Her Mission To Save Them All || Sword Art Online Fanfic

Chapter 30

POV: Kayoko

I see Kyo's face in my visor, his lips pressing into a thin line, like he's trying to hold words in. His mouth opens, but I can't tell if he says anything over my own rasping breath. At the expression etched on his features, I turn away, fixing my blurring eyes on the dunes beyond.

Something flashes between the ridges. Pale skin. Hair waving in the slightest breeze. She stares at me, as I stare back. I reach out my hand towards her, my mouth opening in warning to my friends. Her form shifts, and the next time my eyes close, they do not open.

The sand trickling through my hourglass is running out; it's beginning to bury me, suffocate me. I don't bother to reach between the grains, because I know there's no point at all.

My time has run out.

************

It's dark. Dark all around me, enveloping me, hugging me, drawing me close against its clawed embrace. It's darkness so black, that I can't tell whether my eyes are closed or open, for, either way, I cannot see. It's dark. So, so dark.

I float in the expanse of darkness. For seconds, minutes, hours. They all blend together into nothing, for time is the only thing that death takes from others. We all never have enough.

So, I lie there in the darkness and let it comfort me. Let it convince me the world was never even there; a world of excitement and swords and battles. A world named Sword Art Online, did it ever even exist?

Then, something in the darkness stirs, and a thread reaches out to me, winding around my middle, and tugging. Pulling me out of the sand, turning my hourglass over again.

The darkness disappears, and in its place, stands a figure, hazy in the distance. Her hand beckons me forward, pulling at that thread again. Rather than her forcing me, I follow the call. My steps grow in confidence, the string soon unravelling, falling back into the void.

As I near her, I can make out her features. Her brown hair hangs around her shoulders like a shroud, lips spread in a smile that spreads to her sparkling eyes and flushed brown cheeks. I know that smile, know it as well as I know my own. It was my smile.

It's me before the game. Before betrayal and love and sadness reforged me into a warrior. We're carved from the same stone, but her smile isn't mirrored back on my own mouth.

But still, I continue to walk towards her. The previous me holds out her hands, drawing us closer. They clasp my own, fingers warm, despite her flickering avatar. Up close, her eyes are filled with more flecks of green than brown, and underneath her long lashes, a freckle punctures into her skin. I pull back, knowing no such freckle appears under my widened eyes.

"Who are you?"

The question echoes, but her smile grows softer, more understanding. Her hands reach for me as I back further away. My body hits the hard stone in return, my breath hitching. Her fingers brush my cheek, cupping it in her palms. It's a perfect fit, like they were sewn from the same cloth.

Her grip is iron, her gaze so hypnotic that I can't look away. Something in my body relaxes at her touch, as if it's familiar, a long-ago memory. Her lips kiss my forehead, and she whispers against my skin,

"Save him before them all."

************

I bolt upwards, limbs flailing at the blankets wrapping around my skin, pulling them out from where they were tucked, leaping up. I topple over my own legs, my body curling over itself. I let myself lie on the wooden floorboards, feeling the coolness spread from the hardness and into my skull.