the void-star consumes its host. it is a parasite, sucking the life from its host until the host has to resort to parasitic tendencies themself. it’s a domino cycle of maliciousness & greed, with noli being at the root of the problem.
erase him, & all strings of torment & agony shall be erased. he is the problem, the cause, the root—
the file ended there.
lo’s brow furrowed in confusion. she flipped through the pages of the file, searching for more text, for more remnants of whatever this anonymous person had left behind for her to study. but there was no further text, & before lo could search for another file the bell rang, signaling for the end of lunch.
lo grumbled a curse under her breath & stuffed her books back into her satchel, grabbing the only file on noli she’d found in the whole library & tucking it under her arm. she’d study it further later, back at home.
lo was conducting invasive search on noli solely because she wanted to find out what happened to her best friend, aaniyah. aaniyah had seemed to go almost mental in the past few months, completely unprecedented behaviour that lo would have never expected coming from her. she began writing her name oddly, jotting down “a²niyah” instead of her usual name down on tests. the teachers grew heated, but aaniyah hardly even flinched at their anger now, when the aaniyah lo had used to know would have come to her for comfort, sobbing her poor, dear heart out.
aaniyah had disappeared lately. she didn’t commit, she’d apparently ran away, even if any search parties sent out to find her had come back absolutely fruitless. it was as if the girl had disappeared into thin air, leaving only that piteously short note behind just for lo— or maybe noli had taken her.
lo had noticed that, during her last few days at school, aaniyah had become absolutely obsessed with this old myth, dubbed noli as it was supposed he was entrapped within the nilepace of robloxia. she seemed almost brainwashed by the damn thing, & her hands had kept trembling whether she spoke of him. she seemed so damn terrified whenever she even mentioned the damn myth, yet couldn’t seem to ever stop talking about it.
lo knew why now.
she delved deep within the forums surrounding the myth at home. she fidgeted with her scarf at school, a nervous tick she’d grown accustomed to since she didn’t have aaniyah’s hands to clutch no longer whenever she was anxious. she soon discovered a text, an ancient document dating back to the original date of the myth, some time around the 29th of february. the year was far too old to be registered on the internet.
to find those captured by him, the doc stated, thine must delve within the cracks caused by his influence. chase until your legs give out.
& then the document ended.
..but lo didn’t slam her laptop shut in a rage. she swallowed, breathing deeply. she’d have to go after noli herself, so it seemed.
she didn’t even know herself how she did it. she fell asleep one night, all noli on her mind. she met him in her dream that very slumber, & he’d spoken to her, grotesquely joyous grin enveloping his split face.
“what is it that you wish from me, child?”
“i want to get my best friend back.”
noli had leant in closer to lo, grin widening as he whispered, “love does not make life eternal. & memories certainly are not.”
but lo wasn’t even listening at that point, as she’d already been sent to the place she’d been aiming to reach ever since aaniyah disappeared from under her nose.
nilspace.
the ground rippled underneath her feet like water, even if there was none to soak her socks. she wandered around the dark-purple netherlands, gaze growing hazy if she dared to peer further than noli allowed her to. she eventually spotted a figure, so much of resemblance of aaniyah’s clear silhouette, that lo couldn’t help but stumble blindly towards, a hopeful grin adorning her since-then bleak visage.
she all but sobbed,
“AANIYAH!!! I KNEW YOU WERENT DEAD!!!”