That was two days ago, and he's still not broken from his mask of emptiness. He rests his left hand on his shoulder, palm facing upwards, and I hold it, and we walk like that in silence, neither of us talking, just merely staring at the charred ground below us, ignoring the taunts and calls of all the hallucinations.
But one is creeping up on me that bites.
It's fire, like back with Todd on that plain, but it's wider, different. It stretches out and consumes the whole staircase, conforming and eating at it hungrily, like a wolf. I expect it to pass through me painlessly, but it brushes at my back and I scream out at the pain that bites at me, attempting to ignore the smell of burned skin.
“Screech, we have to run.” I spur him on, when he doesn't move fast enough, a bit violently. “Run!”
And we are. There's a sort of emotional response present now that hasn't been in the last few days as we claw forward, desperately. When Screech glances back to see the flames flicker and devour behind us, I see feeling in eyes that were previously dull.
We've let go of each other's hands by now, because we need to run, not hold on. The staircase is beginning to curve upwards – no longer is it merely a straight incline.
A bite of excitement, of all things, begins to enter me at the new change. We must be getting closer if the world's changing. We must be.
“This could be the end,” Screech voices, agreeing with me. “This could be the very end. Remember what I said about ovens burning? Look at the fire behind us. Look at it.”
I look, but it doesn't look like an oven, just a fire. It takes me a few seconds to see what he means. The fire leaves no trace on the staircase, no mark. It leaves it empty, unsinged.
“You could be right, buddy,” I say compassionately, rubbing his hair lightly, even as I run for my life. “This could be the end.”
“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” His voice is both serious and jesting over the crackling of the fire behind us.
I offer his back the shadow of a smile. “I think it's both.”
And then there's another noise. Or, rather, the absence of one. The loud, ravenous fire behind us falls together and extinguishes itself in silence. Both of us stop and turn to watch it die, and we're left alone on the staircase, once again.
Frighteningly alone. I look around, waiting for our customary apparitions to join us, but they do not.
It's quiet, and even a bit cold as the two of us stand there. We seem to be waiting for something, but that hardly makes sense. Our entire journey has been about moving and not stopping... I do not know why we believe the end to be any different.
“Alright, you,” I tell my Screech as I turn back to him. His face is guardedly suspicious, but he takes my lead, turning back to the steps to continue climbing. Strain my eyes as I can, I can't see any sort of proper ending – no “light at the end of the tunnel”.
How do you know it's a light? That had been my statement, hadn't it? Maybe I was right, for once. Maybe there is no light.
Even here, there're no gaps in the staircase. Not once does it drop off and disappear. The wind for which Screech was named no longer howls. In the silence, even the sound of our own footsteps is cacophonous.
“Maybe it's quiet because no one made it up this far,” I offer, attempting to be helpful, for once.
“Maybe.” His voice does not trust my answer, but it's the only one I have.
We trek in silence for many moments, and I watch him tug down at his shirt multiple times as we move. I await a dream to hit me, a vision to take me, for the shirt reminds me of Todd, but there's nothing.
After hours of walking, I realize something with a sort of quiet shock. Though I'm sure we've reached night by now, the sky does not darken. We're in a perpetual state of nothing – no end, no beginning.
“It does end. I know it does,” I force myself to say.
“You also thought it was a good idea to befriend whatever we found on the staircase.”
“It worked once.”
“You mean when you met a group and then everyone fell off except for a psychopath who ruined your mind and attempted to hurt you later?”
“No. I mean when you walked up.”
I hope he's smiling, but I can't tell, not even by the hunching of his shoulders or the straightening of his back.
And then it happens. The end, but not the way I thought it would be.
I watch it happen, but it's like far away from me, too distant for me to stop. Screech is only inches, but as he moves, he begins to feel eternities away from me. His foot hits the edge of a stair that's just a bit too high, one he didn't notice the difference in, and he tumbles forward, tripping. Without being able to grasp onto a railing or onto me, Screech falls.
But he doesn't fall to his knees, or fall face first on a stair.
He falls, head first, off the staircase itself.
twenty-five
I'm spinning around, frantically, because I know it has to be an illusion. It's a hallucination. There's no way Screech just tumbled off the edge. Not after everything he survived. He didn't go through the blood rain, Madame Veneera, Todd, that stupid beam pole thing, disappearing stairs, hallucinations, running away from fire to fall from tripping. There's no way. There's no way.
“Screech!” I'm calling, my eyes frantically searching for his figure to come up to me, grabbing my arms, telling me it was just a dream. “Screech!”
But the only answer my desperate cries receive come from the surrounding mist. The air is no longer silent – it is screeching with Screech's voice.
I feel sick as I peer over the edge. He's falling, disappearing into the mist. He's going to be out of sight, and the real Screech isn't anywhere, and my mind decides in a split second that that is the real Screech, and I'm letting him disappear, I'm letting him fall, I'm letting him die, I'm just letting him go, and I can't stop my reaction.
I dive off after him.
I don't feel the same horrifying drop in my stomach I have in my dreams. The falling is almost peaceful as I soar through the air, hands held in front of me like a professional, cutting through the mist, finding his figure floating slowly, backwards, his hands and legs wiggling in the air uselessly, as if attempting to stop his fall.
I barrel into him and wrap my body around his, and for a few minutes we're rolling before we slow down, him first, me on top acting as an ill-fitted parachute.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he's screaming at me, louder than I've ever heard his childish voice.
“CHASING YOU!” I cry back, but with less of the anger, less of the hostility.
His eyes are a pale gray now, and he shakes his head, mouth wordlessly agape. The tears that are in his gaze are more frightening than the fall we're taking now, together.
“You – ... you... you h-h-have – ”
“It's okay,” I console, at his voice buckles and breaks. I wonder absently why my reaction is so much calmer than his, currently.
“H-have... to-... t-to finish the c-climb...” He's crying, voice weak but angry. “F-for... f-for us! You have – .... you h-h-have...”
I hush him gently, running my fingers through his hair, staring into his bloodied and battered face. “I made a promise,” I whisper to him, attempting to get his fevered attention. “Okay? Hey, look at me. You and I, together. Right? Remember? We're family. I'm not about to break that.”
I don't think it's really occurring to my brain what's happening. I don't think I've realized I'm falling yet. But my body is beginning to shake and burn, so much so that it's hard to keep a good grasp on the child below me. Regardless, I do. I hold on to him with everything in me, my fingers digging into his back carelessly.
“Oh... oh... no, no...” he's breathing, shaking his head, his tears beginning to blur my vision – or, wait, no. I'm crying too. We're crying together, falling from the sky. “I k-k-killed y-y – ”
“Screech,” I interrupt, shaking my head in warning.
“N-no! B-ba... back t-there, I made you pr
om – ... I k – ”
“I made that promise the moment the two of us started walking, Screech.” My voice comes out hoarser than I want it to as I watch his pale face crumble beneath the overwhelming pain. I pull him into me, and he snuggles against my shoulder as he begins to sob into Todd's button-down shirt. “It had nothing to do with anything you made me say.”
“We were so close,” he's wailing into me, his voice defeated and empty. “We were so close to the top, and I ruined it.”
“Or maybe we were centuries away from the top yet,” I encourage, softly. “You don't know, Screech. There's no way to know.”
“Freckles...” His voice breaks and cracks and it causes my heart to ache. I'm losing the ability to breathe as we fall – my mind isn't functioning. Nothing's working. I'm about to die, after all we've done, after who we've killed to stay alive.
Finally, he comes back, pulling away, eyes puffy and face angry and injured.
“How long do you think we have?”
I shrug, and then I laugh through my tears. It's just such a me thing to do, and very soon, there won't be a me. “I don't know. We did climb an awfully long way up.”
“I killed us,” he insists, again. “I killed us!”
“It wasn't your fault.”
“If I hadn't tripped – ”
“We'd walk up the staircase for years more with no satisfaction. Maybe things would get in the way again. This... this is better.” I'm trying to convince myself as much as him, I think. I don't really know.
Pretty soon, I won't be able to think at all.
Stop, I tell myself. That's not what I should be focusing on.
I have my best friend, my family, in my hands. That's really all I need.
“Maybe it's a loop.”
“What?” I ask him, because it's random.
“Maybe it's a loop. The bottom of the staircase returns to the top or something. Maybe it's just all a big loop.”
“Okay,” I say. It's obvious he's trying his hand at optimism, but frankly, he's awful.
It's quiet for a few moments. Screech is setting his jaw over and over, attempting not to succumb to more tears, more crying. I'm glad there's so much mist that we can't see the staircase – I don't want to see other people succeeding in what we failed to do.
“Don't tell me,” he forces out, finally.
“Don't tell you?”
“When we're about to hit the water. Don't tell me.”
I nod, smile sadly. “Yeah. Okay.”
We're quiet for a bit, but we don't have time to be quiet. We don't have time for anything.
“We'll never know,” Screech's voice is but a ghost of a whisper. “We'll never know what was at the top.”
“Don't focus on that,” I command, to both of us. “Let's focus on something better.”
“Better.” I know he means it as a question, but it comes out like a statement.
“Yeah. Like... what you look like.”
“What I look like?”
“Do you know? What you look like?”
There's a long hesitation from the boy beneath me, until finally he muses, softly, “No. I don't.”
“You have bushy brown hair. And... your features are kind of pointed, but in a soft way. Soft points.”
“Soft points,” he repeats, with a sorrowful laugh.
“Yeah. Soft points. Your skin is sort of all tanned. Darker.”
“I know what color my skin is. I can see it.”
“Yeah – well – okay.” I chance a smile. “And... uh. You're all lanky and... stuff. That's about it, I guess.”
“My eyes?”
I swallow at the question. “Uh, what?”
“You didn't mention my eyes. What color are they?” When I bite my lip and stare into them, horror begins to light his cheeks. “Please don't say they're red or something.”
“Oh, no! Never red. Currently they're gray.”
“Currently?”
“Yeah. They, um...” I swallow. “Change colors.”
“Fantastic,” he says, with an acerbic chuckle. “Okay.”
I know what I look like from the vision of my daughter, so I don't press on that. I swallow, try to think of something else. “Um... you used to talk in your sleep. I can tell you what you said.”
He nods, looking at me hopefully.
“You have... I don't know. It was only once. But you have a mother, or something, that left you.”
“Left me?”
“Yeah. You were asking for her to come back. To come home, or something.”
“Oh.” His face dims, if that's at all possible. “Right. Okay. Well, um... you talked in your sleep, too.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. You're a scientist, or something. You're always talking about projects and labs and stuff.”
“I was?” For some reason, to a part of my brain, this isn't news. This is natural. But I've never heard these words before.
“Yeah. And you have a... something. Brother? Boyfriend? Friend? Someone close to you, named Abel.”
“Abel,” I repeat. The word tastes weird to my lips. “Abel. Okay. Abel.” Sorry for forgetting you, friend.
Screech smiles, but it's such a sad look for him that it makes me frightened.
“Hey, maybe it was you. Maybe we know each other in the dream world, too. You could be Abel.”
“I could,” he agrees, but his tone doesn't believe me.
We're silent for a while. We have such a long way to fall, after all. My heart is beginning to call for my attention, my head beginning to get dizzy and weak as we float down, off the air, nothing below or above us. I remember the lie I told him, so long ago – “It's okay, Scree. We're invincible, you and I.” – but now, free-falling in the emptiness, it's obvious that we're not. We're not invincible. We're two phantoms that were allowed a short time in a life that could not possibly last. I wonder if the world of concrete and cars and people that sm – ... and Abel – ... is like this. I wonder if they only get a small amount of time to make their impression on everything, and if they fail...
We made no impression, none at all. I've watched five people die, and he's watched two and a wolf. I wonder what it was like, for him, watching his wolf fall off – I wonder if he almost jumped after her. I wonder what made him come back for me.
The answer is far too obvious, however. He didn't want to be alone.
A low sound is beginning to tug at my hearing, but it's too distant and hard for me to pick up on within all the sounds of the wind rushing. It's cacophonous, but there's no screaming – perhaps because we're supposed to be making it.
And then it happens. A quiet, but distinct whistle.
My eyes widen and I grin. “Screech!”
He smiles at me, possibly for the last time. “I did it!”
“You did! You can whistle!” I laugh far too happily, tears from before running down my face, my eyes burning from the falling. I hug him, though in our current position, almost everything is a hug.
It doesn't matter anymore, though. He learned how to whistle, and now he'll die.
This is wrong. He's just eight. I'm just eight... teen. The baby who fell off was just two. Todd was just in his early twenties. Madame Veneera was just around her fifties.
We were young.
Were.
Past tense.
I shiver at it. My whole life has been in present tense, but soon it will all be in past.
A story filed in fiction... My laugh is melancholy. That's what my life will become. Nothing but a fantastic tale to tell strangers in the night. That is, if my story is even remembered. I left no footsteps on the staircase. I was just one of hundreds of faces, hundreds of climbers.
And when my blood spills into the ocean, it will be one of millions.
It's silent for so long. Screech and I both know we don't have the luxury of muteness, but neither of us have anything to say.
Finally, his voice begins something I don't catch for a while, until it become
s too painfully obvious.
Singing, off-pitched, broken.
“I've been working on the railroad.”
A smile splits my face, and I reply softly. “All the live long day.”
He hesitates, then recalls, “I've been working on the railroad.”
“Just to pass the time away.”
He doesn't know the rest, so I teach it to him. “Can't you hear the whistle blowing? Rise up early in the morn'. Can't you hear the captain shoutin'? 'Dinah, blow your horn!'”
And we start over, though I know there's a chorus somewhere, because that part is horrible.
He starts again. “I've been working on the railroad.”
“All the live long day.”
“I've been working on the railroad.”
“Just to pass the time away. Can't you hear the whistle blowing?”
He whistles, loudly, making me dissolve into laughter, though I continue the song through my guffaw. “Rise up early in the morn'. Can't you hear the captain shouting?”
“Dinah, blow your horn!” Screech says beside me, attempting to imitate an old, gruff man.
We continue the song, over and over, because it's all we have, until we're nearly shouting it at the top of our lungs, together, Screech only stopping to interject his whistling and imitate the captain that he can hardly do. We sing for so long my throat hurts, and his does too. I wonder if any people walking by the staircase hear our song and, perhaps, sing along.
I hope they do. I really hope they do.
After what I'm positive is hours and hours, I start to see it. The outline, through the mist, of the red sea. I feel my heart begin to instinctively quicken, my hands shake as I hold him a bit apart of me so I can watch him, though my elbows buckle and allow him closer because of the forced gravity.
“Uh... Screech. You know your stupid theories... never bothered me, right?”
“Yeah. You know your pointless optimism definitely bothered me, right?”
I laugh again, and so does he, and I tell myself not to think of how we're never going to do that again. The fog is parting and I can see the sea and I know he can hear it, below us, splashing off of rocks and I see the bright red of it, I see the body parts lost and drained of their juices, and I know we will become a part of that unidentified tally, and I can't help but want to shut my eyes.
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