Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 40: You’re Waking!
"WTF!" he cursed, then threw himself on the wall that kept on vibrating.
He paddled his arms on the ground, hoping to grab something he could use against whatever that was.
"Hey," a sharp but calm mechanical voice erupted from the lizard-skin lady.
A sharp giggling sound that echoed like gears grinding against a broken bearing drew Leon’s attention.
Leon’s palms scraped over grit and shattered glass as he scrambled backward.
The cold, humming surface of the wall pulsed against Leon’s spine the moment his back hit the vibrating wall.
As the lizard-skinned lady tilted her head, her mosaic of iridescent green and gray scales caught the sourceless ambient light in a wrong pattern.
"Hey," she said again, her voice modulating into something that sounded melodic. No sound erupted when she took a step forward.
"You look lost. Are you hurt?" Her face shimmered with care, while her big pools of liquid metal eyes fixed on him with an unnerving precision.
At the sight of his reflection in her eyes, Leon’s mind screamed at him to run, but his body felt heavy.
’This isn’t real. Hayes said none of this is real.’ Thoughts echoed loudly in his mind, causing him to clutch his head with his palms.
"Stay back," Leon said, his voice echoing in a dry rasp as he stretched a clenched fist at the lady.
The lady stopped, raised her long-fingered hands. "I am not your enemy." Her face shimmered with a genuine calm, but her eyes said otherwise.
"I am... a guide." She lowered her hands and tilted sideways.
"This place reacts to fear and feeds on confusion. You must calm yourself." Her golden eyes seemed to soften as the molten pools swirled slowly.
"Breathe with me." Her chest rose in an abnormal manner as she inhaled huge amounts of air through her mouth. "In... and out."
Leon found himself mirroring the slow, exaggerated rise and fall of her shoulders against every instinct.
The oppressive weight and frantic beat of his heart eased in just a fraction of a second.
Slowly, the lizard lady’s terrifying presence began to feel like a stable point in the shifting madness.
"That’s it," her voice echoed in a low hum that vibrated in his sternum as she cooed.
"See? I am here to help. You are far from home, Creator." She took a step forward and squeezed her eyes as she focused on Leon’s arms.
"You are so very... young, Creator."
The word hit Leon like a physical blow. ’Creator?’ his thoughts repeated the name over and over.
"My name is Leon," he corrected, yet his voice came in weak, causing the protest to feel slim.
The lady laughed. "Human names are just shells," she said while taking another careful step closer.
Leon saw the fine details of her scales, the way they overlapped like exquisite armor, the moment she reached five inches away from him.
"What you are is what matters now." She squinted. "You are the Catalyst, the Shaper." She paused, moved her right arm over the boy’s head.
A flicker of gold light erupted from her palm, spiraled like a spring, then entered through the boy’s jet-black hair at full speed.
The moment the light emitted from Leon’s head and sprinted upward, a gold light snaked through his eyes like lightning.
"Your skill... it is at the foundation." The lady’s face saddened as she shook her head. "Grade E isn’t good. It’s like a spark in a powder keg."
She lowered her arm and placed it on the boy’s head.
Strangely, Leon didn’t flinch as the lady’s finger scraped through his hair.
A static, sharp shock jolted through him, causing his frantic heart to beat again the moment the pinky finger of the lady touched his forehead.
"You must grow." She pressed her finger harder, almost as if wanting to pierce through his skull. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮
"You must learn to control the boy you’re having." She removed her index finger and placed her index and middle fingers there.
"You must reach Grade B before your twenty-fifth solar cycle." Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper, the mechanical undertone buzzing with deep anxiety.
"If you do not..." she paused as two acid-like tears fell from her eyes and snaked down her cheeks.
"...the resonance of your untamed power will not just break you, Leon Storm." A deep gasp exited her mouth as her eyes forcefully closed.
"It will unravel the seams of this world." She cracked her eyes open and inhaled deeply.
"The world will collapse inward, and..." her voice began to shake. "...and all you see, all you love, will be torn apart by your own hands."
A chill ran down Leon’s spine as he realized the fear in the lady’s voice wasn’t for him, but of him.
The reeling energy moving hastily in him calmed when the lady’s fingers fell from his forehead.
When they clutched his right arm, Leon could feel his bones creaking as they cracked under an unusual strength.
"You can fix things," she said in a pleading tone. "You can make things whole."
Her voice changed into a sarcastic tone while her cheeks reddened. "You could... You could remake me."
Her golden eyes locked onto Leon’s brown eyes, and for a moment, the lizard-like visage shimmered.
Beneath the scales, Leon saw a ghostly impression of a human face etched with profound sorrow. It was the face of the old woman who carried her basket.
"This form is a cage," her voice turned into a whisper, the words vibrating with a pain that felt distinct.
"You could use your light to sculpt me anew, Creator." Her knees slammed into the ground hard, causing dust to spiral.
"Give me back the sun, and the skin that feels it." Her strange, horned head bowed slightly as the tension in her slender frame screamed at what her words implied.
"Remake?" Leon’s mouth felt dry. He didn’t understand. But the plea touched that same secret place, the vault of his inheritance. The land his steps created in his dream.
The lady’s words felt less like a request and more like a duty he’d forgotten.
Leon opened his mouth to speak—to ask, refuse, he had no idea. But at that same instant, a sound like a million panes of glass cracking at once fractured the air.
The lizard-lady’s eyes widened in alarm.
"It’s too soon!" The acid tears doubled as she tilted her head to the right.
"You’re waking!"
The landscape around them imploded. The ruined buildings, the amber sky, and the very ground beneath their feet all folded inward like a giant fist closing.
Space itself became a tightening spiral as it compressed around them.
Little by little, the lady’s form began to pixelate and distort into streaks of green and gold light that flew in all directions.
"Remember!" her voice echoed in the same tone as the old woman’s own came.
"Grade B! Before twenty-five!"
"Find the truth of the crash!"
Leon felt himself being spun, crushed, when the world became a vortex of screaming color and pressure.
Then—HHHHHuh!
His body arched off the bed. A raw, gasping scream tore from his throat in a desperate rush of air.
Stabbing pain lanced through his eyes as the sterile white light replaced the dying vortex the moment his eyes cracked open.
