Chapter Text
To the tragically emo asshole who chose himself over the world,
How does it feel to be so irrevocably wrong?
I am writing this to you on the brink of freedom. The moon is high in the sky, the clouds have long parted, and the fire set in the back is warm against my skin.
I am writing to you in hopes of setting my thoughts straight before I part, and to give you something to think about.
Regret for your actions, should you be capable.
Guilt towards the island, if you are the person I thought you were.
If anything, I hope to articulate that your ego is ten times the size of your skull—and your head is literally balloooooned, my guy. Like dude, I can actually feel your ego leaking out of your ears from over here. And I’m in the literal fucking tundra. Shit freezes over here. Becomes solid. It doesn’t fucking travel cross-biome. Tough shit, I guess.
Anyways,
Consider this letter a collection of parting words, stale thoughts; of things we’ve left to rot along the ashes of our friendship. Things we let rot while we were friends.
However, in the end, it is only a selfish cry for mercy.
I never blamed you for taking caution against Island One. That you chose to see the severity of their anger as fuel for war. That you chose against plans for aid, lest our island wished to be the force behind their ravenous armies.
Do I think you took it too far? Yes. Do I think it was preemptive? Absolutely. Baseless? Partially. But I never resented you for choosing another path. For disagreeing. For taking to diplomacy in ways I swore against.
I just never thought our differences would become our divide. That you would choose those pointy-ass stalactites over conversation—your ideals over our friendship. And all for a fucking conspiracy theory, Flux. A baseless fucking conspiracy theory. Seems real ridiculous now, huh?
The nations have united. Against you. Got what you wanted in a way, I suppose. So kudos to you.
To say the least, your choices have stirred a wonderful swirl of colourful thoughts in my head. Was it immediate? Did you see my isolation as part of your blueprint? Did it come later? When? Did you see my trust as weakness? Was it worth it?
Your adamence for my head quelled none of them.
Fuck, I was so easy, wasn’t I?
Must’ve been a real jab when I escaped those Commonwealth cronies, huh? Thought they’d be competent enough to execute me?
Nice rigging that trial, by the way. I definitely didn’t see it coming.
Yet, despite all the ways you betrayed me, to all the people you bribed, to all the men and women out for the flesh and bone on my body, for every insult I throw your way, I feel no hatred. Nothing to linger in the air as I part, nothing to sully the memories of simpler times I wish to view with nostalgia.
But I am tired.
Beyond rest.
This isolation no longer medicates my fear, but highlights what I have lost. It feels real. My arms are warm, Flux, but everything is fucking cold. I should feel comfort, shouldn’t I? In the warmth of this flame? But I feel cold. I feel so fucking cold. The type of cold that runs deep—that slows my heart, that creates caverns in my chest where there should be breath. Should be life. Where everything should come easy. Simple.
A wandering deer used to pass by this area, doe-eyed and angelic—sometimes a stray crow would peck at my window, ravaging for scraps. Hah, one time the little guy swiped some bread I left out on the counter. My stomach growled for hours, but he was just so fucking cute I couldn’t resent him.
But now?
Even the shadows have left me.
I am not enough to give life to this emptiness. I do not fill enough space in this cramped tower. I am hollow, Flux. There’s nothing left of me. Meals sit untouched on the counters, the fire runs, not because I fuel it, but because it needs to. That if it should extinguish, it will never be lit again. It is a desperate flame, Flux. It clings to life so fruitlessly.
Will you congratulate me for escaping my execution just for me to go and kill myself?
Dust has carved itself a large chunk of my room, settling heavy on the cobwebs that twirl from wall to wall, though I barely inhabit this place anyways. The tower is merely here, and I, along with whatever is left of me, coast along like a stray ghost with nothing left to haunt.
I don’t want to wander anymore.
I really don’t want to wander anymore.
I don’t want to just roam. To just breathe. Existing isn’t enough, Flux. I want to see the sun rise and set for another week, I want to catch as the world shifts in tide with politics, I want to witness the crumble of civilizations, the rise of others. To weep, to laugh, to succeed, to fail. I want so much more than what these tower walls have to offer—but I am confined. My ankles are chained to the steel ball my fucking mind, to what the blistering cold used to sedate. Used to numb. Lull. Just fucking got rid of.
I cannot run away forever, Flux.
I cannot run away anymore.
In resignation I write to you as my parting gift. A present for the one who hunts ruthlessly for my head, whether through pitting the world against me, or through every little promise broken, every little hope, every dream, that dwindled when courage met exhaustion, and fate met time. Herein, my clock has no more ticks to tock, no more noons to chime.
I would apologize, but the blood that will taint this angelic tundra red, the warmth that will rush through the snow like silk, should be enough to imply my apologies have been well spent on ruining the beauty of this land I once called my home.
I hope the stars shine brilliantly against the obsidian of night, and that the moon is a beautifully carved crescent high in the sky. That where I fault the world by tainting it in my blood, that it is beautiful enough to douse it in shimmering contrast—enough to pardon my soul for its sin.
Batting its eyes just enough to get the image right.
Though, perhaps it will be bleak and horrid. The moon will sit low on the horizon, hidden behind the curtain of clouds. Perhaps the stars will be faint, their dying light impartial to your presence.
Shrouded in darkness, how will you live when you become one with your shadow?
I hope, however, that my death isn't mourned. That you've parted with the memory of me long ago. That in betrayal I have become nothing but a crossed name on your list, that you hold no remorse, none at all, for the path I chose to take.
While my breath disperses faintly into the wind, should I never see your face—your twisted, jagged grin—warping into something else, something human, something real, upon the horizon. I wish to part knowing we never were, and that my decision will mean nothing to you.
Just another puppet cut from your calloused fingers.
I beg there to be nothing left to tether my memory to you. I beg that I die and remain dead; that I am not immortal by name. Remembered. I wish to be ended here, to be forgotten. To be nothing.
Something that was, but no longer is.
In death, I hope my exhaustion is relieved by the divine pulling me off my knees and offering me light. By clearing my mind. By cutting the leaden ball off my ankles.
I hope I can pass without any thought of these tiring times. That I should pass peacefully, without worry, into oblivion.
Though I suppose I should write my last regards. I don’t mean to keep you for very long.
Thank you for being a part of the version of me that was hopeful. Naive. Thank you for giving me a purpose after the fact—I’ve grown to miss the chase. Miss the distraction, the wildness of the run. The high of the chase. Adrenaline surging like millions of little electric pulses. Nothing to think about but survival, but proving myself—I had no time to dwell, to actually think, to ruminate on anything. I was just so obsessed with living. So obsessed with proving you wrong, proving them all wrong.
I wish I could go back, even if it means to tear myself apart again.
I’d rather be shattered than hollow.
I’d rather spend all my time piecing together my missing parts than trying to find something to fill this insatiable void.
Alas, I can no longer be a part of your scheme.
The noose has grown tight enough, thank you very much.
All I need to do is just lean forwards.
If this has any meaning to you at all, I would like you to know that it is only partially your fault.
If anything,
I hope you find peace within the lies that keep you sane. That you live in a fantasy, shut out from the world of your creation.
However,
a part of me hopes that if you should ever stand on the brink of victory, in whatever hellish alternative reality that allows you to win, that your world crumbles beneath your feet like the millions of little lies that weathered my eroded will to its last fucking morsel, till you're left with nothing but the blackest part of your core and the wretched emptiness of your sacrifices. That you look up and the world around you erupts in blistering, unbridled flame. That all the foundations, all the layering, everything and anything you hold dear is burned crisp and clean to the ground. That the flames of your wrongs swallow you whole, and that your ambition becomes your greatest undoing.
Is this truly the end of our grand battle? That we should part not with an epic duel, but with my blood sealed with my signature and my head served on a silver platter?
What a lame ending.
And Fluixon wins! by…forfeit?
Doesn’t have the nicest ring to it.
You just had to do it this way, huh? Had to feel special, like you’re some brainy fucking nerd saving the world by betraying his friend.
Am I pissed?
Honestly? Kinda am.
Not fun being on the receiving end of a manhunt. Or watching people getting their heads split open.
Just a thought.
But as I’m sure you’ve clocked on, I have nothing left. What am I going to do? What can I say? There’s nothing anymore. No one. There’s no point in holding onto this anger, this confusion.
What will it mean when I am dead?
You can ask my headstone, I guess. If I get one.
Or maybe I’ll become tree food.
You know what? I’d be the best fucking tree food out there. All the damn trees are eyeing these nutrients anyways, so I might as well just hand them over the easy way.
Does any of this make sense? I hope I am making sense. I’m not going to apologize for not making sense, it is your fault for reading this anyways.
Anywho,
I'm torn between wishing the world would rot and recoil around your fucking steps, for flowers to wither as you breathe, and for the world to cradle each step you take, for your breath to come with ease, to come free, light and unburdened.
This phantom of friendship is hard to ignore. I look over my shoulder and feel you there, when everything in me screams you aren’t, that I look just to gauge the emptiness—how gaping is it today?—and the pain, the fucking pain of the months you spent lying through your teeth, building me up just to tear me the fuck apart, is beyond hard to forget. Beyond the point of it even being worth it to numb and erase at all.
It just feels impossible to forsake the friendship that started everything.
That gave me everything.
That took it all away.
My reason to both live and die.
This will be my one and only letter for you. As much as I hate to admit it, it wasn't my first. Not even close. I had a few buried in my desk drawer under some of the maps I’d drawn of the archipelago. I couldn't take it, really. So I burned them. All of them. I would've regretted it if I didn’t think you were such an asshole.
Truly, though, I thought that if I burned them they would reach a place of you I couldn't. That the smoke, the ash, the dead remains of my written voice, could reach the person I knew, the person equally dead and gone, shelved to a part of my memory I refuse to taint further with your betrayal.
However, as I reach the end of my letter, I’ve decided to remember you by the person I met. In this, I hope you understand that there was always a place for you to stay. Always someone to lean on, even when the world turned against me.
However, to the person who ruthlessly betrayed me,
may you be tethered to the iron-clad shackles of fate.
Farewell, Fluixon.