Into the Tides [Six]-4

After many revisions, 3 times it was published and returned to draft... this is the final version of [Six]-4.

"I'm suffering, I'm bleeding, on my knees...
Who's going to save me?
Suffering, bleeding.
Save me from this pit of frailty." -Skillet, Fingernails

I stare into the eye of the colossus through the telescope, still unable to grasp the size no matter the distance. I can't tell the shape, I can't tell the strength and I can't find any information that could assist me in how to take a course of action. Is it too late? Is it too soon? The only way I can find to confront the beast would be to throw myself down the rifle's barrel and strike blindly. Haelstrom city sits in a state I'm still not sure I can live with and whether the gargantuan mass was summoned to protect the city from me or lure me back I do not know. It intimidates without end but is there anything I can do? There is but I am weak. I am weak and it will kill me. It will torture me. It keeps me from ever experiencing her again and I desperately want the strength to destroy it.

I collapse to the floor on the deck of the ship, which still rocks in the thick tan sea and try to put some of the pieces together. My  actions in Haelstrom are why half of me lies in imprisonment... why I had to take the offer of the headless horse... why I had to become the Red Eyed Wolf who now stands on this deck of greying ivory... Will the inverted decadence of what time may show to have been a "climax" of all my minus opus. A well-earned infamy some might say.

It may pain or destroy me... but I must confront this lest it do worse should I run and survive.
As you look into my eyes I can only hope you understand no matter the outcome I can't walk away.

I've been hearing another voice in my head since I before was given the shining bone...
He's become more cryptic since I left the false asylum and I try to keep him out of my mind.
He whispers when I'm awake but now he screams in my dreams. The wolf won't tell me who he is,
saying to me, "He lives until proven guilty... that's all you need to know."

-We stumble through the broken streets, facial wraps and modified respirator masks cover our faces, just searching for something. Heavy clothing makes things difficult but is necessary. I look deep into your eyes through the lenses, I cannot see your mouth but I know you are smiling. Under my mask I do the same and just from your eyes, yet again I just know that you know. I turn and look ahead and we move onwards... Everything is broken and torn yet another makes it almost bearable. Almost... 
But no, but no, but no but no but no but no but No... you violated the sealed environment that kept all the filth out, and in doing so crumbled to a pile of dust before my eyes. Your eyes still stare at me, blue from atop the pile. And just from your eyes... I can tell you're not smiling anymore."
 I take a deep breath and sit up in bed... opening my eyes and staring at the ebony wood of my quarters to find it was but a dream. Just a dream, just a dream. I stumble out of my cabin, walking in a way resembling more death than life and stare at the ebony planks that make up the deck... many now stained with the blood that drips from my feet.

Making my way to the side of the ship I stare over ivory hull to find that this one man crew has forgotten to drop anchor and may have drifted off course into a fog. It's too dark to tell and I lack the hope to illuminate my residence... The shining bone has grown dim. It just seems like every time I ride the tide I sink a few fathoms more... or is that just the nature of the ocean I now sail without ports? I fight the changes in location when I can but this plane seems to possess meta-physical properties that prevent it from forming a cohesive and constant existence. My entrance into this plane should have been a calamity that shook every cell of my existence but I was eased in through the grey fog by...
No... now is not the time to direct blame. Hers is an existence that does not deserve my spite. I cannot even tell if survival is what I should aim for anymore as it's lost behind much of the screaming and writhing that has shredded my vocal chords, crippling my communication. I can tell you all "Goodbye" all I want but until that day comes it would never be true. All whispers in my head... Voices of the left behind...
The dark fog approaches, hiding in the black of the night sky...
I am lost at sea and although my boat is afloat, there is no compass, there is no wind, there are no sails, and there are no oars. Taking this away could just bring to a worse plane of existence. Chains that bind dig so deep that when I heal they embed themselves within my skin... there is no lock and no key. Just chains and a foundation that is well rooted under the ground. A tug in any direction from one of these chains and I'd be pulled overboard... no way back up to the ship.
I am a captive audience to the antics of the black fog as it taunts me. The fog particles move together densely to form vague shapes, many animate and some moving closer and closer to me. When they form from the fog it never seems as if the total volume diminishes... as if the total mass of this fog is too great to be constrained by such rules. A serpentine specter grew closer and seemed to direct its attention to me. At this my eyes grew wide and my mind was suddenly filled with insight... Insight that filled me with a set of holes that drained my resolve and I dare say my sanity even further. A different darkness, toxic.
This was not a result of my meddlings in Haelstrom... this was something older... something stronger... something that had lied in waiting and had always watched me... something that if it willed it, it could take this place from whatever nature, god, or sentience controls it... twist the knife in my side further and make the blade branch off and burrow until it finds my heart and pierces it. As my heart turned black it would look into my eyes and dissolve me. It doesn't want me anywhere else.


"Cleric's fog will recede before your eyes.
So long to this wretched form.
Them's grey eyes on the subway.
Long before you were born,
you were always to be a dagger floating
Straight to their heart."- The Shins, 'Rifle's Spiral.'

Liar.