Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

To my unpredictable friend, who just so happened to pin the murder of six fucking people on me,

To think it has been a month. 

Not that I’ve noticed, really, considering I’ve been on the fucking run and all. Time flows pretty fast when people are chasing you 24/7. 

Not on boats though. 

Definitely not on boats. 

It's the middle of fall while I am writing this to you. The leaves have turned brilliant shades of red, orange, and yellow, the air is crisp and fresh in my lungs, and the cool breeze is a wonderful contrast to the late summer's heat.

Although clouds have begun to roll over the sky, the last of the sun peeks out from beyond its veil and breathes through this patchy halfway house in a soft amber, melting into the oak floorboards enough to give it a warm, honey glow.

Life on the run is chaotic. 

Who would’ve guessed.

If it provides any context, I leave this evening. Unless the mob on my ass falls into a ditch—then I leave tomorrow morning. Straight to whatever hell-scape the other island has to offer.

However, this is the first stretch in a while where I have a second to breathe. A second to rest. It is almost disarming how quiet everything is. The world seems to wait with bated breath as if caught on a thought, or an idea, a plan, and has taken to the audience to witness it firsthand. The wind has come to a pause, my curtains remain still, very still, nothing creaks or stirs, not even the birds, whose morning call used to be annoying as fuck at five in the morning, sing their jarring tune.

Nothing dares to move, dares to question, dares to breathe—as if that is enough to convince me that everything is normal. That I am merely travelling the island, sightseeing, marking places on my map because I wish to return, not because there are rows upon rows of trees donning my face.

The world thinks that I do not notice it is waiting. 

And for some godforsaken reason it is surprised that I, who equally waits, takes caution to its silence. Who recognizes danger in its farce of calm. 

That the audience is a character just as much as I. That the bystander is just as critical as the victim. 

The world equally witnessed the murder of those leaders, after all. It memorized the indent of their deaths as the blood rotten on the table, as the air that carries the rotten stench of decay, in the shape of the hand that pulled the lever, and the voice that commanded it all. The world remembers. The world engrains. It knows. It leaves reminders, it leaves footprints for those who walk towards; when one gets close enough, may the entire scheme unravel. 

I have a fire going in the background. It’s pretty high, all things considered. Much better than all the fires you pitched. Your negative polarity did us fucking dirty—I swear the wood could smell your asshole-ery straight off of you. The trees literally took one look over you and went, ‘nope, not for this loser’. You tried to freeze us, didn’t you? In what past life did you piss off a shit ton of trees? And why did they hate me too? 

Without you here, this is easily the simplest thing I have done in my whole life. My whole entire life. 

Besides, you know, escaping the absolute shit show that was the Commonwealth. 

Fuck you, by the way. 

And fuck Thomas too. 

Anywho, thanks to you I am absolutely loaded on scrap paper now. Loaded. I have at least three stacks of posters in my bag, maybe more. This fire isn’t burning out unless I let it. 

Unless I get tired of watching my face melt in the flame. 

It is only a little foreboding.

On that, I feel compelled to confess the fire has been lit for quite a while now. No matter how close I scoot over, no matter if my fingers hover just above the licking flames, no matter how much scrap paper, how many logs I use, the flame gets no warmer. I’ve sat here for what seems like hours, just waiting and waiting for the flame to reach my skin like it used to. Like it did yesterday. Last week. Last month. Sure, it is warm. There’s no way it wouldn’t be. But there’s this chill I cannot shake, an iciness to its flame that wasn’t there before. The longer I sit, the more ravenous I become for what it used to be. For how it used to make me feel.

I suppose that happens when you search for something that no longer exists. That will never exist again. 

Is there any point to a fire that burns just because it was made to?

That is warm but doesn’t warm?

Nothing like a good start to an evening with questioning the purpose of a fucking fire. 

I swear I still have at least half my head with me. 

I suppose that because I have wasted an almost sensible amount of your time with senseless thought, that I should at least warn you it doesn’t end here.

I am pissed off. Beyond that. I am confused. I don’t know what I am supposed to do. Where to go next. How I will continue. 

And here I am, only thinking about how you would tell me to just “get to the fucking point.” 

The fucking point is that I don’t know how to process all this shit. That no words can sum up how I feel, and if I say nothing, write nothing, it will all implode and I swear I will fucking die. And I cannot die yet. I really don’t want to die yet. 

Just how the fuck do you process something like this? 

There wasn’t a warning on my part that we were going to go from friends to not. No transition period: we were fine until we weren’t. Like I was shot out onto the other side on a fucking black hole and expected to just.. adapt and be normal. All the months of adaptation, of saying goodbye, letting go, were never given, and it all happened so suddenly, that I could never process what happened. I don’t even know what happened—I still just—I am still processing, you know? I know but I don’t. I have to constantly remind myself: hey, he isn’t here to steal my bread anymore. Hey, I have to cut trees alone. Hey, there’s no one to pitch shitty fires and overcook near-spoilt meat.

It feels like there was meant to be all this time in between to give me space to process, but it was stripped from me. For fucks sake, it wasn’t even offered. Sorry for wanting time like a normal fucking person. And now all that is left is the stone-cold truth that everything I knew was fake, everyone I know wants me dead, and nothing will be the same. 

I feel like I am mourning the lost time. The time I could’ve spent building a new life. Meeting new people. Moving to a new civilization. That I am mourning what would’ve been if not for this fucking manhunt. The things I was never given. The things that I would’ve wasted but want so fucking badly. 

But if I had to be honest, I am mourning the friendship I lost. 

And I hate you. 

I hate everything about you. 

Seriously. Fuck you and your “holier than thou” fucking attitude. Your sharp humour. Fuck the way you walk. How you are so resolute. Selfish. Right. Wrong. How your posture never falters, how your eyes remain as clear-cut as diamonds. How, even without a crown, it is so fucking befitting to your head it pisses me the fuck off. 

Even how you tug at the strings of like two fucking guys and somehow orchestrate an entire island to feel the exact way you want them to. To do exactly what you want. It’s like a shift in the wind and they turn. 

Fucking NPCs. 

How do you, who has thousands of puppets wound to your fingers, not have a single fucking callous. How? Do you feel nothing? Do you not care?  

You don’t deserve my mourning. You don’t deserve any emotion from me to you.

How can I mourn a murderer? How can I mourn the person who fucking betrayed me? Why the fuck would I mourn you? Why can’t I stop myself from mourning you? 

Did I miss something? I feel like I exist in a world that grew without me. That I was left behind. That I will never catch up because the world has lost my print, forgotten me, and closed its arms before I could open mine. My place no longer exists—the world has grown around my absence and filled the space. Moss over stone. That in this world I am dead. Though I breathe, I write, I think, I am dead. 

There is moss, not stone. 

Dead to it, dead to you. 

What is left is my name. And even that has been stolen from me. Not mine, but yours. Your character. Your antagonist. To this world that sees nothing but red versus blue, I suppose I was the perfect pawn to create something new. The perfect scapegoat for a world thirsty for blood. Ravenous to test their armies, their swords, their arrows. 

It is no wonder the world was so quick to close its door to me.

Knocking means nothing. I’ve tried. No matter how much I fucking try to prove myself everything slips through my fingers like sand. And I don’t understand anything. Everything feels so fucking foreign and so real I just want this to end. To go back to normal. No manhunt. No blood. 

I expected my reality to be frayed, not snapped. I didn’t know our cord was strung so tight. Stretching thinner and thinner as you and I stepped further and further away from each other—I thought we would be fine, honestly. We always were. Disagreements didn’t mean a fuck lot when the world wasn’t threatening to collapse on us. But no cord can be strung so tight, so stretched thin with everything we ignored, and not break. 

And it did. Then everything fucking crashed around me. Literally. Six fucking heads impaled. 

What a way to get the message across.

Not to be selfish or anything, but couldn’t you have been more discreet? You know, not slaughter every fucking Island Two leader right in front of me? 

Fuck. You’ll never see something like that. Hear it. I swear I can feel their skulls crackling against my skin one by one, echoing raw and loud against the silence. That I can feel the blood, feel the sticky, fucking blood, that I can taste the iron and dirt and everything on my tongue. Thinking about it—it feels like millions of little spiders crawling up the length of my spine. Cold, incessant taps. And my heart drops. It sinks. It drowns.

I dream about it constantly and I freeze. I feel everything around me dissipate into black, and I am swept in a cool ink that forces me down. That holds me hostage. Neck deep. Then there’s nothing but the slow, arachnid crackling of six skulls reverberating in the hollow darkness, and I cannot move. I cannot get up, I cannot escape. I try, but it is too cold, too heavy, too real against my skin. I swear I can feel it now. Curling around my arms. My legs. Dragging me back.

In my dreams I am not a relentless escape-y, but weak. Cemented. Afraid. Weighed down by this ink, I am forced to watch uselessly as life is clawed ruthlessly from the people who are pinned in the image of pure gore to theirs, watching as the survivors come for my head next. The ink gets heavier. Thicker. Colder. I cannot truly feel the wounds they inflict. That although they stab relentlessly, that they tear me apart slowly, I feel none of it. Nothing but fear. Nothing but intense, crippling fear. The kind that has hair prickling pin-straight up my arms. The kind that sits deep in my stomach with heavy moths scavenging my insides for light—any light to escape the fucking void. 

The more I think about it, the more I am swallowed by it.

I cannot afford to be swallowed by it. Not now. Not ever. I refuse to let it win, to let it take control of me like I am useless. Like I am only a husk. That I am a host and it the merry guest. 

And sometimes there’s this looming shadow too. One that just sits and waits. That stares. Then when I turn around to confront it, it consumes. 

The writhing blackness doesn’t just take control of me, but coils around my neck, just to let go and watch me breathe like I’ve never tasted air before. Just to let go and do it all over again. Over and over and fucking over again. 

I feel it shift when I am awake. It isn’t just a shadow. I swear it isn’t just a shadow. It is too real—I feel claustrophobic, petrified, just thinking about it. It feels like an eye that never relents. I am being watched. Constantly. I get fucking paralysed.

I feel like I am cursed to relive it over, and over, and over again. It is crisp like a winter morning’s chill in my mind. 

Just why did it have to be so brutal? 

Why can’t I just forget about it? 

I hope you never have to fucking see something like that. I hope you never have to hear it. Never have to feel the confusion, the panic, the constant fear. 

That you may look over your shoulder knowing it was just a leaf rustled by the wind, not an arrow whizzing past your ear. 

That the crunch isn’t six skulls to stalactites, but a branch you happen to snap when walking.

The only thing that keeps me sane is the fact that you will not get away with this. 

There’s bound to be a thread loose the tightly knit plan you’ve wound. Someone will find the trail, and when it's pulled, may your scheme be unravelled and your lies left bare for the naked eye to witness. 

I guess all there is left to ask is: was it really worth it? You’re treading shallow water, wafting at poison air. The time is ticking, and war is inevitable. Inevitable, Fluixon. Is this what you wanted? To start a war? The one thing you swore to fight against. And not only that, but you’d be the cause of it. You’d send nations to war over nothing! Over propaganda that wasn’t even popular! Barely fucking popular! And you’d throw everything away just for that? Ruin our land, ruin the gift of our island, just to prove a point? Is this truly a hill you're willing to die on?

Admit it. You’re shocked. You’ve gotten this far, this close to success, all for nothing. All for a war that was never going to happen unless you instigated it—which you did, and now you’ve gotten exactly what you wanted, but at what cost? How can you plant your feet so resolutely into quicksand and act like everything is fine?

Before I can write anything else that is stupid and real and everything I want to say but can’t, I just want to let you know that you annoy me. That I hope your autumn is shit, that the leaves brown and wither and drop from the trees before you have a chance to catch them at their most vibrant, that the breeze is too cold for you, that any fire you light extinguishes the moment it catches your eye. I hope the sky is cast in permanent mourning, with thick, black, scathing clouds for both the Island, and for the person of yourself I swear I fucking knew. 

And a word of advice, considering the size of your ego will outgrow the magnitude of your lies: the hideous shadow you try to hide by casting yourself in this perfect fucking light will only expose you when the light falls. 

And seriously? Fuck you.

Saparata