Chapter Text
‘Mors ceta, hora incerta’
Death is certain, it’s hour is uncertain- Isidore
The chest plates’ ridges were sharp, cutting his weak skin like butter, the bitterness of his dark blood dripped onto the sandstone cliff edge. He could feel the pressure of the bloodthirsty ghosts pull them in closer, the rocketing rally of distant cheers thundered around them. The brick and clay walls of the Sand people kingdom collapsed on every side of them, rocks laid haywire, the screams of the dancing victims of war being silenced by the yells between the long-time comrades.
“Scar, the spectators want a fight. Are we really doing this?!”
The grasp of the stopwatch that glowed red tightened around his fingers, the rust drying itself on his scars. He remembered when it was green, and life was calm. Existence wasn’t death grown greedily. But the hands stopped ticking. Their time in this enclosed hell was up.
The breath failed to leave his mouth when the fists were thrown, leading Scar into the wall of cacti. Grian could see the fear in his murderous confidant’s eyes.
The same friend he defended all of those times, and the same man that fought by his side when everyone else burned.
Yet this was the sole visible way the torture would end in Grian’s red eyes. When all that was left was rotting corpses and abandoned wolves.
“You were always the greatest, Grian. The best of us”
Scar began as he kicked the shorter man in the shins, trying to prove his strength. Regardless of how much he knew who was going to win.
“I’m sorry Scar!” Grian screamed as knuckles swelled bloody and the final punch was thrown, all while his ally grew limp.
Before he could hug him goodbye, his body morphed into soft gold petals and drifted away, the invisible souls dragging Scar from the ‘winner’.
He could still feel the blood of his allies run down his uncut washed out hair, almost magically avoiding his eyes which were the colour of the same watch destroying his bleeding hands. His ledger was gushing with red, feeling the cheers of his victims dancing with glee around the mountain edge.
The spruce grandfather clock that lay still with age ticked away on the rubble ground, indicating the period he had left to complete the journey. Which had officially run out. Time snarling in fantasy, the outcome of this façade crystal clear. Gods, the good old days. When there was peace across the lands, and he could waste his age away. Whether that was by farming, or thinking of new traps, or building to his hearts desire. He could feel the tears brim atop his eyes as the memories banged on the door to their conflicted mind. The blood reached his pale lips, cracked at the smile lines from the screaming.
Salt. It tasted like the salt from the river beneath him.
No matter how hard he tried, it never disappeared. His blonde hair was stained rogue red, roots taking the blood and dripping it down his scarred arms. The bitterness could try to beam through the sweat and tears, sticking those strands together. He knew he had to do it. He recognized he had to jump.
In one breath, the whole world fell into the hands of both Heaven and Hell, The Lord and The Devil.
In that final gasp, the world sung its last symphony, taking its ending stance.
The distant cries of war banged against the black stone door, hiding the shell of the man cowering inside. His eyes were jetty as ink, body with painted scars that danced down his tense limbs. The gun pressed against his head didn’t move or shiver- still asking the same question that’s been run on repeat for the last year. His mane was devil-shed, eyes tracing his rain soaked body and hair.
The shrinking room smelt of leather and dripping ink, singing the song from the folk of the golden times. The thundering rain became silent pellets like the shots from the rusty machine gripped in his good hand.
The sizzle of his brother’s blood fuelled fireworks caused some of the stone surrounding him to crumble and roll to his feet. What overshadowed this feeling of doubt and existentialism was the shadow of the winged man behind him, blocking the way between him and the cowards escape.
His eyes were unexpectedly bright, as if he was beaming to see his son alive, regardless of his state. Glad to see he wasn’t too late. An abyss of tangy bitterness filled his mouth as the man dug daggers inside the hybrids eyes.
Pieces of his opposing puzzle being connected by the man dressed in a cloak. As if to hide himself from the world, and his unique traits.
“What are you doing, Will?”
“Phil?”
It was the solitary thing he could croak out from his dry throat, suddenly a sea of water filled his lungs, struggling to find his breath. His father was there. After he deserted his letters. From when he abandoned everyone, his dad was there at his darkest moment. A ray of gleaming sunlight in the dusty room he created to finish his theatrics.
“Will, this isn’t you. I don’t see my son here in front of me, I see a broken man”
“Broken beyond repair, Phil. So don’t try and stop me from ending this god-awful symphony I created years ago-”
He turned his back against his previously-distant father, and took aim to the single stone button, fingerprints made its mark to signal how many times he came close to destroying it all. To pushing that cursed device once.
“-It needs to stop Phil, I need the arguments and fighting and war to all just shut up. At least for a moment”
“Is this really a risk you want to take? Just blow it all up?”
The older man's voice grew soft all when stepping closer to his shaking son with his forehead pressed against the mossy wall. Eyes blurring while time slowed down, and the turmoil became null.
“Phil I’ve been here like seven or eight times, I have been here-” As he vented to his father, the battle reoccurred. “-They’re fighting Phil, they’re fighting!”
“And you just want to blow it all up? Will you fought so hard to get it all this land back, everyone did!”
The stone round the broken family began to shake while the lean man carefully turned around to face his father. In shame or relief? Neither of them were sure.
“Dare I do. I think I do”
“But Will, are you certain?”
Phil was clearly egging Wilbur on to step away from the menacing button, or his Chekhov’s gun, yet the glint of murk that reflected into his piercing blue eyes answered his question for him. His son was too far gone. The empty abyss of darkness was controlling him- Will was no longer the puppeteer of his own workings.
“Phil, there was an old saying. By a traitor- once part of L’Manburg. You may have heard of them, Eret?”
“Yeah”
Phil’s voice had turned cold in dread, the crackles of dynamite growing louder beneath them, the heat from the rockets outside seeping in. Wilbur was deadly still. His body shifting back around to face the mossy wall decorated in the song of his people. The once flourishing village of L’Manburg. Where every day, the bluebirds sung. Where each day, laughter could be heard from inside from any of his fair citizens and all of their peculiar homes. Where every day, Wilbur could wake up and feel safe.
It was almost like his lifelong symphony had hit the final verse, the music swelling up around him, the closing act coming in.
“It was never meant to be”
“You didn’t”
There it was. The final note of his song, concluded.
As dynamite rained down in front of them, his signature laugh echoed through the stone chamber.
“MY L’MANBURG PHIL. MY UNFINISHED SYMPHONY- FOREVER UNFINISHED!” The man was oblivious to the large mound of dynamite headed directly for him, a spare that didn’t attack the ongoing battle happening on the grounds he once managed.
“WILL!” Phil's voice broke as he dived to his limp son, protecting him in his large wings, hiding from the dynamite that exploded around him. The coal-black feathers dropped in a circle all round the pair, burning ash turning them into nothing before they touched the scorched stone. His son was there in his arms, smirk on his face. That grin of satisfaction- he was happy. Oblivious to his heart slowing.
“Phil. Take my sword. You have to kill me”
“No. I won’t do it- I can’t Will you still have so much to live for-”
“We both know I don’t” That was the sentence which killed the immortal god kneeled against the gaping hole of the room. The faces of strangers and friends, their fighting paused to stare at Wilbur on the ground, pushing the blue sword upon his father’s spare hand.
“Phil?” The teenagers voice was distant, yet clear. Tommy.
His attention was still on the peaceful body leaning against his empty wings, scars dancing down his shoulders where the hybrids menacing spiral of feathered bones met the spine. “Phil, stab me with my sword- look they all want you to” “You’re my son! No matter what you did-”
“Look, look! At how much work went into this and it’s gone. Do it” He started at the man he once called ‘Dad’ as he brushed off the tears brewing under his eyes. He was determined on what Phil would do. He knew his moral system by heart. He was sure he would kill him.
And that he did. He killed his son. He was dead in his arms, blood dripping down the steps, merging with the lake Will built months ago. The mad man was gone.
The shaking blonde pulled at the loose ends of his red sweater, the tears falling into pattern against the icy concrete ground. He arrived a moment ago, remembering hitting a hard floor and feeling everything, then nothing. He died, but he’s back. Why isn’t he gone? Grian was never one to believe in the afterlife. The place he was in didn’t feel like heaven or hell. It felt as if he was, well, nowhere. He could see posters promoting made up products, put there to cover up the rotting walls, but they were in a language he couldn’t speak.
“Hello?” He croaked, wiping away the remaining tears, standing up from the floor. He wanted to find a way out. The response he got was the slurred speech of a drunk in a torn suit hidden away in a corner, clearly not apt for a conversation. He was slouched beside a man donning a Mexican flag on his back, muddied by the dirty train tracks and the grim rain that found a way inside the cramped station. In the idea for his safety, he kept walking in their opposing direction, until something caught Grian’s attention- the cough of a smokers lungs echoing down the valley of grey brick.
Fear hidden behind his furrowed brows, one foot ahead of the other, he walked towards the cloaked man stood in front of a luminous billboard. “Do you know where we are? I just died, so shouldn’t I have just- went?”-
“Who the fuck are you?” The man snapped back, as if he was trying to disguise the shock that shook down his spine as the significantly shorter blonde now stood beside him, sight locked onto the billboard, and then Wilbur’s eyes.
“Grian. Now may you answer my question...?”
“Wilbur. This is our limbo, I’m guessing. Although-” He leaned in towards Grian’s ear the mumbling pair afar didn’t hear what he rumoured. The stink of nicotine made his eyes sting, but he ignored it to the best of his ability. “-Every hour or so, a train arrives. It’s not the same each time, but the schedule is consistent”
Grian’s dark eyes flew open while the elevated man grinned at his realization. Their minds were alike, both arriving at the same conclusion. “So do you think that the train’s that show up here, they bring you to heaven?”
“Or hell, which is probably where I’m ending up after what I did. What about you shortie, how did you end up here”
Grian felt his breath deregulating, pushing down those painfully familiar bitter tears that fell so much, they may as certainly leave a mark. “I killed the only friend- well family, I remember having. Then I jumped off, so I wasn’t left alone for eternity with my thoughts”
“So you also hurt your family, blood or not? Guess I’m having a pal in Hell” Grian could laugh at this strangers snark sarcasm, learning how to bottle his emotions scarily fast.
Although the laughter was short-lived, as simultaneously , the scrambled numbers typed on the rogue billboard started falling into place, until a time appeared before them. “22:43? When is that?”
“Right now, actually” Wilbur responded, frantically grabbing a leather satchel abandoned on one of few empty metal benches bolted to the slimy walls of this limbo they had been trapped in. The cold wind from the abyss behind those closed off railing puffed down Grian’s neck, causing him to turn around in a shake of fear.
“You were right, look. Train” He gently tugged on the hanging elbow patch Wilbur’s trench coat, before he hauled him back- pulling both of them onto the streamliner. Blind-fully and blissfully unaware of the nightmare they had merely begun.