Archive of Our Own

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
—John 1:14

Trench is alive, a corpse that lives. It breathes on everything, and they are everything.

That is where they all come from.

That is where he comes from.

There is never a name. A whisper, mimicking the breath that creates him. They swarm between the space like falling stars, splitting into halves and biting into flesh.

On that day, the sky opens, and a bolt of light beats down onto the land of hay and dirt. The creatures perk up their ears, their eyes still, as a giant beacon of flame descends, submerging the earth and spreading into a leaf of gold, melting into one spot.

And the land shifts into a figure. 

The Flame wakes.

Trench listens, breathing slowly, as the winds bring clouds rushing towards the centre, sweeping rotted leaves along with them. The wooden limbs from the forests stretch, and so do the veined rivers, the calloused rock, the ribbons of grass, and the humping steps of all animals following the whispers.

The Flame wakes, eyes meeting the grass leaves kissing his face.

He wakes, naked skin gleaming under the sun, dirt coating his limbs, pillowed with a bed of golden flowers.

He wakes, and the entire land welcomes him.

He wakes, and he remembers nothing.

Nothing.

Was it the Bishops? Pierre asks once during one of those bonfire nights. They can make you forget. I’ve seen it.

I’ve seen it, too. The flowerbed is never like the circles of neon gravestones stationed within Dema. He knows before he breathes in it. I’ve seen everything.

The Flame blinks, breathes, and the soil bows under him, petals falling from him like rain as he sits up. There is hair draped over his eyes, and the red curls behind him tickle his nape as the wind teases him. He shouts, and it rushes away like laughing children along with his low echo, never telling a single thing.

But oh, he knew. He knew, by then, why they had awakened him to the earth. There is a prayer marked on his flesh, a name smothered by crimson, locked in darkness where they turn flesh to ice. A calling, who cried for mercy as he plunged his hands into the dark ink, a calling, a calling—

A boy.

He gasps as he stands, surprised at the blood rushing down as the whole world spins, as the sun blinds his sight. He hears the beating drum lodged in his chest, the fire in his fists, the fragility of his skin and the calling that is forged within his flesh and he knows. He knows who he is without knowing what His Kind tells him, and as the whispers rise and the echoes of children's songs washes through the land—

—he runs.

It is like a flash of lightning.

The Flame runs, all human, leaving a large trail of yellow daisies under his feet as a beam of light flies across the woods. He runs, flying over the hay fields, the pulsing rivers, the lifeless rocks, the small islands, the cold oceans and through the occupied terrain all the way to the walled-up city, screaming his first and only word—

Tyler.

Tyler is calling for me.

The rebels call him the Torchbearer.

When they discovered him, his glow had shrunk to a tiny spark, never-ending on a staff. The petals merged to cover his chest with a golden cross, vines now wrapped around his skin as hooded fabric. The first word he screamed out was hidden by the yellow over his knee, still weeping.

It was raining, but his fire never went away. The lost rebels followed the narrow path carved out by the sycamores, hungry and tired, leading them to the only light in the storm. There, a man calls for them, and they were guided back to their little makeshift camp with his flame.

They have claimed him as their leader since then.

Факелоносец.¹ It rings, this title, and the Banditos look up to him, even when all he does is mend a little fire for the tents, scour the land, and stay up every night to hunt down the vultures. They offer him small fish and roasted meat, which he doesn’t crave. They give him clear water and vegetable broth, a thirst he doesn’t quench. Eventually, they give up.

“Please just let yourself rest,” Karta practically begs, pushing the basket of smoked kippers and flat bread into his chest. “We don’t want you to start burning out too.”

The fires cackle at the irony, even when he doesn’t. Later at night, Torchbearer asks for a second batch, craving for a love he doesn’t understand.

I told you you would like it.

Yes, Torchbearer thinks, staring at the basket and his unfamiliar hands. And maybe Tyler does, too.

Torchbearer, Світло для світу.² The Banditos love listening to his words, even when he doesn’t know where they come from. Trench only spies on the earth, and neither does His Kind offer any more than what their whispers say. Yet the Banditos, full of music and laughter and life, all reach the goal of demolishing the city where they come from.

We need to destroy the towers, and Torchbearer agrees. He holds his fire up high after every gathering, and all the rebels cheer. They look up to him and find their vigour through him, yet Torchbearer doesn’t mind any of it, staring into the distance of Dema from the humps of the land.

Хата. ³

Tyler. The Bishops in Dema claim him as something else, but he will always be Tyler. 

The Banditos go into the city, with Torchbearer at the front, breathing a warning to the walls that took everything away. They can take away the land, they can take away the skies, but they cannot take away the people’s voices, and they cannot take away their home.

My home. Torchbearer muses as he steps into the city for the first time with his people. I am returning home.

No, they will not take that away from him.

They will not.

Torchbearer finds him on their sixth mission.

They are entering Dema through Keons’ district. When they step foot into the concrete ground, the air hangs tight with a heavy scent looming over, black smoke choking anyone who dares to challenge the Bishop’s reign. The Banditos wear their yellow bandanas over their faces, holding letters with little yellow daisies attached in the envelopes. They scatter from the discussed meeting point—the lifeless courtyard of the tower— as they run through the streets and deliver their messages to unmarked doors until they gather back before the break of day.

Torchbearer remains in the courtyard, kneeling as he tends to a shrivelling daisy at the corner. The flower blooms into gold under his palms.

A vulture caws as he stands, and he looks up. Within the central tower where the Bishop resides, several feet above him, there is a boy in a grey shirt draped with a red blanket, staring from his window sill.

Soft eyes, plum lips, slightly ruffled hair. Fading black ink and fresh blood smeared all over his hands.

Torchbearer lifts down his bandana. The air never really bothers him anyway. He smiles.

“Want to come with me?”

The boy doesn’t move. His eyes never blink as he stares at Torchbearer’s creation, growing in the tower’s courtyard.

“Torchbearer.”

He turns, and Magnus arrives along with the people, panting on his feet.

“We have to leave soon.”

When Torchbearer looks up again, the boy from the window sill is gone.

They leave the city at dawn, and the woods open a way for them as the sun blinks awake, casting golden shadows onto the soil. When they return, the Banditos celebrate another successful mission, setting up tables with roasted potatoes, carrots, smoked salmon, loaves of flatbread, slices of cheese, baskets of grapes and blueberries and cups of honey lemonade, surrounding a massive bonfire at the heart of the camp. String music, fast-paced drumming, and ritual dances fuel the night; men, women and children circle around the fires, anticipating their leader’s words.

By the time the ivory moon hangs above their heads, Torchbearer delivers with the flame in his hand. He announces with his words that he knows, not what he remembers, lifting his torch above to the sky as his people erupt into cheers, wishing upon the fading stars that one day, one day, they can all return home. Among them, Torchbearer shines the brightest, even when his calling is the one in the darkest oceans, the one furthest from his touch.

Torchbearer smiles despite it all.

Because three days later, the boy from the window sill is running through the mountain gorge miles away from their camp, as a Bishop mounted on a horse chases down his prey. Three days later, the boy limps as he runs, gasping and barely holding onto consciousness, yet he screams with every dying breath even if it grates his throat. The yellow daisy from the courtyard is inside his grip, crushed under his blackened fingertips.

Even when Nico takes the boy back, the Banditos are ready, because Torchbearer will never forget who he belongs to.

Tyler.

Tyler laughs.

He laughs before taking a huge step back, snapping his bright red eyes at Torchbearer.

It has been two days, and Tyler is still wearing the green jumpsuit after his rescue, with two flimsy yellow tapes stuck onto his shoulders by the Banditos. Blackness crawls onto his neck beneath it. His hands twitch, a hardened coal husk that breaks apart in the ice, and he breathes in small gasps with sweat coating his forehead and body shivering yet there is fury. So much fury.

Torchbearer frowns.

“Tyler–”

“It’s Clancy.”

He speaks with so much venom that Torchbearer stops thinking.

“My name is Clancy,” Tyler spits out, taking another step back. “Get it right.”

Torchbearer frowns even more.

“You are still Tyler to me.”

From afar, the Banditos laugh along with their songs and stories, playing beside the campfires. The woods are growing cold, the oak trees darkening as the sun begins to fall. Tyler glares at Torchbearer, clenching and unclenching his fists. The black fades a little. 

“Fine.” He looks away. “Fine.“ 

Trench shimmers under the orange sky, backed against the setting sun as Tyler’s eyes shrink away, remaining glassy and lost. Nobody wants to leave their home. But home is never there. You don’t get it. Home is outside the walls. You don’t get it. You don’t get it. Because you don’t have anything to call with.

“If it makes you feel better,” Torchbearer offers, “I can tell you my real name.”

Tyler scoffs. “Yeah? And what is it?”

Torchbearer opens his mouth, but nothing. Nothing but a whisper. He can try rendering it in sounds, and it is never fitting enough. But he tries, and he tries it for Tyler.

“Joshua.”

“...Joshua?”

It is a foreign name, at least to the city. Tyler blinks, letting his guard down for a bit, and the black fades a little. Then, he shakes his head.

“No,” Tyler says, staring at Torchbearer. “No. You’re not 'Joshua' or whatever that is anymore.”

The leaves crack underneath his feet. Next thing Torchbearer knows, a pair of black hands are squeezing around his neck.

“You’re just ‘Josh.’” Tyler says, eyes bleeding red like a caged white rabbit. “You want to know how it feels? You want to be just like the Bishops? I can claim your name, too. I can rewrite your entire existence. I can take everything away from you just like them. I can keep calling you ‘Josh’ until you completely forget who you were.”

From afar, the vultures mount the land of the undead, flying over their heads. Tyler’s grip around Torchbearer’s neck is not tightening, not loose.

Torchbearer blinks.

Perhaps it is because the name is given by Tyler. Perhaps he has simply heard it before, from the realm of physical heartbeat and flashing beams and red paper feathers. His Kind never answers back over this dream. But if this is his name between the shadows and soil, then so be it. He would be tethered now, wouldn’t he?

“...I’m not afraid of you, Tyler.”

And Tyler’s face falls, red fading away along with the black. He releases Josh, wrath replaced with a second of primal fear. Then, with a huff, he turns his heel and stalks into the woods.

The sky turns black, and the stars peek from above the mountains from afar. Tyler ventures into the darkness, abandoning the place he had dreamt of as he drifts further away from the warmth, where the Banditos remain, waiting for their leader to ignite the major bonfire for tonight.

Josh goes with Tyler into the darkness anyway.

To the Banditos, Clancy is a ghost. A warrior with powers of demons, yet never there. They whisper about him: murmurs of a new revolution, a new leader, dangerous yet strong enough to take over the towers and free all the lost souls from the graves.

Tyler is none of those.

And Trench knows it. Every midnight before dawn, that boy slips out of his tent and goes to the rocky cliff at the end of the mountain gorges, facing the Paladin Strait. He always brings his worn-down ukulele and hums a tune with his soft voice, carried by the waves that bring him far, far away.

Tonight is no different, and Tyler sings like the sun has abandoned him.

“Nice song.”

Tyler jumps, music snapped short. He spins around to find Josh, holding his torch that burns bright under the purple darkness.

“Oh.” Tyler stares for a moment before looking away, cheeks growing pink. He hides his ukulele in his arms. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

Josh only smiles in response. He walks next to Tyler, nearing the edge of the cliff. “Mind if I sit?”

Tyler doesn’t reply, but Josh joins him anyway. The soft ocean breeze touches them gently as the red sun rises from the horizon.

“...I’m sorry.”

Josh turns to Tyler. “For what?”

Tyler refuses to look at him, eyes still locked on the broken ukulele, gripping it tight. “I was horrible to you.”

“You were scared.”

“Doesn’t excuse what I did.”

“I forgive you.” Josh laughs. "I quite like the name you give me, actually." 

Tyler meets Josh’s gaze. His eyes, without the red and the blackness choking him, are a soft shade of pastel brown.

“...Josh?”

”Yeah?”

“Josh.” Tyler’s voice is shaking. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I basically threatened to smear you.”

“But you didn’t.”

Tyler stares at Josh’s smile, and he doesn’t retort anymore, making them sit in silence. The woods far behind them rustle, sighing in hushes like dying cicadas, as the land awakes with the orange rays peaking out from the ocean.

“Can I hear you sing again?”

Tyler blinks. “Uh.” His gaze flickers between his jumpsuit sleeves and Josh. “I don’t know.”

“You have a nice voice.”

Tyler blushes again. “...Thanks.”

Josh shifts closer, holding onto Tyler’s hands. For a calling that has been in slumber since the splitting of black and water, the flesh craves for that familiarity.

“I would love to hear you sing again.”

Tyler hesitates for a long moment before he nods. He lets go of Josh’s hands to hold out his ukulele, strumming a few scattered chords over the strings, then stays still, looking at Josh awkwardly.

“Um. I’ve never done this before,” Tyler admits. “What kind of song would you like?”

“Anything you want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Tyler huffs, plucking on the strings on the ukulele. “I can’t just go off on anything.”

“What about the song you just played? The one about us?”

Tyler hesitates. He looks down at his fingers once again, taking a deep breath.

“...Okay.”

By that time, the ocean is pure gold, along with the waves and the woods and gorges lying behind them. The rivers flow along with the creatures, clear like crystals, as Tyler sings with the swaying winds, letting his voice be heard by the world. Trench stirs awake with the music, and it’s like the memories of the flower fields again.

The children were all laughing.

He remembers it as if it were yesterday, even when he was never there. Yet Josh lets himself forget, cheering when Tyler finishes. A patch of buttercups grows around them when Tyler smiles timidly for the first time. He starts another song again, and one song turns into two, and then three, and then hours at the cliff, where the music becomes echoes that linger over the mountain ranges of the land.

I created this world
To feel some control
Destroy it if I want
So I sing Sahlo Folina

Sahlo Folina…

And Trench understands what those soft echoes mean.

The days of reddened leaves, snow and thick flower fields have gone by. Soon, they have reached their second summer in Trench.

On that night, the shadows stalk over the woods; the golden eyes of vultures always watch from above. They always come with blood in their mouths.

Trench knows before anyone else does.

By dusk, the sun is blocked by the looming clouds above. When darkness arrives, the Baniditos are forced to cancel their bonfire night because of the heavy rain plummeting the land like a white sheet of cold metal. The strong winds swish through the camp like a hoard of locusts, tent entrances flapping back and forth. Only a singular beam of fire glows in the centre of the camp despite the rain.

And at midnight, as the storm rumbles in the distance, Tyler wakes with a choked gasp beside Josh, tears streaming down his cheeks. When Josh lights up their oil lamp, Tyler’s eyes are fading gold, his arms growing pure black.

“I can feel him,” Tyler breathes out, trembling in numbing agony as he wraps his body with his arms. “He’s going to take me back.”

“You’re not going back,” Josh hangs the oil lamp above them and crawls in front of Tyler. “You are not.”

Tyler just gapes at Josh, staring past him. “They seized me,” he babbles. “Just now. They seized me. They seized me when I was alive. It only ever works with dead people but they did it with me. They took over my body and-and they-I–”

“Tyler-”

“—I am a weapon, Josh, they used me!” Tyler’s eyes flash red as he struggles to breathe. He claws his neck, trying to scrub the black ink that is biting into his skin. “They want me back there. I-I’m too powerful for them to lose. I can’t go back there Josh but they—they wanted me back, I—they can’t make me do—I can’t—I–”

The black skin on Tyler’s neck rips enough to bleed under his nails. Josh winces, and he reaches to pry Tyler’s hands away.

“Tyler, stop-“

“NO!”

Within a second, Josh is pushed back onto his cot as Tyler scrambles over his blankets, springs up, and bolts right out of the tent.

“Tyler!”

Josh rushes out of the tent and chases after Tyler. Wet mud and tiny sticks prickle his feet, but Josh doesn’t care. He knows all of it. Through the heavy rain and the lifeless camp, Tyler stumbles his way past the blackened torches, past the sleeping tents and dashes straight into the dark woods. The trees open a way Tyler can’t see, leaves cushioning his bare feet and branches stretching to cover the golden eyes; lightning flashes with the sky rumbling and the winds continue to scream, muffling Tyler’s teary gasps.

It is dark. Tyler cannot see in the dark.

And he doesn’t get very far. Josh stops when a giant uprooted tree lies across their path, blocking the way with heavy stones and tangled branches. Under the faint shine of the moon, Tyler is attempting to climb over the flaking wood with shaking hands, desperate for an escape. His palms are covered in splinters against the dried tree bark, and he jams his blackened hands on it over and over again until they bleed.

Josh steps closer, and Tyler whips around, eyes wide.

“Don’t,” he whispers and backs up against the tree. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m serious, Joshua. Get back.”

Josh grits his teeth. The name feels flat now, when he knows who were the root of it in the first place. “You are not a weapon.”

Tyler looks down at his feet, trying to hold the creeping tears from his eyes. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“And I don’t care,” Josh says, taking another step. “It was never your fault, Tyler.”

And Tyler flinches at the name. And just like that, they are back in square one. And just like that, the home he has built petal by petal is no more. Just like that, Tyler only answers to Clancy once again, all because of them. All because the Bishops had taken everything from him. All because they were the ones infiltrating the ancient land with their selfishness and their useless so-called religion. All because there is only fire within him, and fires can only guide but not scream. Clancy is our future,Torchbearer. The Banditos know nothing. Clancy will defeat the Bishops. Clancy is our saviour. Clancy is our weapon. Clancy. Clancy. Clancy. They know nothing.

Only Josh gets to call him Tyler. Only Josh knows Tyler’s name because it is burrowed within his flesh, within the engraving on his knee. Only Josh calls him Tyler because Tyler still refuses to tell anyone and accept it.

His drum rumbles, muscles tensing, blood beating through his veins. Josh is livid, and His Kind howls with him, the winds growing stronger over the shaking trees, sky roaring. If he gets to be flesh only once, then he begs for this earth to swallow him whole with his pure hellfire.

Tyler looks back with teary eyes, yet his head is clear for all the wrong reasons. “They’re going to take me back,” he says, and it’s final. “I was born to be like them, Josh–”

“No.”

A streak of lightning strikes down. Tyler freezes as the tree towering behind Josh erupts into flames, bursting into a burning wildflower. The ripples of fire spread onto the leaves all the way to Josh’s bare feet, yet Josh pays it no mind, grabbing Tyler’s blackened arm and pulling him into his embrace.

“No,” Josh says, holding Tyler tight. “You are not.”

And Tyler is not. He is not. He is not, as Tyler melts in his touch, the cold blackness melting along with his warmth. It takes him forever to hug back, but Josh can care less. Tyler is not like them. He is not. Not.

The flames continue to burn, sealing them from the vultures’ eyes. The rain has stopped, and although Tyler is wet and shivering from the cold, Josh’s hoodie is dry. Tyler buries into the fabric, clinging onto the scent of smoke and cedar as if that is the only thing keeping him from the raging winds.

Josh closes his eyes.

Please, allow me to be childish for once.

Trench only sighs, leaving them with nothing but the remains of its tears.

Two days later, when the sun rises, Josh wakes up in his tent alone.

Trench is restless, issuing a warning.

The winds no longer howl, and the woods have gone dead quiet. Flowers bend their necks, and the sun only glows in white, with the sky turning into a sickening blue. The vultures have gone missing ever since the rain, and flames around the camp no longer glow with the orange radiance the Banditos yearn for.

His feet are bare, standing over the soft bed of golden flowers where he was awakened to the land. The field is now free from the rings of trees and channels, budding with green leaves and scattered yellow daisies as the sun blinds the world. His Kind hisses, touching him through his fingertips, yet there are no more words, no more golden crosses attached to his body, because there isn’t a need for any.

There is only one thing left for him now.

“Torchbearer!”

The bushes move the same, still hushing, and Baldur stops just behind, folding onto his legs to catch his breath.

“Torch—bearer! It’s-It’s Clancy, he’s—!”

“I know.”

Baldur stops. When he looks up, his leader’s warm eyes gaze at him. The fire of his torch is blinding.

“I know.”

Baldur stands up straight, clearing his throat. “Clancy is missing,” he reports and starts panicking once again. “W-what are we supposed to do? He’s going to be one of our new leaders, and he’s-he’s gone-!”

“I will go find him.”

“What?”

Torchbearer steps closer, his eyes never leaving. “I will go find him,” he says, voice echoing over the field, even when the towers hear it as nothing but a whisper from his own lips. “And I will bring him home.”

Torchbearer lends his fire to Baldur as he switches glances between his leader and the torch, awkwardly taking the torch into his hands. When he looks up again, Torchbearer is smiling.

“I will be there when you call for me.”

“Huh?” Baldur says, brows furrowing. He takes a step forward. “W-What are you talking about—?”

A blink.

And Baldur stands, torch in hand, alone on the field where the breath lingers.

Where Torchbearer vanishes.

Tari was right. If they wanted a leader, it should’ve been a rebel, but it was the best gift they had received. Perhaps it was this ancient land welcoming their new people, because before the projection disappeared, there was only ever a flame that never stopped burning.

In Trench, they were never alone.

Even when there is never really anyone there in the first place.

Tyler.

Remember who you are.

I know it sounds scary now, but you have to listen to me. Once they have you, they will drown you. But when you do remember, you have to come back home.

It is in your name. Come back home. Come back.

Can you tell Mama your name?

“You were right,” Clancy sobs, hiding his head in his arms. “You were right. You were right. You were right.”

They have taken everything from him. The Bishops have taken everything from him. They have taken his name, his body, his flesh, his voice, his sight. They have shackled him to write, they have drugged him to kill, and now they have forced him to suffer, carving love with knives as he screams, as red pools down from his back to his thighs, his legs, his feet to remember the suffering he had caused on everyone. This is love. We are correcting your mistakes. Love. 

And in the midst of all this pain and delirium, he remembers.

He remembers everything.

Clancy.

Clancy shakes his head. “My name is Tyler,” he gasps, holding onto the chains on his wrists, the hair in his fists, the skin that was ripped apart and beating out hot liquid from his cuts because, no matter how many times the Bishops have entered the darkness with him, his body refuses to stay dead. “My name is Tyler. My name is Tyler. My name is Tyler. My name is Tyler. My name is–”

Tyler. It has always been Tyler. Until the Bishops came for them, searching for the child born with red eyes. Until the darkness had taken over along with the sharp claws around his neck, blood splattered across the fields. Until the night he woke up to cheers, to the podium where bodies hang from the ledges and the neon gravestones lying below his feet. Until he was led inside the tower, bright with white lights and dark walls, where Nico welcomed him into his arms, washed him with the blood of his brothers and sisters and kissed him despite his weak sobs.

My Son.

Clancy whimpers. Clancy, Tyler, he doesn’t know anymore. He lived through both; he is told he is neither. Perhaps neither of them were real in the end. The black ink that runs through his veins screams for the red, but the fact that the Torchbearer only calls him Tyler makes his stomach churn.

“Tyler.”

Clancy jolts.

He peeks over from his lap, and within the looming darkness and his blurred vision, a man stands before him.

No.

Yet he feels it: the warmth from the man’s body, the faint scent of burnt firewood and daisies flows, and the air settles with the morning dew of the fields, with tiny grass leaves growing from the cracks of the cold stone wall, brushing under his fingertips. This is no longer a cold cell at the stone towers, and Clancy dares to dream.

“...Josh?” he whispers. “Torchbearer?”

Torchbearer stands, unmoving, yet it is as if everything from Trench is contained within him, and it comes back to Clancy all at once. The leader looks different. Older, darker, wearing a long black cape and black clothes, long gone are his golden crosses and the green fabric, yet his smile stays the same.

“Come back,” he says, voice echoing through the cell. “Come back to us.”

“I—” Clancy stammers. “I don’t—I don't know-”

“You will find a way,” Torchbearer says, kneeling in front of Clancy. “I believe in you.”

Torchbearer lends out his hand, and Clancy eyes it for a long moment. It must be a trick from the darkness, it must be, but what does the darkness know about the light? What do the Bishops know about his unending fire? Did they take that away from him, too? Did they snuff out his flame, just like how they did with his memories?

Does it even matter if nothing’s ever real?

Clancy reaches out to hold Josh’s hand. Warm, calloused, just like the hand that plays with his hair, just like the hand that guides him through the forest in the night. It is like he never left, back to the days near the cliffs over the waves, and Clancy buries himself in Josh’s arms even when the chains yank him back, shooting pain to his wrists. Safe. You’re safe. He will never be safe ever again. Safe. Safe. Safe.

Torchbearer is smiling at him as if everything is alright. That’s when his figure starts to fade.

And Tyler breaks.

“Don’t leave me, Josh.” He starts sobbing, holding Josh tighter once again as if it will do anything to stop. “Josh, please, I beg you, please don’t leave me, Josh, I beg you, please—!”

Hallucination or not, he doesn’t care anymore. If the Bishops created a corrupted memory of his leader just to sedate him into submission, he doesn’t care anymore. If Torchbearer is never there and Josh has long been dead, he doesn’t care anymore. Anything. I will take anything. Anything but the blue door. Anything but the pain. Anything but going back to the Bishops. Anything but going back. Please.

A loud bang echoes from outside the cell, followed by heavy footsteps, and Tyler flinches against Josh’s hug.

“Josh.” He looks up, tears falling from his terrified eyes.

Torchbearer smiles.

“I am always with you,” he says, cupping Tyler’s face. “I will always be with you, Tyler.”

And Tyler believes it. He believes it, even after he is dragged away by the guards to the blue door, where soulless eyes and cold hands shackle him to write until everything turns black. Even after they have brought him to the Tower of Silence, where his body is seized, where his skin is covered with the crimson screams of thousands, tainted with the rotting flesh of corpses below his feet. Even after they force the chlorine down his throat until he choked, making him throw up the words he never wants, sedating him to sing about the deaths he never asks. They do this again and again and again, to the point they have washed everything out of him, and Tyler believes it. He believes it, and he never stops clinging to that childish hope of his, because there is nothing left for him to believe in.

Clancy is dead. Tyler is no longer his name to claim. They don’t matter anymore.

Nothing matters anymore.

The fabled leader that yielded the fire had turned into a vision among the rebels.

They never figured out what really happened. All they remember was Clancy. Clancy, who left the Banditos and was taken by the Bishops. Clancy, who was sacrificed and killed in the battle. Clancy, who was lost, and Torchbearer was left forever wandering between Dema and the woods of Trench, searching for him.

They split into factions. Some went to Dema to save more lost souls, confirming that Clancy was dead. Others branded him as a traitor. Some waited, knowing deep down that the fire never burns out. Some searched on the far lands further east, hoping to somehow catch the sight of a torch on their way, and sometimes they did. 

But they knew. They all knew that one day, their leader would return with what they were promised.

Six years have passed since.

The waves of a small island bring flecks of firewood to the camp.

It’s a sign.

When a group of Banditos return to the mysterious flower bank of buttercups where a figure appears with a torch, they know they are right.

“He is returning.”

Torchbearer is happy.

Across the fields of hay and dried bushes, swallows flutter around the camp, burnt flakes of oak floating over the fog. The sky paints a fading violet, and the winds bring the same whispers all the way from the past. Trench sings like a choir of children from the mountains above.

He knows it. He knows it all. When the Bishop of Death has shown his tangled love through the sinking of a dragon, when the creatures of the island sacrificed their powerful antlers, when the oceans washes up and waves ceases with the presence of his own image, he knows it. He is coming home.

At night, the Banditos set up a large bonfire for the anticipated return, growing like a dancing maple leaf. Torchbearer lifts his fire high into the dark sky, illuminating the woods, the branches, the stars, the open fields, walking to where the whispers take him. The familiar golden cross rolls over his chest; in his hand is the balaclava gifted by the Banditos as their new leader, a weapon turned into a force for their cause, their strength, their power.

And Torchbearer is happy.

He is returning.

By midnight, Torchbearer waits by the bonfire, and the surrounding trees open a pathway where the leaves rustle with footsteps. Emerging from the bushes is his own image, dressed in darkness, as he leads a figure out of the woods, and there—

Tyler walks out of the bushes to hold the image’s hand. His black cape covers him, grey uniform torn and worn down by the weather, by the ocean, by the years of seclusion, beaten by the red. There is a scar running across his nose bridge, brown eyes burning under the flame of the bonfire, tired and defeated—yet he stands.

When Tyler looks away from projection, he freezes, still holding onto the image’s arm as he stares at Torchbearer, standing seven steps away from him.

When he turns to The Flame again, he finds nothing.

Nothing.

And it catches up to him. Those dreams, erased by the six years of actual lonely memories, and recollections of Josh all wash away like the ocean that drowns him. Josh with him in prison, in the blue room, on the fake stages, in the submarine, in the waters, on the island and all the way into the woods of Trench—

Nothing.

Nothing.

“Tyler.”

Tyler’s gaze snaps back to Torchbearer. His eyes look haunted.

“How,” Tyler trembles out. “...How?”

How did you know everything? How did you know what I had forgotten? How did you know my name? How are you standing over there and not—?

“I just do.” Torchbearer answers for him. He steps forward, holding out the balaclava. “I know everything about you, Tyl—”

“No.”

Tyler’s voice is sharp. Under the bonfire light, his eyes are flickering into something else.

“No,” Tyler repeats, and it all comes back to him. ”You know nothing about me.” It all comes back to him, the darkness slithering under his skin. It all comes back to him as he stands alone. “Where were you?”

Trench no longer speaks. The whispers have gone too far away as Tyler asks a question with an answer no man can ever understand.

“Were you just here the entire time?" Tyler's voice cracks. "Where were you?" 

“I was guiding you,” Torchbearer frowns. He steps closer.  “I was saving you, Tyler-”

“‘Saving?’” Tyler says incredulously. “You called that ‘saving?’ You watched me get tortured and used by the Bishops for six years and called that ‘saving?’ I was in hell, Josh!” He screams. “Where were you? What even are you? Are you a hallucination? Are you even real? Why—?” He lets out a choked sob, burying his eyes in his hands. “Why didn't you do anything?”

Tyler’s entire frame shakes as he cries, letting the tears drop onto the dried grass, blackness slowly crawling back onto his fingers. Torchbearer can only stand, watching Tyler break despite having said all the words he could've said. 

“Tyler….”

“It’s not fair,” Tyler says, voice muffled by his palms. “It’s not fair. I wished you were dead, I wished you weren’t real, and then you tricked me into believing you were. No, you did nothing. Only I got myself out. Me. It was only me. You did nothing to stop them. You were never there.”

When Tyler looks up again with unshed tears in his eyes, he finally sees Torchbearer for what he is for the first time.

And a realisation dawns on him.

“...It has always just been me.”

The camp stays silent. The Banditos around them stand still, holding their flickering torches, as Tyler breathes deeply, hoping Josh denies everything.

Torchbearer says nothing.

He may not understand the outrage, but Torchbearer knows what is true. He is a a flame, a guide, and that is all there is. And from the day of that boy’s birth to his capture, his first conversion, his first murder, his first escape and his first death, the fire has never left, forever implanted over his chest. Burns don’t fade away like scabs. They scar your bodies, and The Flame goes with him forever like the soil of the dead. 

Tyler doesn’t know. How could he? He is only a child.

“I hope you know, Tyler,” Torchbearer says, “that I’ve never, ever, left you.”

Trench stirs, caressing the warrior’s scarred cheeks, but Tyler only shakes his head. By the time the bonfire has dimmed down to his knees, his neck is already seeping half-black.

“You don’t get it.” he whispers bitterly, despite all the things he wanted to say. “Why won’t you get it? I’m not just him anymore.”

Tyler doesn’t look when he takes the balaclava from Torchbearer’s hand. He takes off his beanie and slips it over his head before his fading red eyes scan through the dim fires of the Banditos. He lifts up the antlers gifted to him from the island, and under the blazing hellfire, the Banditos cheer.

Clancy! Clancy! Clancy!

“They turned me into a weapon.”

There will be two bright red stripes draped over his shoulders.

“And I will give the people what they want. What I want.”

Torchbearer watches, and a schism happens within him.

“...I want to feel alive again.”

Josh doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t, he really doesn’t. Even after uttering his name, after following his calling, after all the guiding and being among the rebels, he doesn’t understand. The city that he promises to destroy is going to burn, and the rebellion he is picked to lead is succeeding, but Tyler is no more.

Tyler is no more.

“You know what I’ve realised?” Clancy says, face solemn. “I have been nothing but a vessel for both lands." He looks over his blackened arms and the sharpened antlers. “I was never really myself.”

Josh breathes. “Tyler, I-“

“No.”

His voice echoes over the battlefield, cries of triumph faint under his cold words. Without his balaclava, Clancy’s eyes grow crimson, blackness filled to the brim of his neck, yet he frowns as he stares back.

“You don’t get it. You only ever see that part of me, but I can never be like you, Torchbearer.” Clancy sighs, glancing over the city from the walls above. “At least one of us was born human.”

Below their feet, over the fields outside the walls, the Banditos fight with their lives against the dead, triumphing with the fire gifted by their leader and with the blessings of the ocean. They are winning the war, yet all Clancy looks are the towers facing him, eyes filled with pain and longing. 

“I’m so tired,” Clancy says. The sash with his baptised name flows aimlessly along the wind. “I don’t want to run away anymore.”

“Please,” Josh begs, holding onto Clancy’s jacket. “This isn’t right. We must do better, Tyler. We must do better, please.”

The vultures over their heads circle around the towers, winds catching with the golden petals from afar, mixing with the red carnations that were plucked from the decaying earth and Josh knows what it entails. He knows, even as he begs for His Kind to not let go, clinging onto the sole reason for his breath. 

When Clancy looks back, there are silent tears in his eyes, and there is nothing but want.

“I’m sorry,” Clancy says, voice clear at last. “I’m so sorry.”

And like the fading dust, Clancy slips away from Josh’s grasp. He falls from the walls, lands onto the ground of the city, and runs towards the towers where he was reborn.

“Tyler!”

Josh screams as he runs after Clancy, but a sudden horde of zombies rushes from all corners, surrounding him. The Banditos roar as they infiltrate the city with beams of fire and torches, charging like the wrathful ocean, drowning out the image of Clancy as they block Josh’s way. He struggles through the mass of humans and corpses fighting each other as the twilight sky blooms violently with bice, dark purple and bright orange. Josh screams, again and again and again, for the boy who summoned him, for the child who dreams of becoming a poet, for the man who will be the closest touch of love Torchbearer will ever have, yet all he is met with is the bloodshed of his people, screaming over the howls of the wind.

“TYLER!”

Josh cries for the first time. He cries, because he doesn’t understand. He cries, because everything has gone so wrong, so painful. He cries, because he never asked for this, never wanted to guide, never wanted to be the fire. No matter how many times he begs, His Kind never answers back, leaving him alone in the wind and the golden flowers where even his maker abandoned him.

Flames can only guide, and his flame is so great he hurts the only person he loves.

I’m so sorry, Josh.

That boy is no more.

By the time the sun fades and all the zombies fall, the Banditos will halt because of a sudden beam of light from the towers. They will look up to find flower petals— poppies, yellow daisies, calliopsis, fluttering down like coloured snow as the towers burn under a tall, orange flame. The sky is dark purple, the winds bring up the heat, and Dema illuminates for the first time, its citizens witnessing the birth of a new sun.

And they will see him. They will see him, and they will scream with tears of joy. The Banditos cheer, and the citizens of Dema cheer as they rejoice at the figure who levitates over the flame in the night sky. Draped in golden stripes and robes of red, flowing blood satin with yellow daisies seeping from his blackened palms. They all chant for him and worship his name, but Josh knows it better than anyone else.

That isn’t Clancy. That is never Clancy, and Tyler is no more.

Tyler is no more.

Outside, they run,
and they never came back,
and the sun continues to weep
until the lost sheep was found once again
hearing his voice.

Do you feel at home?

There is a small house built several miles away from the destroyed city, surrounded by ice mountains, clear rivers, and deep ravines filled with amethysts and growing saplings. Beyond are the scattered orchards flowing among the winds, trees budding with citrus, and grass fields blooming with red windflowers and marigolds.

That is where the boy comes from.

The door to the house creaks, and light footsteps patter against the wooden floor. The scent of cedar and honey fills the air, accompanied by sliced green melons and red tea on the table. The purple shells hanging from the windows dance in the wind, along with the crackling radio, and the sun paints the empty house with a shade of bright orange.

And the low humming.

“...Josh?”

Trench is alive, a corpse that lives. It breathes on everything, and they are everything.

The vase of white lilies that he puts onto the table blooms with the yellow daisies climbing around it. When he turns, there is a man at the door.

No longer wearing black clothes, no longer draped in red. Just a simple travelling robe and a pair of clear, brown eyes underneath the hood.

We love you.
No matter what you have become, we will always love you.

He smiles. There are tears in his eyes and everything burns, but he smiles.

“Welcome home.”