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[Naib’s POV]
I remembered his piercing gaze behind that curtain of pouring rain. It was almost clear as day.
“What are you talking about?”, that creature laughed as if it was something honestly hilarious. “It’s me, Eli Clark.”
I knew he was Eli Clark. I knew of the one who had just removed that pale and torn-out blindfold out of his face. I knew of Recluse, who was also called Surveyor.
I knew of the one who buried Emma and organized her funeral along with me. I knew of the one who was boiling with rage and almost got into a fight with some stranger who was talking bad about Aesop. I knew of the one who put sleeping so low on his own priority list that he was readily staying awake for days with Kevin - until both of their bodies gave up and fell unconscious at the table overwhelmed with books and papers.
I knew of the one who got his shoulder severely dislocated after reaching for Tracy’s hand that day, and hopelessly watching her fall. I knew of the one who ,afterwards, silently cried his heart out, then hid those scratched, tearfilled eyes behind the blindfold and the lasting wound on that shoulder again. I knew of the one who shoved tons of coffee down his throat and became deadly tired later on, yet agreed to watch for that Lucky kid sleeping all night just because the kid had been scared.
I knew of the one who almost died getting me out of danger, yet tried his best to reassure me with a smile and ask me if I was uninjured.
I even knew of the one who got rejected by his favorite teacher for stubbornly going to Abyss in order to research and get rid of those Abyssal gates.
And,
I knew the creature in front of me had used that name for a long time then.
“No use playing that game anymore. Drop the act.” I raised the gun, pointed at Clark.
All at once, everything held its breath.
No sound reached my ears, neither my own breathing, the once calm breeze piercing through stages of leaves, the pouring rain, the chattering sound of faraway pedestrians’ footsteps, nor that creature’s patterned breathing. I did not move, and he did not either.
He glanced over the ground where I was standing, the device I wore on the side belt, and then flickered over my hands, palms, and my gun. Rain dropped into the place he called ‘eyes’ and he did not seem to be bothered. His gaze slowly crawled over the gunpoint, the index finger of mine on the trigger, and then me. Our eyes met for some petty quarters of a second.
I would honestly love to see a bullet straight through that head at that moment. It would calm the rage under that muddy trail I was walking towards.
Eli Clark burst out a laugh.
“Well done, Detective~”, he clapped.
Countless of disgustingly dark, filthy tentacles burst through the ground. They had the same pattern with Clark’s red eye. That would explain how much his childhood ‘trapped in the Abyss’ story was a lie. I immediately dashed for cover, but they did not attack or go for me. Those limbs ripped out a black hole in midair right behind Clark and pulled that smirking creature within.
There was a void after he left.
And there was no more question about Clark’s nature by then. What was that research of “Abyssal gates and How to permanently terminate one”? What was that “none of us will ever survive if we don’t know how to protect ourselves and others”? What was that “in order to reach further, we have no other choice but to sacrifice the necessaries”? To the Abyss with all of those reasonings, Eli Clark was an Abyssal bloody gate himself.
Hell was empty. And all the devils were here.
___
I did not have enough time to calm down when someone came and lightly touched me in the arm. I turned around and immediately shot at that image of Kevin.
Although, I admitted later on, it was a mistake. That person was actually Kevin Alonso himself, not a delusion made from the Abyss or anything.
I had no excuse. My mind was filled with Eli Clark.
Both of our minds were filled with Eli Clark, it seemed. The bullet did not hit Kevin, and he said nothing about it either.
___
“How did you escape from his claws?”, I questioned later on. None of us could match E-...Clark’s magic level before, not to mention the sudden reveal of his Abyssal blood. Humans had never been equal in terms of strength and knowledge compared to those of the Abyss after all.
My teacher slowed his walk, side-glanced at me, then looked at my pitiful expression. At least, I thought it was pitiful. I was not sure what face I was supposed to make after finding out my fiance was, in fact, an enemy. I could not even bring myself to call him a ‘traitor’. Was he even a traitor if he had never been on our side?
Kevin clicked his tongue as if he could hear my thoughts. That sound was loud.
“You have already known about Clark, haven’t you, Naib?”
“I do.”
My teacher nodded and brought out a suitcase from his own “Void”. I felt caked in my own body catching the glimpse of it as I immediately recognized it was Aesop’s. Given the choice, he would never abandon it. That worn-out leather suitcase was a gift from Clark after Aesop had lost his previous one from his mother. That boy adored Clark like his own older brother.
“Then, I take it you’ve understood it well enough”, he did not look at me. I looked away.
I understood that in order to get out of Clark’s trap, Aesop had sacrificed himself for Kevin.
.
.
.
Or maybe, just maybe, Aesop Carl had known something we did not.
___
And we did not leave for Abyss that night, much to my dismay. I understood his reasons, however. It was just a trivial thought of uncontrollable violence.
He did not say anything about it either. It was a blessing.
We aimed to settle down at the headquarter before letting all hell break loose. It was, indeed, a long road home.
We tried to ignore the wandering glances and questioning gazes from other acquaintances. We acknowledged it was honestly rude, and ignored them all. Both of us were trying to keep silent for the peace of our minds, piece by piece putting the last straw on the camel’s back. It was, as clearly as the exhaustion was showing on our faces, a false sense of calmness.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they?
It was the same road, the same scenery, yet they were the only things that have not changed. The old rail was still full of scattering stones and unfulfilled holes and pathetically isolated. The familiar and filthy odor from the Abyssal gate was still spreading in the air. Its density was much worse than before. We had to take a deep gulp of breath before parting from the main road and taking turns towards the headquarter. And, we were still to see nothing has ever changed, aside from us.
The scenery made me feel like crying and raging at the same time, though I chose to do neither. My reason was that I was just getting too emotional for my liking and even when those emotions did make sense, it was no use acting on it. Destroying things just to release my frustration was not a choice, as it brought nothing but the emptiness afterwards, and it solved nothing. And, as a matter of fact, we still needed everything in this room.
I was sure Kevin shared the same thoughts, as his grip on that suitcase’s handle became tighter the closer we got to our ‘home’. Yet, to my unsurprised expectation, he destroyed nothing as well.
Kevin and I looked at the ruined place we called home. Collectively sighing, we reached for the key. A minute became two, three and then fifteen. As if whichever Divine force above had a weird sense of humor, we had lost our keys. Both of us had the habit of keeping them in the pockets inside our jackets and those mentioned pockets were torn badly. Kevin thought it was Clark’s doing, though he could not prove it and it did not serve Clark any purpose either way.
We had no choice but to let it slide in the end.
Later on, I came to find out we had a secret passage. What were we, some undercovered spy getting into the heart of headquarter through the backdoor?
I laughed to myself. My teacher, on the other hand, did not share the sentiment. How unfortunate.
___
Getting in the room, I let myself fall onto our worn-out sofa. No need to dry myself either way, all of my clothes had stopped dripping water on our way here. I remembered that it had been bought the day we first came to this office, the first day Call of Abyss and our Detective Agency officially worked together. Then, I glanced at the other teammate. Kevin, after putting Aesop’s suitcase on his table, did not even bother for a softer place. He just sat down on the floor and called it a day.
And we sat in silence. Then I went to pick up some water for us both.
It looked like nothing had happened here in the kitchen, or at all. The room was still full of clothes scattered around waiting for us to pick them up, the books were still open on the table, waiting for us to continue with the research. That photo was still framed on the wall right behind where Kevin was sitting. I saw them all in the photo: Emma pretending to be annoyed with Tracy’s teasing, Kevin looking at them with an amused grin, Aesop trying to push Eli and me together, and Eli laughing freely as if he was an ally and-
“Naib!”, a loud noise pierced through my train of thoughts.
I was taken aback at his shouting and immediately looked around, fearing death had come to take its debt. Did I notice sharp fragments of glass in my palm by then. It cut through the skin and I did not even acknowledge the pain until Kevin called for me.
That glass I just broke, it used to be Clark’s, did it?
___
“He’s an enemy now, Naib. Don’t get distracted.” Kevin lightly scolded me while wrapping my wounded palm. And other wounded parts. Both of us got injured heavily from our encounters with that creature after all.
Kevin’s white undershirt was filled with dried blood.
Wait, let me rephrase that: Kevin was covered in blood.
His black jacket had hid them all until he took it off as it started to drip all over the floor. It did not take a genius to know whose blood there was. My own jacket was torn badly as well so I threw it away afterwards. Had Kevin noticed the engagement ring on my necklace, he said nothing. Even if I was honest to myself, I had no idea why I had not thrown it away either.
This was not the time to pay it a second thought. We had better things to take care of.
___
We shared our stories. Kevin told me about their trip to that fated Middle Ground, where Clark had planned it all. That they took each step carefully to an unfamiliar zone, only to find out Kevin and Aesop were the sole outsiders. It was Clark’s “home”. And both of them got captured in some kind of trap in which only one of them could get out alive. And Aesop had learnt Clark’s art of lying surprisingly well, tricked our teacher into thinking he had some tricks under his sleeve, that “Rebirth”.
Then we learnt, you could not cast that spell onto yourself. An embalmer could not embalm themselves, just like how a necromancer could not revive themselves.
We did not have Aesop’s body to bury either. He was ripped into pieces and stuck in that domain. His favorite flower was yellow roses and those he grew in the garden did not even bloom just yet.
That boy was supposed to live longer than the two of us, listen to our dad jokes and death wishes, arrange our funerals, complain about us being old men and embalm our bodies and bury us himself. Not vice versa. He was supposed to turn 18 on his next birthday. And he was supposed to build our graves and bury us. Not like this.
It was not supposed to be like this.
___
I told Kevin about my part of the story. Clark turned out to be an Abyssal creature himself, and the crimson eye seemed to be the dimension gate. We came to find out that the creature's story of being “cursed with the Abyssal eye to keep track of him” was a lie. Again.
And he was my fiance even. Of course it was a lie, who was I kidding?
“When you stare at the Abyss, it stares back at you” or however that saying went, I believed?
___
Kevin was not sure if it was Clark’s doing or Lady Luck finally decided to play her favorite. Due to him being slightly affected by the Abyss in the Middle Ground, he became an intermediary and could lead our way to the core of Abyss.
I was not sure if it was a blessing or curse, but both of us decided not to question it. Our curiosity could be satisfied in another time.
We had a score to settle with that creature.
___
Not to anyone’s surprise, we decided to go to the Abyss ourselves, of course. None of us had the time to grieve for our dead teammates. We would let ourselves do it later on, when everything ended. Or we might join them, who knew?
It was not our brightest moments, but there was no use crying over spilt milk by now.
___
The sun was shining brightly today, as we reached the Gate. The lighthearted breeze traced through every corner of the forest, followed each of our own footsteps. The faraway chattering sound from some convenience store rang through the air. Kevin and I collectively looked at the blue and wide sky, and at each other. Everything was full of hope.
It was a good day to be alive.
Then we jumped down to our ready-made graves.