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You wake up.
The world is the same as you left it, with all the horror that implies. It is fall. It is cold. The light coming from behind the thin curtains is a dim white that seeps into your bones. The bed creaks as you shuffle off and grab a cigarette. Smoke fills your lungs, crisp and cool with the taste of menthol, and it is the first of your allotted three for the day. Kim is in the other room, reading a book and listening to the radio. You can hear the well-worn pages turn with ample pause between.
It's been months since he's joined your precinct— weeks since he agreed to be your roommate, aiding your sobriety with the same patience he exhibits for every excruciating task. Together, you put the pieces of your life back in place; less like a puzzle, more like a shattered mirror. One you can't throw away, no matter how badly your fingers bleed.
Static fizzles; your ears perk. The man on the radio speaks clearly, coolly relaying the various tragedies that have occurred as the mountain crumbles. More and more of the same, worsening each day. Muggings and murder. Corruption and kidnappings. Cases to solve, and cases that will never be solved. Airships on the horizon, looming, lurking, leering. Kim turns another page. The edge of something painful sinks into the crevices of your mind.
The end is soon, surely hurtling at you with the speed of a falcon coming to claim its meal, if the voice of Revechal is to be believed. You shiver. Toes curling in the dense carpet, you run a shaky hand through your thin hair. The light from the curtains makes even your teeth ache. Your breath no longer smells of liquor, and that's the greatest tragedy of all— having to face this sober, like everyone else, instead of pretending you're unique in that you might one day be your own demise.
It's funny, almost. At one point you would have welcomed it. The annihilation. The lack of control. All you'd have to do is lie down on the pavement and let the magic happen. To be obliterated so thoroughly as to feel no pain at all. What bliss.
Things are different now, though. Kim, the taskforce, and everyone you care about are all there is— all that matters. You don't know how to save them. You haven't even saved yourself. But there's a fire in you that burns worse than the whiskey: the need to guard that which has gifted you something so precious as to call it love.
Maybe it's time to leave, before it's too late. Ask anyone and everyone to come with you. Hope that there's something worthwhile at the end of the line. Kim would need convincing. He still believes. He still holds tight to the crumbling stone façade that the RCM represents. Order amongst the chaos. Honor, duty, dignity. A ship anchored in the storm.
But he is afraid, too. That's why he listens to the news.
And perhaps it's the special kind of madness you've inflicted on yourself that makes you feel like this. All the voices and creatures that crowd your brain, the things that speak and beg for someone to listen— what are they but reflections of a broken man in a broken mirror, fogged by his own breathing? Your eyes wander the vast expanse of webbed lines and fractured features, picking out the parts of yourself that are ugly and crooked and old. The fear. The rage. The desperation. And those are just the parts you can see.
Is it any wonder you fell to pieces? Such narcissism, such lunacy, to want to reach out and take what you've come to care for. You want to feel it in your hands, the flesh and blood that keeps you steady now that you've given up everything else. The urge to run with it until your weak heart fails you is so overwhelming, you might call it a sign from above.
But there is nothing holy about it. It is the fraught worry of a madman wanting to save what little is left in a dying world. The end is coming. It's inevitable. The ticking of the doomsday clock rings in your ears.
And still,
The city begs for you to stay. To salvage this mess. Just like you did for her. Save me. I love you. Save me. Help me.
You do the only thing a madman can do.
You get up from the bed, walk to the doorway, and you try.