by Chad West
Lucy yelled out, but it seemed as though it was mostly from surprise. He watched for Mira in the cloud of smoke. For a time he hoped perhaps she’d been blown right out of Aern’s body and into nothing. Then he watched as Mira stepped out of the haze, a small fire still burning on Aern’s right shoulder. The skin was burned away from most of Aern’s body. His chest was an open, gushing wound. But, as bad as his body looked, Jonas knew that Mira only needed time. But, he wondered, even as he moved that way, how they could kill something such as her. It was at this point Cynthia attempted an answer.
***
Cynthia didn’t think the Aern-thing could see yet because it reacted wildly to the chuff-chuff-chuff sound of her approach as she ran toward it. She knew Jonas had told her to stay back, but when she saw that armor explode… Well, she’d taken Aern before without the armor. But as she threw her fist at that bloodied face, she realized this was no Aern.
Cynthia could see Mira healing this body right in front of her. So she punched harder, trying to keep ahead. She could see Jonas helping her, keeping Aern down as best he could, blocking or slowing her punches, and she was grateful. Then two of Lucy’s sand monsters joined the fight. When Aern’s arm caught fire, she grinned. Angela.
She took her share of bruises, but they just made her dig deeper. The sand from Lucy’s puppet’s fists and Angela’s fire dissolved Aern’s flesh as fast as Mira could replace it. Jonas’ invisible strikes broke the same bones over and over. She threw her fists into Aern’s body again and again, only to watch Mira come back for more. This was the only way they’d succeed though. They had to win and win and win until some final victory came that they could walk away from. What they could not do was let up.
Jan’s pale, cold skin, Angela’s empty eyes, the world, the life, they all lost: she put her weight into each blow until her hands were wet and saturated with Aern. She would dig through his flesh until she found whatever corner that evil bitch was hiding in and rip it out into the daylight to burn away.
Lucy stopped first. Then Angela. It took Jonas and Cynthia a bit longer to realize that Mira’s host had stopped fighting back. Wet, dark sand had erupted from the center of what had been Aern’s torso. There had been no final promise of revenge from Mira; no heroic event that marked their win at the last moment. They had only fought and stumbled into victory. Her head buzzed with the recognition that it was over. But, Cynthia knew, even as she caught her breath, that each of them would drag it all along behind them like a corpse for as long as they lived.
She looked away from the body and out across the desert and wondered how far it went. She wondered how long her body could do without food or drink or people. She wondered what Jonas or Angela and Lucy might say as she walked away to try and get her to stay. Then the thought occurred to her that she’d been running away for a long time. And that these last few days were in no way her introduction to chaos.
She probably would have run, doe-eyed, into chaos’ razored arms a long time ago if it hadn’t been for Jan. She would have meandered endlessly after pointless sensation until she stumbled into a hole so deep she couldn’t get out. At least this chaos had meant something. She looked back down, but at the sand. The handle of Aern’s scepter stuck up next to his body. Cynthia stared at it for a moment before bending down to take it. It was still whole. She turned.
Jonas was standing beside Angela, holding her. Lucy had her hands on her knees, breathing hard, watching them from a distance. Her eyes were swelled with tears. Cynthia hesitated, and then trudged through the sand to Lucy’s side. She lifted her free hand out to the girl and waited for Lucy to take it. Together, they made their way over to Jonas and Angela.
***
His head vibrated like a long, loud sound had finally stopped as he stared into the dim afternoon of the desert. Nothing in Jonas would let him believe this was over. It had crawled into his life like a poison ivy and no matter how many strands he had pulled away there had always been another stem crawling into some other part of his life. Then he thought of the girls.
He turned and Angela was behind him, her eyes brimming with tears. He wrapped his arms around her and she whispered low how glad she was to be back. He saw her in his head, that little girl with hair so orange it hurt to look at. He didn’t know how she had survived Aern’s attack on the shelter, but he was grateful to the point that it hurt. He’d seen enough death.
It was no comforting thing to see someone in your charge, someone in the small circle of the deep love you gave away, gone. At least if family were encased in a fine wooden box, mouth sewn into a look of tranquility, eyes appearing to be shut in sleep, there was some thin layer over the reality. But the way he’d seen death, the way most people never saw it, raw with a definite dearth of tranquility—the honest, harsh way life sometimes took itself away from you—there was no good in that. He never wanted that again. Now, and it was difficult to even think it, he might not have to.
No, dressed up or not, death was an inevitability of life. And life was just the fragrant smoke from the head of a struck match. Death was a truth, but he’d learned you couldn’t live in that truth. And that if you went too far down that road without irrevocable hope, you’d find purpose in nothing. Didn’t keep you from feeling it sometimes. Didn’t keep you from being changed by it. But now he had so many reasons to climb out of his pit of despair. Not the least of which was the little girl, his little girl, who stood in the sand a few yards away.
He remembered what he told Cynthia about redemption. It was true. What the war had put inside of him, he had unwittingly weaved into his own daughter’s life. Now he had to seek release from that so that he could offer that release to Lucy as well. It was her choice, whether she took it, but he had to offer.
He watched Cynthia take Lucy’s hand and walk toward them. He felt Lucy’s arms wrap around his waist and he took her, swelling with peace. After a moment, he looked up and found Cynthia standing a few steps behind, a way home in her hand—their real home. Whenever they were ready. He smiled, more at her than at the scepter. Cynthia’s eyes went from Angela to his and she began to smile. It was weak and tender at first, but it grew as he opened his arms and she let herself be folded into them.
Thank you for reading Fade. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer? Thanks! -Chad West
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chad is the author of Capes: Six Uncanny Tales, and the upcoming nonfiction book, The Lies We Live. He lives in Florida with his wife, no dog, and far too many comics.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two