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March 12, 2019

Months passed and Ryder had begun consistently practicing with his new powers. Yes, they took a deep toll on him physically, always leaving him rather exhausted, but he had at least gotten used to the quirks in his abilities. He had realized that when creating something, the way he originally imagines the thing in question is important. If he imagines something rather odd looking, it comes out looking a bit more like he would have wanted it. A bit of backwards thought was important, but it gave him the results he wanted nevertheless.

Though, even through all of the drawbacks with his powers, he appreciated the fact that he could at least produce something.

The last month or so, he had come to find that he could incorporate live plants into his imaginings. He had created a talking flower that sadly passed away quite quickly, having lived a very short life. That had upset him, and it was strange that he was able to do something so extraordinary, though it eased the exhaustion when he was able to combine his imaginings with living plants. His conclusion was that his lifeforce wasn’t being drained solely, and instead was able to feed off of the lifeforce of the plant in addition to throwing in a bit of his own, creating a new thing entirely. It was almost fun to make things out of plants, and realizing that he didn’t have to kill himself each and every time was definitely a bonus for him. Although he didn’t truly understand the full impact of this, Ryder continued to practice utilizing this technique.

Ryder found himself out in the forest the night prior to his birthday. He felt as though he wanted to spend time alone in the forest where he could have some peace and quiet, with no interruptions, especially with his birthday party planned for the next day.

“Forest, pray, lend me your strength as I attempt this craft,” he spoke aloud. He always wanted to ask the surrounding area to lend him the strength, as he felt terrible later when the area seemed to wither in response.

Ryder floated down and plucked a fresh little wild flower from the ground. The frei took to his mind as he concentrated his power into his hands. His hands began to glow with that same green and violet magic as before. The flower instantly began to warp within the frei’s hands. The petals began to merge together and grow larger as the stem began to fold up and meld together. By the end, a small fairy like those from video games past was revealed. The white petals flapped like wings and the body was green, round and smooth. It flew up and around Ryder quickly, as he laughed, enjoying his small created companion.

“You are beautiful,” Ryder whispered under his breath as he watched the wings of his creation flutter quickly to keep itself afloat. Ryder then decided to take the small creation home with him after a few moments of writing his thoughts in his spellbook. The flighty fairy followed closely behind his creator as the two floated towards home.

All was well with the world as Ryder laid his head down on the pillow to sleep, his fairy companion flying about the room until it was ready to lay down as well.

”Happy birthday, Ryder!” Reuben called as he barged into the bedroom of his charge the next morning, holding a cupcake made of old, stale ingredients, covering the candle as to not have it blown out accidentally.

The frei awoke with a smile. “Thank you, Reuben.”

”Make a wish,” he said, handing over the cupcake.

Ryder took the cupcake and did as he was told. He closed his eyes (as he had learned was customary) and opened them a moment later to blow out the candle.

”Yay! Okay, get yourself ready, the party will be starting soon.”

Ryder nodded, taking his time to stretch. He then took a moment to look around for his fairy companion.

“Flairy, where are you?” he called, thinking that would be a good name for his little companion. But looking around, the little guy wasn’t found.

Finally, upon going to his desk, behind a small stack of books, lay the small being, wilted and shriveled. Ryder slowly picked up his creation in his hands, eyes tearing up upon looking down. He began to slowly close his hands around his little fairy companion, only to notice the crackling of dried petals in his hands.

A soft sob could be heard if anyone were listening. “W-why does this happen?” Ryder questioned, tears streaming down his face. He slowly set the dried flower fairy back onto the desk, crumbled petal wings falling beside it.

Wiping his tears, Ryder went back to bed for a few moments longer to mourn the loss of his little flower fairy. What a way to start his birthday celebration.

April 1, 2019

The day had been bleak, it was spring but the world felt much darker, much more gloomy than a normal spring day might otherwise. All of this because Ryder couldn’t get out of his own head. He continued to contemplate all of the things he had witnessed during his time with Xiu. The valsaros literally had to kill the primal Ryder had created. The frei had lost all control of his imaginings. The reality of the situation was that his creations were real, living and breathing.

The toadstool had learned early on in his days as a frei that his imaginings were ‘real’ to him and him alone. Nobody else had the pleasure of physically touching any of his imaginings. Their hands would go right through anything Ryder created. To him, the sense of touch felt no different between his own imaginings and that of reality. But now everything made sense. Xiu could touch the primal. He could truly feel it. It was something so mind blowing to Ryder that he hadn’t ever thought about before. It made sense once he realized, however. After all, he was basically manipulating live plants to help ease his burden and energy consumption. Though, the fact that he realized they die and wither and rot in real life was a lot harder for him to accept than when he thought they just ‘died’ in his imagination. It was no wonder they stuck around for so long after he had finished. And to top it off, he realized why his magic was taking such a toll on him physically. His latest interaction with the valsaros was a huge eye opening experience.

The death of his creations was so hard to take that he vowed to himself he would never create another being ever again. The past things he created, especially Flairy, filled his mind once again. Did all of his recent imaginings feel pain or suffering when they passed? What did Flairy feel? It was hard to wonder what might be when he wasn’t even aware that they were truly real in the first place.

Being that his mind was so consumed with all of this, Ryder had been having the same nightmare over and over again ever since that day in the forest with Xiu. It always happened the same way…

Ryder is seen floating in a dark, damp forest. He wears a menacing look on his face. Then, with hands held out, he laughs maniacally as the ‘camera’ of his dream pans outward to reveal that those he is closest to (Reuben, Evan, Calista -- even a couple of fellow raevan he had encountered) are all lying limp in the damp grass surrounding him. Lightning flashes and thunder roars. As the dream pans out further, the forest floor becomes darker and with each subsequent flash of lightning, blood and gore seem to appear on his friends and family. Rain begins to fall from the sky as Ryder’s evil smile, lit up by the lightning, is the only thing seen in the darkness. At this point, dark, rotting vines begin to cover the corpses of his loved ones before he wakes in a pool of his own sweat.

The frei couldn’t shake the dream. Every night. Sometimes multiple times a night. This dream haunted him. He couldn’t help but feel depressed and sick after the last week of nightmares. He didn’t want to practice magic any longer. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything. What if these nightmares were foreshadowing something far more sinister? Maybe these powers the Trader had bestowed upon him were actually supposed to make him go crazy. Maybe the Trader expected Ryder to come crawling back and asking for more help. So many thoughts grew in the toadstool's mind. It just didn’t make sense. Is this what his true power was? The power which can create reality? It was disturbing and he wouldn’t stand for it.

This nightmare would not come true. Never in a million years. Ryder wouldn’t let it. From this day forward, he would no longer practice magic.

April 13, 2019

All Ryder could do was toss and turn all night yet again. Nothing had changed and it had been countless nights of this hell. Ryder awoke in a pool of sweat, eyes completely red and irritated. His body so exhausted but his brain wouldn’t allow him to sleep. Even when he did have the pleasure of falling asleep he would just have the same nightmare over and over, his brain filled with maniacal laughter before waking up just an hour later, with no true deep sleep whatsoever.

Whenever he woke up, he sped off to the bathroom to check his body only to find that more and more of it was slowly changing. His ribbon was slowly growing more dark hues of purple and black and his skin around his chest was turning a deep shade of brown and purple and all the colors of his freckles up towards his shoulders and running down his arms were now dark brown. The color was being drained from him and he felt absolutely sick.

It was so obvious something was wrong, but at this point he was still able to hide his ghastly form from others with larger clothes and more layers. Luckily this spring had been cold and he was able to get away with wearing some of the more heavy attire. He floated back and forth around his room contemplating whether or not he should tell Reuben about this. At first, he didn’t want to bother him with these problems, but now it seemed as though it may be a good idea to alert someone to this. He figured, maybe he should see Dr. Kyou or speak with Xiu again to see what they thought.

’I do not wish to burden Reuben with this. I shall message Dr. Kyou today. I must meet with him to discuss this aberrant bruising.’ Ryder thought to himself. It would surely be better if he spoke with the good doctor himself as soon as possible.

As the night progressed into day, Ryder had changed his mind multiple times. From deciding he would definitely message Kyou to ask about what may be going on with him, to deciding it was better to try and work through it himself and not bother anyone at all. He felt a nagging in the back of his head that told him he could make it on his own without alerting anyone. That he didn’t need anyone else to help him. In the end, that little voice had won the fight. Ryder would be taking this head on by himself, he was stubborn enough to try it, anyway.

April 19, 2019

Ryder came awake in the dark, blinking and panting heavily in a pool of his own sweat. The nightmare was finally over. He laid in the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, attempting to catch his breath. He was finally free of that wicked laugh, or so he thought. Moments later, he began to hear Erryd’s laughter echo within his head. This hadn’t happened since the Trader took his imagination power, Ryder noted. It was strange to think about the past six months as though his imagination wasn’t just that, but in fact, it was reality. The entire thing shook the frei to his core.

As the laughter became louder, his head started to throb and a migraine began to set in. Covering his ears and holding his temples did nothing, but at the time it was all he could think to do. His face scrunched up and he couldn’t even think about anything but the pain. He attempted to scream out for help, but to no avail, it was as though his voice was gone. Ryder sat up in bed, feeling such immense pain. Then, it happened.

Ryder’s jaw fell and his eyes opened wide and glazed over. His body went limp as he floated slowly into the air face first. In the center of his forehead a bright white circular light seemed to warp and shine through, as though opening itself to another dimension. Through this portal, a light cream colored hand full of rainbow freckles slowly entered the world, followed by a wrist, arm, and finally, a shoulder. Bursting forth, ripping the portal wider for a split second, the rest of the rainbow freckled frei came into being all at once.

The portal closed instantaneously and Ryder fell back onto the bed, unconscious.

Through this trial Erryd was born.

Finally, the shadow became the ego. He saw himself in the flesh for the first time in the mirror across the room. An evil grin appeared upon his face. He felt every aspect of himself. This is what flesh and hair felt like. This is what air smelled like. He was no longer locked away in the brain of a pathetic idiot. He was his own being, full and realized, finally free of those imaginary shackles that bound him to Ryder's mind. Oh, how he couldn’t wait to practice magic for himself.

Although he had so much to do, the second part of this plan was yet to be completed. After all, he knew that if he did nothing, he was sure to be found out sooner than later. No, to make this dream of his a reality, the first thing he had to do was to dispose of Ryder’s body.

Erryd floated over to Ryder’s side as he lay there limp. A smile crept upon his face. ”Oh, my dear little rainbow. May all of your dreams come true,” he cackled quietly as he pulled the body off of the bed.

THUMP!

”s**t,” Erryd spat. The drop was a lot louder than he expected it to be. He scrambled to push Ryder’s body underneath the bed.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Creak.

”Ryder, is everything okay?” Reuben stated in the doorway before turning on the light.

”Ack, Reuben, what the hell? Yes, everything’s fine.” Erryd spat at the guardian as he laid there covered up in bed as to hide the one thing that differentiated the two frei from one another.

”Oh, sorry, I heard a thud in here is all.”

”Yeah, it was my spellbook. I dropped it by accident. Now, the light?”

Reuben turned off the light, taking notice of the tone the frei was using with him. ”Yeah, okay. Goodnight. Sorry to bother you.”

The door closed.

Erryd let out a sigh of relief as he scrambled to the bed’s edge, looking under the bed only to find the body strewn out across the wooden floor.

”That was too close for comfort. Ugh, is this what it feels like to be tired? I’ll deal with that in the morning,” Erryd stated before laying back down in the bed staring at the ceiling.

"Sleep tight, Ryder. This is my life now."

With that, Erryd fell asleep almost instantaneously, a bright smile upon his visage.

The day always started and ended the same way.

The sound of agony could be heard all around. Moaning and groaning, clanking of metal, water dripping from pipes onto the cobblestone floor. All of which woke Ryder from his slumber. It was dark, cold and the only light was from a few lit torches in the hallway. This was his new home. A cell, from which he might never escape. The frei found himself here, behind steel bars, every time he awoke. He was gray, his skin, his freckles, his rune, everything about him, dim. There was no color in the frei whatsoever. Ryder would make his way to the cell door, screaming out for hours at a time, pleading for help but nobody would ever respond.

Hours into the groaning from other nearby cells, a loud creak could be heard in the distance as a heavy wooden door opened, scraping against the cobblestone floor. The pounding footsteps of what would seem to be a giant came roaring down the hallway. A chain could be heard clanking against the floor as it was dragged. Suddenly, the sound of a cell door opening could be heard and the sounds of whipping and cries for help rang out through the entire block. After a few minutes the cries stop, after a few more the whipping stops and the cell door closes. Then the footsteps pick up again to the next cell where the same horrid thing happens.

Finally, the giant arrives at Ryder’s cell and opens it. The large looming figure stands tall and loosens the chain in his hand. As it clunks to the floor, Ryder begins to shake. Soon after, the chains hit him in the face, on the back, over and over again. His voice goes silent as he slowly loses consciousness.

Every day, in and out, he awakens from his sleep perfectly fine. It’s as though the day repeats itself over and over. To top it all off, there was something so familiar about this place. He felt as though he had been here before this began. Like he had seen this before. The frei couldn’t quite place it, but he knew he had seen this place before. Ryder was certain that if there was a hell, this would surely be it.

Days. Weeks. Months. Who was counting anymore? It seemed like an eternity.

This day began just like any other for the frei. The cold cobblestone floor, the sounds of agony filling his ears. The dark, inhospitable cell he awoke in every day in what seemed to be an endless loop. He pressed up against the steel posts that made up his cell, just as he did every day, and began screaming to help. However, today someone responded.

“Ryder…” The voice was soft, muffled, barely audible.

"“Y-yes, yes, what is it!? Pray, speak again!” Ryder’s voice quick, the sound of desperation and shock apparent.

“Ryder…” This time, as he listened, the voice was much more pronounced. It was deep and close by. Perhaps in the very next cell over?

“Pray, pray, help me! I need assistance! I cannot live this way any longer!”

“I cannot help you, Ryder. You can only help yourself,” the voice spoke again, very calm and collected for their current situation. The sounds of moaning and pleading became more distant in the background.

“Wha-? Who are you!? What do you mean!?”

“Listen. There is little time. You must break free. The spark. That inspiration and motivation for magic is the key.”

“How will that help, pray tell? I have not the inspiration needed. What may I do?!”

“In time you will see. You will find it. Just know that you have the power to break this curse on your own.”

“You are not helping! You say we have little time, yet you refuse to give me any worthwhile information! What am I to do!?”

“Believe in yourself.”

Ryder paused. Believe in himself? What was that going to do? He had no magic here, wherever here was. He also didn’t really think himself able to do much, especially in such circumstances like this. The frei took a few deep breaths before a list of questions were rattled off in succession.

“Pray, tell me who you are.” Ryder stated calmly.

“You will find out soon enough, Ryder.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Much longer than you.”

“Why are you in here?”

“You put me here.”

Ryder, amidst the groaning from the other cells around, looked puzzled. No, he didn’t do this, this creature, person, whoever...was wrong. In fact, he was very wrong. It wasn’t he who put him here, it was Erryd.

“You are most mistaken, I would not do such a thing. This was Erryd’s doing. My...shadow self.”

“Ryder, you must understand. This is not Erryd’s doing. It’s yours.”

Ryder, confused, shook his head, face scrunched. “No, you are wrong. Erryd did this.”

“Erryd is apart of you, Ryder. In essence, you did this to me and yourself. Now fix it!” The deep voice boomed.

Ryder pushed back away from the bars of his cell in surprise. Who the hell was this yelling at him? Just as he did, the door creaked open and the sounds of chains clanking on the floor could be heard. One by one, each cell was opened, agony filled the halls, and the cell was closed.

Ryder tried to drown out the screams by closing his eyes and repeating to himself over and over, “Believe in myself. Believe in myself. Believe in myself…”

As the door of his cell burst open, Ryder’s eyes opened and the frei charged forward with all his might to push the giant aside. He charged out of the cell, a smile growing on his face as he broke free of it.

Though the frei was free, it was short lived.

THUMP!

As he began exiting the cell, everything went black.

Ryder felt the cold floor as his consciousness came back. He was being dragged across the floor on his chest by his ribbon. As he looked up, he saw a large colorful figure with a head of fire behind the cell, looking at him as he was being dragged across the floor. His vision blurred as he slowly lost consciousness.

The blurry vision began to fade as Ryder awoke slowly, groggily from his knocked out state. As he came to, he saw a figure in the distance that looked so familiar. He couldn’t think straight, his head was spinning. It took a few minutes for him to fully awaken and become aware of his surroundings.

The stone floor was cold, damp. It was dark and the only light within the room was from a few torches hung up on either side and one over the big wooden door across the room.

Then, he looked up and there she sat, the one person he hadn’t seen in over a year. The one he had tried to will into existence so many times. The one that never showed up.

Alice.

She was physically abused, beaten, and her skin looked burned. Ryder’s face fell, he was in shock. Seeing his very first imagining in such brutal shape. It was heartbreaking.

Tears welled up in his eyes. As he lunged forward to reach out to help her, he was just as quickly pulled back, as he realized chains on both of his wrists confined him to the wall.

“Alice!” he called, the first tears running down his cheeks.

There was no response.

“Alice, pray awaken!” he spoke again, desperation in his voice.

Alice stirred, pain stricken face apparent. “Ry...der…” she whimpered through an exhale, trying to move through the pain to become as comfortable as possible.

“Gods, Alice, what happened!?” he questioned. He repeated himself a moment later as Alice hadn’t responded as quickly as the worried frei wanted.

After a few moments of silence, Alice was able to lift her head and open her eyes enough to speak. “I...have been...imprisoned here,” she spoke between breaths. “Everyday...fire...it...burns.”

Ryder then realized something he had never realized before. His mind instantly went to a dream he had back in October of 2017. Trying to remember his dream, he recalled it had been a girl in a blue dress with long blonde hair looking out a window to view nothing but flames. That girl...was Alice…

Ryder bawled. He couldn’t help it. It all dawned on him at once. Alice had ‘left’ him back in 2017, nearly two years ago, and now he realized that she wasn’t gone because of anger from him, but she had been locked up in this hell, unable to get out.

“How did you get here? Was it Erryd?” Ryder asked through wails, pulling away from the wall, unable to comfort his best friend.

Alice, shaking from the pain, shook her head negative. “It was you, Ryder,” her voice low, pained.

Ryder shook his head. “Never! I would never do such a horrid thing, Alice! You must know that!”

Then, it hit him, the exact words that the voice spoke of back in his cell, “Erryd is apart of you...you did this to me and yourself.”

Ryder’s tears continued to fall as Alice slumped back down. She was in so much pain and Ryder could almost feel it himself. His heart was broken. He realized that the voice was right. Erryd was always a part of him, just like Alice, just like every other imagining he had ever created. They were all apart of him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. It was no wonder why the voice, and now Alice, were blaming him for doing this to them, albeit unconsciously. It was his fault, and he slowly began to realize that as he stared across the room from his dying best friend and most wondrous imagining. He didn’t have control over his powers, he didn’t have the confidence, nor the strength to keep this from happening.

What broke the silence was the voice of his imagining once more. “Ryder, will you do me a favor?” she asked.

Ryder blinked a few tears away as he spoke, “O-of course, anything.”

“Please, just give me one last walk through Wonderland before we both die.”

Ryder shook his head, “We are not going to die here, Alice. Pray, do not speak such a way.”

“Ryder, please...just tell me a story where we all live. Where things go back to the way they used to be. Where life is easy, magic comes freely, and we all live happily ever after.”

Ryder sniffled, rubbing his face into his shoulder to dry some of the tears and sat back against the wall in defeat. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t go to Alice and comfort her or even try to make her feel better. He was stuck there. He had no other choice. “Yes…”

And so the story began…

“Once upon a time, there lived a young girl who wore a dress of blue and white with a crown of roses. With locks of long flowing blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. She found herself frollicking through a meadow of bright one bright sunny spring day. The sun rays warm, kissing her skin ever-so-softly. She made her way through the field of brightly colored flowers only to stumble across a small creek through the trees nearby and heard its soft burble. She followed the path down to the side of the creek and found herself env-”

The frei was cut off suddenly by the creaking of the wooden door across the room. It opened slowly, and silence befell the room. Behind it’s large frame was someone Ryder was all too familiar with. The colossal man who beat him every day when he was back in his cell. He came in, chain whip in hand dragging along the floor behind him, clanking metal against the cobblestone piercing the frei’s ears. The sadness he felt turned to rage as he glared at his nemesis.

As the giant began to slowly make his way towards the center of the room, Ryder noticed Alice’s demeanor change. She was weak, but her eyes widened as she gazed upon the man in the center. She shook with dread as he turned towards her.

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Ryder called angrily.

The man paid no attention to the frei, but kept his attention directly on Alice. He brought his hand up above his head and quickly let out a roar as his chain came down across Alice’s body. She let out a yelp of pain. Ryder screamed. “STOP! STOP IT!” To no avail. The man lifted his arm again, Alice squirming as much as she could to try and lessen the painful blows that were surely to come.

Ryder fought through tears and anger. This was his last straw. He was going to make it through this, and so was Alice. He closed his eyes, balled his fists and imagined the chains keeping him locked against this wall gone. As he opened his eyes with a look of determination, the chains burst into a plethora of rainbow pixels. His rune sparked, glowing a deep red, something that hadn’t happened at all during his time in this place.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Ryder screamed as he flew as fast as he could into the back of his adversary.

As Ryder tackled the man, he burst into millions of pixels all rainbow in color, just like the chains had moments prior.

Ryder quickly grabbed Alice and held her head close to his heart, weeping.

“This was all my fault. I put us here. And only I can save us. I am so sorry, Alice. Erryd was able to take over because I did not have such control over my power. He was smarter than I, and able to take advantage of my weaknesses. Never again, Alice. Never again. He will no longer be able to control me nor will he have my life any longer. I am taking it back. I will save us.”

As Ryder opened his eyes, he realized he was no longer holding onto Alice, but instead, he was in a blank nothingness. Everywhere around him was white. He floated there in the center of the open space feeling at peace for the first time in the past year.

“Ryder," Alice called.

Ryder spun around to see Alice floating with him within the white blank space.

“Alice, you are-”

“Fine," she interrupted. "Thank you for your help in rescuing me. I’m so proud of you.”

“As am I,” a deep voice spoke from behind.

Ryder spun around again to see a large elemental floating with him as well. The elemental from his dreams.

“So, it was you. Now everything makes sense,” Ryder began. “Those nightmares I had all that time ago, they were of you two. What you were going through.”

“Indeed,” the elemental spoke. “I am Bastian, your familiar. I have been in the recesses of your mind ever since the day you were created. You had just not brought me out. Alice, luckily for her, was the first to come to your aid. I am sorry I was unable to help you through so much of your life.”

Ryder shook his head and smiled, “It is very much alright. I do believe that we will all have that chance now.”

Alice nodded.

Bastian spoke again, “Ryder, we have little time to discuss, and we will be able to talk much more in the future. However, very soon you will finally be free enough of Erryd’s curse to awaken, and when you do, you have to be sure to do one thing.”

Ryder nodded and narrowed his eyes, paying as close attention to the elemental as he could. “What is it?”

“Summon Alice,” he started, “You need to focus every last bit of your energy, as you will not have much, into summoning her into existence within your bedroom utilizing these new powers. Imagine her standing next to your bed. Whatever you can do, as you will not have much time when you awaken.”

“What does that mean?”

“You will soon see. Now, awaken and save us all!”

Ryder felt a hand on his shoulder and as he turned to see Alice’s smiling face, he smiled too, his entire vision blurring to white.

Within a moment, he awoke within the confines of his casket underneath the floorboards in a fright. Though as he did, he knew what to do. He quickly closed his eyes, feeling the power leave his body, he did everything he could to imagine Alice standing within his bedroom. His hands were illuminated with a powerful green and violet hue of magic and suddenly, they fell to his sides as he fell unconscious once more.