Chapter One: The Beginning...But Which One?
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
Source: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas (1957)
Dylan Thomas, 1914–1953
He was dying, and he knew it. He could feel his life blood leaking from the gaping gash in his throat. The air rushed from his lungs in a gurgling rasp. Potter had just taken his memories. Grasping his robes, he croaked, "Look at me."
He had to see them one last time. He had to see her eyes-Lily's eyes. Potter looked up sharply. That was the last thing he saw-he felt the cut connection- and then, nothing.
In another dimension adjacent to the one he had just left, a Caucasian baby boy was born. He cried when he opened his eyes and the light hit his corneas. His eyes were solid black, and a tuft of naturally greasy hair lay curled atop the crown of his head.
"Sylvester," the woman cooed.
"So what do you want to do today?" Marisa whispered as Mr. Burns rambled on about Sines, Cosines, and Tangents.
"Maybe have some pizza?" Claire suggested. Terra, or as they knew her, Riley, only shrugged.
"Come on, Riley, loosen up." Claire jabbed her playfully in the ribs.
"Are you acting this way because of that creep?"
Terra rearranged her facial features into a smooth mask, the shape of which she had become accustomed to. "No," she said, her words tasting like poison, "he meant nothing to me, nothing at all."
Mr. Burns' voice cut through their conversation. "Excuse me, Miss Clairvoy."
Marisa looked up guiltily. "Yes, sir?"
"What is the measure of the angle of elevation?"
Marisa, unlike "Riley", didn't have to try very hard, because Geometry came naturally to her. Smirking innocently, she simpered, "Forty Degrees."
There was a pause, then-"Correct" before he went back to his droning.
"After school, three o'clock, we're going to that pizza place," Marisa affirmed.
Before Terra could reply, the bell rang, signaling dismissal. Mr. Burns looked put out; his ranting had left no time to give out homework, and half of the class was already out of the door. The chatter in the building came to its crescendo as the three girls squeezed into the hallway.
Geometry was their last period of the day. They parted ways to go to their lockers one last time. She threw her books for Geometry in and took out what she needed before swinging her messenger bag onto her shoulder. She decided to take the back door-the walk was longer, but she needed to think. Her thin arms pushed the door open, the one that opened up to Lithia Boulevard. It swung shut behind her with a hiss.
She began walking briskly down the street towards her destination. There was an alley that looked like it might be a good shortcut, so she took it.
She shifted her bag uncomfortably and pushed on, surprised when a door set in the wall just behind her flew open. She was out of practice, especially since she felt so strongly about living in a state of relative normalcy. The thing was, she wasn't normal. Arms encircled her, pulled her-she yelled-
Then, miraculously, they disappeared.
There was a shout, and when she pivoted she saw that a sallow teen with greasy black hair had another boy with chestnut hued hair in a headlock.
The sallow boy threw the other to the ground, cursing and swearing. The other boy's green eyes darted back and forth as he retreated. He backed into the wall underneath the fire escape. The greasy-haired teen looked at him distastefully, angrily.
Suddenly there was a clatter that made Terra's eyes shoot upward. The ladder on the fire escape had come loose. The boy underneath was frozen in horror as it fell on him, knocking him unconscious. His body hit the pavement with a sickening thud.
Neither Terra nor the sallow boy moved for a minute. It was as if they were both holding their breath. When her gaze finally refocused, her eyes left the form of the unconscious youth and sought the one who remained standing. He was looking at her as if he had something to say, as if some moment had come that he had been waiting for.
"Thanks," she finally said, blinking. She held her hand out to him. He stared at it for a moment, then he looked back up at her face. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't exactly scowling, either. He almost appeared nervous. Then, without preamble or acceptance of her hand, he cleared his throat and said quietly, "You're welcome."
It wasn't his strange behavior that made her take notice, it was his eyes: they were solid black, or at least so brown that there was no nuance between pupil and iris.
"You're not normal."
Her eyebrows arched and contracted.
"Excuse me, what did you say?" Her voice was haughty, indignant.
His gaze and voice remained firm.
"You aren't normal."
A chill went up her spine. Did he know who she was, could he? The image of the ladder crashing to earth appeared in her mind's eye.
"You-you made the ladder fall."
He went red at this.
"He's been watching you for a few days. When you came out, he was waiting. He saw that you weren't with your friends, and they said they were supposed to meet you, so he came this way. He knows that sometimes you take this route to get to the pizza place. He ran ahead to watch from the rooftops. The houses here are so close, he just kept crossing over. He came in through the attic window and down the stairs-"
"Wait," she cut him off, "how do you know who my friends are or where I go?"
His gaze dropped to the ground, presumably to watch the foot he was scuffing on the dirty pavement, as if the answers lay there.
"You-you follow me!"
It was like déjà vu; Beast Boy, too, had followed her. He looked up. "You should be thanking me on bent knee! If I had not seen him-"
"I can take care of myself!" she screamed. "I'm not some sad little girl! I don't need your help; I didn't need your help-"
"Liar," he spat angrily through gritted teeth. "You didn't even see him coming. You didn't know either one of us were there-that is, until it was too late."
A part of her knew that if he wanted to try to hurt her, he'd had plenty of opportunities, and now he was angry at her because she was acting like an ungrateful brat.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? But why didn't you ever say anything before? All of this time-"
"The time was never right."
He sounded utterly dejected, miserable. Hoping she wouldn't regret this, and reasoning that she ought to humor him for the moment, she said, "Want to come with me for that pizza?"
Perhaps if she could mollify him, she could keep him quiet. He was the only one who knew, aside from...aside from Beast Boy... She flinched at his name.
The boy hadn't seemed to notice. He looked as if he were pleasantly surprised, as if he hadn't expected her to flip-flop so quickly. With a curt jerk of his head, he turned and began walking in the direction of her destination. After a few paces he stopped and looked back at her. "Coming?" he asked, slightly sarcastic. Snapping out of her shock, she nodded, and followed him.
"So what's your name, anyway?"
Momentary silence, then, "Sylvester."