Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

Liara gasped as the vision of Glenn disappeared, a drop of ink-like darkness hiding it from her. She felt herself fall once more into the shadows, deeper and deeper into what seemed to be Glenn's darkest memories.

Her fall ended with a bone-jarring thud. Cold and damp, it smelled of rat shit and mold. Water pipes trembled, their contents leaking slightly. She gave her surroundings a better look, squinting. It appeared to be a basement of some sort, filled with many mundane objects. Ripped carpets, old, oily car parts, a broken, abandoned bicycle missing a wheel. She paused, confused.

'These words... I know what those things are! These are things from Glenn's homeworld, Earth...' Her eyes widened in awe. 'What is happening?'

A small, dirty window letting in a bit of yellow light prevented the basement from being shrouded in darkness. Creaky stairs led to the upper floor, each step scattered with empty beer bottles.

'Why am I here? This... This place feels dreadful.'

Vlam!

The door up the stairs slammed open, shaking the basement slightly. Dust fell on Liara, making her sneeze lightly.

"You damned worm! Still can't do a hundredth of what I conceived you to do!" screamed an angry voice from the top of the stairs. Liara looked up just in time to watch horrified as a small boy fell down the stairs and crashed into the car parts painfully.

"You're not worth the food you eat nor the mattress you sleep on!" The voice derided, dripping with pure evil. "I'll let you spend the night with your own kind, roach!"

The door slammed back shut, another layer of dust fell in the basement. Liara jumped to the boy's rescue, but she couldn't interact with him. Her hands simply went through him, like he was a ghost. The boy cried quietly, struggling to push himself up. He looked three, maybe four years old. He wore dirty clothes too large for him, and his body was covered in bruises.

Liara clenched her fists tightly, her heart in a vice. 'Children are the future. Who's the fool who dare treat this boy this... oh.' She paused, coming to an understanding. The boy looked up at the stairs in incomprehension and sadness before crawling to the closest wall and huddling against it, hugging his knees. He had a black eye, probably given to him by the bastard who threw him down the stairs.

'That's Glenn when he was a child...? Then, was the person who did this to him his father?' The voice had been male, and she could hardly imagine the loving Emily doing this to her son.

Glenn curled into himself, his tiny fists clenched. The scenery changed beneath Liara's eyes like a living ink painting. The rain was pouring down and young Glenn was hugging a younger Emily, who looked at least six months pregnant. She was standing outside of a run-down house, her make-up running down her cheeks into dark streaks.

Liara felt a foreign fear seize her, freezing her being to the bone. It felt like death itself was breathing down her neck, laughing madly. The door to the run-down house was hanging off its hinges, the wind pushing it open. Red and blue lights flashed with the constant ringing of police sirens.

Cops were surrounding Emily and Glenn, protecting them while listening intently to their radio's contents. Liara's eyes widened when she realized that the faces of every cop were blurred out, unable to be distinguished.

'If this is a reenactment based on Glenn's memories, then it makes sense for him to not properly remember their faces,' realized Liara. But then, it was striking how cold the rain was, how Emily's fearful and vengeful face shone, how the water made Glenn shiver to the bones...

'I'm experiencing his emotions!' Liara understood. She couldn't help but look at this young, terrified Glenn. But then, a furious roar echoed through the house as a squad of police officers heavily armored and armed dragged a man out. The Black Heiress felt the blood in her veins turn to ice and instinctively took a step back.

This was no man. This creature was a disgusting mass of flesh and darkness meshed together, wrath painting his face red like a Blood Moon. It was bulging with muscles, a white bloodstained wife beater stretching over its monstrous chest. Its eyes were furiously red, injected with blood, and its mouth was contorted in self-righteous fury.

"THIS IS MY HOUSE, YOU PIGS! I'LL KILL YOU ALL LIKE I KILLED THAT MAN!" The creature fought back with all it could, but one officer coldly tased it, pushing the electric blades into its skin. The crackling of electricity was drowned by the pouring rain, but its scream of pain and rage wasn't. Glenn hid behind his mother while she watched with crying eyes.

"You got what you deserve, you bastard...!" she whispered weakly, her resentment seeping into her every word.

Suddenly, the creature managed to push away an officer before stealing the gun of another and blasting down madly. The cops protecting Emily and Glenn yelled in fury as they drew out their weapons and shot them down, finally putting an end to their struggle. Emily walked up to the creature, her clothes drenched by the rain and her make-up ruined.

"I hope you won't survive, but if you do..." Emily clenched her teeth and sniffled. "I pray you spend eternity in prison, Cole Westow."

The creature turned into a man who looked nothing like Glenn. Dark green eyes, a round chin, and a puffy nose. His hair was oily and messy, faded gray. Glenn stared down at his father before turning away and climbing into a police car with his mother. Liara shivered as she stared into Cole's eyes, awed by the hatred and evil in the man's eyes.

The scenery changed once again, startling Liara. Flickering halogen lights buzzed faintly overhead as the smell of acrid coffee, sweat, and cigarettes filled the air. The walls were painted a dull, institutional gray, scuffed and worn at the corners. Emily was clenching her hands tightly over a cup of coffee, a large towel covering her shoulders. Glenn was sitting on her knees, staring at the faceless detective across that cold steel table.

"He... He wasn't like that at first, but when we got Glenn... Everything changed," gasped Emily in a sob. "He was like a different man. I- I thought he would return to who he was, but—"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The detective reached out and pressed a calming hand on Emily's shoulder. "It's okay, ma'am Miller. Your husband is kept in the highest security room, chained down, and enough tranquilizers in the bloodstream to knock out an elephant."

Emily nodded slowly before hugging Glenn close to her. "I... He won't be getting out, right?"

The detective nodded. "He killed an officer and hurt four more. In addition to the charges he was already pressed with before, that's certainly a life sentence. Were we a few decades earlier, it would have been the chair with no hesitation. No judge wants to defend a bastard like him."

"I see." Emily sighed in relief and looked down at her son.

"Dad won't be coming back?" Glenn asked innocently. Liara felt the tears surge in her eyes. 'This is too cruel.'

"No, he won't," assured Emily. The detective stood up and gave a reassuring smile to the boy, the rest of his face blurry.

"Don't worry, kid. We got him."

The disturbing ink dropped once again, changing the scenery to a nice house in a borough. A hammock hung from two trees, swinging lightly in the wind. Glenn laughed madly as he ran behind a tinier Lina, who was similarly laughing her heart out. The sun was high in the sky, shining with the light of renewed hope for a potential future. Liara felt the dread invade her body, suspecting that something was wrong. So far, all of the memories had been negative, traumatic events that scarred Glenn for the rest of his life.

'Why this vision? What could be next?'

Time seemed to move on as Glenn grew taller and Lina merrier. The sun still shone brightly, promising another fulfilling, joyful day. That semblance of peace was shattered when the sound of tires screeched against the paving. Cole Westow, older and covered in gang tattoos rushed out of the car, his eyes bloodshot. The rage within him looked like it had only grown more violent, more evil. He kicked the door to the house open, leaving muddy footsteps on the clean wooden floor.

Emily, who was cooking in the kitchen, dancing to a cheerful tune on the radio. She was wearing a cute apron with Glenn and Lina's names embroidered on it, with their handprints from when they were babies. She turned just in time to see Cole coming in furiously with a knife.

"No—" Her eyes widened in horror as she tried to dash out to safety, but it was too late. Glenn entered the kitchen with a baseball bat clenched in his hands, watching helplessly as his father stabbed his mother.

"NOOOOO!!!" Glenn charged forward blindly, filled with rage. He struck Cole's head so violently that his teeth flew out and the bat shattered. The light of the vision changed to red as if seen through Glenn's eyes. Liara hugged herself, terrified. Glenn grabbed Cole by the collar and roared as he punched him madly in the face, breaking his fingers and cutting his knuckles open.

It felt like an eternity when the vision finally stopped, someone grabbing Glenn and pulling him off Cole. The latter stood up, his face disfigured and one of his eyes crushed. Now, he properly looked like a monster.

"You finally grew strong, my son! Haha, hahaha!"

Glenn violently shoved away whoever stopped him and kicked Cole in the stomach, sending him tumbling into the kitchen counter. The young man grabbed a knife and was about to inflict the same fate his mother was subjected to when Lina hugged him tightly and stopped him from committing the unforgivable. Cole coughed his lungs out, splattering blood on the floor. He dragged himself away, grinning and laughing to himself in satisfaction.

Cops in uniform ran past him as stronger hands than his sister grabbed him and forced him to let go of his knife, pulling him away. Glenn fell to his knees, bawling his eyes out with Lina as they held their dead mother's hands. Tears streamed down Liara's cheeks; this time, she knew it was her own emotion, not Glenn's.

The vision faded away, the ink drowning everything away. Liara cried to herself, jarred. How could someone be so evil to their own child, so cruel?

'Tell me it's over,' she pleaded. She didn't want to see more of Glenn's past life, not because she couldn't bear watching it, but because she prayed it was finally the end of his torture. This wasn't a magical world where strength equaled survival, where toughness and cruelty might be necessary to breathe another day. No, there were no monsters on Earth, only humans.

The black ink drowning her suddenly ran out, replaced by thick purple paint. Liara's eyes widened as blood flowed all around her, a crimson hue lighting up her face. The Blood Moon hung high in the sky, her white sister hidden behind her. Raspy breathing and the sound of munching drew her eyes to a figure lying on the ground, a spear in his chest and his bowels, an open buffet for a ghoul.

"This...!" In a matter of minutes, Liara watched every episode of Glenn's life in Limbo, when he was tortured, died, suffered, lost himself to madness, and almost succumbed to Corruption. It was a culmination of everything terrible that happened to him, pouring down on her like a tsunami of pain and suffering.

She let it all out, a torrent of emotion at the same time hers and Glenn's, crying her eyes out, unable to endure it any longer. It felt like she had broken into Glenn's sarcastic and confident facade, his dependable mask he always wore and so rarely took off. He had already shown a little bit of how bad it was, but never the whole thing.

And she just watched the whole thing.

Liara gasped for air, struggling to breathe, when a hand grabbed her shoulder and helped calm her down. She recovered her bearings and realized she was kneeling on the boat, her cheeks wet with tears and her fists gripped so tightly her palms were bleeding. The Black Heiress looked up and saw Glenn—no, Nelg looking down at her in compassion.

"Are you alright?"

She accepted his helping hand and stood up on trembling legs. "I... What was that?"

Nelg looked down at Glenn, who was still lying unconscious on the ground. "I think... when I gave you all that energy back then in that slaver's carriage, I created a connection between you and Glenn. A link."

"A link? Then..."

"Yes," nodded Nelg. "You watched Glenn's memories, just like he watched yours back then. And... somehow, that, process, broke the connection between him and I." He looked at his hands in disbelief, clenching and opening them repeatedly. "Before, I was always only a copy of Glenn, but now... Now I'm my own being. I can still transform into a weapon, but... I don't need Glenn to wield me anymore."

Liara clasped her forehead with shaking fingers, grasping the guardrail with the other.

"That's also why I can also say without blushing that I loved you dearly, Liara," Nelg said shamelessly. Liara looked at him, confused. "Romantically, I mean. But... Strangely, now that I'm not connected to Glenn anymore, these emotions disappeared as easily as they appeared. Ain't that bizarre?"

Liara looked between Nelg and Glenn before shaking her head tiredly. She lifted Glenn and slipped her hand beneath his shoulder, supporting him. She walked away toward the private quarters of the flying boat, emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. Nelg looked at her leaving before chuckling to himself.

"She talked to me, huh? I wonder what exactly she saw in Glenn's memories. Must not have been the good part considering how she looks. Sigh..." He looked at the setting sun, smiling softly. "What a day. Count Glenn, huh? That's quite the goal I need to reach now if I want to surpass the original me."

He scratched his chin, pondering. "Now, why do I feel like we forgot something?"