"I-Inside of my soul...?" Kieran stammered, confused and anxious.
The alternate version of him nodded. "Yep. Come on—we should get out of here before more of us show up," he said, helping Kieran to his feet.
The three began walking in an unknown direction—the blood-soaked version dragging his blade across the gravel with a harsh scraping sound, while the tired apparition led the way, hands tucked in his pockets.
"I--I don't understand... why is this happening?" Kieran asked, following behind them.
"That's a good question—one I don't even fully have the answer to," the apparition replied.
"But from what I've gathered during my time here..." He paused, gesturing to the bleak landscape around them. "This place seems to be a sort of soulscape. The inside of your soul—or, well, ours."
"What are you saying?" Kieran asked, looking around at the barren wasteland.
"To keep it simple? I'm pretty sure we were cursed by a witch," the apparition said.
"A--- witch?" Kieran scoffed. "Okay, I've definitely got to be dreaming."
Suddenly, the blood-soaked alternate reached over and pinched his shoulder.
"Ah—ouch!" Kieran flinched.
"Did that feel real enough for you?" the tired one asked, his light grey eyes piercing through the rather dim setting.
"...W—Wait, so witches are real? And magic…?" Kieran asked.
The apparition nodded. "If you're here, then I guess those kinds of things exist in your world, yeah. I haven't seen a Kieran yet who didn't have some kind of wacky shit going on with them. So the curse must only affect versions of us who do."
"What do you mean in my world?" Kieran asked, brow furrowed.
"Well, I mean I'm not a clone," the alternate said wryly. "W-well at least I don't think I am..."
"The curse I'm talking about didn't just mess with our soul from what I saw earlier---it seems to be fractured." He continued.
"...Fractured?" Kieran asked, the apparition nodded.
"And now your soul is acting like a magnet," He pauses, placing a hand on his chest.
"Do you feel it? That tight feeling in your chest?" He asked to which Keiran rubbed his chest, feeling a faint, gnawing sensation growing in his body the more he focused on it.
"Thats your soul trying to pull itself back together in an attempt to heal. Reconstructing and filling in the gaps—much like a broken bone. The apparition said.
"Instead of drawing in your missing pieces, however, something else must've happened, and now all of us are here, not sure how many." He concluded, looking up at the crimson red sky as he walked, his long, ragged gray hair flowing with the winds.
"Y'know most of these guys must be pretty confused. Lost, scared, and trapped in this place."
"I've seen most of them be hunted or attacked by other versions of ourselves, all fighting to survive. All killing each other... mercilessly."
"If we all think the same then my best guess for the reason behind why, is that they all believe they're the one cursed. Fighting to save their own soul. And they're right---technically." The apparition said.
"Holy shit, this is really happening..." Kieran muttered, realization making him nauseous as the weight of the situation pressed heavily on his stomach. He bent over slightly and began to vomit.
"That's it—let it all out, bud," the apparition said, while the blood soaked alternate placed a reassuring hand on Kieran's back, rubbing him gently as he continued to throw up.
After a moment, Kieran straightened up and wiped his mouth.
"--Wait," he said, coughing. "How do you know so much about this...?"
"Well, in the world I come from, this phenomenon was much more understood and even loosely studied, to an extent." the apparition explained.
"They called it Fractura Anima—a term coined by Professor Eliot Wright. It referred to the partial degradation of the soul through splitting or fracturing."
"I've only ever seen of such a disorder affecting newborns however, as their souls haven't entirely developed fully, making them all the more likely to be affected." The apparition stood atop a mountain of gravel, scanning over the wasteland momentarily, before gesturing the two to continue following.
"I personally don't know much about Fractura Anima myself, besides the visual effect it has on ones soul." the apparition muttered, "...I never knew it did something like this to those affected, or maybe this is just thanks to the witches curse."
"How are you so sure it's a witch that did this, that sounds pretty over the top--right?" Kieran asked.
"Because witches are the only ones that still use creepy ass curses, duh." The apparition answered, looking over at the blood soaked Kieran.
"Can you believe this guy?" He asks, pointing at Kieran to which the blood covered alternate shook his head in disapproval.
Kieran flustered, feeling mildly embarrassed, for whatever reason.
However, it wasn't long before that feeling was replaced by one of awe, as the looming silhouette of a massive castle began to take shape in the distance.
The apparition pointed toward the outline. "Ahah, it appeared again!" He said ecstatically, turning to his other two counterparts.
"There, that's where we'll find her."
Kieran, lost in thought, stood silently until the blood-soaked version of him snapped his fingers, jolting him back to reality.
"A-ah, the witch--right?" He then asked.
"Nope, the curse." The apparition replied
"...Huh?" Kieran muttered, confused.
The tired apparition rolled his eyes, visibly annoyed. "Geez, do I have to explain everything?" He said before continuing.
"When I first got here, I was in the middle of nowhere—lost, with no clue about what to do. So I started walking in a random direction."
The group began to walk towards the castle, the blood soaked Kieran now leading them, surveying the area for any threats as the apparition continued.
"I walked for what felt like days, watching countless battles between alternates, witnessing countless deaths in such little time." He said, a hint of remorse in his voice.
"Eventually, I started seeing less versions of us, but these ones were different. Most of them were either completely unresponsive or just... outright insane." He said, raising down his collar. "One of em' even gave me this nasty scar." He showed, revealing a crooked lesion going across the side of his neck.
"But I still continued to walk, and that's when this castle appeared, so tall it reached above the clouds that surrounded it. I went inside, and after exploring a bit I managed to find a large black door at the end of a hallway," The apparition recalled, his expression turning serious.
"I opened it and went inside, and in the middle of the dark, cold room was our soul. It was a large, golden-yellow orb, signs of Fractura Anima being evident, as many deep cracks and fissures ran along its surface."
He paused suddenly.
"--But what?" Kieran asked.
"That's when I saw it—the pale, burned fingers of a massive hand wrapped around the orb, holding it in place."
The apparition's voice lowered.
"It had long gray hair that spilled across the ground, and when I looked up, I saw eyes staring down at me. piercing through the darkness like stars."
His jaw clenched as he squeezed his fists.
"That's when my fight or flight instinct kicked in, and I tried to strike the hand it was using to grip the orb. But before I could, I was launched backwards like a ragdoll."
The apparition sighed.
"Then the next thing you know, I was inside your bathtub." He laughed in attempt to lighten the mood.
"...That sounds horrifying as shit." Kieran said, shook to his core.
"So, we need to defeat the curse to leave this place?" Kieran asked, shielding his eyes as a sudden gust of wind kicked up what he thought was dust and debris, momentarily blinding him. Before feeling something crawling on his skin, he looked and saw a small black moth crawling up his forearm.
He panicked and flicked the insect off.
"Exactly," the apparition confirmed, his voice firm. "My guess is, we need to make contact with our soul to be brought back to our worlds. But with that thing guarding it---that's not happening unless we take it out."
"But what am I going to do?" Kieran glanced at his empty hands. "I don't have a weapon or anything..."
The blood-soaked Kieran walked over to Kieran. Without saying a word, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small, rusted dagger—no bigger than a few inches long. He handed it to Kieran with an oblivious smile.
Kieran blinked at the tiny blade. "U-uh… thanks…" he muttered awkwardly, turning it over in his hand.
They pressed on through the barren landscape until the castle finally loomed above them—an eerie monument of stone and shadow. Massive chunks of it floated in midair nearby, suspended like puzzle pieces waiting to be slotted into place.
"Woah…" Kieran said under his breath, craning his neck to take it all in.
"This way," the apparition said, motioning them forward. They followed, reaching a cracked, ivy-covered path lined with dead hedges leading up to the castle's entrance. A sudden flash of lightning lit up the sky—and instantly, the hedges exploded into movement, thousands of black moths scattering into the air like ashes from a fire.
Kieran flinched, ducking as the cloud of insects flew past him.
They walked inside, pausing as they looked around.
The castles grand exterior contrasting with it's empty dimly lit inside.
"Wait—" Kieran said, prompting both alternates to turn and look at him.
"What is it?" the tired apparition asked, as Kieran scratched the back of his head.
"W-we should give each other nicknames, don't you think?" he suggested. "It'd be weird if all kept calling each other the same thing."
"Ah, good idea!" the apparition replied, while the blood-soaked Kieran simply shrugged.
"You can call me... erm..." the tired apparition looked around, thinking for a moment, before snapping his fingers. "You can call me Six," he said with a small smile.
"Six? Why that?" Kieran asked.
"No reason, it's just a name an old friend of mines used to call me," Six replied.
"I see... Well, what about you?" Kieran said, pointing to the blood covered version, who raised his sword dramatically into the air, posed, spun in place, and then pointed at Kieran—then at himself—nodding with a confident smirk.
"Uh... I think he wants you to name him," Six mumbled.
"Oh, w-well..." Kieran said, staring at the version of himself soaked in dark red stains from head to toe as he partially spent time thinking of a name, and more time wondering if most of the blood was his own, or someone else's.
"U-uh, I'll call you Maroon... or Mar, for short," Kieran finally decided.
Mar's eyes widened in awe, glowing faintly as he processed the name.
"I think he likes it," Six said with a chuckle, just as Mar rushed forward and wrapped them both in a tight embrace—causing both of them to gag as they felt stains of blood soaking into their clothes.
The moment was abruptly ruined as a low rumbling came from deeper within the castle, catching their attention.
"Right, let's go," Six said, to which Kieran and Mar nodded. The three cautiously made their way through the mostly empty, eerily quiet castle hallways. Swarms of moths circled around the faintly lit lights of the chandeliers that slowly swayed above them. They turned a corner and eventually reached a large black door at the end of the hallway.
"This is it," Six said, noticing a lock on the door's handle. "That's new..." He touched it, but when he did, a flash of black lightning shocked his hand, causing him to stumble backward.
"Shit—are you okay?!" Kieran shouted, approaching to check on him.
Six raised a hand, gesturing that he was alright. "Yeah, I'm fine." He said, brushing off his shoulders, "This curse is pretty interesting."
"How so?" Kieran asked curiously.
"Well for starters the doors weren't locked like this when I came here before. It must have made this after it threw me out the last time," Six theorized.
"Which means that not only can this curse attack on its own, but it can also learn from its mistakes." He folded his arms.
"In my world, curses aren't known to display intelligence of this kind. I gotta say, I'm impressed--"
Suddenly, a bright red slash sliced through the lock, shattering it into millions of pieces, catching Kieran and Six off guard. From the sparks and debris, Mar stood tall, his sword crackling with a sleek, glowing red energy.
"Don't... matter," Mar growled, his voice low and fierce. He kicked the doors open, causing Kieran and Six to look at each other in shock.
"...Well, that's one way to open it," Six said.