Day: 3660

Days Left: 1820

Lives Saved: 20

They both looked into the distance, seeing the portal above The Land of the Lost open up and a metal platform descend from the sky.

'She's not going to let me leave,' Corinna signed, her arms shaking. 'I am never going to leave.'

"Corinna, no, it's okay!" Henry held her shoulders. "It's okay, we don't know that for sure, you still have some years left on your sentence-"

'I will be here forever,' Corinna shook her head, trying to escape Henry's grasp.

"I will be here with you!" Henry swallowed, his eyes watering again. "I will be here with you no matter how long you have to stay here, even if it is forever and-"

'I shouldn't be here!' Corinna silently spat out the words. 'She needed to die! I should have killed her! I should have killed!'

Henry struggled to speak, flinching from Corinna's fury.

'After what she did to Ernest, she deserved far worse!' Corinna sucked in a breath, and then looked back again at the open portal.

It took a moment before Henry realised. "Corinna," he began softly. "You can't escape. They will shoot anyone down who tries that way. You'll fall off the platform and break your neck."

'She deserves to die.'

"You'll lose your memories, Corinna, or at the very least hurt yourself."

Corinna bowed her head, her back to Henry.

For a moment, Henry thought he had gotten through to her, to see with logic though he knew that it would be far more difficult to quell any desires for revenge.

But then Corinna looked to her monster mask attached to her belt.

"Don't!" Before Corinna could wear it, Henry snatched it away, retreating a step as Corinna turned around.

'Give. That. Back,' Corinna mouthed slowly, her eyes unblinking as she glared at him. There was something cold in those eyes, an underlying darkness that was only growing larger.

"No." Henry swallowed, calming himself.

'I can kill her, I can escape with that mask'.

"And what happens afterwards? If you try to transform back into a human, you will not survive."

'I will return to The Abyss for that,' Corinna huffed silently. 'I am not an idiot. I will kill her, come back, and ensure that both of us will be released. Once she is dead, we are free.' Her glare fell, and she reached out an arm to Henry. 'Please,' she mouthed, and in between that anger, Henry saw the hidden vulnerability, the desperation.

Their memories had returned to them, of events that had happened over a decade ago and yet when returned it felt that they only happened yesterday. What had happened to Ernest, whatever really happened to him that day that caused Corinna to try to kill the queen felt like yesterday. The experience still raw and new, and the emotions felt a decade ago that were locked away were reopened, old and new wounds merging together.

Even in this quiet moment, far from everything, there was the muffled sounds of battle, the panic from The Warren's citizens, guards, and invaders alike.

Henry glanced down at the celestial mask, considering. Breaking the mask would make Corinna vulnerable but it was worth the risk of allowing Corinna to escape and make a big mistake.

"This won't help our family," said Henry, retreating back further, turning his body away from his cousin. "If you die in your attempt, what do you think will happen to the others? What you did last time almost ruined the family. If you fail, what will be the consequences for you? For our family? And if you succeed, do you imagine the next person in line will be merciful? Any allied countries? Any devout royalists?"

Corinna paused, her arm still extended out but slightly shaking. 'I have to kill her,' she signed with one hand. 'She almost killed Ernest. She wiped away my memories of...' She stopped in her signing, and then mouthed once again 'please,' offering her prosthetic hand.

Henry shook his head, his face scrunching up in guilt. "This is for your own good, Corinna." He sucked in a breath. "And this will protect our family."

Before Henry could break and snap the celestial mask, Corinna lunged forwards and shoved him, the mask flung out of his hands and clattered onto the stone pavement only a few metres away. Corinna whipped around about to rush to it, but Henry pulled her back, and yanked her with such force that she fell backwards onto the ground.

It was only a matter of moments before Corinna was on her feet, that cold and darkened stare returned to her eyes.

They both glanced at the mask nearby, both at a similar distance. It was likely going to get a fight, Corinna wasn't going to let him destroy the mask so easily, but it was only Corinna. Henry had all the advantages, he was far taller and stronger, and had his mask if he needed to resort to it. Corinna was shorter than the average woman, with little to no muscle, no weapons, no mask, and had prosthetic hands. So long as he stayed focused, restraining Corinna would be simple.

Henry lunged at the mask, feigning for that to be his target and instead in actuality preparing to be intercepted, ready to block and pin Corinna down only to be met with a roundhouse kick to the face. In that singular kick, Henry was knocked to the ground, his head reeling, vision blurred. He saw the vague outline of his cousin and yanked her down with him by the leg.

Even on the ground, Corinna tried to reach the mask, but Henry kicked it out of her reach as soon as he got back to his feet.

The two exchanged blows, both relying on unarmed combat as Corinna had no weapon and Henry refused to use the sword at his side, knowing it must never come to that. Corinna was vicious, clearly having been taught proper martial arts than improvised flailing. Henry wondered why he was so initially surprised, what with who Corinna's fiancée was, however technique could only compensate so much as it appeared that Corinna was rusty from sitting behind a desk all these years, or just using her celestial form. Meanwhile, Henry had spent years traversing The Eternal Abyss, sometimes having to survive without a mask or a weapon, just equipped with desperation.

Just when Henry thought he was getting the upper hand, his taller and stronger body able to tackle and pin her down, a blade spiked out of one of Corinna's prosthetic hand and slashed his arm, and he instinctively let go from the shock and pain.

Using the moment, Corinna darted to the mask, her prosthetic hands fumbling to pick it up with her blade out and her shaking arms with adrenaline. She raised the celestial mask from the ground, about to don it when a flurry of sand invaded her eyes, blinding her.

*

Henry and Corinna found themselves in an endless void, just the two of them in all existence. Corinna glanced down at herself, seeing that her celestial mask was not with her, meanwhile Henry was in his monster form, the pale skin, the hooked nose, the black greasy hair and the odd feathered texture of his suit. A line of sand sprinkled from Henry's palms, the tiny grains stark on the ground of pure darkness.

All he had to do was to prevent Corinna from escaping through portal whilst it was still open, he just had to play for time, perhaps give her a nightmare, something to scare her into staying. However Henry was struggling to maintain the connection, the nightmare he made was weak and if Corinna was strong-willed enough, which she would be once she realised, it could be easily waken up from.

What was it? Something was blocking Henry from creating anything too, to add to the nightmare rather than just simply accessing Corinna's mindscape.

And then he found it, burrowed away, was a protection spell, one specifically preventing Corinna from having nightmares. It appeared weak, whoever the caster was was unknown to Henry and had cast it at least a decade ago, the power having not been unkempt or maybe even the caster was in a weakened state.

In The Eternal Abyss, no one cast magic. But this wasn't The Eternal Abyss. Someone's mind was in an entirely different realm. It was how Henry when working for The Abyss was able to communicate with prisoners, to enter their mind. There was a limit but fortunately this protection spell was easily dispelled.

Corinna paused in her reverie, her eyes flitting to Henry as she felt the protection break.

'You will not contain me for too long,' her disembodied voice echoed across the void.

Henry smirked. "I wouldn't be so cocky. Mind manipulation magic was my speciality." It was the reason why his career was fast-tracked, other than the obvious nepotism of course. Henry was powerful enough to contact prisoners in The Eternal Abyss from the human realm with little to no mental injuries.

Meanwhile, Corinna was not a mage and had no knowledge of how to navigate a mindscape, let alone how to create anything or break free.

That was what Henry thought but Corinna was looking around at the place with little confusion and appeared confident.

He was about to be proved wrong, wasn't he?

Henry had to restrain Corinna long enough, even if it was for a few extra minutes, an extra minute could be the difference between the portal being open or closed.

Clapping his hands together in one thunderous crack, Henry surrounded Corinna in layers of brick and metal, more specifically a cell from the underground containment facility, detailed down to the claw marks that Henry was in before gaining his citizenship. Conjuring was easier and more powerful if conjured from memories as opposed to pure imagination.

Corinna stood there, unflinching as it happened, staring directly at him through the narrow slit in the cell door.

"I'm doing this for your own good, Corinna," Henry let out a sigh. "I can feel your pain." Which was true since he was in her mind, it was suffocating as if gravity was trying to push him down. "About what happened to Ernest, everything. But getting revenge, acting on your pain like this will only cause more harm to those we care about."

There was a moment of silence.

"You cannot escape from here," Henry continued. "Not against me."

'This is my mind, isn't it?' Corinna's voice spoke though her mouth did not move. 'I am the one in control.'

"I was the one who created this nightmare."

'All I have to do is defeat you in here and the nightmare ends, right? That's how it works?'

Henry hesitated in response, giving the answer away.

'I am doing this for our family, Henry. Once I kill the queen, I will do everything in my power to protect our family.'

"That isn't how you protect them." Henry shook his head. "I will do everything to protect our family, even if that means stopping you, Corinna."

Corinna glanced away for a moment before settled once again on Henry. 'I forgive you,' she said so quietly, barely a whisper. 'Please, forgive me for this.'

She raised her hands, revealing that she had conjured the celestial mask in her mindscape, and then donned it, the light shining around the edges.

Before her transformation was complete, Henry summoned another cage, another layer to keep her out around the cell, and then another and another as he heard the smashing of bricks and snapping of metal.

Realising he couldn't do this forever, Henry tried a different tactic.

When the celestial breached the final barrier, she found that the darkness of the void had been filled with buildings, the houses of The Warren to be precise.

She ascended into the sky before landing atop one of the highest rooftops, overlooking the city.

Where are you hiding?

She heard a scurrying in a narrow street and blinked into light, zooming over to find it empty. And then she was met with the brutal force of an entire weight of a charging mammoth. The large prehistoric creature rushed from the corner out of thin air and knocked her into a wall with its tusks. Just the sheer impact had already caused a thin split in her torso, the light dim around the edges. It was thankfully shallow, the celestial acting just quick enough to soften the blow, but that did not make up for her being so caught off guard.

Before she could properly recover, the mammoth charged again, knocking her through the entire building and to the next alleyway. Embarrassed and frustrated, the celestial finally fought back, puncturing a smoking hole in the mammoth's head. The creature twitched then collapsed onto the ground, and soon disappeared into nothingness.

So that wasn't Henry himself? Corinna didn't put it past him to disguise himself. She managed to change her form and appearance, perhaps he had done so too. That just meant she would just have to kill everything she saw. But since Henry was capable of manifesting other beings, she must been able to too.

*

Henry controlled his breathing, trying to stay as quiet as possible, listening out for Corinna's reaction to the mammoth, hoping that it got her off guard to do some damage before she realised she can play the same game.

Henry thought back to past monsters he had encountered in The Eternal Abyss for inspiration, what could battle the celestial or at least slow her down and occupy her to delay her escape.

The door to the building Henry was hiding out in slowly creaked open. The creature had to duck to fit through the doorway, a humanoid so starved that its skin clung tightly to its skeleton, almost bald, dark hair strands of hair hanging limp and straw-like.

"So hungry..." the wendigo muttered. It stumbled into the room gangly, looking around dreamily before its eyes set on Henry. "Found you..." it said in a haunting sing-song voice, its arms reaching out.

Henry ducked out of the way, enough time to summon a set of dire hyenas to protect him.

The wendigo salivated at the new meals, before screeching in pain as the hyenas tackled it to the ground, tearing at its skeletal body. Once deeming it safe, Henry mentally commanded one of the hyenas to follow him, leaving the other to finish off the wendigo.

Immediately as he escaped outside, he saw the unkindness of ravens surveying the dark skies, as well as the multitude of monsters that were breaking into every building in search of him.

The majority of Henry's concentration was going into conjuring up the city for cover, that he had not had enough time to summon any units himself.

There was a clank of heavy metal and turning a corner into the alleyway was a knight in resplendent golden armour armed with a spear.

The golden knight lunged forwards, her golden hair flailing behind her, and Henry braced himself, putting his hands up, then opened his eyes, sighing in relief as Sumit's monster form appeared before him, the conjoined twinned demons. One of them held his two swords out, blocking the spear of the golden knight, the other on the back faced Henry, using his arms to shield him before throwing one of his swords at a monster behind them.

The sword lodged into the wood of the life-sized marionette doll, breaking one of the sleeves of her blue and white dress, revealing the metal and wooden joints. Henry set the hyena on the marionette, the wild dog barely able to bite into the wood, and pulled, tearing one of its arms out of its sockets, a trail of metal wire hanging off the severed limb.

With both the golden knight and the marionette doll distracted, Henry darted through a window into a nearby building, summoning two more hyenas simultaneously as they were easy and simple enough creatures to conjure compared to the more complicated monster mask forms, whilst also focusing on the entire city.

Henry continued to move from building to building, skilfully evading any monsters before they noticed him. It was not safe outside with so many ravens able to see him, but eventually, one of the monsters will come knocking at the door. One thing at a time, deal with the ravens.

The celestial watched from above, choosing to stay in the centre, ready to move when one of her peons signalled to her, though the more she summoned it seemed the dimmer they were and were left to their own devices. The ravens had yet to find Henry but had spotted a few hyenas and Sumit's monster form. Henry was likely in that section. Before she could think of who to search that area, there was a crack of thunder, like a roar of a lion as a powerful gale swarmed the area. The wind twisted and churned around a silhouette of a bird in the eye of the storm. All of the monsters within the area were sucked up into the vortex, the smallest and lightest ones slung across great distances, out of the playing field, the velociraptor, the red toadstool, the black hound, and the red-hat goblin disappeared out of sight.

Not much of a loss, Corinna thought, they were hardly her essential units. She focused on the thunder bird, questioning the likelihood of Henry being in that area, it being high as that was where the hyenas were spotted, or if it was actually Henry himself, a bold tactic, to show himself and no longer hide, reckless, but the storm protecting against anyone getting close.

The ravens, so many in number that the average IQ Corinna could summon were barely smarter than actual birds, or maybe even less, swarmed the gale, most of them getting sucked into the gale too and whirled around.

Corinna ordered the monsters searching on the other side of the city to convene to the sector with the thunder bird, assuming that Henry was there.

*

He was not. Henry had focused all of his energies on running to another sector away from the hyenas and monster Sumit fighting the golden knight and the marionette doll, to lose the trail and hide his position, then summoned the thunderbird on the other side of the city. He kept quiet, hearing the clanking of armour and heavy footsteps as monsters passed his building and were lured away by the distraction.

Now the question was what to prepare next.