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How many days had it been? Had it been days or was it weeks? Weeks or perhaps months? It felt like it had been years. Years of missing them, of crying. I knew in reality it had only been eight days.
I was giving a State of the Faction address, they were by my side of course. A king and his lovely advisor. They were smiling, squinting slightly thanks to the sun shining in their eyes.
And then there was a loud bang.
And then Umbrella wasn’t here anymore.
Blood splattered against the wall where their shadow used to be. They collapsed instantly, it was from that moment I knew in my head that I would never see them again. It was a hopeless situation.
Paramedics immediately rushed to the balcony. The crowd ran away, terrified that the shooter could be among them, that they might target innocent people. Microphone and Megaphone ran up, screaming at the sight before I shouted at them to leave.
The doctors tried their very best to save them but later that day I was told that Umbrella was practically dead on the spot. That gods damned bullet hit their heart dead on and they just couldn’t be saved.
Eight days ago.
A day ago they were buried. The funeral was quiet, somber and filled with sobs. I was one of the few that didn’t cry. How could I when I needed to be steady, stable, a constant for those around me. For Microphone, for Megaphone, for everyone else there. For everyone.
I forced myself to be numb.
And yet here I was a mere day later when I could finally let it all out. I looked all around me to make sure no one was near, an act I must admit was rather childish in nature. But the thought of someone, anyone, seeing me like this, weak, was unbearable.
After knowing for sure that no one was here, I let it all out. The tears. The screams. The pain. The anger. No, the rage. How could someone dare to take them away from me? I let it all out for fear that it would consume me.
And yet it still did.
I screamed until my lungs were raw and cried until my very being was dry. But it still wasn’t enough to get all of it out. The urge to hurt. To kill. To burn. It still stuck with me like the urge to avenge them was welded into my very heart.
That overwhelming emotion of pure unfiltered hatred. I hated how it gave me intrusive, impulsive thoughts. Brief flashes of merely my own imagination paralyzed me. Only one thing was consistent to all of them.
The burning, the fire, the destruction that I so terribly wanted to make reality.
I forced myself to return to the present, to ground myself to my own body once more. To spend so much time in my own mind, thinking so much about these thoughts, I am sure it could not be very good at all.
The first object to come to my eyes was of course the carefully carved piece of white marble in front of me. Umbrella’s grave was decorated with various flowers. Deep red roses, white lilies, chrysanthemums.
But the most predominant species was lavender. It was always their favorite and they would always talk about the benefits of reducing stress and how it helped with their insomnia. Our home always smelled of it at night.
I couldn’t help but think if I would ever smell that again. Could I even handle it if I did? I pretty much know for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to handle it at nighttime when my bed would stay forever empty.
I may be warm but I knew I would be cold forevermore.
No, no more of this reminiscing. It was almost pitiful, the pathetic way my thoughts all looped back to them. The way I just couldn’t get my mind off them even when their face was already starting to become blurry in my mind.
I felt the grass underneath me, the dew sticking to my hands. It was full, unbearably vibrant and green even in the dead of night. That sickening hatred spread to everything, didn’t it? Here I was, becoming frustrated at the grass of all things for seemingly being too happy.
Focus, god damn it, focus.
My clothes, the same old suit. Ruffled collar, gems, gold accents, pulled back cuffs, simple dress pants, and black shoes. It was professional, royal, but comfortable enough to wear daily. And I must’ve been going insane because I could’ve sworn I could smell their perfume on it, the one that smelled like fresh rain.
Get your fucking mind off them. They are dead.
I reached out, smoothing my hand over the stone. How could I find myself crying over something so simple yet again? The rock was solid, permanent. I felt as though there was some irony in this being the only physical thing of note that remained of Umbrella.
Maybe not the only thing. Their collection of tea they would make for me on a particularly bad day while we talked. The large books of meteorology they read during their free time simply because it interested them.
Maybe nothing remained of Umbrella because truthfully no object they had touched had any of their soul left in it. They really were gone, weren’t they? No, they weren’t.
They couldn’t be gone because if they were I don’t know what I’d do anymore. With Crossroads. With Microphone and Megaphone.
With myself and my eternal life.
I smoothed careful gloved fingers over the petal of a particularly large rose. It was so very delicate, swaying with the mere wind. It would dip and droop even with my lightest touch. Delicate, yes, however, it was so very resilient. I have seen how roses will wither, turn to yellows and browns. Yet even dry and jaundiced they will cling to the stem all the same.
It pained me how every little thing reminded me of them. And every reminder served as a reminder in of itself that they would never return to my arms. Something felt so utterly painful about the fact I only thought of them so much now that they were gone.
The next thing that came to me was the cooing of the nocturnal owls, wide awake in the dead of night. I prayed that they were my only company. Somehow even this angered me. My enragement came back in full swing. The owls' calls sounded so much like the word “who” just as those shows for newspawns would always joke about.
Who killed them? Where were they? What was their reasoning? Were they ordered by someone else? Did they feel any remorse? If they knew what pain I was feeling, would they feel remorse? Would they even be able to feel the same pain? How could I make them feel the same pain? How could I hurt them? How could I kill them?!
Focus. Your thoughts have crossed a dangerous line.
The rustling of the trees in the violent wind sounded almost like a sound if you could listen close enough. There was still some amount of beauty even in the aggressive rush of the gale that felt almost symbolic. I was left wondering.
Could Umbrella love me? Even now when I so desperately was running away from vicious and dangerous thoughts? What beauty is there to be had in this? The back of my mind is still shouting to watch blood spill, is that part somehow pretty as well?
They would surely find a way to love me even now, all of me.
But they couldn’t.
I was supposed to be calming down, not spiraling into thoughts about his deceased lover. Every thought was about them and they never went away, always coming back. The way I focused on their death was almost immortal in a way, never dying out. I hated my own mind for that fact.
The next thing that came to me was felt before it was heard. A rain droplet fell from the sky onto my face, joining my tears. After one drop came ten and after ten came hundreds and after hundreds came thousands upon thousands more. How very cruel of the world to make it rain at such a time.
Umbrella’s gear was, of course, their namesake. Whenever it rained they were there to shield me whether it be harsh and cold or exhaustingly humid. They would even go as far as to entrust me with their gear, their very being.
And now they couldn’t even if they wanted to.
The fact that I kept going back to their death constantly, over and over again, it felt boringly repetitive but how could I not? The only Inphernal I ever found I could love romantically was gone and even being a god there was nothing I could do.
I am a god and I am powerless.
The sound of the pounding rain overwhelmed my ears and yet it still couldn’t block out these violent thoughts. Those terrible thoughts. I almost wished for it to rain harder, for me to be pelted with bullets of water so I could not bring myself to even think of doing anything.
Oh, I hated how every thought brought me back to that indigo parasol.
I hated the fact that it had become nearly the only thing I could remember of them even more so.
The rain’s scent, combined with the barely noticeable scent of flowers and grass’ dew, smelled nearly identical to the perfume I had thought about earlier. Or maybe it didn’t and I or my brain were merely making things up as some sense of comfort.
To imagine they were right here, shielding me from becoming soaked. To imagine they were trying to coax me away, mumbling about Microphone and Megaphone and how they would miss our cooking. To imagine they were gently kissing my cheek before helping back up so we could go back home.
If I thought really hard about it I swear I could actually feel it.
It’s like my calmness had merely been suppressing the rage as it came back in full force. How could I allow this to simply pass by without punishment? Shouldn’t every guilty verdict in turn have a sanction? It seems I would merely have to take up the role of persecutor.
I took one final look at Umbrella’s grave before flying off into the too-cool night sky.
Crossroads was my pride and joy, even if the assassination took place there, I could not bring myself to destroy it all. Playground was my sister’s faction. To even attack Craterdust Capital would surely start a war because those are Windforce’s “playthings”
No, my sight was set on Lost Temple. Nothing in particular drew me to the area, even if there was, I don’t think I would’ve noticed in my rage. I started flying there. In mere moments my feet dropped onto the sandstone roads of the capital of Lost Temple.
I summoned my sword and after that I don’t really remember much else. It was all burning down, ever lasting flames clinging to everything. Everything was collapsing just like how everything collapsed the moment Umbrella did.
When I calmed down, when I could think clearly, the sight that met me was grim.
I was on some sort of cliff, red and orange and yellow and tan rocks below my feet and behind my back. The sun was just beginning to rise, dawn slowly approaching. The scent of smoke and ash filled the air, it was suffocating. From where I was, I could look straight out and see Lost Temple’s capital city.
It was all burning down.