Heart of Demise.

Grievances.

"...Hahaha... oh boy."

This isn't good. This is anything but good. This is really, really bad.

"Hope seems to have abandoned you, Lewis."

"W-Whaaat...? No waaay..."

I know I didn't sound convincing, but I wasn't really trying to, anyway. There was no point in hiding something so blatantly obvious.

It's unfortunate, really. To think that all it took was some fancy show to throw me in such a state of disorder.

"W-We're gonna be fine... I know where I'm going..."

"..."

Robert just looked at me.

"...Okay, fine! I admit it! We're lost!"

I threw my hands in the air, finally releasing the weight that has been plaguing my shoulders for the past twenty minutes.

"We're lost, we're in the middle of a huge field, and I have no idea where to go! Fuck, can't I at least remember where that forest was!?"

I knocked on my skull a few times to get my brain spinning, but it didn't work as intended. Even after doing a full 360 observation of the landscape once again, I couldn't find the path out of this predicament.

"...I give in."

I flopped myself on the ground and sighed. I wasn't actually giving up, of course, but my brain needed some rest right now. Rupert decided to relax with me, which was nice. I missed petting him, honestly.

"You appear to be exhausted."

"Really? I wonder what gave it away."

I continued to pet the deer.

"If you aren't willing to make any progress, then you will remain stuck here."

I raised my body and looked at him.

"I know that. But, man, it's frustrating."

I looked at the sky above us.

"...Now that I think about it... you're the reason why we're in this mess anyway..."

"Did you say something?"

"Eh? Nah, it was nothing."

I stood up.

"You shouldn't lie."

I gave him a dead stare.

"Okay, fine, I did say something."

"..."

I shrugged. I didn't know what he was wanting from me, but I wasn't in the mood to hand it to him. Right now, I was more inclined to find a place I could go to.

"...That hill over there is a good place to scout. Let's go to it."

I began to travel to said hill with my two comrades following. I still wasn't entirely used to this whole role of leader, it wasn't something I ever enjoyed. Especially back in P.E when I needed to pick and choose between a bunch of kids I barely knew.

"Now that I think about it, I wonder how my friends are doing."

Jax and Lanks to be specific. We had a nice friend group; always sitting alone together at this one table at the cafeteria's outskirts, poking fun at idiots, both online and in our school. Every time something got rough for one of us, the other two would back them up.

Great times, really. Traveling in this prison made those memories a lot more solemn for me; there was a good chance I won't be able to make new ones.

I didn't like that one bit. I balled my fist and stomped the ground.

I was lost, sure, but this was just a setback. Nothing would stop me from getting out of this prison, no matter how many setbacks I faced.

"...Would you look at that."

As I approached the top of the hill, my eyes caught something I wanted to see desperately; change.

"What the hell are those things?"

Robert scratched his chin.

"They are quite interesting, no? It's as if the hills in this terrain exchanged their width for height."

"...Honestly, that's a great way to describe it."

They weren't just taller, either. They were more common. Way more common. It was like a forest of tall, thin hills.

"I don't get the obsession this place has with forests. You've got forests that grow out of the wall, ones that completely block out sunlight, and now they replace trees with big bumps?"

"Nature is an interesting thing, isn't it?"

I looked at the giant, confused.

"This is natural?"

"Indeed. Unless one of my kind tinkered with the Ancient's Slot without my knowing."

"..."

I stared down the forest of hills and began to descend the one I was standing on.

"Y'know, it may look weird, but... What's 'weird' to a place like this, anyway?"



























"Ridiculous."

Upon closer inspection, these unnaturally tall hills seemed even more unnatural. Some were so steep, they practically had a ninety-degree angle.

"I must say, this terrain is a lot more... interesting, than I initially thought."

"Yeah, these are like termite hills. Expect twice their size."

I turned away from the hill I was inspecting and continued to travel through the area.

"I have never heard of a termite hill."

"You don't know what termites are?"

I was actually really surprised about this. Robert was like a walking almanac for the Complex up to this point. I guess Earth and this place are a lot more different than I thought.

"I do not."

"Well, they're just really annoying insects. They house up in these rocky hills that kinda look like these, just lose the grass and cut the height. They also eat wood."

"Insects that eat wood? That is practically unheard of in Naocus."

"Well, they aren't very common where I come from anyway."

I suppose even then, these hills were a poor representation of termite hills. Those looked more like rocks being stacked and meshed together with dirt.