Heavenly Schism

They shouldn’t have woken me up...

Thalen wandered through the deserted streets of a strange city. The dim light of the lamps blinded the eyes, and the air chilled the naked body. Somewhere in the distance one could see gigantic shining towers, sparkling like fireworks frozen in time, and above all this a floating pyramid towered.

Or maybe this is just one of the fantasies?

The man himself no longer understood what was reality and what was fiction. Even body aches and headaches were not proof. The brain can deceive itself.

Thalen had a hard time focusing his gaze on surrounding objects. The lampposts that dotted the road shone so brightly that at times it seemed as if they would burn out a traveler’s eyes if he looked at them for more than one heartbeat.

Finally, he came to a section of the street where there were almost no streetlights, and the noise of strange objects rushing nearby did not hurt his ears.

So what are these things?

Leaning his shoulder against the cold wall of some gray and nondescript building, Thalen decided to take a breath. His mind is still in a fog, his thoughts do not want to return to their usual, measured rhythm.

Thalen didn’t remember how long he stood there, pressed against the wall. A few minutes or a thousand years...

Finally he forced himself to open his eyes and raise his head up.

There, a huge moon hung in the sky. Moon split into two parts.

So... This is not a dream...

THIS he would never imagine. THIS is not what he wanted to see during his imprisonment, which means all this is reality...

Shaking his head, the man unstuck from the stone surface and continued his journey into the unknown. My head was spinning, every step was difficult. The body felt foreign, which is not surprising, since Thalen had not used it for so long.

How long did I sleep?

The world around seemed alien. It was unlike anything he had seen in the past or the pictures that came to him in his fantasies.

Unable to fight the rays of light, the man turned into a dark alley, immediately feeling much better. Here the noise of the street was noticeably quieter, and the light did not test the strength of his eyes.

I’ve been in the dark for too long to come out into the light like this...

- Hey, what the fuck? “Thalen did not notice where the human figure came from, pushing him to the ground.

- What do you have there, Lex?

“Well, look what a monster has come in,” a chuckle was heard.

Thalen, lying on the pavement, looked up and saw two young men in strange colorful outfits. One of them is dressed in a yellow vest, has a strange hairstyle of many braids on his head, and has a ring in his nose. The second stranger is dressed in a red jacket and bald as a knee, but with a lot of tattoos.

- Is he naked? — the bald man was surprised.

- Yeah. Most likely it was smeared with glitter. Do you see how it’s shaking? He’s clearly in a bad mood.

A man with many pigtails, whom the tattooed man called Lex, leaned towards Thalen and then delivered a powerful slap to Thalen’s face, causing the awakened man to hit his head on the pavement.

- Hey, be careful, it could kill him.

- AND? Who cares? Just think, one more drug addict - one less. We can finish him off here and the Arbitration won’t even scratch the surface.

“Well, yes, you’re right,” the bald man laughed.

- Hey! Gorgeous! Raise your beautiful eyes to me! - Cackling cheerfully, Lex grabbed Thalen by the hair and forced him to look at him. - Well, will you say something, little bastard? A?

- Listen, maybe he has money?

- Where from?! Look at him. He’s naked! If they exist, then only in the ass! Will you come check it out?

- Go ahead...

“Kha...” Thalen was finally able to focus his gaze on the man with the nose ring. He stank of fumes and disgusting cologne, which made the awakened one feel sick.

- So, will you say something?

“I’ll tell you...” Thalen said quietly. - Die.

At that same moment, Lex’s head turned into bloody pieces that were scattered along the walls of the alley. His friend recoiled in fear, and a second later he rushed away.

They wanted to kill me. Just for fun...

The realization of this caused anger in the awakened one.

Thalen moved his finger, and an invisible force threw the headless corpse aside, giving the man the opportunity to rise to his feet. Meanwhile, the bald man had already managed to reach the far end of the alley and was about to turn the corner, but... he died.

He was torn into many pieces, of which the feet were the most intact. Thalen stood up, but immediately almost fell from the pain piercing his head. It was as if two hot needles had pierced his temples. Blood poured from the nose.

The man held his bleeding nose and stood motionless for several minutes, trying to regain his strength.

The body in its current state is not capable of using that much force...

The mind tried to plunge into darkness, to renounce the world and pain, as Thalen had done more than once, but now he was not going to give in to it. Who knows what will happen while he is on the other side of reality, and how long the new dream will last.

Besides... In the real world, he still has one unfinished business...

***

Selina terribly wanted to take a cigarette and light it, but she pulled herself together in time.

I’m quitting smoking, remember that.

My soul was somehow restless, but the reason for this state eluded the girl. An ordinary evening, except for an urgent call to the outskirts of the city, to which she was now in a hurry.

The crappiest things in my life have happened on nights like these.

Enough, Selina, don’t be dramatic!

The mood was bad, the weather matched it - cold and damp...

Just when the girl thought about this, she noticed a naked man wandering along the sidewalk.

Another drug addict! The glitter will definitely destroy this city...

Selina was already thinking about whether to stop and do something with him, but then she remembered the challenge. It said something about the Breath of Otherness, and this is urgent. She will report the drug addict to the legal experts as soon as she arrives at the scene, or she will deal with him afterwards herself.

If she finds him, of course.

The naked man had just turned into a dark alley and disappeared from view, while Selina continued on her way.

“It seems like it’s here,” she whispered out loud a couple of minutes later, noticing the cars of law enforcement officers standing near one of the large warehouses. The girl parked the car and looked longingly at the cigarette case lying on the dashboard.

Shaking her head, she climbed out into the street and shivered from the cold. On such evenings, most of all she wanted to wrap herself in a blanket and leisurely sip something strong.

“Ma’am, this is a closed area,” one of the legists said when Selina got close enough.

“Out of the way,” the girl growled irritably, showing the fury badge. The legist immediately shied away to the side, letting her inside. Apparently, he was afraid that Selina would incinerate him with her gaze.

If I could do that, life would be much simpler...

Selina mentally scolded herself for such an attitude.

These guys are just doing their job. Don’t take out your own irritation on them.

There were no problems finding the way. There were enough legists here to show the girl the way.

Why are there so many of them here?

“Ma’am...” an elderly man in a gray cloak blocked the way. “Are you from the Emerald Division?”

The Emerald Division is a legal department that deals with everything that is in one way or another connected with the Other. It is there that Selina has been working for three years now.

— Junior Investigator Selina Crowford. I was informed that a trace of the Other was noticed here.

“Yes...” he confirmed excitedly. - But I expected that...

— Did you expect what?

- That there will be more of you. Doesn’t matter.

The man waved his hand, asking Selina to follow him. Having passed through a dark corridor, they came out into a spacious, well-lit hangar, and what the girl saw there horrified her. In her entire career, she had never seen anything like this before.

- What... What happened here?

“We were hoping that you would tell us this,” the inspector shuddered.

The entire floor was covered in blood and littered with human remains. They literally covered every inch of the floor. Blood, crushed bones, internal organs turned to mush...

Selina looked around the hangar with a wary glance and listened to her feelings. Other... Yes, without a doubt, the Other was concerned here. The residual trace was so strong that it put pressure on the girl.

- What is this, a coffin? — Selina asked quietly, finally paying attention to the strange object located in the very center of the hangar. The only item not stained with blood.

- Yes, and... apparently... it’s made of stone.

No, it’s not a stone...

Aetherite!

Aetherite is a special stone that is the most valuable material in the world. Its main property is blocking the Other. If a fury picks up a Aetherite, she will not be able to touch the Other, no matter how hard she tries.

A coffin made of Aetherite?!

Even a coffin made of pure gold, decorated with hundreds of diamonds, would not be as expensive as a coffin made of crental.

A fingernail-sized pebble is enough to block the forces. Selina, while still a young student, heard stories about splinters from Aetherite, which, once in the body, completely deprived the furies of their strength. As she grew older, she realized that these were all stories, and she had not seen any actual mention of such things in the Emerald Division documents, but purely hypothetically, such a thing could really happen.

Why would anyone create something like this?..

- How many bodies are there? - Selina finally asked, deciding that there was no point in thinking about Aetherite now.

There is no point in talking about this to legalists at all. Let them think that this is a simple stone.

“We need experts here,” the inspector winced. “They all... seemed to be ground alive.” During my twenty years of service, I’ve seen enough of everything. And furies gone crazy, and gang warfare, and even... domain conflicts. But not like this... It’s as if they were put through a meat grinder... This is the work of a fury, right?

“Yes,” the girl confirmed. She terribly wanted to get as far as possible from this room, from this crental coffin. And I certainly didn’t have the slightest desire to meet the one who arranged this.

- Or maybe it was one of the... well....

“No, it’s unlikely,” Selina shook her head. “They touched on the Other here, but I don’t feel any distortion.” These creatures absorb power rather than dispense it.

Did this reassure the inspector? Hardly…

— Are there cameras here?

- No. I have already sent people to go around the area. Maybe we can find records from other locations.

The girl nodded, continuing to study her surroundings.

“I need to go to that... thing.”

- Welcome.

Selina glanced at the inspector with a frown, but he just shrugged. The girl didn’t want to step on the blood, but she could wait until the morning for the cleaning team and specialists.

I wish I could fly...

Taking a deep breath, Selina took the first step, feeling slightly nauseous at having to step on someone’s remains.

One more step.

More.

Several pairs of legalists’ eyes watched with interest the young fury in the service of the Emerald Division.

Finding herself next to the crental coffin, she looked inside and... found nothing. It was empty. More precisely... it seemed so at the very beginning, but the longer she peered, the more she noticed.

She found strange marks inside, and there were especially many of them on the inside of the lid.

- These are... fingernail marks?! - The girl herself didn’t notice how she said it out loud.