as if gripping to reality.

In seven years, he had expected things to feel different – perhaps even to look different; yet this very place that hoarded a thousand thoughts and feelings was frozen in time, lost. Even after all this time, the Nestoris did not know that it existed.

Or did they?

Maybe they saw no use for it. Ingressus still toyed with the conflicting thoughts between Achillean missing because he had left of his own accord, or missing because the clans had found him; but he thought for a moment that the network had not changed because the clans did not know it existed – that the only people that did were lost to time, themselves, with Ardorus and Aegus dead, Achillean missing and Ingressus feeling as though he never really left; like a part of him was still tethered to that wall, still suffering the years of torment.

Maybe that was why he never felt whole?

That part of him had long vacated his soul and he knew he wasn't likely to get it back.

As another rush of cool wind brushed past him, he took a deep breath in and lifted his head, although his legs still shook lightly as he summoned the courage to continue forth. With the microscopic part of him hoping that Achillean was still here, he felt he should call out to hear a response – to hear the voice that plagued his mind, but in its whole, in its innocence to purge the demonic tones from his head, to rid the sirens as he slept. But he did not utter a sound.

What was he afraid of when calling into the void: the echo, or the answer?

Instead, he listened to the draughts whisper in his ears, carrying the new history that this place held. He gulped and he stepped as if he walked on broken glass, on fiery coals, and he ran his fingertips along the gravel and stone walls, feeling the ice-cold, sunless corridors take to his skin once more. He shuddered, and like touching white hot fire, he wanted to snatch his hand away and cower from what the walls could tell him; but he knew that he had not risked this much, come this far to give into what ailed him yet again.

He remembered the night that he had brought his unconscious brother back here to protect them both from the harsh truths of reality. He could feel everything that the mine network had held for him, yet he had the rush of adrenaline, of determination in the name of his brother to push it down and grit his teeth. Now he had not that net to catch him, and he was freefalling in a decade of anguish and raw pain on his own.