[BL] I Didn't Sign Up For This-Chapter 71: In Which Limbo Shows Us Who We Were

The gray grew so heavy it felt like walking through tar.

"Sixty-four minutes," Azryth said, his voice strained.

The golden tether between us pulsed steadily, cutting through the oppressive darkness like a lifeline.

Then the air... if there was air in limbo... began to vibrate.

Something deeper than just a sound, a tremor in the fabric of the void itself.

"What’s that?" I asked.

Azryth’s eyes widened. "Run."

"What.."

"RUN!"

He grabbed my hand and we ran.

Behind us, the gray exploded.

Not like when the predator emerged, this was bigger and catastrophic, the void itself was tearing apart, fragmenting into impossible shapes and colors that hurt to perceive.

A chaos storm.

Reality warping violently, dimensional barriers collapsing and reforming at random. I saw glimpses of other places bleeding through.. alien landscapes, impossible geometries, things that shouldn’t exist anywhere.

The storm was expanding, fast.

We ran through the gray, the tether between us blazing brighter as limbo itself went insane around us.

Debris from the field earlier started flying past, caught in the storm’s pull. A chunk of cathedral, part of a highway, fragments of a dozen dead worlds all being pulled into the chaos.

"We can’t outrun it!" I shouted.

"I know!" Azryth was scanning desperately. "We need shelter, somewhere stable..!"

The storm hit us.

Reality fractured.

One moment I was running through gray void, the next, I was falling through crystalline structures that shifted between solid and liquid, then standing on a beach where the ocean flowed upward into the sky, then suspended in darkness lit by stars that screamed.

The tether held, the golden thread connecting us stayed intact even as everything else went mad.

"Azryth!" I couldn’t see him, I could only feel him through the binding.

"I’m here!" His voice came from three directions at once. "Don’t let go of the tether!"

I grabbed the golden thread like a physical rope, pulling myself along it toward where I felt him.

The chaos storm raged around us, reality fragmenting and reforming moment by moment.

Then I felt it, through the seal, through the binding.

A pocket of stability, small and fragile, but there.

"This way!" I pulled on the tether, changing direction.

"What.."

"Trust me!"

We pushed through the chaos toward the stable pocket, it felt like swimming through broken glass while the ocean tried to tear us apart.

Then suddenly we were through.

The storm was still there, raging around us, but we were in a bubble of calm, a fragment of memory that limbo had preserved.

I looked around and my heart stopped.

We were in my childhood home.

Not the house I’d seen floating in the debris field, the real one, exactly as I remembered it from before everything fell apart.

Sunlight streamed through the windows. The smell of my mother’s cooking drifted from the kitchen, I could hear her humming, the sound I’d forgotten I’d forgotten.

"Riven?" Azryth’s voice was uncertain. "Where are we?"

"My past." I stared at the familiar furniture, the photos on the walls, the toys I’d played with. "This is... this is a memory, before the accident, before my parents died."

The scene around us was playing out like a recording. I saw myself, maybe eight years old, sitting at the kitchen table doing homework, my mother stood at the stove, still humming.

I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t look away.

My mother turned from the stove, and I felt something crack open in my chest.

I’d forgotten how she looked when she smiled, how her eyes crinkled at the corners, how her hair fell over one shoulder when she leaned down to check my homework.

"That’s almost right," memory-Mom said to memory-me. "But you forgot to carry the one, try again."

"Math is stupid," young-me complained.

"Math is useful, it teaches you to solve problems step by step." She ruffled my hair. "And you’re good at it when you focus."

I felt tears burning behind my eyes, I’d forgotten this conversation, forgotten so much about who I’d been before trauma rewired my brain.

Azryth was watching me, not the memory, his expression careful, gentle.

I felt Azryth’s hand find mine, steady and grounding.

The memory shifted. Young-me had finished the homework and was showing Mom the corrected answers, she praised him.. me.. and offered cookies as a reward.

I watched myself grin, full, unguarded joy at the simple reward.

When was the last time I’d felt like that?

Azryth said nothing, he just stood beside me as the memory continued. Mom and young-me talking about school, about friends, about weekend plans. Simple, mundane and perfect.

Outside our pocket of stability, the chaos storm raged, but here, in this fragment of preserved past, everything was safe.

I sat on the floor, Azryth sat with me, our shoulders touching, the tether between us pulsed softly.

The memory looped. Young-me finished homework, ate cookies, went to play in the backyard, Mom cleaned up the kitchen, still humming that song.

"She’s still here," I said finally, my voice came out rough. "In the seal, protecting me."

Azryth’s hand tightened on mine.

We sat in silence, watching, young-me showed Mom a drawing, some crayon masterpiece, she praised it and put it on the refrigerator, made me feel like I’d created something worth keeping.

I remembered that drawing, remembered making it, remembered feeling completely safe.

"I miss feeling safe," I said quietly.

"You’re safe now." Azryth pulled me closer. "You’re here with me, the binding makes it real."

"We’re in limbo surrounded by a chaos storm."

"Well... you’re still safe, because we’re here in this memory, protected by your mother’s magic." He rested his chin on top of my head. "She’s still keeping you safe. Even now."

The storm outside raged harder, I could see reality fragmenting through the edges of our pocket. But here, inside, the memory held.

Mom tucked young-me into bed, read a story, kissed my forehead then promised everything would be okay.

She’d been wrong about that, everything hadn’t been okay.

But in this moment, in this memory, it had been true.

"Thank you," I said to the memory, to my mother who couldn’t hear me. "For preparing me, for the seal, for teaching me to solve impossible problems.... For everything."

The memory didn’t respond, it just continued its loop, young-me falling asleep, safe and loved and completely unaware of what was coming.

"The storm’s weakening," Azryth said.

He was right, the chaos outside was settling, fragmenting less violently.

"We’ll be able to leave soon," I said.

"Are you ready?"

I watched the memory one more time, mom humming in the kitchen, young-me doing homework, simple happiness preserved forever in the seal.

"Yeah," I said. "I’m ready."

The storm outside gave one final surge, then began to dissipate, the pocket of stability around us started to fade.

"Hold onto the tether," Azryth said.

I grabbed the golden thread connecting us.

The memory dissolved. Mom and young-me and the house all fading back into whatever part of the seal they’d come from.

We were back in limbo, the gray had returned, calmer now, the chaos storm was gone, leaving only ripples in the void.