by Paul Jessup
A flicker of her thoughts.
“What are you doing?”
Snap. Snap. Snap.
“Stop it! What are you doing?”
Snap. Snap. Snap.
He could snap his fucking fingers all he wanted to. It was not going to stop a thing. Not a goddamned thing.
Thoughts flicker again and then a flood of light and once more she was in a million places at once and so much pain as they were being slaughtered. Aimless, heartless, all that slaughter. Yet. Yet. She could still save a few. And save them she did. Even though it was a beautiful hurt to be shattered like this. She struggled through it all. And saved them. A retreat! A retreat.
But then. She came back to her body. And then. She saw. Something. Horrible. Heart. Breaking. Horrible.
* * *
Maybe this was all worthless. Maybe everything is just not even worth the struggle anymore. Why even burn up with bright light and become a nova explosion when none of it matters? Loose body now slumped on a gecko. Light coming out of her mouth from her insides. Every body part like fire. Her legs slid from her. Rejected. Right arm slid from her. Rejected. Lizard lungs struggle now. Almost rejected. Soon, soon.
And Hodei lifting Ortzi up from her lap. Mari, a screaming bird, darting over their heads. Against spine lamps on the ceiling. Gravity, crash down, real again. As the door opened. Doubles walked in.
“Nothing. But. An echo! Fucking echoes! Just. Fuck!”
And then he threw the skull against the floor. New gravity crash. Heart paused. Breath paused. Only eyes wide awake and muscles contracted. What’s left of her muscles anyway. Stress of the moment is like a broken mirror. Glass shards under her skin. Piercing into her heart. Slicing the ventricles apart. There was a scream. Somewhere.
A multiplex scream. Not just her voice but the voice of the last of her doubles as the grey dust of smashed skull floated through about the air. Motes, motes, tiny motes ...
A noise like a musical note and then nothing. Just those screams. And an echo of silence. Teeth scattered across the floor. Jewels flickering in that oddly-colored light. This can’t be real. Can’t be really happening.
She turned. They all turned. “Run.”
A word. Simple, precise.
“Run.”
And Hodei did nothing but laugh. “Or what?”
And her doubles moved forward. Still raw skin from what the dolls did to them. Eyes of red hate. Her eyes. So many of her eyes. And in their hands? Makeshift weapons pried from the limbs of the dolls that they’d fought. Porcelain shards like knives. Glitter, glitter.
“Or we’ll cut you apart and give you to the dolls. That’s what.”
Hodei laughed and kept on laughing, not even stopping to breathe. His breath chortled through with laughter. Doubled over spitting laughter. “You are entropy incarnate,” he said between huffs and broken guffaws. “You are the pure chaos come to devour me.”
All her voices spoke at once.
“Yes. We are. And you should run.”
And then he did. Heels turned and body darting. A fear in his eyes she’d never seen before. Good, good. He should be afraid. Everything was about to change. This whole labyrinth ship was about to embrace the infinite once and for all.
Act V: Our Little Skull Collector
Oh a spark, oh a spark. Just the right kind of spark. Everything here is so flammable yet nothing that flickers. All the light is organic light. The growth of strange things in the dark. Weird bulbs and spines and intestines and all that. But where is the fire? Where is the fire? Well, silly question. All fire would make this place explode.
All because we silly humans have to breathe. A smile at this thought. Our breath will be what murders us. There is poetry in that. A lovely little poetry.
And, oh damnit, she decided to just let him run for a bit. Sure, her doubles chased him for a moment more but then just let him go. Why not, after all? Why not. Even if he regroups and grabs his hacked dolls and somehow tries to hurt her? No. Won’t even matter. Because she will find that spark.
Maybe it could be something as simple as static electricity ...
Maybe.
She had her doubles come forward. Stand on either side of her. Lift her up and carry her. Itsasu carrying Itsasu as Mari darted over her head. Screaming. The bird was constantly screaming. She had the doubles shout at her. Swat at her. Get her to stop. And Mari cried out and said, “What are you planning? Itsasu, I don’t like that look on your face. He wasn’t the real Ortzi. Ortzi’s been dead and dead for so long ... Just let it go. I don’t like that look, it’s not even a murder look ... it’s more than that ...”
“Oh hush,” a double said. She liked to speak through them. It was nice. “It’s not that important now. Okay? He had a plan. Now I have a plan. All of this will be beautiful, so beautiful. Just trust me, okay?”
“But I can’t,” Mari said. “I don’t think I ever could.”
“Oh,” she spoke in her own mouth. Even though it felt so limiting. It felt like ... an act of trust. To speak in her own lips. “Well. Then. See it this way? It’s not about trust. It’s about survival. Does that work?”
No words of response. But she fluttered then and landed on the real head. Itsasu felt the claws. Cold against her scalp. And then smiled. Strange thing that smile. The doubles moved her across the room. And then she saw something. The skull was cracked, shattered, yes. But a handful of jewels still clung. And it held its shape a little bit. Mostly cracks in the forehead. And jaw broken apart. Still.
Ortzi spoke and they all jumped.
“Oh love, oh dearie dove. I’m still here.” His mouth didn’t move. His voice came from a speaker. Now broken. So it sounded underwater. And slowed down. Apocalyptically so. “I think. Some parts of me broke. Oh. Why did that hurt so damned much? I have no nerves. I have nothing. Pick me up please, please? I still love you so very much. Even if I am just an echo.”
A thought eeked out and a double picked him up and carried him. And the group of them went out and began to search for a spark. They began to search for that light that would bring them all closer to the infinite.
* * *
But what they found instead was something so much worse, so heartbreaking. A lump in her throat and then a cry muffled. Didn’t want him to hear it. Did he hear it? Probably. Maybe. It was hard to tell. The shadows were no friend to her. They bent and twisted. Made the line of sight corrupted by halogen flickers.
A light like the light of bad dreams ... the light of the flu burning you up...of sickness and horror ... those same lights now ... those same shadows ...
And then a whisper in the back of her mind. That Hodei was right. She felt it. An aching. Like a calling? Something in her mind. That language a shadow to every thought. No, no. The blue light of Arigia in her mind and then she was Itsasu again. Whole and broken in those shadows.
Watching as that giant figure shuffled sadly. More morose than even before. Heartbreaking. That bear was heartbreaking. She wanted to reach out to Basa. To comfort him. To take all his pain away. Not just his pain, she realized. All pain. The pain of the world. Every bit of pain everywhere.
But that was impossible.
Watched some more from the shadows. As he carried the slack little body of La in his arms. Arms outstretched. Head tilted up. Mouth in constant wailing. No, no. He didn’t see her. How could he? He couldn’t hear her. How could he? Even with these cluster of doubles, his sorrow was too loud. Too horrific. She knew that sound. Knew that emotion. It blinds you to all else.
The day Ortzi died. She’d been like that. Oh. She almost died herself that night. Pushed through the black of infinite space. Searching for a sun somewhere to push through and die. That was so long ago. Yet the pain felt fresh. Recent. A raw open wound weeping through her thoughts. I know this suffering, I understand this suffering ...
Her doubles twitched on either side. They felt what she felt. Knew that pain all over again. Ortzi whispered. Not loud enough to be heard over the wailing.
“I’m alive, my love, my dearie dove. I can feel your thoughts rippling out of your doubles and you have to remember I am alive. And so are you and we need to keep on living.”
“Shh. You’re not alive, you’re dead and an echo and you need to keep quiet.”
A whisper and then: oh, oh, so sorry my love, my dearie dove. Just don’t do anything rash ...
But no. Even if she wanted to move, her doubles were frozen. Carrying her and frozen. Quiver arms pain and frozen. They had felt it all over again. That death that death that death. The seismic center of their being. That defining moment that defined all moments.
“He’s hurting so much,” one double spoke for her. The other wept a bit. “So, so much.”
And then Basa turned. His wailing stopped and he saw them there. Broken and shattered in the shadows.
“Oh you copies, you little copies. The heart had us tear through you and look what you did to us. There is no beauty in this world, not any more. It’s all shattered and broken now.”
Tongue froze and still and unable to speak. Speak now. Speak. Yet the words stumbled. Eager to escape her lips. “We didn’t do this to you, I know, I would’ve felt this …”
”Those dolls. I know they’re your dolls! You’re working that one, that horrible one who ripped apart our gentle rituals and left us yearning and lonesome in the dark for so long. Those dolls did this and you cannot lie to me. You cannot lie! You have taken the suns away from life. You have taken the stars and all the light in this world and left me with a void in the darkness. He was so infinite, and now ... now. He’s just a bag of rot and ash and nothing more.”
Oh no. Oh Itsasu, what are you doing? If only she even knew. If only she could even stop. But oh. Pulled forward. Yanked forward by the need to stop the pain. So much pain in this world! So much cruelty in this world. She had to stop it all. Even if it meant being ripped apart by a sad bear. So be it.
* * *
Hand outstretched. All gentle with vulnerable palm faced upwards. It trembled. Blue now. White blood cells kicking off the last part of her body. That arm’s about to go bad. Hand outstretched. The doubles moved their one free hand forward too. Six hands now. Outstretched, palms up. As they carried her on shoulders. Carried her and moved forward in slow motion.
... there was a sound somewhere that was like a clock unwinding into death ...
What was left of Ortzi sat on her shoulder. Perched and shattered. “Don’t, don’t don’t die please don’t die don’t ever die ...”
“My husband was murdered and broken. In my pain I almost destroyed a world, a space station, the ghost of a dead sun. I hurt so much I opened myself up to a destructive force that burned me alive from the inside out. I hurt so much I took his skull and decorated it like a saint ... like a fucking saint! And then I filled it with all those memories and more memories and more memories. I hurt so much I wanted to make this egia explode and turn us all into ash. I hurt so much I wanted to die and die over and over again ...”
Basa looked at her. Head tilted sidewise. Eyes in the dark like two buttons. “Please, tell me ... did it help? Did any of it help?”
No, no. Don’t want to see it. How could she say it? Yet. It would hurt Ortzi, yes. She knew it would. But she had been hurting so much herself. Maybe saying it would somehow help her let it all go. She let her doubles speak for her. Mari still fluttering over their heads as she spoke. The sound of wings like a slow moving song.
“No,” they said. All in unison. “No. Of course not. Nothing ever does.”
And then Ortzi seemed to speak. “What about his patuek? What about his backup? Can you use that to revive him? What’s the good of a soulcatcher if it doesn’t catch your soul ...”
She was going to hush him then. But Basa spoke before she could.
“We’re not like you or you or you. We’re raw things, see? Uncut and disconnected. It’s what we do, and how we work. If we lived in the connected world we’d be undying. And in doing so ... we wouldn’t be able to heal the world ...”
A tear and a sob and then a wail again.
“But we can’t do that now, can we? What’s the use of being finite if we die before we’re even done!”
Yes she knew that pain. Oh she knew that pain so well. Everything is always stolen from them. Everything is always broken and destroyed. There was only one thing to do. He would understand. He would have to understand. No one else could understand like Basa could.
“I ... I have a secret,” she said. Quivering words. Wished she was stronger. Wished her hand wasn’t sliding off and this body rejecting her again. “Do you want to hear my secret plan?”
* * *
He sat squat on the ground. Boy still in lap. So strange he looked when dead. Like all the world had been sucked out of him. Plastic now. Lifeless now. “Go on. Tell me your stupid plan.”
Smiling. She didn’t want to smile. But she couldn’t help it. Addictive. Strong. Smiling.
“The pain is just so much and it seems like it’s a part of life, isn’t it? That everything in life leads to this pain and this suffering and I’ve seen so much of it. You don’t understand how long I’ve lived, and everything seems to come round back around to that. That one true constant thing in this decaying universe. It’s pain! It’s suffering! Every moment. Every second.”
“Love, my love, what are you doing, what are you ...”
“Hush it. You’re only a whisper now and whenever I hear you whispering I ache. You prove my point Ortzi, you prove it ...”
Before she could continue Basa held up one paw. Silence.
“I hear a lot of pain, yes. But I don’t hear a plan. What is your great plan to heal the universe? That was our goal, La and I. Believe it or not, that was our goal.”
A shake of her head. Coming out of the fog of ranting.
“Yes, yes, yes. You’re right, I’m sorry. My plan is to blow us all up. See this,” inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, “it’s all explosive. Every last bit of it. I’m just going to find a light and then, aha, and then, no more pain! It would take all the patuek and datamines down with it. Every bit of me erased. All of me, gone. You too, and the others. And then we will be infinite, and we will never feel any pain, any sorrow, any of it any longer ...”
His paw lifted again. Silence. She didn’t know what else to do. So she stopped talking. Mari stopped fluttering overhead. Glared at her with hateful glares from the ceilingfloors. A flutter of broken shapes in the darkness. Her doubles were crying now. Terrified. She felt their fear and horror at what she’d suggested. Ortzi chattered in her lap. Bones all terrified of the promises she’d made.
* * *
The bear spoke slowly. A glimmer of happiness in his words. Just a glimmer. The sadness still there. Still present.
“I think I need to show you something, yes, yes. I need to show you something important, you need to see this.”
“I do.”
“You do, you must see this. It is the most important thing right now. The most important thing in the entire universe right now, right this second, is that you come and see this.”
Hesitant. Shaking body. Her hand slid from her. Slap flat on the floor. No more hands. She was so broken. Thankfully she still had her doubles. Her wonderful lovely doubles.
“I don’t know.”
Basa set La on the ground. Shuffle walked sadly over to her. He held out the paw. Outstretched. Take my hand ... take my lightning paw ...
“Don’t you trust me?”
She shook her head, no. “We are enemies, aren’t we?”
“No, no. We’ve fought and we’ve shared so much, but that doesn’t make us enemies. It only makes us soldiers of a sort. Friends of a sort, when you look at it a certain way.”
She felt her arm get all wiggly. No, no, not you, too. She needs it. She needs each of her parts. What was she going to do? If she was only a head? Like Ortzi ... like Mari before she became a bird ...
“No, no. I can’t trust you. How can I trust you?”
And then it slid off. Slap. Flat on the floor. No blood or anything. The arm was warped and blue and then ash and nothing more.
“Because I want to live, I do. Even in all this suffering I want to live. And believe it or not, I want you to live, too. All of you, this whole broken shattered person I see before me. This falling apart, broken into doubles person babbling about death and pain and everything else. I want you to live.”
She felt her ear, now. Sliding off now. Her fucking ear. Goddammit.
“Why ... oh why ... why would you want me to live ... I thought you wanted to kill me ...”
“Oh, no. That’s not the case at all. Come, follow me. Just come along and look at this with me. Come along and see something so beautiful. It makes this all worth it. Trust me? Please?”
A want, a yearning to grab his paw. But no. She had nothing to grab it with. Not a hand or a stump or anything else. And so she had one of her doubles reach out palm up. They clasped together. Fingers entwined. Yes, yes. She felt it. A single moment. Their heartbeats combined. Moving between their interwoven bodies. As he led her into the flicker green sick light beyond it all.
* * *
And the labyrinth seemed to change around them. Not in the way it had changed before. When everything was moving and chaos. When the rooms switched places. Or the halls elongated and changed and became all sorts of different halls. No, this was the opposite. It moved away from chaos. It moved away from the dark and entropy.
The walls smoothed and became clay walls. The gravity struggled against itself for a moment and then became an ideal gravity. A crystal pure gravity that not only felt right but felt better than right. The lights, oh. The lights changed, too. Away from a landscape obscured by the dancing of shadows. And the sick greens and blues that felt like ghosts. Now it was a golden glimmer. Now it was a sharp yellow halo. Now it was light that was pure and clean and free.