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You've defeated the King.
There was a flash of brilliant light when The Housemaiden yelled out the final attack as you stood near The Researcher and The Fighter, The Kid backing you up from behind. Their eyes were bright as stars, all of them, and you think this was the most beautiful thing you ever saw as your party members grinned from ear to ear — even with Fighter's sweat-ridden skin, even with researcher's pinched brows, even with Kid's blotchy expression and Housemaiden's clear and deep exhaustion that was stitched through her entire being. You do not think you made a nearly similarly beautiful face, but you had felt an emotion surge within you; an emotion you might have once upon a time called hope.
You've defeated the King.
You saw, with your own single eye, how the armored monster disappeared behind it, swallowed by it, torn asunder by it — for that moment, when your vision was yet to clear, you hoped it hurt. You hoped that the ringing in your ears just muffled the agonizing screaming to null. You hoped he died with his throat burning, with his skin melting, with everything reducing to ash, and then that ash burning out as well. You hoped he felt every bit of it, even when he could no longer theoretically feel. You hoped it felt like the inferno of a dying supernova; it was almost your wish.
You've defeated the King.
It was supposed to end then and there, and yet. And yet, and yet, and yet, and yet there's always this stupid blinding yet-
You have defeated the King.
And yet, you still wake up in a meadow, peaceful as it ever was. It wasn't your salvation. Wasn't your way out, wasn't your answer, just another path that takes you back to the start like nothing ever came to pass.
Of course it wasn't. Why did you ever think it would?
You blink, and find yourself standing before the Favor Tree. You do not remember talking, or walking, or waking up at all — it was all a haze since your death count hit triple digits. You do not remember how you got here, how your feet moved, how your words formed, how everyone looked at you, because you're pretty sure the answer to those questions will not please you. You don't remember picking up a leaf from the ground even when you clearly see it in your palm, whole and newly shedded by the canopy above, and you do not feel anything about forgetting something mere minutes after it happened.
If nothing ever will be your saving grace, from the loops, from this prison, from yourself-
You hold it to your mouth.
-then what is the point?
You choke on your wish.
You can't say it despite thinking it so clearly. The air is filled with a thick smell of sugar, burning, thick as a pyre's smoke. Your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, and you can't swallow over it as the nausea creeps up your throat like bile, like vinegar, like you. You are choking, dying, hardly breathing as your hand trembles with the leaf swaying near your lips.
You can't utter it, but still you wish, you wish, you wish-
You want out. You want to be gone. You want an exit, you want a respite, you want a happy ending you know you will never get.
You want to be dead forever.
You want to be alive again.
The leaf falls away as the sky darkens, as the sounds of life abruptly cut away in your ears, as the day turns night turns lightless sky with billions, trillions of blinking stars, as you throw your head up, — and if anyone, anything can hear you; if anyone, anything will listen to your pathetic begging; if anyone, anything will pity you enough to outstretch the hand towards you, — you scream and scream with echoes overlapping into a cacophony of noise and you beg and plead, please, anyone, anything, please-!
"help me."
(and despite the best attempts, it comes out as a one, single whisper,)
Your vision blurs.
(but The Universe
hears
anyway.)
You see your tears float upwards, into the yawning abyss. The stars above you twinkle, twinkle, twinkle and you watch them in silence, — despair, tiredness, anticipation, — until you spot one falling, falling, falling to where you stand.
You want to outstretch your hands. It's like an almost physical force that compels you to, making your palms itch with the want of holding it, of feeling its pulse hammer alongside your own like a rabbit that's about to be slaughtered — you'd be the hunter, it'll be the prey, and you know that its blood will be warm against your cold, dead skin.
You blink, and do not reach for it.
The fallen star slows to a lazy crawl just before your face, circling your head once, then twice, then many times over like a satellite that found its planet. You feel everything thrumm with force of a thousand energies, the dark Nothing of it taking a breath, shifting around you, pulsing with warmth like a heartbeat.
(inhale. ba-dum.
exhale. ba-dum.
inhale. ba-dum.
exhale. ba-dum.)
For some reason, you are tempted to grab and tear through it like devouring a meal. You think your teeth would be sturdy enough to bite through it in one attempt, your mouth big enough to swallow it, your hand strong enough to hold it in place.
(but you don't need to do so.)
The star stops, finally, in front of your chest. It drifts in place, bobbing up and down, until suddenly, — violently, painfully, (as gently as it knows how,) — colliding. It throws out any air left in your lungs, and burns, it burns so much as if you swallowed it, and you fold yourself in half, shocked cry leaving your dry lips as your tears fall-float higher and higher and higher, forming constellation of their own, and through the pained wheezes and you still can't breathe -
But then you feel
a tug
on your
s
t
o
m
a
t
c
h-
You come to your senses slowly.
(it has been a long time since you had the strength to be quick.)
Your body feels like it's oozing tar, with the entire world's exhaustion concentrating in your bones. You feel like you breathe through a damp cloth that barely allows through any air. Your everything hurts, too, to the point of your entire body going numb — the muscles filled with lead, spasming and contracting with painful sensations that have no desire to stop, and you cannot even open your eye.
You do not know how long you lay like that. It can't be terribly long, because no one comes to collect you, and you hear no voices calling your name.
(do you even have a name, now? you wonder how much was forgotten in your absence.)
You fight with your face muscles to blink away the darkness clouding your vision — behind it, the world is blurry, and unstable, and the sunlight makes your headache intensify tenfold, so you close it back immediately and instead focus on other sensations. There's grass under you, light with early autumn, soft and perfect, pressed flat only in your shape. The wind is warm, as is the light, as is the sound of nature. There are sounds of birds, and far, far away sounds of people.
And even farther, down the path you took too many times, there is the silence, the unnatural vacuum of a frozen world.
It takes a moment, a stutter, to comprehend. It clicks soon enough.
You are back here again, aren't you?
Ha. Ha-ah!
It's almost funny, really — you wished to be out. You wished for an escape, you wished to be gone and yet! And yet, here you are! Back on the stage, ground zero! Staying again and again, and again, and again, to unforeseen infinity. The mere thought of it fills you with so much incomprehensive rage you can't think straight, and it engulfs your mind like a tsunami, because wasn't this enough? Wasn't your dying, failing, flailing, comedy routine enough?
What more must you do to get out!?
(the question rings, an avalanche crashing down. you take a breath, unneeded.
the plea must be fulfilled.)
You clench your teeth until they grind against each other. Blind it, — the headache, the exhaustion, the heaviness of your limbs, even your own thoughts, — you snap your single eye open to meet
a lightless figure, outlined in darkless lines like a drawn picture. The pure-dark locks fall down its head, framing the soft curves of cheeks. A large hat sits atop the head, nearly too big and yet almost not big enough, the brim of which is elongated almost against the rules of physics. There is a cloak that covers the figure's shoulders, too, just as lightless as the rest of it, bright pins that keep it in place contrasting sharply with the dark cloth.
This is your copy. Your double, your mirror in everything, from height to stature.
And
it
has
no
face.
(you watch.)
The entire world falls silent. There are no more blips of life, no more moans of Sadnesses, no more whistles of the winds — your fingers dig into the soil, and you feel a beat between them, pulsing in your head. You know the grass, the leaves, no longer sway with the gusts, instead copying barely perceived rise and fall of the figure chest.
Inhale. Ba-dum.
Exhale. Ba-dum.
Somewhere intimately, — in a part of your head you can't reach, where your memories of what you lost and keep losing slot themselves, brick by brick, — you know what sits before you.
(...until you no longer can.)
Your breath stutters when The Universe puts Its hands on your face and you hear, clear as your own thoughts,
(hello, starlight.)
Its lightless silhouette explodes with dozens, thousands of stars, forming constellations so quickly it makes you dizzy. There are shades, woven into It, weird to the point you can't look at any of them without your eye stinging with sharp pain. The absence of Its face resolves itself when you watch, with almost sick sort of fascination, as the incomprehensible darkness parts in some resemblance of a mouth, a copy of yours to the very tilt of the lips, that pulls itself into a smile, lines on the cheeks outlined not with shadows but with impossible light.
All you can think of is how warm that smile looks.
It bends down then, lower, and lower, and lower still, until It touches Its forehead with yours. The static arises from the contact, making your hairs stand on ends.
The smell of sugar and ozone and stardust and everything you can't name fills your lungs before
you startle awake in a meadow with a gasp.
(the help has come.)