The Gods' Games Volume 1 & 2: Graphic Edition (The Gods' Games Series)

by Quil Carter

  There was also a low underlining terror that just broke the surface tension inside of him. The only reason it hadn’t slayed him over and over was because of the sheer volume of other emotions fighting for dominance inside of him. It was like he was being gang raped over and over with everyone just lining up to get their turn.

  I want to die, Tav’s voice sounded inside of his head, but it was weak and defeated. I want to run. I want to die but he’ll just drag me back and it’ll be worse than before.

  There was literally no way of escaping.

  “There,” the demigod’s voice said behind him. “You’re no longer Teal Fennic. If you can’t do this job as Teal, you’ll do it as Tav.”

  “Tav?” he asked, his frail voice questioning.

  Gods, I had forgotten his voice…

  “That’s right. You know what is a wonder about having a new body? You don’t have to be the elf you’ve left behind… you can be whoever you want.”

  Teal, inside the body of Tav, turned around, away from the mirror. In the corner of the room, the silver-haired man stared him down. His mouth a thin line, his arms folded across a white undershirt.

  “You want to be a confident, brave motorcycle rider from Russia, you can be one. You want to be a soldier from Sweden, who likes guns and making friends, you can be one. You can be whoever you want now, Tav. Teal was the coward, Teal ran, Teal hid, Teal killed himself. You don’t have to be Teal while you’re here anymore. You can be whoever you want; you can be the hero you want to be. Teal doesn’t have to exist anymore. You took off that mask, now put on the mask of someone who can do your task.”

  Teal brought his hands up to his ears and felt them.

  Round… smooth ears.

  “I can… be whoever I want?”

  I can be brave… strong… confident… I can be someone who can do this?

  The scene changed, it flashed to meeting Emett.

  Tav is brave, Teal’s the coward…

  To meeting Ben.

  The far corners that still held Ben’s thoughts looked in awe. He hadn’t seen his earth self in so long. He looked… he looked horrible, and weak.

  Tav is brave.

  Those words repeated inside of his head again and again with the intensity that reminded Ben of that poem that had driven him into insanity. They played so often and with such force that Ben was sure it was the demigod implanting the confidence into Teal’s mind.

  “I… I’m on drugs.” Tav burst through his bedroom door; he was in Ben’s apartment now. The silver-haired man was on his bed, the same stern expression on his face. He looked stressed out and tense, a shadow of the smirking demigod Ben had seen in Elron.

  “Oh?” Kelakheva said. He didn’t sound amused.

  “They make me feel so much better. Ben’s right, they’re amazing. I feel so much better on them. I can do this. I promise I can do this.”

  Teal appeared in a swirl of silver, leaving Tav’s body behind. Ben was shocked to see Teal in earth clothes, cargo pants and a black and blue button-down. However what was most shocking was the fact that he was smiling.

  He’s nice to me; he’s patient with me. He’s so friendly; he notices I exist.

  I have a friend. I have my first friend!

  Ben felt a push from his mind as the scene melted away. He could feel Teal’s physical presence beside him even though he was still inside of his head watching these memories play out.

  “Bring me back, Teal… I’ve seen enough,” Ben said as he watched, now with a third person view, Teal talking excitedly to the demigod. To watch this point in time made him uncomfortable, it was after Tav had started doing drugs with him that the feelings started to develop. Teal thought he was being friendly, and he had been… but deeper things had been stirring.

  And it looked like Teal knew this too.

  The feelings emanating from Teal’s body suddenly changed. A small pit of sadness appeared like a black spot on the surface of the sun, and like it was a black hole all of the happy feelings started to get sucked into it. The anxiety came back with vengeance and the depression as well.

  And a new feeling, Ben realized, an overwhelming sense of guilt.

  Tav was standing in front of the uncaring Kelakheva. They were both in Tav’s bedroom and Tav looked like he was in agony.

  “Let him stay. Please don’t do this to him,” Tav screamed. The emotions that Ben could feel were overwhelmingly strong; it was almost too much to bear.

  “You’re driving him crazy. I can’t do this anymore! I CAN’T!”

  “I won’t leave; I won’t leave and you can’t make me… I’ll stay with him. I don’t care anymore. I’ve been happier here than I ever was in Alcove. I choose to stay; I choose to live here as Tav.”

  Tav was pacing, Tav was sobbing, his nose was bleeding. Through Tav’s eyes Ben looked down and saw he had a gun in his hand. He was gripping it hard, drops of blood dripping onto the barrel; there was so much blood it was almost a stream.

  “You never had a choice,” the hollow voice of Kelakheva said. He was so emotionless, so sterile and cold; and he sounded different, felt different. Was it hard for him to be in that world for such a long period of time?

  “You can’t do this to him. Stop hurting him, stop making me hurt him. He’s mine to protect, you said so yourself.”

  “His destiny on earth is coming to an end – his only future is in Elron.”

  Ben felt the cold barrel of the gun in his mouth, automatically he tried to retract his head but, of course, he wasn’t in control.

  Looking at the wall in the corner of his room – Tav pulled the trigger.

  Click… click… click

  Every time the trigger was pulled, his heart jumped.

  “Don’t waste my time bringing you back again,” the demigod said with an angry edge to his voice.

  “You can’t do this to mortals, Kelakheva,” Teal whimpered, his lips touching the cold tip of the gun. “I will not play this game anymore.”

  Click… click…

  The ear-splitting bang literally knocked him backwards in Teal’s memories. Ben shot out of Tav’s body and slammed up against the wall.

  He looked up and let out a horrified gasp as he saw Tav fall back on the bed, a spray of brains and blood on the headboard and wall behind him.

  And Tav… fuck, the back of Tav’s head was just a crater with destroyed brain matter and bits of scalp and hair that dangled down.

  Ben screamed and ran over to him. His friend, his eyes glazed over and lifeless, was still. The entry wound draining blood onto his blue sheets underneath him.

  The demigod didn’t even flinch. He walked over to Tav with his burl staff now in hand and pointed the glowing white orb at Tav’s mangled head. The entire staff started to glow with a brilliant silver light that soon coated the entire room.

  When the light died down, Ben found himself back inside Tav’s body. His head throbbing with a horrible headache and the blood and matter still all around him.

  “Ben’s time on Earth is over, you’re bringing him to Elron tonight,” the demigod spoke beside him.

  Tav looked at him in horror.

  Benji’s coming to Elron. Benji’s coming to Elron tonight.

  Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.

  Benji’s…

  So quiet inside here, so tormented soul.

  Another flash. Tav was banging on his door. Ben knew this moment; he had lived this moment. How could he have not heard the gunshot? Was he that far inside his insanity? Crouched over the box.

  No, he had never heard Tav screaming or any of the times he was in turmoil. Kelakheva must’ve had a barrier over his room or something.

  Then there was banging, banging, banging and more banging. Ben remembered that it had been in his head at first, as he was slowly being driven crazy.

  It looked like he wasn’t the only one going crazy that night.

  “Ben… Ben? Please open up.” He had never realized how hysterical the voice had sounded. Poor Tav
… poor Tav… the boy I might have loved. In a different world, in a different reality…

  Nails scraping, cold breath on the winter’s hold,

  “ENOUGH!” Ben cried. He gathered every bit of will he had inside of him, and pushed himself out of the lucid vision that Teal had pulled him into.

  His mind’s eye closed and his real eyes opened up. Ben took in a sharp inhale of crisp air and looked around the moon-bathed grass around him.

  Teal was still breathing ragged, staring at the ground, his chest rapidly rising up and down. Ben saw his hand drop from the sapphire pendant, the other one clawing his shoulder blade.

  “I didn’t know you felt that way about me,” Teal said, his voice tight and wobbling. “Please, believe that. Gods, Ben. If I knew, I would have acted differently. Please, Ben… I didn’t know that’s why you were being so nice. I was just happy I had a friend. I’m an idiot, you know that. I never knew that’s how you felt about me.”

  “Tav, not you,” Ben whispered. As Teal brought reality to Ben’s feelings for Tav, he felt his heart retract, more out of self-preservation than anything. It seemed to collapse in on itself and tighten up, where no warmth could reach it.

  “Tav,” Teal corrected himself.

  There was a silence between the two of them, only Teal’s quiet sniffing could be heard. “I should have told you when you arrived. I wanted to, but… you… you kept…”

  “Having anxiety attacks? Going manic?”

  Teal sniffed and nodded.

  Ben inhaled, but besides that he was still. His mind was stuck and unable to process his emotions. There were just too many of them; he felt like a wraith sitting in the darkness, numb to reality.

  Ben looked at Teal who seemed shell-shocked. His best friend was staring at his pendant, his face tear-stained and his shoulders trembling; even his teeth were chattering. It was like he was literally bare in front of him, cold without the mask that he had been hiding from Ben for months now.

  For the first time in their friendship Ben was seeing Teal as he really was. Not just an orphaned hibrid, timid, anti-social, a little bit feral, and unstable. He was so many other things now. He had lived for months on earth, had gone through such terrible things. He had shown so much bravery in the end, and had survived something that would’ve made even the bravest war hero drop to his knees.

  He had seen Ben at his worst and he had never once looked down at him for it.

  Teal was Tav…

  You idiot, of course he was.

  A small slender boy from a faraway land. Who didn’t know anything to do with Ben’s own country. Who had never tried drugs; who didn’t even know how to eat pizza or drink through a straw. Even if he had jumped into another skin and reinvented himself… Teal had still shone through in so many ways. His mask was flawless physically, but mentally and emotionally it was constantly splitting and wearing away.

  Ben remembered how he would shy away to his room if a strange visitor came to his apartment. He was only comfortable around Emett and David it had seemed. Who he had known before he had met Ben. He became better over the months, especially after Ben started loading him up with drugs.

  Ben felt a churn of nausea. His Teal had done drugs? My gods, what a strange thing to grasp…

  Teal was Tav…

  How can I wrap my brain around this? This changes everything, or does it? I don’t know.

  A pang ran through Ben’s heart and he felt another emotion start to come to the surface. One that managed to crawl through the cluster to make itself known.

  It was sadness.

  Tav wouldn’t be in his old world waiting for him to return, because he never really existed in the first place. Tav… there was no Tav anymore.

  Tav was gone. Ben would never see him again. He’d never bring him to Elron; he’d never show Tav the statues in Lelan or the huge trees of Jare. He’d never see what Tav looked like as an elf or a hibrid.

  Tav was gone… Tav was… Tav was…

  Before Ben could swallow it, he found a sob escape his lips. Teal, who had looked like he had been holding back one himself, started to cry when he saw the emotions overtake Ben.

  Ben brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He rested his forehead on his knees and tried to hold back the tears stinging his eyes; his chest shook and shuddered as he tried to inhale but found all he could do was choke.

  It felt like he was mourning a death. It felt like his boy had just gotten brought to Elron and murdered right in front of him, with the murderer crying quietly beside him.

  He wasn’t Tav – Teal had killed Tav, just like he’d suspected.

  No, don’t be stupid, he said angrily to himself.

  Then Ben heard a sniff and a choke beside him. “We’ll go back to earth when this is over, I promise,” Teal’s broken voice said. “I’ll be Tav. I’ll get him to turn me back into Tav. We’ll forget Teal ever existed. We’ll be together, live together. We’ll bring gold from here and live like kings. Do drugs, anything. I’ll do anything, anything you want. M-Malagant will come too. We’ll be a family, all three of us.”

  Oh, Teal… my Teal… I wish I could convince myself you weren’t serious, only saying it in the moment, but I know you. I know you too well. You would do it wouldn’t you?

  He thought back to what Malagant had told him, when he had woken up to him singing.

  ‘When he tells you… remember: he loves you, you’re his best friend, and he did what he thought was best at the time. He’s just Teal. He was scared,’

  ‘All of the decisions that he’s made were never ever meant to hurt you.’

  ‘I don’t want to know do I?’

  ‘No, you don’t, but you have to know. Ben… it’s eating him alive.

  Ben looked at his friend and saw the raw desperation in his eyes.

  I can see that.

  Teal… my Teal, our Teal. Me and Malagant’s Teal. Why do the gods find a need to torture you so much? What a horrible thing to do to someone like you.

  “I think it’s time you stop sacrificing yourself for others,” Ben whispered, surprised at himself as the words left him. “What do you want, Teal?”

  Teal raise his head; those desperate eyes fixed on Ben’s own.

  “No one’s ever asked me that before,” Teal whispered. He thought for a moment, wiping his nose with his tunic sleeve.

  “I want to buy a holdfast in a forest… and I want to raise goats with you and Malagant.”

  Ben watched Teal’s lower lip start to quiver; his vivid and staring green eyes wide and his face a twisted agonizing mess.

  Ben felt the first warm glow flicker in his frozen heart, solidity to the shadow that had become him. And as the warmth started to come back to his veins, softening him towards this hibrid with so many different faces, he took Teal into his arms and held him tight against him.

  Teal cried harder, of course, and Ben shushed him and rocked him back and forth. Even though it should be him breaking down and being comforted by this masked hibrid, Ben didn’t mind. He had always been Teal’s rock and he knew until they were old that he always would be.

  Teal’s tense and coiled body shook under Ben’s embrace. As Ben listened to his rapid breathing and his chokes and gasps, he tried to sort through this rats’ nest of emotions that was still a tangled mess inside of him.

  Tav had once been the boy he thought he might love. Whose face he’d almost forgotten as the months went on. As Ben looked at Teal with an entirely new light, he was shocked with just how much of Tav he saw in him now. In a lot of ways, as strange as it was to admit, it had been Teal, his best friend, he’d fallen for.

  Ben squeezed Teal, who was still whimpering in his arms, and he closed his eyes.

  He felt Tav squeeze back.

  Tav was in Alcove; Tav had been here the entire time. As much as Ben didn’t want Teal to have those memories he did. And as much as he didn’t want Teal to be the one he’d had feelings for… he was; a glaring reality that threat
ened to complicate everything.

  In the end though, it was something that just wasn’t possible now. In years perhaps, when this was all done and they were with their goats… but not now.

  The memories we’ll have and we will always have them, but my feelings for Tav?

  Ben knew what he had to do.

  Gently, Ben pulled away from Teal and rested his hand on his shoulder. Teal stared back at him, and for the first time… Ben saw Tav staring back at him too.

  With an ache in his heart, Ben drew his hand up to the nape of Teal’s neck and pulled him close. He leaned in and closed his eyes, then gently kissed the corner of Teal’s mouth. He paused for a moment, hearing Teal’s breath catch in his chest, before he moved his lips over and gently pressed them against Teal’s.

  The boy that he’d once thought would be waiting for him back in his world, kissed him back. He opened his mouth to take Ben in deeper and Ben obliged. Together they kissed, though when Ben felt a hand start to tenderly stroke his neck he pulled away.

  Ben rested his forehead against Teal’s, and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter – only to keep the tears from escaping.

  “Goodbye, Tav,” Ben whispered.

  Ben heard a small sob, which made his heart lurch, and with a shuddered whimper he felt a gentle kiss on his lips.

  “Goodbye, Benji,” Ben heard him whimper.

  And it was in Tav’s voice.

  They stayed together, Ben didn’t know how long. Sometime during he had taken Teal into his arms again; he knew Teal had needed it and in truth he needed it too.

  Ben rested his chin between Teal’s neck and shoulder, and found himself absentmindedly rocking him. He listened as Teal’s almost hyperventilating breath slowed down, until his breathing was normal and steady.

  Ben stroked his hair, and rested his hand on his upper back. Despite the heavy atmosphere around them and the tears drying in the corner of his eyes, he found his lips pulling in the smallest of smiles.

  “Doritos or Cheetos?”