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A bright colorful glow and sheens of glitter-like sparkles of green and yellow particles glimmer through the air. The first time you witness such, you view it as something spectacular—what a sight to behold. With the rush of adrenaline and endorphins that come with it, you feel its beauty with your high.
They scatter through the air onto the ground, catching into Spoke’s fingertips where he had just held the totem that had him cheat death. Usually, he would be holding onto these totems during the intense heat of battle or the rush of a chase. In this moment, he is in neither of these situations.
He is landed below a tall cliff. The expected blood nowhere to be seen, and the TNT he had set off at the top he had forgotten to detonate. He was experimenting—wanted to see if the totem could save him twice in an x amount of time, but he has been a bit of a scatterbrain these past few days.
Lost, listless, and without an idea of what to do nor where to go next. It’s cold, he thinks.
Droplets start bashing themselves onto his head, and he realizes it’s raining. Hard. The high soon starts to fade, and the rain feels painful against his skin. He used to be so strong, to the point he would run across harsh rain such as this as fast as he could as he leads someone along beside him. They would traverse rocky paths, steep mountains, and treacherous landscapes—all while the rain punched at their skin and washed the blood off wounds that they would heal by abusing golden apples and potions of regeneration.
In the present, he feels alone, though he is not. With an ever-helpful companion who has shown him nothing but her kindness and bravery, yet it is not the same companionship that he seeks. He feels horrible. It seems he is taking such benevolence for granted, when it is only his heart that beats and feels however it does.
Mud squelches and sinks below him as he slumps onto the ground. He digs his fingers into the soil, feeling its softness. This is as close as to some semblance of humanity he has left as he can. The soil squishes and escapes through the gaps of his fingers, and he thinks of guts and flesh. He sees flashes of similar images in red. He sits there, and doesn’t do anything but stare at the ground.
I’m horrible, he says.
I deserve nothing, he says.
Why have I fought for so long to live, he asks.
Just to ruin things for everybody else, he says.
He leans his back against the stone of the cliff, and he stares off into the distance as the rain washes the dirt from his hands away, just feeling the rough shower of the rain against the nerves of his palms. He thinks of licking the dirt away.
A totem is in his hand again. He looks at it. He clenches his other hand into a fist, and he rams it into his face like he fucking deserves. He’s sobbing, whining, and panting like a dog at the mercy of an edgy teenager on the streets. It’s harder to breathe with the rain.
The pain, the struggle to survive, to stay alive, to keep living—it’s a familiar rush and it stops him from thinking of anything else, though it has him feeling everything else. He must look absolutely out of his mind right now. Everyone already calls him that, actually, so what differences does this make, really?
The punches keep coming, even with his diminishing strength in each punch, he goes and goes and goes. Take it. Take it, you sad excuse of a life. This is what everyone else would have loved to have done to you long ago. You’re horrible. Just horrible. Why did it take so long for you to realize how much bad you have done. How it was all delusion. How you really only cared for yourself and no one else. You never even really cared for his wellbeing, did you? You were only afraid of being by yourself.
Wham. Whack. Crack. The sound of his nose. It breaks. He starts breathing through his mouth. All the strength in his hand is near gone at this point. He tries switching out the totem to his other hand to punch with his uninjured one, but the strength is all the same and diminished. He feels angry at himself. He can’t even do this simple task. Of punching himself to near death.
Angry. Angry. Anger. What a familiar emotion. He feels this usually in situations where he looks at another’s face, hears their thoughts, their opinions, their comments. This time, it’s to no one but to him, himself, and his own thoughts.
He cries. A full-on body sob. His whole body shivers and tears don’t stop streaming down his cheeks. It’s like squeezing an empty tube of toothpaste, a stray thought says. Breathing becomes a manual task rather than an automatic one. It’s getting harder to do it. He wants it to end, but his body and its instincts stop him from doing so. They say if you put your mind to it, you could do anything. Maybe, he isn’t putting his mind to it. His mind is always running off elsewhere in his grand delusions and ideals.
Imaginations of people traversing across this land to find his brutalized dead body makes him dizzy. It’s a horrible sight, yet it gives him a sort of rush that makes him want to vomit. He doesn’t hate the feeling.
“It's in our nature to wish for life.”
That soft voice and green feathers.
“Spoke, are you serious?”
That haughty tone and shiny tiara.
“Bro, you are a mess.”
Those eyes he will never see and monotone voice.
“I believe in you. In Spoke.”
That soft pink and reassuring presence.
“That’s what best friends do, Spoke.”
Ah, he can barely describe this one into simple words. Bile rises to his throat instead.
He vomits. It’s gross. It’s all over him. He’s disgusting. Don’t look at me, everyone. Or do. He doesn’t know. Is this real? Was any of this real? He hopes to wake up from a bad dream. But the number of punches he threw against himself seems to have already disproven that theory.
He’s been alive for a long while, and it is the first time he has truly wanted to die. Cold, bloody, and hopeless. It is the perfect time to let everything go. To finally rest, call it quits, take a forever break, retire from living.
“You finally understand what I’ve told you. I see in you what I see in me. Do you feel the rush of power yet? The pressure of responsibility? Doesn’t it feel great, Spoke?”
No, it doesn’t, he gasps.
It feels horrible.
He kills.
And he doesn’t know why anymore.
To live?
And then what?
What comes after that?
“It’s for the best, Spoke.”
This one. This one is familiar. Like the person who gave him some purpose with power, and then realized he was better off stripped from it.
Yeah, he questions.
“It’s best you die.”
Yeah, he answers.
He shuts his eyes. Just for a while. And then they’ll stop showing up. His mind keeps tricking him. They aren’t there. He doesn’t hear any of this. He doesn’t see any of this. He doesn’t feel any of this. It’s all fake. Perception. Senses. None of this. He focuses on heavy rain, the burn on his knuckles and face as bruises form, and the softness of the mud below him.
He takes in a deep breath. It hurts. So much. Yet he relaxes into it. He feels content, even if for at least just this while with everyone going on, he does. The breaths come in painfully yet steadier. He focuses on the beat of his heart, the rhythm of his breathing, and the pain that grounds him to reality.
“Spoke!”
He hears only his breaths and the rain. A figure clad in pink runs towards him like a mother to her offspring.
“Spoke, what happened? Where have you been? Gosh, Spoke…” He sees fingers trace his wounds before they cup his cheek. Beyond him is only an infinite expanse of trees.
The remaining rational part of his brain is telling him that what is happening isn’t happening. But the rest tells him to remember the feeling of another’s touch on his skin. It’s difficult to, and he feels nothing.
“C’mon, Spoke. It’s alright. It’ll be okay. It’s over now. It’s done.”
That’s not true, but. His eyelids begin to weigh like a stack of tons of iron, and he closes his eyes. Those words sound almost too good to be true, but he can’t bring himself to care about logic any longer.
The rain turns cold like snow. The stone is the same rough texture. The mud below him is wet and soft yet rough. This is life after death. He thinks he has read that somewhere before. Back when books were one of the few healthier things that kept his mind stable. Somewhat.
Wow, it’s cold here.
And quite lonesome.
“…Spoke.”
What’s next?
“…Spoke?”
Does it ever end?
“…Spoke!”