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« Nobody ever told me how to deal with things like this. Shouldn’t letting go be painless if you’ve never learned how to hold on? » John Green and David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Corvo didn't question Dunwall's state after breaking out of Coldridge prison. He didn't think it unnatural for the city to be tearing itself apart, for the corruption to be feeding the rats and for the weepers to wander around the most desolated streets as the last form of life.
Somehow, with all the vermin he'd heard more than seen – the filthy corners of his eyes making it hard to keep them open on the worst days – running around his cell, climbing on his bare feet, sometimes chewing on his toes, it wasn't hard to believe at all to find the rats claimed the whole city as their territory.
What was more surprising was his luck, and the fact that despite every unsanitary place he'd crossed he never caught the plague. The fact that despite every time he Blinked too far and fell down, there was always something to hold on to stop his fall, and even if sometimes it hurt so much he had to lie down for an unknown amount of time – but too much, always too long – he always managed to get up.
Even when rats munched at his skin, when the bite of hagfish felt as if they tore his whole flesh, when a sword pierced so very close to a vital organ and he thought that his time was gone, he always went on, a bottle of Sokolov's elixir quickly swallowed as he moved away. How strange. But was it really? Corvo didn't want to wonder.
The assassin didn't think it was strange, for the Overseers to step on the City Watch, so far that Campbell would try to poison Curnow. Fanatics, that's all they were; and he saw so much more clearly now that he had been marked. Simple avoidance by the time he was Lord Protector (one time he regrets, one time that seems so unreachable now), caused by the pure discomfort the zealous brought him merged into apprehension – almost fear, though it was hard to fear anybody else than himself when he knew he was able to slice everybody's throat way too easily – and anger. Rage.
Desire for revenge.
There was nothing so surprising about other assassins roaming through the streets, scrutinizing everyone around, or about a local bandit band being able to break through a brothel, find the two nobles who held such a great political power, and kidnap them to imprison them in the mines they used to own and exploit; neither about finding Emily, the dear girl who was to be much more than a doll forced to remain in a single room, in said brothel.
And if he was wondering just what happened to the city which used to be grandiose, before the plague, before Jessamine's… before everything, it was probably his wrapped perception of reality ever since the prison. It was meant to be, the number of abandoned streets, districts growing each and every day, the omnipresence of the rats everywhere, waiting for any opportunity to attack flesh, the representatives of power weakening to the point where the only law was made by the ones who weren't dead yet and who intended well to fight to avoid their own demise.
There was probably nothing to wonder about. Or perhaps there wasn't for him because he had never been one to ponder during endless hours, always preferred acting. Not implying he didn't think about his moves, quite the contrary; as a bodyguard he had to be careful and as an assassin he was much more cautious and meticulous than before. But idle thoughts weren't for him, especially when it came to believing that perhaps, the whole nature of his world was terribly wrong.
Corvo had no reason to think about it, and it would be a bit too much. A bit too hard to swallow.
So he ignored every single hint that might lead him to spare a thought about just how odd the world had become since he stopped rotting in prison. Denial was easy, and comfortable, and he desperately wanted to stop thinking. It was already difficult enough, chasing after the lost cause, the so unreachable hope of getting his life back.
He didn't think he would soon mean it literally.
Nobody ever told him, so he had to find on his own. And unsurprisingly, it came out as rather harsh news, ones Corvo refused to believe, or even acknowledge. Denial is easy, but gets repetitive at last, and no longer reassuring so he had to move on.
Corvo hardly thought about himself. Selfless, one might think. A weapon, he defined himself as. He was Emily's blade, and would slaughter everybody attempting to harm her. Nobody else, he kept repeating himself though the temptation was getting harder and harder to resist, when everything he saw in survivors were targets, when the first thing he noticed upon meeting anybody was their weak points and where they would bleed the fastest.
But he didn't strike, because survivors wouldn't harm Emily, and it was as far as he could go. He avoided slicing City guards, because most of them were simply obeying the current power, even if it was one of a tyrant. They followed orders, they were trained as such, just as he was trained to protect before he became an assassin. But it was still his priority, protect, even if the means were more violent now that he attacked before the enemies could even dare think of touching Emily.
(His blade never stopped at Overseers though, and he knew that each and every part of it was a mistake, a huge one, that he was forgetting his true role, that the zealous would not harm Emily and he was so well aware that this was perfectly selfish, this was for him and him only and he shouldn't do it. But he kept killing them, and thought they deserved it. They deserved such a fate for all the innocents they tortured for a made up confession because they wanted to feel accomplished by bringing harm to heretics, even if half the people who confessed didn't have the slightest link with the Outsider.)
Rage was his fuel, a dangerous one but he couldn't find another way to keep himself running.
Once hint was given to him that moving on was now useless, that it all slipped through his hands and there was nothing more he could do about it, his anger doubled. How dare they. He would not let himself be taken down. He would not accept it was already lost, that the battle was over. How dare they let him think so, when the blood felt so real on his hands, when the weight of the corpses let him ponder every time on the life he'd just taken, when the injuries still hurt.
Corvo let himself go loose, if only for a short amount of time, to prove himself a point, without even realizing himself was the only one to convince and he couldn't even do it because all of it was right. But fury blinded him, and he couldn't just believe his fate. He couldn't just accept he had let himself slip away, when he had so many things to do, when Emily needed protection, when… he wanted nothing more than to fix everything, to make everything alright again, for his sake but especially for Emily's. When he wanted them to be back at what they used to be.
(It turned longer than he wanted)
Anger isn't so far from grief when you're running around the streets slaughtering everybody around, pacing like a vulture, only because you absolutely refuse to acknowledge the only truth that can apply to you.
But still, he couldn't accept. And still, he tore everything apart, he tried to burn the city down to the ground for a reason he couldn't fathom anymore, anguish tearing at him and something that wasn't quite fury but more raw agony leading him.
Until he realized he wasn't angry anymore.
He was desperate.
Bargain was useless. Not only wasn't he one to, but there was nobody to call upon, nor anything he could give. And even less he could be given back.
He used to dream about getting back his former life. Perhaps it was what triggered him to fall into action so easily. But the dream burnt, and only ashes remained out of it. There was nothing to do, probably.
He tried, for a week perhaps, or for a month, to call on the Outsider. To ask, for what he didn't know. To get a glimpse of the life he used to have, even after Coldridge. But the entity was so silent, and Corvo couldn't bring himself to be surprised. So he had grown boring, was it? It wasn't so difficult of a thought to acknowledge. The Outsider has always been such a fleeting presence it was hard to imagine anything wouldn't end in abandonment and silence.
It didn't sting at all, because he expected it. Or perhaps because he felt hollow.
So that was it. There was nobody to beg, nothing anybody could give him and especially nothing he could give in return.
No bargain then.
The emptiness didn't leave, however. Corvo could sense its weight crushing him at each and every passing instant, and desperation soon became the only thing he could still feel. Despair and depression.
His regrets, his wishes were eating at him because he knew he would never make anything out of them. He knew there wasn't anything or anyone that could make him look at Emily again, the real one, not the pale imitation, so docile and lifeless.
He couldn't remember anymore what caused his denial to remain for so long. Couldn't he see the girl wasn't herself? Couldn't he see people disappearing when he no longer had his eyes set on them, or the way none of them never had anything else to say than meaningless words? Why didn't he realize sooner that the reason why he could never die was because he already was?
He was-- he.. he was dead. And there was no helping it.
But he couldn't accept it. It wasn't that he couldn't acknowledge, or refused in anger or faint hope there was still something that could save him. Simply that accepting it would mean his end, his definite one. It would mean there was no longer seeing Emily, his girl, still so young.
He was holding on broken parts, he knew, but he couldn't stop himself. Oh, he wasn't worried for Emily. Or, of course he was, but it was useless because he couldn't protect her anymore, he couldn't do anything else than hope she would manage, and firmly convince himself that of course she would. Emily didn't need him, not in this state.
But he, he couldn't stop himself from needing to see her again, and again, desperately clinging to the only remnants of a past that had already slipped away from his reach. Even if she didn't look like herself anymore, he needed to talk. Even though she never replied.
He wanted…
He didn't know what he wanted. And it was crushing him, another weight to bear. Another crack in the mask that would soon be too broken to be worn anymore.
He wanted for the corpses to stop reappearing alive, flesh and blood still staining the pavement; their body too destroyed to function was this the reality. He wanted for the people he killed to remain dead, for it was equal parts horrifying and strangely gleeful to see them running around, to know that he could still drive his blade into a living neck.
It was as tempting as pointless to wreck havoc again and burn the city, coat the walls with crimson where the gray could still be seen, hide every hint of the existence of a grand capitol in the place of a ruined place, filled with only rats and smoke.
And Corvo, but he was fading.
Anything about him was pointy edges, scattered parts and ashes, regrets and grief destroying everything he once was. Soon, there would be nothing to remain.
Could he cling to an unreachable dream? Could he even dream of something that wouldn't be tainted with blood and death?
It was unlikely.
He no longer saw the world. Dunwall was empty, the walls were nothing but black, endless bottoms and he was alone. Just like he had always been. Because this wasn't Dunwall. And Corvo Attano was no more, so the Dunwall he created had no reason to exist anymore either.
Acceptance.
In fact, it was the easiest, Corvo understood. After all he had went through, it only meant letting himself go.
(There was no other option after all)
It took him more time than he thought, to accept death. Him who believed he would let it come, it certainly had been a tedious process. So much anxiety, so many insecurities ate at him and it took him death for him to realize everything. Strange, how he never knew himself better than when he was his greatest enemy, the only one preventing him from reaching oblivion.
And when he welcomed the Void with open arms, the Void swallowed him, making him whole again, making him serene, especially upon the sight of shadows merging into a figure.
It was only fitting for the Outsider to be the last to see him.
“My dear Corvo, this is much disappointing, isn't it? You still don't know what caused your end.”
“It doesn't matter.” Corvo replied firmly, because it really didn't. It wouldn't change anything.
“Does it?” the Outsider tilted his head, a gleam of amusement in the bottomless pits he called eyes. “In some futures you never came to realize the sad fate you've met. In others, you remained as an avenging spirit, refusing yet to leave until your blood lust was satisfied. It was lovely, you were insatiable.”
“You would have preferred it to happen, don't you?” there was a hint of bitterness in his voice Corvo refused to acknowledge. It was neither the time nor the place for that. That too, wouldn't change anything.
“It would have been more… interesting to watch. But you acknowledged your own end, and accepted it; I can no longer do anything for you.”
It was disturbing, how disappointed the god sounded. Almost unnerving. He shouldn't appear so human.
“I wish you lasted longer. There wasn't any timeline where your actions were easy to predict, it was a refreshing change.”
Corvo ignored his last comment, focusing only on what he gave his life for.
“Don't bug Emily while I'm gone, won't you?” he sighed, knowing there was no aim in being aggressive. As if the dead could be intimidating.
“Of course.” the Outsider replied, his lips tugged in a half smile and the mocking reverence proved his lack of sincerity.
And if Corvo was concerned, just slightly of course, he was helpless with his inability to reach the girl, so he wouldn't worry. No matter what happened, it was and had been out of his league for a longer time than he'd have liked.
“Farewell then, Corvo.”