The rush pulled me back through the haze for the final time. Third time around the haze was more familiar, passageways and canals, shifts of gravity, shifts of mental levity and shafts of raw pain now all on a first name basis. In time my feet collided with the chill, damp and dark soil of Praecord once again, the cold steel of the empty revolver in my hand an odd parallel. I hit the ground kneeling and knowing, that I didn't have long before the voices of both severed halves re-entered my consciousness… so the minutes of solace would have to be savored like they might be my last. A weak wind blows through the pale grass, echoing with a shrieking whistle across the valley. I might have gone past the point of no return, but my gamble had paid off. As I start to get up, something in the sky catches my eye and sends a shiver down my spine that strikes a resounding chord where the arrowhead left by Melancholia lies. A gear skips a rung in my head for a second and I’m left there staring at the blue sky contrasting the grey mountains and fields while my brain reaches to find out why I find this so unusual. Only here could I consider a blue sky an ill omen but… the skies here have been reds, oranges, greys, blacks, whites but never blue. What happened? Never any shade resembling blue, never even a hint at a sky with a color so unnatural. Before I can think too hard into it the wind picks up, now blowing right in my eyes. They start to tear so I turn away and wipe my eyes clear only to be greeted with the former skyline of Haelstrom. Just… right there in front of me. My legs fell out from under me as my brain just let go, my body going limp. My grip on the revolver slipped and then came back, clutching it even tighter. What day was it?
There… right before me was the proof of my failure standing up high, stories upon stories above me. Where Haelstrom once stood now only the gargantuan opaque semi-solid mass of the Leviathan persists, the city swallowed under its raw magnitude with even Aphid’s lovely spire that breaks through the heavens barely poking out beneath the oppressive muck. Finally the cruel consequence of my failure stood before me, at long last smashing and splashing into the moat that separated my castle from reality. It was all for nothing… all for nothing… all the torment, the venture past the point of no return, all the madness, the pain and all watching it crumble beneath an iron boot. There was to be no solace, no conclusion, no recourse and no requiem.
There and then I saw the value in tears. Because you see… tears are there as a cry for help, and when no help exists they comfort us as we await our inevitable demise.
I had given up everything to come back here one last time… possibly forever and this is what I return to find?
Through the tears, a mellifluous sigh cut its way in and echoed in my head. Searching for the source of the sound my eyes met with a grim image. A slim figure emerged unscathed and untarnished from the center of the mucky, impenetrable mass. Slim, graceful but with a look that cut me like a razor to my eyes. A cruel visage, it was Aphid… It had to be, I tried to deny it but it just had to be. Yes it was Aphid in all her beauty but oh god did it hurt mine eyes. Her mirror skin was covered in cracks, with a red magma glowing visibly within the crevices behind a thin membrane, her dress torn, stained a dark dirty red, her back deformed, forcing her to lean forward like an old hag and her hair tangled in some places, torn in others and completely gone in patches. But it was her divots for eyes… now like holes into pure darkness that descended back further than the confines of her head yet never seemed to penetrate the other side. There was no warmth in those "eyes". What possibly could have happened?
The lie was obvious, the joke stood before my eyes and I laughed. I laughed, oh god I laughed as “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.” Those very words have likely driven a few men insane. It was all gone… all possibility and hope was gone. The words “Why are you here?” carved themselves into my arm in open wounds that stung with a pain that only fueled the dread which started to resurrect the black bile from my intestines. Coming back here was a trap, a psychic joke played at the expense of years of my life, my mind and possibly my existence. The Leviathan had to be hers, the city just a whirlpool ready to drag me down with it and end me.
That did it. Connecting to the fragment in my spine, the steaming black bile spewed out from my throat and onto the ground in front of me. From the vapors formed the serpent Melancholia once again, this time with its piercing stab already implanted there was little it needed to do to set up its control once again. And oh god did it know exactly what to do, loading the six bullets one by one into the gun, unable to resist as I watch through my own eyes while Melancholia plays with my body like it’s a marionette, its thin grey fingers in my veins. Blue skies… crushing defeat and ascent back to a place where I no longer have a home… all by the hand of that black serpent, was this to be my fate? Pressing the revolver against the side of my head I became aware of a sound of pounding feet against the grass which I quickly shoved into the back of my mind to hide it from the serpent. Seconds later I heard a growl and felt Melancholia torn away from my lungs and the arrowhead from my spine removed with a violent pull out of my back. I fell forward, my face into the dirt as the sounds the likes of which I still cannot fully describe occurred behind me. I can’t tell you what the Red Eyed Wolf did to Melancholia… But I can tell you it wasn't enough. You have to stomp it out the minute you see it because like a chronic, sentient cancer, it can come back every time stronger and stronger whenever it finally gets the chance to bloom. It was just a child this time, mind you a dangerous child but a child all the same. This has to end.
Standing up I could feel the wolf’s skin standing empty behind me, staring at the back of my head with its one fearsome eye. I clenched my fists and looked up at the crimson silhouette of Aphid up high. “For now I won’t ask how you returned from the dark embrace of death…” I rasped gently through my shredded vocal chords, my thoughts seeming to almost scream at each other. “But this has to end… rejoin me so we can do what must be done.” He drops the arrowhead in the pocket in my shirt and give me a nod before slipping back onto me once again, the skin’s familiar mix of too loose, too snug, and fitting like a glove. It all just paled in comparison to the determination behind those eyes. Warm, rough, he felt fresh once again, missing only the smell of placenta in his jaws. To him the shredded vocal chords were no bane, forming a viscous growl as he screamed words to the sky that were not mine.
“Aphid! You whore of a sage mistress!”
In the wolf’s skin I sprinted on all fours toward the Leviathan, pounding my paws against the earth, digging my claws into the mass, and fighting the Leviathan’s pull inward. As I started to climb its towering height, the determination I felt within that skin like almost nothing I had ever felt before. The height was incredible but with no limit to how far I could exert myself it seemed like a cake walk that just happened to take quite a bit of time. She slashed down at me with words across my skin as I climbed, bleeding as I struggled to stay up. I was numb to the pain but that didn't help the fact that I could still feel them as they dug into my skin. Quickly shutting my eyes to protect them, I continued the climb despite the bleeding as soon this would all be over. The wolf told me so, oh yes he told me so.
Reaching the peak, against the blue and grey Aphid stood opposite to me on the other side of the small plateau, arms outstretched as if to welcome me home, but the needles slowly grew out of her fingers. She almost seemed shorter than before and skinnier too. The claws were out, the stage was set. She lunges, the 10 needles on her fingers going for my face but the wolf reacts, interlacing his fingers with hers as they dance through the air. Hands gripping claws, he shifts his grip and breaks her fingers and then holding his grip on her broken, bleeding hands as her head recoils back in silent agony. All 10 fingers fall to the ground, disconnected and bleeding and he holds her hands tight in his grip, pulling her closer while he snarls. I can see every thought going through the Red Eyed Wolf's head... he wants to plant his claws in those sockets and rip her skull apart, throw her off the leviathan and listen as she breaks across the ground, open up her chest cavity and see if the mirror has any guts to spill... but I stop him. My reflection in her cracked face catches my attention.
There’s something in my eyes… something I don’t like. Something that doesn't feel like me. The wolf covers half my face, its thick hairy hide wrapped around my body, my mouth twisted into a grimace of anger infused with smug satisfaction. I don’t know this face, this face can’t be mine… I… I don’t look like that. All of the actions, thoughts, many of the wants, all can’t possibly be mine… Oh god what have I become?
As the wolf squeezes down on her hand, digging a claw into her wrist I pull him back further and muzzle him. He may be my skin but… I won’t let him do this. I let go of Aphid’s hands and she falls back, recoiling in pain and curling into a ball for a few seconds, bleeding before she suddenly sits up. Needles start to form out of her face and arms through her clothing. I quickly grabbed Melancholia’s arrowhead from my pocket and stab it into her neck. She turns to me as she turns to stone once again from the touch of bitter stone. Her face was… her face looked at me almost scared I’d say. Her… her… I don’t want to think about it now. I don’t need that burden in my mind.
I turned to the Red Eyed Wolf and grabbed him by the hairs of his neck, pull him off of me and lift him below me, looking directly into his eyes. “What EXACTLY were you trying to do?” I whisper to him, not breaking contact with the one eye on his empty skin as I dangled him over the edge of the Leviathan.
“What the hell do you think? I think we both know about the organic origin of revenge vipe…” he snarled back at me. Eye contact had probably been a bad idea. “What you were going to do there... that's not survival, that's malice! That’s not me. I… No.” I rasped back to him, turning my head away. “Don’t you lie to me-” “How would you know what’s a lie?!?” I strained my voice to say.
“You don’t have such good connections up here anymore do you? Or have you forgotten that this connection isn't a two-way street?” I said, pressing a finger to the side of my head.
He tried to bite me but stopped himself.
“Oh… forgot why you can’t hurt me didn't you? You’d fall apart and that would suit neither of us…”
He snarled, the anger behind that red eye was obvious. He hated me and like with Aphid, he had all the reason in the world to. But unfortunately, we were stuck together and as much as I hated to say it he had kept me alive throughout all of this and I may need him to keep it that way. What the hell had gotten into him?
So much has gone wrong… so much… so fucking much… but I can’t crack, I’m not going to crack. I’m stronger than that or at least I want to be. Even as the Leviathan beneath me seems to start to slowly melt beneath me without her presence I tried to hold onto what I still could. I turned back to the wolf, careful not to look him in the eyes this time… wolves don’t like that. “Look…” I whisper to him. “I know there’s someone else… I've heard him in my head and regardless of if you try to deny it, I know there was another part of me when I pulled you out of me in that false asylum. He’s been whispering to me. I feel he may know more than you and I about what’s been going on... I know you know where he is but I can’t see where. Like it or not, we don’t have much time and you can’t hide anything from me as buddy, we’re still connected. I want you to take me to him.”
His eyes narrow, he twitches, he tries to bare his teeth further. “You don’t understand what you’re doing… but I can’t stop you.” He complied.
The walk back to the asylum produced a painful silence in my head. It had been quite a while and I still hadn't heard anything from my other half. I couldn't say I was getting worried but it seemed almost foreboding. The dark complex stood still as a testament to the deformed hands that sculpted this world. Reflective in the light from the sky, impenetrable, sealed tight by curses for quarantine, this was where the broken went when they could not be fixed. There were no guards, only boundaries. No inmates for long, only the walking husks. The wolf clawed his way back through the walls which resealed behind him, his red eye showing the way in the ever moving tentacles of darkness and the concrete foundation to the facility of erosion. I avoided the blind necrotic husks that walked the corridors and found my way to his cell. Cleaving through the wall, we found his corpse lying in the center of the room. I step closer to get a better look. The body was decayed and black, with very little flesh still clinging to the skeleton. His left forearm was severed and left lying next to him, several fingers including the 2nd digit missing and the tendons torn out and wrapped around the wrist. His jaw had been filled with dirt from the floor, his rib cage had been smashed open and in his right hand was clutched a knife or hook made from one of his ribs. Some of the wounds seemed self-inflicted.
Even though he’s lying here decayed… he is still a part of me.
“The poor bastard is too weak to leave. When stronger he knows no boundaries, but with what has happened, he is bitterly, bitterly trapped and very unlikely to find that strength soon Central. He’s got the power to control the life and death of nearly anything here that uses such concepts, everything but himself that is…” After the wolf spoke these words, The Innocent’s body started to move. That which remained of the muscles in his neck tried to desperately to lift his head up as if he was able to try to look around for someone else in the cell, seeming to forget that he no longer has eyes, ears, a nose, a tongue, or most of his skin. With this seeming to come to mind he let go, letting his head fall and the back of his skull cracking against the concrete floor. I take another step closer, almost afraid to touch him. The stench is incredible and terrifyingly familiar. Then I notice there is still something pulsing amid the mass of gunk and dirt in his chest cavity… something grey, hanging by veins tied to his collarbones, his neck and his spine inside his chest cavity… pulsing slowly, slowly, patiently and persistently as if trying desperately to either fight back or give in but unable to do either.
“He seems to have lost nearly all his senses now… One shudders to imagine what’s going on in that head of his. He’s always been stupid and misguided, never seeing the risks involved given that he never has had anything to lose… guess this showed him, heh. I can never say it to his face though, thanks to the deal I made with this devil. Somethin’ got to him here I’d guess and all of those things that you saw in your future back here the first time I’d guess again. He was the one who brought me back from that abyss if you’ve been wondering... He can’t leave and I’m the only one who can. I was supposed to help send you back and lead you here so things could be over… Guess I ended up complying anyways. He hates me, did you know that?” Examining The Innocent further, I tried not to listen too hard. There’s no value in the opinion of a maniac, but then again what was I getting myself into again?
“If his senses are dead, is there anything I can do to re-establish communication?” I inquired.
“I can only think of one thing and that’s re-establish physical contact, as that should re-establish the mental connection as well.” The wolf replied, slipping his skin off of me to stand by and watch. I tuck the revolver into my back pocket, leaning in close to The Innocent as I outstretched a hand. Hovering an inch above his skull, the wolf suddenly grabbed my wrist and as I looked at him his eyes were fixed on mine.
“Look vipe, you've heard the things he’s said, seen the things he’s thought, you know how dangerous he can be. We shouldn't have shelved him but there was only enough strength left from the mitosis to free one of us. You know that right? I warn you as your survival instinct, this is unsafe, dangerous even. You’ll be resurrecting every demon left inside that dead, broken form and the passionate yet twisted mind within.”
"I know the risk and I'm willing to take it. All demons need to be exorcised at some time." I replied as he loosened his grip and eventually let me go. My palm graced the skull and near immediately he hit me like an electric shock. At first, a stream of thought flitted past my mind, taking a look at the anecdote as the thought sped by.
The innocent lied there as his friend bounded across the field. "Goodbye fair friend… May you find what I could not…" he whispered, helpless but to resent his brother for leaving him behind and likely making that wolf no more than a catalyst. The darkness would focus on him next. The shadows danced in and out of his vision, when suddenly the innocent spoke out. "I know what you are but you shall not claim me the way you claimed the others. Unlike them I don’t have the misfortune of death." He boasted to it, weak as he was and still confident that his immortality would save him from this harm as it had everything before it. "Oh but little child," the shadows heckled back "we have been waiting for one like you… one who won’t fall apart before we can truly get our fingers in. You know this already, but soon you will be praying for that luxury of death. Welcome to the cage that is built to be your grave in the centuries to come... You lost your strength and us another potential inmate and in the process, we can never let you free. Don’t worry, you can always come to the shadows for counseling… we’ll always be listening, and watching, and probing, and whispering, and… soon you’ll likely become our favorite fetus…" The innocent tried not to listen, but the fear was inevitable and so was the rotting and the falling barriers. In a place where time passed so ‘days’ were a like a button pressed and nothing ever really changed until a certain person lay to sleep, these ‘days’ could last as long as they wanted, allowing for one to rot, to listen and to fester for an eternity with no chance of escape until you succumb to a catatonic state… and when the bastard who presses that button leaves this plane of existence entirely while that prisoner has not yet left...
Quickly after, a cacophony of near viral ideas, notions, and words spoken or heard hit my brain like a steam train. Near simultaneously, a guttural scream lasting almost half a minute echoed through the halls of the asylum and though the bars to its very cells. I had to struggle to shut a new door in my mind once again, of a similar make but this time with a locking bar and a reason to keep it shut for when that door was open I saw some of the most depraved, most polluted and most corrupted things I've ever seen in myself either rushing toward me or lying in wait beyond that accursed doorway.
The corresponding muscular response occurred and my hand quickly pulled itself away. I blinked my eyes and shook my head a few times to rid myself of those mental images. On the floor The Innocent began to move. Most of his abdominal muscles appeared to be gone, forcing him to rely on his right arm and his left leg, the only limbs that seemed to have enough meat left to help prop himself up. His neck hung backwards, head pointing upward as if it to look at the sky. With some trouble the decayed form shifted his weight and leaned himself forwards, his head now hanging forwards, his jaw hanging open. As he sat up the pile of dirt and decay lying within his chest cavity began to shift, falling into his pelvis and all over his lap, that grey pulsing organ revealing more of itself behind the layers of dirt. After a few seconds the disembodied voice came again, this time panting, coughing and wheezing, the wolf and I sitting in silence listening. Almost half a minute passed before that ended and he became silent again. Eventually he spoke to us. “
“Is… is it who I think it is? Is it me? Is it me? Is it?” The Innocent spoke to us, his voice shaky.
“Yes… it’s me again. We've come back. Can you hear me?” I replied, trying to keep my distance while I leaned in closer.
“Yes, yes you are here… yes you are.” He paused. “Icansmellhim. He’s here too, isn’t he? Isn’t he? Thebigbadwolf? Here? Backtohiscoffin?” His words were starting to run together again, his voice still shaky.
I turned for a second to the red eyed wolf, standing in the corner then turned back to the innocent. “Yes, he’s here. We've come back to talk to you.”
“I don’t believe that, no no, no no. He’s notonetotalk, this wasn’t his decision, it couldn’t have been. Isenthim out to find you… that was the deal, to end this and get me out but nono, I knew I couldn’t trust him. He did something wrong, he had to have. He’s never trusted me, never seen what I’ve seen. Things are not better are they, they have to be worse are they not? What did he do, what did he do? Tell me what did he do?”
I sighed and then replied to him. “He tried to attack Aphid.”
Near immediately a series of giggles exploded from the disembodied voice and then stopped, waiting a few seconds before replying. “That wasn't Aphid. Look at yourself, you know that wasn't Aphid. You've been around Aphid, you've felt for Aphid... you know the aura Aphid has and you know what it feels like to be around that perception.”
“What are yo-”
“Central..." he said, keeping his focus on me "That wasn't Aphid. She left shortly after you did and that’s why you can’t feel her presence anymore. I'm not totally blind to the outside when I'm in here... Left behind was some form of ‘Golem’, made in her image to look after things and if The Wolf managed to get you here that must mean he’s done something terrible to that parting gift.”
“Don’t you dare-”
“You can’t hide what you've done wolf. He wouldn't be here unless you did something to that Golem. There’s no reason he would have come back here unless you did something terrible to that poor soul to make her want to broadcast out some type of lure or anxiety to draw him back. I honestly thought you’d be made of strong enough stuff to take such a small amount of darkness without letting it twist you.” The innocent nearly spat back at him, tone condescending and vile as he tried dragging himself over to a wall.
The wolf turned to me. “I didn't do anything, I promise you that.” But no, as he said that a memory tried running past my perception.
I chased her. She was fast, but I was faster. I tackled her and held her to the ground with claws around her neck. I was empty, but soon she would be. The first smash shattered her skin, the cracks moving their own way along the skin as they crawled, intersected, paralleled and broke along her body. She was hurt, but I would further it. I pulled at her hair and tightened my claws around her throat. She screamed, but I screamed back louder. I let the red from her neck drip down and stain her dress. I ignored the bumps in my skin, no matter how hard they pushed outwards. I took my claws and gouged them into those divots, deeper than they would go while I let the crimson in my eye vent through my claws and into her veins. Earlier on I had come to the realization that this wasn't the true Aphid. This one was weak, frail, a pale imitation to the genuine article. It didn't matter to me. It didn't matter as the red glowed through her veins, as I removed my claws, as the holes dug themselves further, and as I broke her back. I didn't care, it's deserved... I won't let him destroy himself through this pitiful endeavor. My eyes widened. "My god, that's what was wrong with her..." I thought to myself.
The Innocent propped himself up against a wall, leaning into his skeletal leg like a prosthetic.
“You dare sit here, look me in the face and lie to me wolf? Becauseofyou I am so very, very close to gone but never there. Becauseofyou, I watched one by one as my organs rotted away or betrayed me, all of the courage, all of the wonderful metaphor just seeming to chip away in the eyes of emptiness. My guts, my stomach, my eyes, my tongue, my genitals, my ears, and even my lungs have all decayed away into the dirt on the floor, all because of you! YOU LEFT ME BEHIND!”
“There wasn't enough strength left in us to let both of us leave, you know that!” the wolf barked back, narrowing his eyes and baring his teeth.“You know you’re lying! When you left you cleaved a hole in the wall. You could easily have taken me through it with you and this could have ended without either one of us being left to rot. The truth is you’re scared. You were scared then and you’re just as scared now…”
The wolf went for the revolver in my back pocket, managing to fire off a round before I could wrestle it out of his hands. The wolf backed away for a second before almost lunging at me but stopping inches away from my face. He turned back to the Innocent.
“Someone needs to end you, you sick fucking corpse. You can’t understand why because you’re a frivolous piece of shit!” I turned back to The Innocent and he appeared completely unscathed, checking the cylinder, the bullets were still in the chamber and unspent. How the-
“You couldn't even do it could you? He pulled you back didn't he? See, THIS is why you need me wolf. My nature forces me to see things through… to the better end or the bitter end. You could so easily have ended this… so easily you could have killed that golem and stab a single needle into the whole she was made from, but no… Your piece of the center didn't let you hurt her. If you had pulled me out with you things could have been so much better, but no, now we’re forced to take the route through the thorns. Why couldn’t you just hurt her? Why couldn't you just end this? Why couldn't you just end her?!?” he nearly shouts, his focus seeming to turn to me with the last few sentences.
Right then a bright light cut through the north wall, an image, the silhouette of the headless horse as he stood just over the hill half the valley away. He was here, not a vision or refraction but a metaphysical manifestation that suddenly split down its spine and folded outwards, spilling a golden light over all that the skies may see from their perch up high, ripping away the dark walls and the husks from the asylum. My eyes then closed themselves as the voice of the manifestation filled my thoughts.
“Because regardless… Regardless of what has happened, regardless of what could have happened, regardless of what she is or ever may have wanted to be, regardless of what you were or what you became, regardless of intentions, regardless of actions, regardless of fears, regardless of regret, regardless of the grand façade and its ever present masquerade, regardless of everything she is your friend and one of the few you have here in this wasteland. That is why and you know it well enough to understand. Unless for some reason there’s some hidden candle lying in all of this, it’s all memories. Untouchable, unchangeable, all that can be done is try to throw them away if it turns out they are not needed.That vision I sent you was intended as a warning of what could easily be, but the wolf’s fear got to you before what happened could be prevented. Anything you saw may have easily just been a refraction due to a reclusive nature born of factors you could not change but desperately fight against. A feeling of growing, learning all while knowing that you may easily be steps behind everyone around you… It’s only natural for one such as you. Don’t lose your mind on things, instead observe, react, and adapt as you know you can. Whatever has happened can be fixed if it needs to be, you have the tools, all you need is the will and a self-chosen direction.”
And just like that, as quickly as he appeared, the headless horse vanished, the golden light soon after with him with its affects not as potent as they could have been but it had set things up for rebuilding from the rubble. The dark walls of the false asylum were gone, its concrete foundations and small piles of ashes now all that remained of the horrid "sanitarium". The Innocent started to stand up, I saw that some of his joints and circulatory system had started to grow back albeit slowly. He would have to take time to heal from what had happened as it was evident that horse’s power wasn't as godlike as I may have liked but I expect him to make a full recovery without too many scars. The gashes on the Red Eyed Wolf’s hide sealed up on their own without trouble as the wounds of a puppet are never as dangerous as they may appear. The little corruption the wolf had picked up from the Innocent washed away quickly, the malice with it but I’m still unsure how much I can trust him after what I've seen of his moral compass. The sky returned to its normal hue but there were other things still that needed to be fixed after what I’d let happen.
It was a long walk but I made my way back to the now empty city of Haelstrom and climbed my way back up the spire to the widow’s walk where I had left the golem encased in stone. I had left her fingers on the empty mantelpiece nearby.
Aphid herself had so much furniture in the cathedral whereas the rest of the buildings in the city were completely vacant… It was strange, but out of everything it felt strangely fitting for her.
I walked over to the golem and pulled the arrowhead out of her neck, snapping it between my index and middle finger then letting it burn into ashes on the sandstone floor. Quickly the golem slowly seemed to regain consciousness as the stone skin peeled off and fell to the floor. It stood up and looked at me, unsure of what to do as I paced over to the fireplace and back to her. I offered the severed fingers back to her in my outstretched hands, saying something to calm her down as she started backing away. I don’t know if the attack or the wolf’s corruption had lessened the golem, but she seemed almost animistic in her demeanor. Eventually the golem took back her fingers and began re-affixing them in a manner similar to the clay molding like method I had seen Aphid use to heal the forms in the city.
The Innocent had told me they’d be back soon from the remains of the Leviathan, but it would take a little bit of time; not as long as it would for his wounds to heal, but time nonetheless. When she was done she looked back up at me, the holes in her face beginning to recede back to their original depth and the cracks in her skin were already beginning to seal back up, the color beneath a silvery white. I smiled and brushed a lock of hair away from her face as it blew in the wind on the widows walk. Her hair too, was starting to grow back. A close copy but she was shorter than Aphid, her skin a hint less reflective and she almost seemed skinnier than Aphid in her tattered dress. I sighed, looked away then looked back to her. She started to write something on my arm but I figured I knew what it was and I already had something to say. Looking back I probably should have looked.
"If you can reach Aphid… I want you to tell her something.”
“I want you to tell her I’m sorry if there’s anything I've done. It took me too long to find what may be certainty and now that I live once again in the present, I can say that it took too long for me to find what may be certainty. I’m honestly not sure if this is what I think it is or if I’m just reacting to her being gone and if it’s anyone's case of Kotov Syndrome, it was mine. She may be the only one I've ever connected to in this wasteland and if that’s ever meant anything I don't think it means much sitting in the debris of my cravings. I can try to live with the way things are now and time may show that I’m happier with it... I can’t tell you how things could have otherwise worked out but… try not to worry about me. I’ll be fine and if I can’t I’ll find a way to pretend… I promise you that. I can only try to accept what I've done… I can only hope to say I know her well enough to think that she has if she indeed knows.”
Standing on the
balcony, the golem stared at me in silence. I smiled at her and took the
revolver from my pocket. The Innocent had given me a 7th bullet,
coated in a brilliant gold with an hourglass carved into the casing. I unloaded
the cylinder and slid the 7th bullet in. I put my hand on her
shoulder and pointed the gun up in the air, counting down as I cocked the
hammer back and pulled the trigger, counting down.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Five.”
“Six.” *click*
“Seven.”
The gun went off, the round sailing into the air like a flair before bursting like a firework in a shower of sparks as another vacuum-like portal was created… above my head close to the tip of the spire. The golem fell apart and blew away like leaves in the wind, the pieces circling and spiraling in the wind up to the portal that slowly closes after the last of the fragments has left. I know she’ll find her way back but I can’t tell you how… just intuition I’d like to say.
Leaning on the railing of the widow’s walk that upon inspection in the light of a sunless breaking dawn seems to more closely resemble a balcony, I think of the outside world, the realms outside of this one and where Aphid must lie… but most of all I think of hope. I hope that Aphid has found another city out there in some other plane, with a better resident and a less complex allegory whereas I… I now sit here and hope to myself that some day I will find another city across my own plane, another chance, now with the lessons I have learned... but god do these plains seem to stretch on forever and I haven't seen much but hills upon hills. The 3 named skulls I found in Aphid's chambers and the workshop where it seems she made those mechanical birds showed me this wasn't the first time she's hurt someone... but from knowing her I can tell you that I doubt it's ever been her intention; her aura is so brilliant that it just tends to tear humans around her apart.
_____________________________________________________________________
