Unreality

37. To Live and to Exist

With her silver hair being swept wildly by the sudden windstorm, Ariadne watched in awe as the mist permeating the empty space around her began to dissipate, allowing a clear view of the gargantuan black wall in the distance.

However, it wasn't long before the wall started to disappear from sight again, albeit for a completely different reason — as the earth below continued to quake and convulse, the cracks near the wall started to open up violently, causing the ground beneath it to fissure and fall.

The cacophonous cataclysm caused by the massive walls crumbling down with the ground was such that Ariadne had to struggle to remain on her feet. Then, while struggling to do so, she watched the last trace of the walls disappear from sight, and realized with astonishment that the ground on the other side of the wall was gone too. She turned around and saw that everywhere she looked, it was the same. In other words, they were now stuck in a barren landscape floating in the middle of nothing. Not only that, she soon noticed the edges of this landscape were starting to crumble away as well, slowly but surely falling into the void below.

It seemed as if it was only a matter of time before the earth beneath their feet fell apart as well.

She turned to Virgil at once, only to see him turning away from her and towards the mysterious door in the middle of the landscape. And just as he turned to it, the door started to open, allowing a glimpse of the pure white light on the other side.

In spite of the shaking earth and howling winds, Virgil took a steady step in its direction, but before he could take another, Ariadne's hand stopped him, with the silver-haired girl clasping her former partner's flesh and blood right arm by the wrist.

'Let go,' he muttered at once, without turning his head to face her.

'Where are you going?' she asked nervously, unable to glimpse his countenance. 'What's on the other side of that door?'

'A world where only I exist.'

'Is that what you really want?!'

'All I want... is a place where I can be free...' he spoke in a voice of quiet desperation, 'and where no one will be able to come invade my space and destroy my peace ever again.'

'And once you get inside, you're going to throw away the key to the door, aren't you?' Ariadne questioned frantically, still gripping her former partner's arm tightly. 'So that you can never go back outside again... just like in that story you wrote.'

'What if I am?'

'Don't you see?! That place won't be the paradise you're hoping for — it'll just be your tomb! If you shut yourself in a confined space to be safe from the outside world, all you're doing is sealing your own tomb!'

'What do you want me to do then?!' Virgil screamed out heatedly. 'Stay here and fall into nothingness?!'

The silver-haired girl glanced around anxiously and watched the landscape becoming smaller still as the earth near its edges continued to be swallowed up by the abyss below.

'Remember, Virgil, this can't be real — we're inside your unreality!' she cried out passionately, despite her very real unease and dread at the extremely vivid phenomenon taking place around them. 'That means you can get us out of here; you can create a way back into the real world! Isn't that what you really want, deep down?! Unreality reflects our subconscious thoughts and desires, right? Then why did that door close before? And why did one of the chained doors on the wall open for me when I came for you?!'

'Shut up!' Virgil yelled out in a strained and wounded voice. 'Do you think I'm clinging on to you or something?! Don't be absurd! All you did in the end was let me down!'