Safety (One Eighteen: Migration Book 1)
Page 17
I couldn't see him, wouldn't look upon him, but he was there as I fell. Somewhere else, I smelled the putrid smell of the Dead Things, so close to my other body. But here in the pit, in the fear and falling and hatred and despair, he was there.
He would let me fall. But only if I let him.
"I can make you strong,” he said, his voice everywhere and nowhere in the pit. “You've always been my favorite child. I have many wards... too many; but you've always been my favorite. Do you WANT to die?" the Dark Thing asked again.
I didn't.
Christ, I didn't want to die! And more than that I didn't want to fucking lose. I was tired of losing. I was tired of people like Horace winning. Tired of all of the Horaces of the world winning.
No I didn't want to die.
I wanted to finish what I'd started. I wanted to take those people and get them out of there and take them somewhere safe. I wasn't done, God-dammit.
"No," I growled, "No, I don't want to die."
"Then don't," the Dark Thing whispered, arms enveloping me. Stopping the free-fall.
Then we were out of the pit, in a old room with peeling wallpaper covered in mildew. At the center was a great, black piano, open, and I was playing it.
But I wasn't playing it. I was standing next to it, watching myself play. Jonas as I saw myself. Friendly, intelligent, witty enough I suppose.
Weak.
A man not fit for this new world. All my good intentions were worth exactly nothing without the ability to actually carry them out.
"Make me strong," I demanded.
"Become strong, Jonas," he mocked.
He was right. It was at my fingertips. My mind was a piano... THE piano, and every part a string. Strings for fear, love, hatred, envy, lust, happiness- too many.
Far to many to be rational. Too many to be strong. I stood over the piano, clutching my knife in my cold, dead hand.
Which chords didn't I need to play the tune? What was holding me back? The piano throbbed rhythmically, like a heartbeat, the strings pulsing with every note.
"Pain," I whispered.
"Pain," he mocked. "I can't do it for you. You have to do it yourself." I watched weak Jonas, ignorant of what I was about to do to him, as he worked his way through Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
I could stick the knife in him now and be done with it, open his throat up with one flick and finish it. Be whatever it was that I truly was.
"Once it's done..." I whispered.
"It cannot be undone. Do you want to be strong Jonas? Or do you just want life to be easy. It's not within my abilities to make life easier," the Dark Thing said.
I felt his hands on my shoulders, cold and scaly We looked down at the piano together, watched as the strings pulsed, blue liquid running through some, deep red through others. Blood.
“Life is hard, Jonas. I can make you strong, help you to conquer life as I have conquered death. But I cannot make things easier for you.” The hands came from my shoulders and I felt him back away, waiting.
I didn't want life to be easy. I don't. The drugs had made life seem easy, a world where nothing was so terrible once I'd had my medicine. But it wasn't real. I didn't want a facade of safety, behind a fence and a haze of narcotic apathy.
I wanted the world as it was. I wanted the strength to take those people... MY people... away from that coffin of a town and lead them to safety. Away from Paradise Falls and Horace and that dark little witch.
I wanted to take them home. Regardless of wanting it for the right or the wrong reasons, I wanted it enough and I'd get it. I decided.
"I don't want it to be easy," I said knife trembling in my hand. "Bring on the world as it is, that's fair. Just give me the fucking strength to face it." His hands massaged my shoulders as I raised the knife high above my head.
“That's all I want. I just want to... to...”
"Then cut. I will give you what you ask." I slammed the knife down, slashing a wire. The severed ends whipped into the air as the tension broke, splashing hot blood across my face.
Weak Jonas winced, but continued to play, small rubies of blood running down his cheek. Part of my humanity died, I know that.
But I felt nothing.
No part of me slipping away. No new feelings, ideas or point of view. Something inside me just ceased to be, and I don't know what that is. I don't know much about the Dark Thing but I know enough about life to know there's no free lunch.
I looked at the bleeding piano for a moment, but lost interest when I felt my rotting arm move; strong and fine. Still dead and black, but I was it's master again. I made a fist, feeling the strength in my fingers, watching the muscles ripple and flex under the thin, dead skin.
The Dark Thing smiled. I did not look upon him, but I could feel it. He was pleased.
“Do you feel the strength in you now, Jonas?” The Dark Thing asked.
“I do,” I said, feeling the power in the dead flesh of my arm. It was wrong, and it was dead. But it was very, very strong.
“And the pain, Jonas?” the Dark Thing said. I shivered.
“Gone. All gone.”
"Again?" he whispered. "Is that enough? So many strings Jonas, we could cut them all. Think of how strong you could be?"
He was right. Just one little string for all of this. The blood ran down my face, wet and sweet. Not as sweet as my return to Greenly would be, but sweet enough.
So many strings, so much power inside me just waiting for me to release it. How many were too many to cut? How much was enough for what I needed to do? And for what I wanted to do.
What would each delicate string give... and take?
Christ, what had I lost? The realization dawned on me and pushed down the desire to continue. It dawned on me that along with the power, and the lack of pain, I'd lost something.
What was the price?
Love?
Joy?
Humor?
Hatred?
No, the hatred was there, but cooler now. More rational, iced over. There were men that needed killing, and I hated them all.
Laughter?
Joy?
How can you know whats lost before you need to feel it? Especially in the mind room with something far greater than yourself giving everything, the blood dripping from your face, feeling nothing but a lust for revenge and triumph and...
"NO," I shouted, slamming the piano closed.
"No more... one is enough..."
"For now," The Dark Thing whispered. "One is enough for now."
The room grew hazy as he pulled away from me. The mind room melted and then I was falling back into the pit. But I wasn't afraid anymore.
Bring on the devils, the madmen, the others like me. Bring them all on.
Even the Dead Things.
I knew now that I'd always been their master. They'd never wanted me. They'd wanted the jackrabbit, Thomas, my friends and neighbors.
But never Jonas Waight.
We were both of the Dark Thing and they would not come for me. And I wouldn't let them come for MY people.
I would wake and return to Greenly.
No man living or dead will stand in my way.
God help them if they do, because I will not.
Jonas Waight
Quitter
Jonas Waight will return in
One Eighteen: Migration
Book 2: Road Trip
For more information on 118 Migration,
visit us on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/118migration .
Or on the web at www.118-migration.com
grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share