Day: 3711

Days Left: 1769

Lives Saved: 20

At some point, Rin regained consciousness. She did not know how much time had past, but she could remember her eyes opening, or at least knowing that she was awake and present amongst that unknown darkness before slipping back into unfeeling unconsciousness. Sometimes she felt as if she was floating, weightless and numb and other times she could feel so heavy, so much pain coursing through her body, feeling how wrong it had become, the shape bent and torn and flattened into something it was not supposed to.

When she had more clearer sense of self, Rin would attempt to move or to call out to the unmoving rock shape that was the fire demon on the other side of the pit they were stuck in. There was a varying amounts of success at these attempts, her best was shifting herself to a more comfortable position to lay in and then to actually somewhat yell out Alfreda's name to get her attention, to see if she would or could respond. However the lump of rock remained a lump of rock, the veins of fire previously hot and glowing were smouldering, a few wisps of smoke still fuming out in thin lines. Maybe this smoke could alert the others in finding them? Rin hopefully thought and then more realistically imagined a monster seeing the smoke signal and coming to devour them. Her only solace was the probability of this considering neither paper nor rock were appetising meals for most monsters. Being made out of a non-organic material also meant that their healing factor would be better. During times of consciousness, Rin did her best to move the pieces of paper that constituted her body, moving the stronger pieces to the integral parts and sacrificing limbs and parts she did not need currently.

After perhaps days of fixing herself, Rin had manoeuvred herself to a sitting position, now able to move her neck and see how far down they were in the pit. If she was stronger, the climb would be a bit difficult, simple enough if she was just in her human form if she dug out some divots in the earth. But she certainly was not strong enough to carry Alfreda whilst climbing up. Perhaps there would be a convenient rope up above or someone kind and trustworthy to help her? Or should Rin just admit that if Alfreda does not wake up in the time Rin fully recovers that she was never going to recover, or at least that Alfreda was gone and there would just be someone new in that body instead, just like Sumit and Oscar. Did Rin have a duty to help that person? She remembered herself waking up without her memories, alone without a clue where she was and who she was, and was ever grateful that Sumit and Nasim had found her when they did. regardless of whether that lump of rock was still Alfreda or not, Rin had to help, even if the two never got along; Rin could not deny the times that Alfreda had protected her and helped her, and now she had to return that favour.

Whilst Rin waited for her body to heal and restructure itself in those days, she humoured herself, imagining what Alfreda would be like if she lost her memories and how the whole process worked. Rin had been told that when someone does lose their memories that they are not the same person, perhaps a part still remains but not enough to be exact, how Salim and Ivette talked about Harmony, but Rin always found it difficult to separate the Sumit she had first met to the current one. It was like a younger Sumit, still figuring things out about the world and himself, angry and confused at it compared to the older and wiser one who had learned more, who had grown. How much of a person were their experiences? If Alfreda lost her memories would she still act like a spoilt princess? Would she still make those snide and hateful comments? Rin wondered that about herself too. Despite the first two people she remembered meeting, Sumit and Nasim, being so lovely and kind and outgoing, Rin herself had ended up like this, spiteful and cold and distant. Perhaps that was a part of her previous self that remained, that could not be erased, was not taught but innate. Why? Why couldn't she have been like Sumit and Nasim? Why did she have to be like this? She had a fresh start to be someone new and yet she resided into her shell, shunning so many people out, shutting herself down and others, bitter about everything. Yes, her circumstances were horrible, as was everyone's in The Eternal Abyss but she had the capacity to make it better for herself and others.

With all this self reflection, Rin knew she would wind up going stir crazy, the solitude making her hate herself more, to regret more, to hurt more which was a slippery slope to losing her mind to her mask, not that a berserk mush of paper could do much but Rin would like to remain herself for as long as possible. She resorted to talking aloud, even with a lump of stone as an audience. Rin didn't want to have a conversation with no one to volley to remind herself of her loneliness further, so she opted to recalling as many of the stories she had read, providing herself entertainment and hoping that her endless talking would be heard either by a passer-by to help them, or by Alfreda and cause her to wake up.

And then, one day, the lump of stone did move. It shifted ever so slightly, sending up a small puff of smouldering smoke from its mouth, like a long breath of air.

"Alfreda?" Rin called out, but there was no response. The lump of rock did not move again, however over the day, the smoke increased, until eventually there was a noticeable light, embers flowing through the veins in the fire demon and Rin was no longer submitted to the endless darkness of the pit.

She continued to recite stories to alleviate her boredom and reconstruct herself but with more vigour, the hope that she would not be alone rekindled.

"You are terrible at voices," a crackly voice sounded, coughing out a puff of ash. "Absolutely dreadful."

Rin wanted to chuck something at Alfreda but still could not move her arms. Oh well, she'll get her eventually when she least suspected it. But right now, through that death stare Rin was giving her, her eyes were beginning to water, black ink dripping down her face and staining the paper.

Alfreda made no comment about this, mostly because her eyes were still closed, not enough energy yet to fire up everything to move and work.

"I did not say you should stop," said Alfrda eventually after Rin gave up on storytelling. "Unless there is some other kind of entertainment in this place."

"I was doing it for me, not for you," Rin lied, now embarrassed by how much she got into telling the stories only to realise how much Alfreda had heard.

"Then what would you rather we do?" Alfreda groaned, attempting to move her rock body, a few grains crumbling off. "I assume you cannot move either in your state?"

Rin smirked. "I spy-"

"You have to got be joking! I cannot even open my eyes, though I know there is nothing here to see! What is your next suggestion? Rock, paper, scissors?"

"Well, I'll win," said Rin. "Paper beats rock."

"I hardly think soggy mulch can beat volcanic rock," Alfreda scoffed.

Rin sighed. "Okay, I am thinking of a number between one and a million-"

"No."

"An animal-"

"No."

"Someone from our friend group."

There was a slight pause before Alfreda again said, "No." She groaned again, adjusting her stiff body to something more comfortable. "Just do those stories again-"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why do so?" Rin wondered why Alfreda was so pressed about her continuing the stories. Was she mocking her now? Making fun of her coping mechanism? As much as Rin hated to admit it to herself, all Rin wanted right now was to talk to someone after an unknown amount of days of solitude. And if the only way to obtain that was to resort to arguing and annoying Alfreda then so be it. Though currently, Rin much preferred eternal silence and solitude rather than continuing the stories and giving Alreda more ammunition.

"Then what?" Alfreda huffed. "How are going to pass the time? Who knows how long until we can move and get out of here."

"Talk?" Rin suggested. Or maybe silence was starting to look better.

"Talk about what? The weather? Current affairs?" Our feelings?"

"Go on then," said Rin.

"What?"

"Go on, talk about your feelings." Rin shrugged, or at least as best as she could due to her lack of mobility. "Who knows, I may not live to tell anyone. Sure, neither of us need to eat in these forms but we're still fish in a barrel down here, and when the next blood moon comes, how sound of mind do you think we will be in? We can lose ourselves, maybe go berserk and try to kill each other." If we hadn't already done so willingly before, Rin thought to herself.

"Fine." Alfreda let out a puff of ash in a sigh.

Rin didn't think this would work, more gambling on it annoying Alfreda more than anything, to give herself some amusement than to have a honest heart to heart.

"I feel..." Alfreda began slowly. "Horrible."

Ah, of course, Rin thought. Alfreda would only share her feelings if she was complaining about something.

"I do not think I have felt worse... physically," Alfreda continued. "It was already an odd feeling being in this form and I never quite got used to even when I was using my mask for days on end. The tail aside, being made out of rock, my legs a different shape so my centre of balance is different. It is strange to breath, everything is heavy and condensed; I feel tense and heated all the time. The heat does not hurt but it is uncomfortable, overstimulating perhaps, every vein is moving and I can feel it, every time things get hotter or colder. And then when I breath fire, that feeling inside of me, of energy waiting to burst, it is like I am a living bomb wanting to explode and anything can cause me to do so." Alfreda paused. "And then like this, there is just a deathly silence. That heat and energy is gone, was gone, it is slowly returning but I feel paralysed- I am paralysed right now. When the flames snuff out, I cannot breath, I suffocate and cannot move and-" Her voice trailed off. "For all its power and how well it has served me, this form is a terror to try and live in, fighting in it is something else."

Rin swallowed, at first having prepared to tease, to tell her she was not being serious about talking about feelings, but had quickly dismissed that. "I feel... empty almost, not quite, but enough where it feels that there is always something missing. I have no internal organs of any kind, I can manipulate my form into anything, any shape, even just a thin pile of paper and yet I still bleed, I bleed ink. I don't feel anything inside apart from the ink, not like I feel a liquid swashing around or pumping through my veins but... its like a gauge, I can sometimes feel the sensations of the ink changing words, scratching into the paper, sometimes roughly, sometimes it glides over. I suppose it could be compared to a tattoo gun, a constant scratching though perhaps milder in pain." Rin glanced over to her arm where usually there would be inked writing, revealing advice or a prediction but the black ink was still smudged and unintelligible. "When my form changes, it is disorientating, I can separate parts of myself from the rest, sending it out far and yet I can still feel the connection despite the distance. When I don't have eyes to help me focus, me as a collective feels... it feels heavy like I am condensed, or maybe even light as if there is nothing to me, that a simple wind could unravel me and send me scattering away just like... just like before..." Rin hesitated. "I feel... as if I could break at any moment and become nothing again."

Rin had never talked about it before, no one had asked and so she never brought it up, what it was like being nothing but paper and scattered across the wasteland. She was nothing in that moment, as if in an eternal slumber, stretched out into a thinness that she may as well not have existed, pulled from reality and into an abstract feeling she could not describe. And then when she finally awoke, she found herself not entirely herself, parts of her body still paper, and she had lost Sumit.

"If we..." Alfreda paused, then corrected herself, "when we go back to being human, what are the chances we won't... turn out the same?"

"I don't know," Rin said quietly. "It'll be safer to take our masks off when we're fully recovered."

"If we're not... what does it feel like? The parts that are made of paper? I will be like that, will I not? Made out of rock. Will I... will the heat burn my flesh, will it be painful?"

Rin swallowed, not wanting to imagine if Alfreda had to live like that. She thought back to others who had transformed incorrectly from their monster masks. "Calanthe had those horns but it did not affect anything else. Oscar's legs were shorter-"

"Not just shorter," said Alfreda solemnly. "The skin... it was not human, it was painful to him, and the smell of it too..."

"Oh," said Rin, having only assumed. How could she have known when Oscar covered his legs? Or if Rin never tried to talk to anyone to ensure that they were okay?

"Mr Sumit, he-" Alfreda began, then stopped herself.

"His skin too was not human," said Rin. "But he said they were only a little uncomfortable, more body dysphoric than anything. And he transformed from something far beyond human form and size. If he could do it and still turn out fine, then surely we can if we are just patient."

"Good," Alfreda sighed. "I do not want my organs to be misplaced or made out of rock. I do not want to be like..." Her voice trailed off.

"Like Bryce?" Rin guessed quietly.

"Was that his name? I wonder if he is still the same."

"If he is good riddance." Though then Rin remembered that Dex had wiped Bryce's memories. Who was he now? Did that person deserved to live in that horrifying form? On the brink of death? Would that person have grown to be just like Bryce, or was all of Bryce's moral failings due to his prior experiences? What if living in that form changed him too? If Rin were to lose her memories again, what kind of person would she be?

"Do you think his punishment was deserving of his crime?" Alfreda asked.

"What?" Rin frowned. "You don't think he deserved mercy do you? What he could have potentially done to Corinna if she hadn't-"

"No, I did not mean that." Alfreda paused. "There are some real monsters in the world, there is a line you can cross and in doing so I do not think there can be forgiveness. I just wonder what that line is."

"Are you asking because you do not know if someone deserves forgiveness... or yourself?"

Alfreda did not answer, which revealed the answer itself.

"What did you do?" Rin asked, though regretted it, thinking that it might have been better to change the subject instead of following through with this.

"Too much," Alfreda answered quietly. "And not enough."

"Want to confess your sins?" Rin teased, expecting Alfreda to be annoyed and drop the subject before things got too real.

Alfreda scoffed. "You will probably enjoy it."

"Enjoy it?"

"Hearing my failures and mistakes."

Rin paused. It was true that Rin took some degree of pleasure at seeing Alfreda annoyed but Rin certainly did not consider herself someone to revel in someone's else's misery. Yes, she did not think highly of Alfreda but would she go as far to say she would mock and shame her for something she regrets?

"You don't have to say anything," said Rin eventually. "It was just an offer. In case we die and this is it, get everything off our chest sort of thing. Besides, I doubt my opinion of you can get any worse," she joked, but Alfreda did not respond with a snide comment in return.

"I am sure it can get worse," said Alfreda. "But yes, I see your point. Sometimes the best person to talk to if someone whose opinion you do not care about."

Ah, there it was.

"You can go first," said Alfreda.

"Huh? Me!"

"Is this not an exchange?"

"You're the one who wants to talk."

"If you did not want to talk, you would be silent right now and ignoring me, or pretending to be dead. But you are not." The fire demon managed a smirk despite the stiffness of her face. "Do not lie, pet, I can see right through it. I am your only source of entertainment-"

"I am not your pet," snapped Rin. "Stop calling everyone that, it's gross."

Alfreda continued to smirk.

Rin went silent, not wanting to make Alfreda's theory correct by continuing the conversation. Yes, she much preferred the satisfaction of remaining silent for the rest of her days, until they were both recovered and leave this place.

The silence stretched to an uncomfortable length, neither relenting and wanting to admit that they needed each to stay sane.