Chapter 17: The suffocating sense of woe, which speaks but in its loneliness

The view out of the hospital window was nice. The room was clean and tidy. But the smell of disinfectants and sanitisers had been driving me insane. My ass was sore from having to stay in bed all day, the cheap foam mattress was causing my backside to hurt.

It had been a few days since Christmas. I was admitted to a hospital on the other side of town to treat the numerous injuries I had sustained. Kind of ironic, wasn’t it, for me to have ended up in one of these?

I shook my head. The thin plywood door to my room creaked open. I looked up at my visitor.

She had a professional smile glued to her face, as she sat on a chair next to my bed. Setting a tape recorder on my bedside table, she said, “Ready when you are.”

Her voice had a PR tone in it, with almost no emotion behind her eyes.

“No hellos, nothing? Straight to business, damn!” I said with a forced laugh, as I tried to lighten the mood. Not getting any acknowledgement of my words back from her. I cleared my throat and said, “Sure. I’m ready now.”

“Great,” she replied, the fake smile back on her lips as she pressed a button. There was a click sound, and the tape began to whir softly. She then leaned in close to the input as she said, “December 29th 1997. Interview with Division 8 Second Lieutenant Liahan Beiker. Day 2.”

She placed the input mechanism closer to me, as she said, “So… Mr. Liahan. Could you please continue where we left off, the day before? You found yourself in the Deity’s realm, and then you— realised that this was only the beginning of an unendingly long nightmare. What happened next?”

I nodded as I listened to her question. I closed my eyes, trying to recall the events of that surreal encounter to the best of my ability.

“I saw my whole life flash before my eyes” I said.

“Metaphorically, or…?”

“No, literally. I know it sounds cliche as shit. But that’s genuinely what happened. It seemed like an actual twenty years passed by. I relived my entire life, every second of it. I was acutely aware as I watched it all unfold all over again, while I felt like a disembodied presence floating in the air… One of the worst experiences, ever.”

“So? What did you see?”

“Like I said. My whole life till that point.”

“That’s not very specific.”

“Well, what do you expect? I’m not sitting here and narrating my entire life story. No thank you. It’s a report on the incident, not my fucking biography.”

“It would certainly help–” she began.

“No.” I interjected adamantly.

“Fine,” she said, “I won’t ask any further.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, as I looked outside the window once again.

The soft light of the winter’s sun played on the barren trees outside. A really pretty view.

My senses flooded with a sudden overbearing sense of nostalgia, as I felt my body plunge back into that tumultuous ocean of darkness that had threatened to swallow me whole, not too long ago. It was just like that time with the Deity…

—

I must have closed my eyes shut as I’d felt the world crumble around me. The very fabric of reality had seemed to shred into pieces for me as I stood in that graveyard of illusion. When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in some familiar valley in rural Guozhoun.

Wet fields of paddy populated the land that sloped downward to the plain on which a lone two-storied house stood. My home, where I grew up.

The sun moved across the sky, which was painted a translucent watercolour blue. The clouds flew with a frenzied dissonance, as time itself began to flow past all my senses. It felt like forever, and it felt like a mere moment. I saw the figure of a small boy playing out in the pastoral landscape. Between the blinks of my eyes, I saw that boy grow older and older. Through the glass windows of the house, I saw the boy’s parents. The mother teaching her child to play chess. The father taking him out for a hunt in the wilderness. I could hear the faint sound of a record, some old jazz tune playing, as his parents locked arms in dance. I saw the boy sitting in his room upstairs watching TV, before he was called to have dinner. A tear ran down my cheek, as I saw the three have dinner together.

How many times was it? Five thousand, give or take. Within that whirlpool of time warping beyond human comprehension, I witnessed this family of three sit for perhaps five thousand dinners together. Smiles, laughs, frowns, arguments, tears, yells… They were all the same, yet all so different… And then, one night… The boy sat by himself.

I saw him sitting at the table as he cried. He cowered and averted his gaze from the windows. He turned away from the world outside, as a horde of monstrous creatures devoured his parents. He couldn’t bear to look at the horrors. Neither could I. I couldn’t look at them, or him… I, too, averted my gaze, and closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I found myself sitting at that dinner table. I looked out of the window. There was no one out there. I was all alone by myself — in that room, in that house, in that world.

I walked up to the notes of jazz that still emanated from the corner of the room, lifting the needle. The music stopped. Good. It wasn’t appropriate. I looked at the discs in the drawer. 70s disco, country, more jazz… Ah. I found it. Funeral music. Weird record to have in a home, I know. But I had pestered my father to buy it for me when I was 6, because I found the image of the Gothic cathedral on the jacket to be really badass. Which, to be fair, it was.

The soft swell of the requiem resounded through my heart and mind, as the world that felt like it had frozen in a flash, began to move again at speed.

Grant them eternal rest, oh Lord.

Choirs sang in my ears, as the symphonies reverberated through my very soul. I picked up my violin and began to play on it. Every dimension of existence seemed to blur past me.

Let perpetual light shine on them.

The walls of the country house seemed to explode into flames around me. The embers fanned into a raging inferno as I furiously strummed my bow.

Hear me prayer, oh Lord.

The water from the paddy fields seemed to rise in the air, the droplets ascending with the music that crescendoed. It all got louder, and louder, and louder — until I felt numb. Down to my very core. I was smiling, I think. A crazed smile, like never before, and never again.

To You all flesh shall come.

The drops of water, each containing a page out of my life’s story as I was adopted by my uncle in Shouduushi, doused the blaze that threatened to engulf me.

Grant them eternal rest, Lord.

My fingers aggressively moved against the steel strings, some liquid trickling down my arms. Perhaps it was my sweat, blood, tears. Perhaps it was the rain. Perhaps it was all of them.

Let perpetual light shine on them.

Through the smoke that filled my vision, I saw the shadow of that man who had cheated me out of my family inheritance, treated me worse than an animal during the day, and abused me as he was drunk out of his mind nightly.

The requiem shifted into its next movement.

A great trembling shall there be.

My clutch around the fingerboard tightened, as the notes went off tune, my hands shaking as the bow haphazardly pressed hard against the wires. The smoke cleared as the vision of my uncle’s face was clear.

When the Judge descends from Heaven.

The scene was clearer than the video from a film camera; the frightened look in his eyes, as my hands gripped his neck, strangling the life out of him that night when I’d finally had enough.

To announce His strict ruling.

The rhythms swelled further and further, my bow screeching against the wires, as it all came to an abrupt dramatic close.

I looked at the world around me, the energy swelling, as I felt the presence of ten or more Corroded around me. The violin broke open as it slipped from my hands. My head reeled back with the gentle lull of the requiem’s final movement.

Spare us by your mercy, oh Lord.

The claws dug into my flesh, as I lay upon the ground, pinned under the weight of the beasts that were feeding on me. The chorus sang into my ears. I felt my life leaving me.

My gentle Lord.

I looked at the faces of the Corroded that consumed me. William. Dad. Mom. Uncle. All those who I hadn’t been able to save… All of those who I’d hurt. I looked again, and there had to have been at least a hundred, or a thousand, maybe even more Corroded biting into me.

Grant us eternal rest.

I closed my eyes in acceptance. All the regrets I’ve had in life… I didn’t think they were this many… Guess, I was wrong. They were all eating me alive, now.

But that’s okay. It was a fate that I more than deserved.

My past and present seemed to converge. It was only the faces around me that were different this time. I was still the same. A sinner, unworthy of redemption.

Perhaps the only prayer I could offer now to whatever God was listening, would be a plea for solace. A tranquil quiet. If death can give me that, so be it.

Amen.

And then… I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The music had stopped. So had the Corroded.

It felt like the weight had all been lifted off my body.

But, I wasn’t dead. There was a sharp pain, as I tried to move my legs.

I opened my eyes, and the monsters were gone. My eyes fell on the sole presence that stood over me in that darkness. The tall man, hunching over, and looking at me with the most emotionless deadpan eyes that I would recognise anywhere.

It was just like that night when he had rescued me five years ago. Master Yang.

“Yo, little man. Can you stand up?” he had said then, and he said now.

“Who the hell are you calling little, you old shit?” I retorted, likewise.

He chuckled, as he extended his hand, helping me to my feet.

I stayed silent for a moment before I said, “Thank you for saving me again, Master.”

“Well, duh. That’s my job.”

My breath was rugged, as I tried to focus my Vitalis enough to heal myself. I felt his hand on my shoulder, as my heartbeat steadied.

The pain left my body. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone.

But I could feel his presence within me. And his voice, that seemed to whisper to me, “You’ve grown up well, Han.”

I chuckled, as I said, “There’s someone else who needs to hear that more than I do. Go see her, you fucking deadbeat.”

There was no other reply from him. But I didn’t need any.

I instead turned my attention to what seemed to be budding within the forest of darkness like a flower. It was a solitary shape that seemed to quiver lightly, as soft sounds emerged from it.

A weeping young boy.

I walked closer to him. I bent down on my knee, as I gently lifted his face by the chin. It was a face I recognised.

“Hey Will.”

“...Liahan,” he said as his eyes met mine.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not!” he said, as he wiped the tears off his face, sniffling his nose.

“Yes you are!” I said, with a laugh. My voice was noticeably adolescent, like his. I looked at the glassy floor on which I stood. It reflected the likeness of my childhood self.

He stayed quiet for a bit, before he said, “...I have nobody, that’s why.”

“You have me!” I said.

“Do I, though? I don’t think so… It hasn’t been the same since Maria. It will never be.”

“I get it,” I replied.

“You do?”

“Yeah. I used to have a friend. He had given me one peculiar nickname. Leihan. He shortened Xiaolei Han into Leihan. It was genius!”

“What happened to him…?”

“Same as the others…” I said.

“Ah. Should’ve guessed… I guess, we’re just meant to be alone.”

“Guess so.”

I sat beside him on the glassy floor, which suddenly seemed so fluid. I felt like I was sinking again. The darkness enveloped me, and then I felt the ebb and flow of the waves — more gentle now, as my hands felt the touch of sandy earth.

When I opened my eyes, I was on a beach. Next to me was William, like I’d seen him last — but uninjured. He looked at me and smiled.

What was I to do, but smile back?

> To be continued

Author's Note:
Merry Christmas you all! The final batch might be a little delayed... But I promise it won't be too long!!!

Btw, I'd recommend listening to Mozart's Requiem while reading this chapter. Though I guess it's pointless saying this now that you've already read the chapter... Ermmm