Cu\\rtain C//all

[ cut to: scarlet ]

The inertia of the moving train diminished to a still silence as it entered the bounds of the station. The doors opened; a girl walked through. She was around seventeen, I’d think, but her stride and distinction marked her as much, much older. She had utter confidence and an intimidating glare. Her eyes immediately locked onto mine. Inside I saw darkness, along with the reflected light of three thousand years of turmoil.

A faint outline, almost something I could call a blueprint, surrounded and enveloped her form. Ever since I saved Claire two years ago I’ve seen it, whatever we humans can call a soul. I suppose it marks me as unusual, though that could be gleaned rather easily from other factors. For normal people it’s incredibly faint, practically invisible, but this girl was different.

The soul that possessed this girl was one of great intensity, great violence and power. This soul was the target I was waiting here for, the thing responsible for all of this.

[ 00:24:14 ]

Our staring match lasts well over a minute before either of us utters a word. She’s smiling, or smirking, one could say. Her confident expression gives me the sense that she’s already thought her way through the inevitable battle and claimed premature victory. It’s like I don’t even have a choice in the matter.

Then, the doors close behind her. She grabs onto one of the handlebars. I do the same. She averts her gaze from me, seemingly disgusted.

“What’s it like, being something so far from human?” She asks. It’s direct, cutting straight to my core. I know exactly what she means.

“I don’t think you would understand.”

A simple response, a dagger against her ears.

“At one point, I possessed a body of sorts, something that was even closer to being truly human than you are. Do you know how it slipped from my grasp?” She continues.

“You misplaced it somewhere, I’d guess. Doesn’t seem like you need it much.”

“She decided to break away. It was a peculiar anomaly that my Eye of Enduring was even capable of doing so, but she had a will of her own. I’m sure you know who currently possesses it now, don’t you?”

“No. Wouldn’t their body have been affected by it? Nothing like what happened to Claire has happened to anyone as far as I’m aware,” I answered. It was, however, a lie. I knew exactly what she was talking about and where it was.

“That Ash boy, his affinity for the Eye of Enduring is so low that he could be in possession of it without it transforming him. What’s more, it’s been bound to the misplaced soul of this body for some impossible reason. Its power depends on affinity just as much as the other eyes. Someone with too low an affinity, above 1% but below 49.9%, that is, would suffer varying degrees of slow death by shredded internal organs to a failed total conversion, which would also result in death. My previous vessel was just above the 50% threshold, allowing her to maintain some degree of sanity and life after the eye was activated. At above 98.6% affinity, the user could even transform some parts of their body but not others, my other half was capable of that, though that shouldn’t be surprising. She was, after all, simply the Eye of Enduring given physical form, a reflection of my own existence.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because we have time to kill, do we not? Ash has about twenty minutes left until I can claim the three eyes he currently has in his possession.”

I need to move as quickly as possible, but I can’t just outright attack the target. If I make the first strike, what happened to Blaise and Eden will happen to me. She can stop time, but there must be some reason she hasn’t tried to do so yet. Can’t she mark me for death as well? I think it’s safe to assume that the other two did a number on her, which means...

I move swiftly, as quickly as possible. In as blunt and direct a move as possible, I swing. As the strike travels, I generate a weapon in my hand, a sword. I can’t make the blade too large, that will clash against the size of the train, but I need to reach my target with this attack. There’s a set speed at which my body can move, but with enough effort I can exceed it. If I apply that effort as a burst, within less than a second, I can extend my weapon’s length to reach far enough.

The target reacts. She steps back. The weapon barely makes contact with her neck. Just a scratch.

...she’s stalling.

“I guess you’re not one for talking, are you?” The girl says.

I know her name, Ashton told me, it’s Brooklyn. Well, it was Brooklyn, but nothing of her is left as this point. I would hesitate if there was a chance that she was still alive, but far all I know this Brooklyn never even existed to begin with.

“Why haven’t you stopped time yet?” I ask.

“What makes you think I even need to?”

My blade is stuck within the confines of the train car, I can’t swing it back around to behead her, not without deconstituting it at least. I retract my weapon, it slinks back into my arm, reinforcing my body.

“Why more killings? Couldn’t you have accomplished this the first time?” I say.

“Last time was a warning, then humanity fought back. It was with the Eye of Enduring’s help, however. I know that she visited you, or rather, inhabited you for some time. That’s how you learned to recreate weapons, am I wrong? That was the key to defeating me last time.”

“So, this is about getting your last eye back, is it?”

“This is about getting all of them back, including the one you currently possess.”

I figured she’d know somehow. I’ve only had it for a short time, but I’ve been able to use this eye just fine so far. This affinity thing she’s talking about, maybe that’s what determines how fast someone can learn how to use one of the Reaper’s Eyes to their maximum effect.

“Which one is it though, I wonder?” Brooklyn, no, the target says.

If she knows about the eye and isn’t backing down, it means I’m going to have to use it to take her out. Then again, that was the plan already.

I create a gun at my hand. It’s like clockwork, I’ve already memorized the pattern. The weapon solidifies, ready to fire. There’s no bullet inside, however, it fires a semi-solid chunk of my flesh that becomes as hard as steel midair, propelled by my body’s own internal force. Noe was able to parry my bullet no problem, so I’ll have to be clever about this. I have to catch the target off guard.

I aim the gun-like object at her and pull the trigger. She dodges to the left. Time to see if Ashton’s plan works...

I pull my hand away from the gun. Threads of blood stretch from my fingertips to points in space around me. My eye sears with pain. Ashton was right, these things are a weapon. The threads tear open a hole in reality, and out flies a crude blade of ice. The blade digs into the target’s arm as she dodges from the bullet. I’ve landed a hit.

In truth, the process was quite complicated. In one motion, I had to open a cut in space between here and the lake we’re currently travelling over. Then, I had to reduce the temperature of the water beyond the ‘portal’, as Ashton called it, in a particular pattern to create the weapon. This could only be done if I had seeded the lake with my blood, which required me to lose around 1/10th of my body mass, making me more fragile going into the deadliest battle of my life. Then, still controlling the half water/blood blade on the other side of the portal, I flung the weapon at the target. Thus, the demon bleeds.

“So, it’s the Eye of Severing then, excellent choice.” The target says. “It seems my decision to give it to Ronin grows more and more foolish by the moment.”

I absorb the blood from the weapon back into my bloodstream. It’s only a tiny amount, but it very well could make a difference.

The demon lunges. A weapon appears in her hand, but it isn’t a scythe. The gleaming armament that manifested was a sword, about arm’s length. At the speed she was travelling towards me, I couldn’t dodge, I would have to brace myself for impact.

I pull one of the threads once again. A cascade of chilled water floods down from the ceiling. I freeze it. Now, a solid wall stands before me and my enemy. It won’t stop her, but it should slow her down. I step away.

The girl flies through the wall, shattering it like a pane of glass, but her strike still misses, barely. I have to deconstitute a part of my stomach to fully avoid the attack, but that’s something I’m used to by now.

“What’s wrong? Don’t think you can take a blow from me?” The girl taunts.

I pull another thread. A greatsword falls from the ceiling, digging into the girl’s shoulder. The force pushes her away before the attack can do any real damage, but it was still not all for nothing. Rather than retrieve my blood from the wall, I repurpose it. By the same method I’ve been creating these weapons, I freeze the water surrounding it precisely. This process comes to me by second nature, perhaps because of what this girl mentioned earlier, the Eye of Enduring. I obviously don’t have it anymore, but without having possessed it, I think what I’ve been doing for these past two years would have been impossible.

The frozen parts fuse and connect, forming a double-barrel shotgun. A complex handgun like the one I made with my blood earlier would have been impossible like this, but this weapon was still well within my ability. I fire. The weapon sprays a hail of sharpened shards of my life essence. Several, maybe half or so, make contact with the girl.

With the blood shards in place, I can finally finish this. I take control of the amount of my blood inside of the demon and carve through her internal organs, making my way towards her heart. If she does nothing, she will absolutely die. That’s my endgame, I suppose, I’ve won...

Then, she utters a word. It’s not a word in English, nor is it a word in any other language as far as I’m aware. She speaks another. I know these words; they were taught to me by someone. She’s using the forbidden exorcism technique that Fr. Joseph developed, presumedly to take control of the demons housed inside of my body. If we were correct earlier, this has been her plan all along, and it’s a plan I, at least back then, still had no answer to.

I wait for the final word. I feel something build up in my chest. It’s working, I don’t have much longer. If she succeeds, there’s an incredibly high chance that I simply drop dead. I won’t let that happen.

As that final word leaves her lips, I commit it to memory, then-

-cut-

Thus, this trick is revealed. The eye I possessed was not in fact the Eye of Severing. It throbbed; pain seeped through my veins. Maybe this is how Ashton felt every time he used that cyan eye. All of this battle, from the moment I made the first strike, it was all just a cognitive projection, a possible future that only I had the power to interrupt. I had mimicked the power of the Eye of Severing using my ability to create weapons from my blood, powering it with the cyan eye just like how Ronin made his blade into a pseudo-relic that could kill demons. This gave me the upper hand that I needed, even if I could only use a fraction of the Eye of Severing’s power.

However, this wasn’t the end of my gambit. After all, there was a reason I waited until I heard that final part of the incantation. I had to act before the demon could, before she realized what was going on.

I closed my eyes and repeated the words in my mind as the incantation flowed out from me in my own tongue:

“Spirit of evil, I bear thy name. Any harm against me will be met with total annihilation. I will delay your end, should you grant me your power. Chimera.”

My heart then stopped.

Had I made a mistake? Had the girl been faster? No, she hadn’t spoken a word, I did succeed; but why did everything feel so strange, why had my organs stopped completely? Everything was so cold, I felt nothing. I still hadn’t opened my eyes yet and seen the result of my actions. When I opened them, everything became so clear.

It was then that I realized I was a shadow. I could see my body clear as day, standing in the middle of the train car in the exact position I left it. I was on the ground, cast by the daylight beaming in from the window. I could change my shape, both of them, despite the interference of the sun. I was untethered from my flesh. This was the power I had drawn out, the pinnacle of my abilities.

I tried to move my hand. I, that is, the shadow, moved first. My physical form followed. I looked down at it. My hand, as it was on the ground, was distorted by the floor and furniture, half-cast on a pole that connected the floor to the ceiling. Another vision opened up, that of my body. I saw my real hand through there. I felt once more, it was a surge of warmth, then-

The girl drove a sword through my head. The pain stung, but I could block it out and ignore it, diverting my senses away from my cognitive mind. I pulled the blade out. It was covered in blood and probably a small bit of my brain matter. I repaired myself, reconstituting the hole in my head like new. I then looked up at the demon. She wasn’t panicking, but this development was clearly unexpected.

“So, you deceived me, then, creature. I don’t know exactly how, but you made it look like you had the Eye of Severing when, in reality, you had the Eye of Seeing,” the girl said. “I take it the boy has the other one?”

“Maybe I have both of them? How can you know for sure?”

The girl scowled at me in condemnation, she clearly wasn’t fond of unknown elements.

[ cut to: brooklyn ]

“You don’t have a way of killing me anymore. Give up. You know that I can end your existence with a pseudo-relic like Ronin could. If you simply leave the girl’s body, I can’t harm-”

= pause =

I wanted to make the flamethrower human imprisoned for eternity, but we’re likely far enough away for it to not matter anymore. You may be right, creature, I have no way of killing you, but with your body the way it is right now I can do so, so much worse.

I create another sword and get to work. One slash through his neck, another through the upper torso, another to sever his leg, and then down the middle of that same leg, another two, one for each arm, followed by a pair for each of his hand, another slash to sever his other leg at the midpoint, and lastly a couple more through his head to entirely decimate his skull and brain matter. Several stabs in the torso, twisted to increase the overall damage. Then, I create several nails and separate the parts, pinning them to the ground all across the train car, and even a few on the walls and the ceiling. By now, the entire car is painted red. I step away from the parts.

= resume =

Blood and bits of flesh rain from the ceiling. Some of them try to reform, but it’s a very complicated problem. For all I know, he may never be able to rebuild his body. While this creature may not be truly dead, without someone else to rebuild him he’ll never be in one piece again.

I check one last time as I exit the car and make my way to the front of the train. His shadow flickers, moving on its own. I can’t tell what it's trying to do, but it isn’t amounting to much at all. If he can feel pain, he might have already gone insane from shock. I don’t even pity him, the inhuman creature that he is.

[ cut ]

A bearded man walked through the violent desert, only protected by the clothes on his back and a tattered shawl. He was acclimated to this environment by now, but it still was far from his home. By his side was another man, one with darker skin wearing linen garb, he was the other man’s guide. He spoke, not in English, but in another language, one that both of them knew.

“The site is just up ahead,” the guide shouted over the desert winds. “I would advise you to stay away from it though, disturbing it could-“

“I know the risks. Unfortunate as it may be, this is necessary,” the white man’s voice was deep and aged, just like he was. “If you wish to make an offering in replacement for what we’re about to dig up, I encourage you to do so.”

“That is your responsibility, not mine.”

“Then we’ll just have to risk the gods’ wrath,” the old man smiled. He was playful about this subject that his guide took very seriously. The two knew this about each-other, they were good friends, after all.

“Maybe that’s why the sandstorm is so bad?”

“Maybe it is.”

Then, their destination came into view. It was a small, stone building poking out of the sand.

“You made a tomb?” The white man asked.

“Of course, this relic is sacred, it must be.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

They approached the tomb and opened the door. As they entered, the guide took a torch out from the bag on his back and ignited it, illuminating the room.

“The gods will not be pleased,” the guide said.

“Who knows, maybe this is something they’ve wanted.”

“You claim to be a prophet?”

“It’s a guess, not a revelation.”

Inside of the room is a golden sarcophagus. It was decorated in patterns of wings, but its face was blank, bearing no eyes or mouth. The white man stepped forward. The guide followed.

“We believe her to be a messenger of an evil god, the one that the Hebrews invoked against us. Though her body was not flesh and blood, she was, from what I am told, immensely beautiful,” the guide said. “Her skin and hair were both white, like your skin is, but even more. Did you know her?”

“No, I’ve never met her before, only heard stories.”

“What stories?”

The old man looked down in contemplation. “The same stories you have, that she brought death to your people.”

“Despite the evil she bestowed upon us, we buried her like a king. I don’t know why, perhaps the Pharoh had lost his mind. Maybe he thought it would bring the children back, or at least prevent something like this from happening again.”

“How do I open it?”

“Just lift the lid.”

As the white man slipped his fingers in the seam halfway down the sarcophagus’s side, the guide looked away and stepped over to one of the walls. It was covered in hieroglyphics, ones he knew how to read.

The old man raised the lid and pushed it away, revealing the contents within. Inside was a body, wrapped in bandages. The bandages were marked with symbols that the man didn’t recognize.

“What do these mean?” The man asked. The guide hesitantly returned to the coffin’s side.

“It’s writing,” the guide said. “Warding off... no, sealing in. It’s been placed here as a message to never open it. Doesn’t do much good if you can only read it after you’ve made such a mistake.”

The white man began to unravel the bandages. The body inside was lightweight, feminine in shape. After it had been fully revealed, the white man’s eyes narrowed. It bore such a strong resemblance to... no, nevermind, it was all in his head. The heat of the sun and years of survival had ruined his brain, he could no longer recognize that girl if he wanted to. The body had pastel rose hair and skin nearly as pale as bone. Her eyes were closed, her face bore no expression. She was cold to the touch, especially in the places on her body that, rather than skin and flesh, were made of a brass-tinted metal.

“She is... so beautiful. You’re one lucky man,” the guide said. The white man glared at him.

“How do we get her out of here?”

“We... don’t,” the guide said. “I doubt we can carry her all the way back across the desert, especially not with the weather like this.”

“Fine then. I’ll stay here. I have the supplies to last for a few days. You can go back to town and buy more.”

“Are you sure? You won’t be able to make it back on your own.”

“I’m sure. You could stay in town if you want, I can manage.”

“You’re putting your life in my hands?”

“I trust you.”

“Very well, Man of Ash, I vow that I will return.”

“Thank you, I owe you my life.”

The guide left, now only the old man remained. The man in the tomb reached into his bag and pulled out a small knife, a weapon not from this era.

“I suppose you’ll be the last thing I see, old friend.”

[ cut to: apollyon ]

There’s nothing quite so similar to the sensation of living, the feeling, as opposed to not existing, that you exist. It was a flood of everything, touch, smell, taste, sight, sound, so many things that had not been there before. I couldn’t even describe them, these surreal ideas, replacing the nothingness that was there before.

Something rolled down from my eyes, something wet. Something caught it, something dry and smooth. I looked over and saw a creature with skin and hair, a human being. He had a blood-soaked bandage tied around his head that covered his eyes; if he had any, that is. His face bore a kind, but visibly pained expression, a paradox. Strangely, I recognized him from somewhere, only barely.

I sat up. My body was draped in a rugged cloak, one battered by sand. The man heard me and began to speak, but I couldn’t understand him. After a moment of confusion, the man looked down at the ground, and then he looked up at me and smiled again.

He pointed at me, then he propped his hand up and touched his thumb with his other four fingers before opening and closing it, almost like a mouth. I shook my head, no, I couldn’t speak. I got no response. I didn’t know any language; how could I communicate with someone who couldn’t see?

After a moment, he took a slab of some rock out of his bag and carved into it a series of symbols. One was triangular, with a line through the middle. The next was a line that curved twice, like a snake. The third was two lines, with a third one that connected them in the middle. The symbols were all quite crude, almost as though he wasn’t used to drawing them.

“Ash,” the man said. He pointed to himself. Those symbols correlated to a sound, and that sound was ‘Ash’, and that word was him. This human, his name was Ash.

[ cut ]

Across my time with Ash, I learned many things. He taught me how to read and write, at least to the best of his ability, as well as about himself and where he came from. He was a time traveler, from another place and time. His home was destroyed by an evil spirit, something he called a demon. He often called me Brooklyn, but he noted it as a mistake. I had no other name, at least not as far as I knew of, so eventually the name stuck. Eventually, he told me that Brooklyn was his childhood friend, and that I couldn’t use that name if I ever visited his home.

Every few days, we were visited by man named Ramesses, a dear friend of Ash. He would come bearing food and water for Ash and I. I didn’t know if I needed to eat or drink, but Ash always encouraged me to do so. I was capable of it, so I complied. Ramesses worked as a guide, helping others through the sandstorms outside.

Five years after I had awakened, Ash told me why he had found me, why he had left his home. I was the only one who could save it, at least according to him. Someday, I would have to leave this place and time and go to where he came from to stop it from being destroyed. He also taught me that I was a spirit, like the one that destroyed his home, and that I could form a pact with a mortal and bestow some kind of power upon them. I didn’t know what that meant, but I presumed that it was important somehow. He taught me everything he knew about demons and how to defeat them. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to go off of. I was capable of creating a weapon, a giant pair of scissors. When I told him about how this weapon appeared, he expected something different, but was pleased that I could do such a thing. I trained in using it, sometimes sparring with Ash, who despite being blind was seemingly decent at fighting himself.

Seven years after that, Ash began to fall ill very often, and I became the caretaker. Ramesses would bring medicine as well as food and water, and I got to know him better while Ash slept though most of the day. He told me stories of Ash, that he was a very strange man. The language he spoke, one of the ones he taught me, was seemingly only known by him, although Ash claimed that it was the language of his homeland. It made sense to me, but it must have alienated him from everyone else. Ash had been here for thirty years, supposedly searching for me. He wasn’t always blind, either, he had gouged his eyes out at the same time as I had awakened. Ramesses thought very highly of Ash, he believed that he was a devoted man with a heart of gold, someone constantly full of hope for the future. Ramesses, on the other hand, was something more of a realist. He knew that Ash didn’t have that much time left, that he was getting older and less capable.

Two years later, Ash died.

Ramesses was there when it happened. I cried for the first time, just before Ash passed away. I still remember his last words.

“Be sure you don’t forget how to smile... but remember that you can cry too... sometimes. I have faith in you... Brooklyn...”

Ramesses took me in, and we lived in town together. I still didn’t interact with many other people, but I learned that I, much like Ash, was also very strange to the other humans that lived here.

Ash left me with a written journal in his home tongue, an object that fascinated Ramesses, even though he couldn’t read it. It was made of paper, which Ashton said hadn’t been fully invented and used for this purpose yet. I read about his life, about the real Brooklyn, his first real friend. He never wrote ill of her, except that she was a little bit immature. Eventually, he began writing about his time acclimating to Egypt, the place we were now, and learning the language of the people. It was challenging, taking him almost a decade to master. The moment he heard about the tomb he found me in from Ramesses, he knew he had to go there immediately. After I awakened, his writing became nearly impossible to read, but I could still make out small bits and pieces. I would need to go to the year 2022 and save someone named Claire, but he didn’t believe that would be enough. In the summer of 2024, I would need to protect Ash and those he came into contact with, including the other Brooklyn. This woman named Claire was especially prevalent in his writing, she was his sister, someone he cared deeply about, but had a troubled relationship with.

After a year of living with Ramesses, I said goodbye. Before he died, Ash taught me about two unique talents I possessed. I could see the future, and I could travel through time. These talents were once his, but he passed them down to me when he lost his eyes. I had never tested them before I left, but a certain intuition gave me confidence that they would work. I took with me three last possessions of Ash’s: a coat that had come from his time, a white dress that he had toiled to make for me for many years, and a ribbon cut from the same cloth as the bandages he wore. Then, I set off into the future.

[ c/ut ]

I catapulted myself across space and time, landing in a trash heap in some city somewhere, presumedly Seattle, my intended destination. I stood up. There was nobody around, at least as far as I could-

A blow struck the side of my face. There was someone else around, two people in fact. As I fell over, I saw their faces. They were men, but they didn’t look much like Ash. There was something crazed in their eyes, they weren’t right in the head. I saw not just their bodies, but their souls as well. They were twisted and distorted, being violated by an external force. That force was familiar, dark and unholy, something spiritual. These people were possessed by demons, just like Ashton had told me was possible. Though he had never seen anything like this, he wrote in his journal that his sister said it was possible, and that the only way to end the possession was to somehow exorcise the demons involved.

There was something else that Ash taught me, something he learned himself somehow. There was something he called a cognitive projection, a shared vision of the future wherein demons can interact. While demons can be harmed in a cognitive projection, if the projection is reset, any damage done to humans would be undone. If Ash’s theory is correct, that would mean I could fight these demons in a projection without doing harm to the bodies they’re possessing. Then, my gaze drifted to the source of footsteps outside of the alleyway I was positioned in. It was a boy, no older than eighteen. I recognized him instantly; I could have recognized him from anywhere. I couldn’t let him get away though, and the two demons here are sure to chase him down and hurt him somehow. I needed to get him involved, but still keep him safe... how could I do that?

“Help me!” I shouted. There was a chance this worked, that I could use this opportunity to confuse the two demons here and get the upper-hand.

He ignored me.

“I’m being attacked, please help me!” I shouted again. The boy gazed into the alleyway, but his eyes didn’t meet mine. For some reason, he couldn’t see me.

“You there, please, don’t leave me behind!” I shouted once more in desperation, coming from the heart. He left me behind once, I can’t let him do that to me again.

He took a step towards me. I had his attention.

“I can offer you a pact, my power in exchange for your help right now,” I said. I was mostly just making things up; I had no idea what I was saying. “There are no strings attached, you have nothing to lose. Just please, help me. All I need is for you to say yes.”

“Who are you?!” The boy shouted back. “Where are you?!” His voice, even though it was very different, was unmistakable to me.

“Can you see me?”

The boy stepped back.

“No, I- I can’t see you.”

“All you need to do is agree to my pact.”

“What kind of power can you give me?”

I don’t know. What do I say? What would he want?

“How do I know you aren’t tricking me?” The boy asked.

What do I say? I just need to say something, it doesn’t even have to be true. Just-

“Because when a demon offers a pact, they cannot lie.”

Well, I just lied two times in that one sentence.

The boy tried to run away, but the world around him shifted, leading him right back to me. Oh no, that must be these two demons’ power. They’ve trapped him, they’ve probably trapped me too. He could be in serious trouble; I have to do something.

I begin to stand up as quietly as possible.

“What did you do to me? Is this one of your tricks?” The boy said.

“That isn’t me. They’ve found you.”

“Who?!”

“The other ones.”

One of the demons was carrying a knife. It was dripping with blood. They stepped towards him. The boy’s face was stricken with fear.

“Please...” I said, my voice trembling. “I can save us both. I’ll die if you leave me here.” I might not die, but he certainly will.

“Why would I trust you?”

“You don’t have to. Just agree to my pact and we both walk out alive.”

“Fine! I’ll agree to your stupid contract. Just get me out of here!”

I was finally in position. Time to see if this will really work. I summoned the weapon that Ash had helped me train to use, and with the same motion I struck, carving open his head. He fell to the ground.

“Don’t think about running, you won’t make it,” I said. It wasn’t to anyone in particular, but it could apply to either of the two people still standing here with me alive.

The other demon turned around; he was awestruck.

“You can’t do that, why would you just giver her your soul?”

His soul?

“He didn’t give me his soul,” I answered earnestly. “I don’t need it.” I made another strike, slicing the demon still standing in half. I then turned my attention to the boy.

”What are you doing?!” The boy screamed and fell backwards. “Stay away from me.” He covered his face with his hands.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.” I said. I had to protect him, and the best way I could do that is to give him one of my eyes, the things that governed my time-bending talents. The process for doing so, however, would be... traumatic. It involved penetrating his eye socket with my weapon to implant my power within it. Ending the cognitive projection I’ve had up since before the fight started would undo the physical damage, but it would still hurt like hell.

“You... you won’t?”

I’ve already lied to him enough, I ought to tell him the truth for once...

“Not your body, at least. See, I’ve never done this before. If anything, I’m the one who’s going to be hurt here.” I raised my weapon into position.

“Huh?”

The moment his eye was in plain view, I drove the scissors down. Then, as the strike connected-

-cut-

The world reset. The demons were gone. I stood up and walked over to the boy, he was lying on the ground, flat on his back. From this distance now, I could see him fully. He was the man I was looking for, the man who raised me, who taught me everything, who I owe everything to. At the same time though, he wasn’t that person yet, he was just a boy, though he was probably still older than I was. For some reason though

my heart skipped a beat.

I had found Ash.

[ cut to: ashton ]

[ 00:06:00 ]

The door opened. Brooklyn walked through. The train had been going for some time, and I had lost contact with Scarlet over fifteen minutes ago. Brooklyn was entirely covered in blood, gruesomely injured across all of her body. Part of me felt pity, no, all of me felt pity. This girl had been viciously destroyed by factors outside of her control, demonized for things she couldn’t even understand.

She was silent for a while, then she spoke.

“It’s been a while, Ash, hasn’t it?” She said. “Last time we met face-to-face was on top of MooreTech’s headquarters.”

I said nothing, but I reached my hand into my jacket. I didn’t take anything out yet, though. I was afraid. Without the Eye of Seeing, this would be a massive risk. However, if Scarlet was right, we’ve already won, I just need to somehow bargain for my survival. That wasn’t all, though. I wanted something more out of this, I needed something more out of this.

“No, you’re wrong, Ash. You haven’t won quite yet. I can begin the end whenever I want by killing myself,” Brooklyn explained. “I’ll have to take a few extra steps, and you certainly won’t be around for it, but I’m in a better position than I ever have been.”

I pulled the gun out from the interior pocket of my coat. It was a handgun, Claire taught me how to use it years ago. We used to go shooting at a firing range with our parents when I was a kid, she kept going and took me with her even after they died. I cocked the firearm in my hands and held it out towards Brooklyn, ready to fire.

“Really? You think you can kill me?” Brooklyn said. Her expression was blank, unreadable.

“If I kill you now, we won’t be in the proper position, will we?”

“The exact positions of the killings don’t have to be precise, who’s to say it won’t be you who starts the apocalypse...” Brooklyn said. “Though, that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“No, I don’t want to end the world. Are you crazy?”

“Think about it. All evil will be washed away, sent to burn in the fires of hell. The few good that remain will prosper for eternity. What do you have wrong with that? How is that different from the ideal world you seek?”

The problem is... she’s right. That would be a utopia, wouldn’t it? Everyone who’s evil would go to hell, and everyone who’s good would be happy. That’s the best kind of future, right? It’s a future where justice is served.

But no, that couldn’t be right. There are a lot of people who aren’t good or evil, people who are neither, or both. What about Ronin? What about Blaise? What about me?

“What happens to everyone else, to those who aren’t good or evil?”

“Everyone is either good or evil. Those who follow the divine laws are good, and those who do not are to be punished,” Brooklyn explained. “Humans, as a whole, are evil, wicked creatures, only a small few are worth saving, the rest are destined for eternal suffering.”

What’s so wrong with that though? Evil is to be punished, injustice is to be thwarted. The world around me is corrupt and unholy. Maybe it’s right to burn it to the ground. If I’m to burn with it, so what? I would deserve that, I’m an evil person who hates and lashes out at others, aren’t I?

But...

...if that’s the case...

...why did she decide to save me?

Why would someone so pure and holy decide to enter my life?

What did Noe see in me?

“No.”

“What?” Brooklyn said.

“No, that’s not right.”

“You can’t just tell me that I’m wrong. You know that this world isn’t worth saving. You know that if you think about it, I’m correct.”

“There was someone who, despite how broken and hateful I am, saw some good in me,” I said. “The rest of the world is just like that. Even though it seems like everyone is just out for themselves, that doesn’t mean that’s the entire truth. Some people do care about everyone else, not everyone should be sent to hell for their smallest mistakes.”

“It’s not everyone though, those few that care will remain, and their lives will improve. They’ll see the truth of this world, of all things. They will experience an eternity of joyfulness.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to decide here and now that those who are evil can’t change.”

“What?”

“Noe thought I could change; she knew I could change. Scarlet thought the same thing, so did Claire. They all believed that I could become a better person, despite seeming me at my very worst, despite how terrible I was to all of them,” I said. Against my will, tears began to well up in my eyes. “If someone like me can try to change, who says that you can just take that away, who says that you get to end it all before then?”

“Some people will meet that misfortune, but the vast majority will-”

“No, I can’t allow that. Noe, Claire, Scarlet, Blaise, Eden, even Ronin, even you, especially you, you’ve all shown me that there’s more to this world than just the misery and hardship, more than just empty husks of human beings stepping on each other for personal gain. Even though there are people like that, people who don’t care about anyone else, even people who can truly be called evil, this world doesn’t deserve to burn, those people don’t deserve to suffer what you’ll put them through because they haven’t had the right chance to change. Some of them won’t change, some of them will only get worse, but they still always have that chance. All you’re doing is taking that away from them, eliminating their chance for redemption.”

“Fine then, take the shot,” Brooklyn said. “Kill me and let the world continue to rot in its evilness, or you can let me live and put it out of its misery. The choice is yours, either kill your ideals or let them remain.”

[ 00:00:17 ]

Seconds remain now, seconds. For everything I’ve said, for all that I claim to believe, there’s still a part of me that resents this world and the people in it for how they’ve treated me, for everything that’s happened to me and the people I care about. Most of those people won’t be redeemed, they’ll continue to hurt others. Ending it all now would be mercy, especially to those that suffer without fighting back, those who are truly good.

But I was able to change, I was able to see the world for what it is. It isn’t a nightmare, it isn’t hell, it’s real, and the reality is that the world around me is a wonderful place full of wonderful people that care about me. People like Scarlet and Claire, those who are willing to do anything for those around them, even for nothing in return, they exist. It’s more than just that though, everyone has good in them. For what it’s worth, Ronin saved Scarlet, and he saved me.

What wrong with a world where everyone has a path to redemption? If He is real, I can say the God must have surely made it that way for a reason.

[ 00:00:5 ]

And that’s why I have to shoot her...

[ 00:00:04 ]

...the first friend I had...

[ 00:00:03 ]

...maybe this world is cruel...

[ 00:00:02 ]

...I can put the gun down and let it all go away, I can punish it for what it’s done to me...

[ 00:00:01 ]

...but why would I do that to a world that decided to forgive me.

I close my eyes.

[ 00:00:00 ]

Bang. A shot rings out from the gun in my hands. It connects, carrying my will to cut away Abaddon, to save Brooklyn.

God only knows if my effort is in vain.

[ cut ]

When I open my eyes, I find myself in another place, a realm of pure, blinding light. I’ve been here once before, at my life’s darkest hour. Standing before me was someone I never thought I’d see again, but nonetheless someone who will never leave my mind, not ever. Her pink hair was caught by an ethereal breeze that flowed through this space, along with her beautiful white dress, one much more ornate and complete than when she first met, and the cloak of pure darkness on her back. She carried with her a weapon, a pair of gigantic, radiant scissors. Unlike before, however, the irises of her eyes were white, as were near the tips of her hair.

Not a word was exchanged for the first few moments of our reunion, it was her who broke the silence.

“Thank you, Ash, for everything. I know you might not understand it, but I owe everything to you.”

“What do you mean? Weren’t you the one who saved me?”

“I was just returning the favor. In the end, this was all your plan, but that was a different you, a much older and wiser you. However...”

“I- I did this?”

“Nevermind, that isn’t important. Before I leave, there’s something I must do.”

She walked up to me and reached out to my face. I instinctively closed my eyes.

“Open them, I need to do something. It won’t hurt this time.”

“Okay, if you insist.”

I open my eyes. The instant that happens, she reaches with two fingers into one of them and pulls something out.

“That should do it. You can go back to your ordinary life now, without the burden of the Reaper’s Eyes. You should be free from the curse placed upon you by Abaddon now as well.”

“Thank you, Noe.”

Noe smiled.

“It’s the least I can do, Ashton.”

“It’s Ashton, now?”

“The man who I know as Ash, he isn’t you. You aren’t going to become him, no matter what I do. I think you’ll become an even greater person than he ever was, and in the end, we’ll see each other again.”

“You can’t stay?”

“No, I have a job to do, one I’ve been putting off for far too long,” Noe said. “First stop is 2022.”

“I... I don’t want you to,,,”

“I know, but I think you understand now why that is, right?”

“Yeah, I know. That doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

Noe turned away and began walking across the radiant field. The world began to tear itself apart, the ground becoming like blades of grass, scattering in the wind.

Then Noe stopped, she turned her head so that she could face me once more.

“I really did love you, Ashton. Even though things would never work, regardless of what we do, I want you to know that.”

“You think I couldn’t tell?”

Yeah, sure, that was the right thing to say.

Noe turned back away and started walking again.

“I’m sure you could... Goodbye, Ashton.”

“Goodbye, Noe,” I said. I myself turned away from her, but I stood still. There was something not quite right, something I wanted to say but couldn’t. I doubt I’ll ever have another chance again though... Not another chance again...

I turned back to face her again and took off running. She was a ways away, and the place we resided in threatened to collapse from under me, but I ran all the same. While I ran, I reached out my hand and called out to her one last time.

“NOE!!!”

She turned to face me. I saw her eyes again. She saw mine as well, as drenched with tears as they were.

“I love you too, Noe! I know this is goodbye, but I’ll see you again someday, I promise!”

She smiled.

“Thank you, Ashton.”

[ cut ]

There I stood, at the end of a train car, staring down at the body of the girl I just murdered. Was that truly the right decision? Did it have to be done? Was there another way? Is she even still alive? None of that mattered right now, I could only think of one thing...

“Noe... I never said... that I was sorry. Sorry for everything I did, sorry for everything I didn’t do. I never made things right, I’m such an idiot.”

I fell to my knees, still crying from before, and dropped the gun.

“Please don’t let this be the last time, let me say I’m sorry.”

Deep down, I knew that I was right.

I never saw Noe again for as long as I lived.

[ Demon’s//Jury: Grim Reaper Arc ]

[ fin ]