*HUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNHHHHHHHGG*
The air and ground viciously shook as a raging, final, and violent wail howled out of the sky whale's gaping maw.
Every morsel in its vicinity vibrated, stunning everyone who heard it, including the musicians.
As the ground shook from the brunt of the dying wail, it cracked, causing the remaining buildings to fall and inevitably crush the people below.
*OOOOOOOOOGGHHHHHH*
As the wail lingered and continued wreaking mayhem, the number of casualties piled up as stunned civilians fled from numerous factors.
Since the crowd was still petrified by the dying wail, they weren't able to avoid the cracking ground below them, causing them to get swallowed into the cold and bloodstained concrete below them. by
...
"Urgh! This... is insane!" Haze exclaimed, struggling with each word he sputtered out.
While everyone was stunned, Haze was left alone, fighting to save as many people as he could while also struggling with the effects of the dying wail.
*UUUUUUuuuooooooonnngggh*
After a full 2 minutes, the wail finally died down, as the last glimmer of life was extinguished from the Sky Whale by the Slette.
Kim
Even though the sound of the wail had disappeared, its effects still lingered on those who were afflicted by its piercing defiance, entering a different state, which caused everyone to enter an unreasonable state of panic.
The situation now is even more dire than before due to the 2-minute downtime, causing the Slette to close the gap significantly, and now with the addition of people maniacally pushing, shoving, and stepping on each other, even the musicians felt helpless in this situation.
"W-what do we do now?" one of the wind musicians spoke out, stuttering.
The musicians were in a better state compared to the people below them; however, their minds still ran in loops, juggling all kinds of emotions constantly, rendering them semi-immobile.
Even Haze was stumped by the situation they're in now, and in a moment of uncertainty, Haze reflexively tried lifting up a thousand people from the crowd up into the air, which unfortunately led to severe consequences.
Due to the franticness of the civilians, they crashed into each other like dominos, and those who were unfortunately caught in the row were trampled and were either killed or left with severe injuries, using whatever sequence they could muster to shield them from the heavy stampede of those they may or may not have known.
*Wooooch*
The wind musicians tried to subdue the crowd like they had done so many times before; unfortunately, their efforts were futile.
Before the wind musicians could even start conjuring the wind to push them back, dozens of people were knocked over and subsequently crushed by the frantic movements of the people around them.
*Wung wung bang bang bang*
With their temporary descent to madness, the powerful musicians in the crowd began acting up, conjuring their resonance path in a desperate attempt to get out of the crushing crowd.
The wind musicians wanted to stop them, but they were occupied because they still needed to evacuate all the people who Haze had just flown up.
"I'M NOT GOING TO DIE TODAY!" Musicians who were in the crowd yelled desperately as they gradually forced their way above or through the condensed ocean of cadavers and humans.
...
In the midst of all of this, Ren stood frozen, distressed, and confused. His breathing hitched, and for some reason, in the next moment, his hearing was gone as an illusory ringing noise replaced all the sounds around him about what he should do next.
From afar, out of everyone's line of sight, a tall building collapsed harshly, crushing nearly a hundred people instantly as its debris flew far and inadvertently crushed a dozen more people. Subsequently, a human-sized piece of debris flew apart, itching to catch a wind musician with red-orange hair under its lethal weight.
Although Haze would've been able to sense the debris heading for Ren usually, as a result of the dying wail, Haze's senses dulled, causing him to only see it when it was already too late.
Wiiiiiiiiiiw! Suddenly, within milliseconds, two projectiles flew at light speed at the debris.
Upon a closer look, the two projectiles could barely be called that, because what they are is a conglomerate of brown particles halfway to forming something made out of earth.
*BANG!*
As the two projectiles reached the debris, two glowing brown hands cupped together, and subsequently, the projectiles that just penetrated into the debris began to forcefully fuse together, causing an explosion to burst out inside it as the two sets of particles opposed each other.
"Huh!?" As dust from the debris spread around him, Ren finally came to his senses after some
Shrapnel flew everywhere; some even scraped Ren, causing cuts and scrapes to appear all around his body, drawing blood.
Although it hurt, that was the catalyst Ren needed to regain some clarity.
Ren looked around himself, almost like he was confused about why he was here; that was until he locked eyes with a familiar girl with the same red-orange hair as him; on the spot, he left her. Ren looked into Rekka's eyes for a moment, but within that small period, he could see that his sister was begging for him to come to her.
Holding onto a light fixture on the ground, both of Rekka's hands glowed brown, and her face dripped with sweat, clearly exhausted by the stunt she just pulled.
After seeing her brother was safe, her face, which was laced with horror, turned pitiful as she fainted again, this time from exhaustion instead of emotional turmoil.
"Rekka..." Ren mumbled his sister's name in a guilty voice.
Looking at Rekka, a sudden rush of memories came flashing before his eyes. During this whole debacle that he put himself in, Ren felt like he was possessed, not by anyone, but strangely by himself.
However, now that Ren's state of mind has refreshed, he felt terrible; he couldn't believe that he abandoned his own sister just to participate in this travesty that's happening right in front of him.
"I should go..." Ren unconsciously blurted
Turning around slowly, Ren hypnotically flew in the direction of his sister. However, he didn't fly fast despite everything within him urging and pushing him to go to his sister; he even flew by the wind musicians that he was just working with, like he was trying to get someone to notice him leaving and force him to stay, but because they were all still busily and desperately trying to quell the chaos.
"Why is my flying so slow?" Ren quietly said to himself.
Ren had never felt like this in his entire life, but it disturbed him. He felt like chains were pulling him back and getting stronger each time he moved. Until finally, the chains grew strong enough to hold him in place.
It was then he heard a voice.
"They are just like you..."
The voice sounded familiar, and yet it also felt so foreign, unlike any voice he had heard before.
"Listen..."
The voice sounded again, but this time Ren knew full well whose voice it belonged to.
It was Ren, it was his voice... My voice...
.....
Suddenly, it was like the plugs in Ren's ears had been pulled.
*MOM! AHHHHHHHHH, HELPPP, HHAAAAAA!* Screams, begging, sadness, and even anger shock the air and rush into Ren's ears.
In that moment, Ren's legs felt weak despite not standing on the ground, listening and feeling all of the desperate cries and emotion around him.
Ren's eyes widened, his heart churned, and his breathing hitched. The emotions he felt were in turmoil, conflicting with each other, pushing back and forth until eventually the unknown emotion that kept on bringing him back forced its way through, causing him to turn around, breaking the metaphoric chains that desperately clung onto him.
(I can't overlook it anymore... I won't ignore it... I must save these people... I must save us (...). Ren's thought echoed, taking over his body.
As he began flying back to his previous position, Ren felt his vision changing from the imaginary pathway to a blurry mess, causing him to stop midway.
He didn't feel tired at all; he didn't even feel the pain that he had been enduring since he got here. All he could truly feel right now were his own emotions.
*AAAAAAAHHHHHH HEEEEELLLLLPPP* Horror-Stricken screams continued to ring and consume the air like there was no end.
It was then that Ren's vision finally began to clear.
The day was bright, but yet below was something incomprehensibly dark. Like a painting, this scenery displayed all kinds of colors, layers, and emotions of humanity. Hope/kindness, fear/sadness, and finally desperation/selfish. A sight akin to hell itself
Even though this wasn't Ren's first time seeing this sight today, it somehow looked different to him now. He felt like he could finally clearly see, not just what he had experienced, but what everyone saw and feared.
Looking into the Slette, Ren felt hatred, horror, and fear, all at the same time boiling within him. He wanted to do something about it; he wanted to save those people and prevent them from experiencing what he did.
Ren doesn't know where this emotion came from; he doesn't even know why he volunteered to evacuate these people in the first place. And yet, here he stands, in the midst of this disaster, selfishly leaving his sister behind to play the hero.
However, Ren doesn't want to leave. In a twisted sense, he feels like he'll be able to gain a sense of closure by doing this. Like he's trying to save himself from the past.
Not thinking at all, Ren allowed those instincts to take over his body, bravely facing the great tribulations that lay ahead, just to get this painful feeling off his chest.
With a serious face, Ren boldly flew forward, flaring up his Node in the process, making both of his hands glow light green.
...
Pushing himself forward, Ren flew, but not even a second later, his glowing green hands suddenly disengaged and turned back to their normal colors. Even more strangely, his body stopped moving entirely, and his orange eyes turned blank, like his spirit just left his body.
...
It felt like he was possessed...
His thoughts were empty and his ego disappeared, but yet, his body still remained unmoved, proving that it was not as simple as losing consciousness.
It was then his lips suddenly moved on their own.
Mouthing out two simple words...
"Windy Departure"
...
*Woooooooooooo*
The air changed...
Everything suddenly got quiet...
...
Whistling, turbulent winds blew all over the sky above the crowd, slowly forming into an extremely coherent melody.
*Wuuuuu wuuuu Wu~*
Suddenly everyone within the area heard that melody getting gradually loud with each note, and oddly, that sound seemed to have affected them just like the dying wail.
However, the effects weren't as strong, as it only mildly ignited everyone's sense of thought by making all the people who heard it, whether they were evacuated civilians or musicians, all simultaneously feel something foreign, like someone else's emotions.
The melody was sad and somber, but it also contained a twirl of might and guilt in its composition. At first, it repeated the same sequence of notes; it was only until the 4th loop that the melody suddenly diverged into a fusion of low notes with an occasional high note.
*Wwuuuuuuu quuuuuut, muuu tuuuuu~*
Right when the beginning sequence of the melody ended, heavy, visible strings of wind traversed all over the sky, almost like a sheet of mildly transparent cloth had covered the entire area.
*Wuuuuu boooong*
Following that, a loud, overlapping high note played as all the wind that just manifested in the sky suddenly began to merge with one another, forming into oddly shaped balls of yarn.
Slowly, the strings of wind are condensed. Like a knot being secured, the yarn-like bundle of stringed wind shrunk as the image of a humanoid apparition without any distinguishable features began to show itself.
The scene was spectacular; thousands, if not tens of thousands, of these wind apparitions levitated in the sky, covering the sun like an armada of angels descending from heaven.
"No.... What is that!?" One of the wind musicians pointed to the sky, panicked and scared about the new phenomenon that's happening in the sky.
The situation is already chaotic enough, and now, with this added phenomenon, the musicians were thoroughly shaken, weighted down by all the calamities that kept on coming.
"That's... Is that!?" Haze expressed surprise as he diverted his eyes to the sky.