The air in the factory was thick with the scent of rust and oil, the echoes of machinery long since silenced. The place wasn’t always like this. When Blurin first stepped into this factory, it was still alive, humming with the steady rhythm of moving gears and conveyor belts.
And Immerred was here.
Not like this—standing beside her, head tilted with that smug, knowing look. No, back then, Immerred had been nothing but a swirling mass trapped in a glass jar, a red gem flickering dimly in the dark.
“You were different when I found you,” Blurin said, her voice almost lost in the emptiness around them.
Immerred smirked. “I was desperate.”
Blurin let her gaze wander across the broken remains of the machines. The place had fallen apart long after she’d taken Immerred from here, long after she gave her a body. Maybe, in some twisted way, Immerred had been the last thing keeping it together.
“You still are,” Blurin muttered.
Immerred laughed softly, stepping closer. “And yet, here you are. Still keeping me wound up.” She reached up, fingers brushing against the key on her head, the one Blurin had turned countless times before.
Blurin didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure if she even had an answer.
She remembered that day too clearly—the way she’d stood in front of that jar, watching the fractured soul inside, a reflection of something she couldn’t name. Immerred had pleaded, not with words but with raw, burning intent.
Take me with you. Let me exist.
And Blurin, tired and aimless, had done it. Not out of kindness. Not out of pity. But because she saw herself in that jar. A thing left behind. A thing unwanted.
“You know,” Immerred said, her voice softer now, “you never did tell me why you really did it.”
Blurin sighed. “Maybe I just wanted to see if something could be whole again.”
Immerred’s smirk faded, just slightly. “And? Did it work?”
Blurin finally met her gaze, blue against red. “No.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The factory loomed around them, the shell of something that had once been functional, now abandoned and decayed. Just like them.
Immerred reached for Blurin’s wrist, holding it with a grip just a little too tight. “We don’t need to be whole,” she whispered. “We just need each other.”
Blurin didn’t pull away. Maybe that was the truth. Maybe that was the lie.
But either way, she stayed.