The binder sat in the lonely corner of the city, the sleet covering the plastic case, the wet droplets crawling off, the pages still intact, white and wet and somewhat yellowed by the stains of coffee and tears. It was the story that Sonic forgot, the story that he never read while his brother suffered from his death, of his lungs gripped by the seizes of the gods that Sonic himself wanted to be like, even if the raven god named Yetl told him that he would die miserably like the rest of them. He would die miserable and cold, like his brother's story, as the ink turned a smear of blue as the sleet and water and rain dyed it, and the pages were twisted and folded and shrunken, and then it drifted away into the golden brown stream of the sewers, to the Civilization of the Rats, and there the shrunken folded twisted rat people saw the story, and with their twisted folded shrunken little brown eyes they read it, even if the ink was blue and black and even if his brother's last dying breath was released from those pages, saying, "Forgive me my brother, for keeping that secret from you, and now it really seems that you have…betrayed me. Like the rest of them."
The Dark Wings of Death
By: Wind Alirick (Anansi the Spider God, the Spinner of Silk Tales)
This story is about my favorite animals. And one of my favorite animals seems to be the raven, in their black sleek mysterious petrifying beauty, as petrifying as the snot in my lungs. I'm close to death, and I may not be able to finish this story, and if so, heed these as my dying words unto the world, so I can warn all of you of the world hysterically screaming about its end, and there's nothing that we sick little mortals can do. And I felt that end too many times, as even though I have revealed to you all that I am something special more than a hedgehog, I am as sick and blind and deaf and dumb as you, and I can only watch as the day's last dawn, the golden orange October lights that besiege the city as we create our little bonfires and we are warmed by the fire's glittering flaring tangerine and golden and rustic lights, and you probably never think of where fire comes from, or how we got in this world today, with our broken morals and our broken months and our broken holidays. If only you could sit and listen to my words, and the words of the others, of how we got here today, and how we will end here in the future, maybe tomorrow, and I can tell you how many hours you need to sleep before it happens. Sleep is a necessity my sick and nearly dead mortals, and it won't be long until I have my eternal slumber, until I have a black bed with roses. The world will have one too, and so will the rest of you. It is inevitable I am afraid, but while you are gathered near the raging spirit of the fire forcing it to cook marshmallows and chocolate for you even though it doesn't want to and it only wants to destroy and blind those who make it only a slave to the mortal beings, you are relaxed, and you are warmed, by the fire's and October's gentle caress, and I believe you want me to tell you a story, one where no one listened.
Alright then.
Please listen if you have kind, soft ears.
—
It was a dark, moon-rusted night, and the crow coughed a mourning caw, as it rustled its black feathers near the pier of the broken world, and it looked back, to see all the fires that burned softly that night, like little gems, like little Topazes, and he could see the thick black smoke as it gathered near the skies in thick, oily clogs and it can only see this world, the one where the mortals inhabited, was a sad and lonely place.
There were too many crows who hunted for worms because they were so saddened by the decaying meat of the humans. He ate humans, he ate hamburgers left rotting in the trash that no mortal could stand to eat until their stomach was bulging, sagging, and cumbersome, and he ate blood too, fresh blood that pilfered through the streets so much that even if ravens didn't have much of a sense of smell he could sniff with the small little holes in his beak throughout the streets, he could smell the metallic smell and he tasted it and he could taste their sorrows and their misfortunes, and the humans could only groan and sigh and cry, as they continued to play with rocks the little games they learned so long ago like backgammon. By themselves. No one bothered to play with each other. Socialization took too much work. So alone it was, to play with these little black and gray pebbles.
Groan. Sigh. Cry. He heard it everyday. It never got old. It never got tiring. Except to his reptilian holes as ears. The humans didn't mind. They just spoke through their teeth and never their tongue to the other animals that roamed the streets.
There were more animals that ate the carcasses of the humans. The seagulls for example. They were much like crows in that regard, except they weren't as smart. They didn't understand how the world or humans worked. They just knew that what was left here was theirs to take. So they cut through their skin with their needle beaks and ate and swallowed. Gulped. Of the salty blood that gathered in their throat, staining the white and pink inside. They had white soft bodies and white soft insides, and of course the raven never cared much for them. They were boring, stupid creatures. They constantly fought and argued over what meat was theirs, when it didn't seem to matter at all who got the last bite of a dying old man who never got to see his grandkids die before him.
And the raven could only sigh as much as them, as he flew off into the silver skies, white rimmed like God's spectacles. He could see the rest of the world fallen into decay and chaos, as he saw men going out into war, with their armor plastered on like clothes on dolls and their guns and swords raised high and ready to be triggered or swung. And even men who didn't wish to fight fell before the world, with its glasses that were worn and broken, the shards piercing the white meat of the eye. The white meat that the crow considered a delicacy in all the mortals, the blind deaf and dumb mortals, but often they wished to see before they fell and grovel and shrivel away, and he considered it a wish. If crows like him ever wanted to grant wishes to these people who never would do the same for him. "Stupid crow! Out of the sky before I fire my gun! If I pierce your feathers with a bullet it will make my day, so fly away, fly away into the sun that never shined for us ever since God turned away!" It was what he heard endlessly, and as much as he prized his wings and his animal-like sanity, some men did shoot him, but never struck him, unlike what happened to a few of the crows that flew close. Crows often came in murders, and he never considered a single one of them as his friends. They were only feasting buddies, to eat the maggot infested blood that seeped.
His wings were large black shadows across the sky, cutting through the silver like an obsidian knife, and as he perched himself upon a skull, a skull of a newborn infant's that a mother was too weak to carry away in her arms, her soft warm pink arms, the raven stretched out his knife like wings and he reached out and cut across the sky, he cut across the night, the stars, the moon, and the sky bled green, the sky bled purple, the sky bled an October aurora out of its guts and innards, and he wished for the humans, even as dumb as they were, to see the beauty he could bring to the people, of the beauty they could realize as they walked and groaned and shuffled and played backgammon with little stones by themselves, as his stone cut wings stabbed through the moon and it bled a blue gem that sparkled, sapphire blood that seeped and spread into the streets, where the men didn't care to notice, and they only groaned, sighed, and cried, and died as the crow roared a vociferous caw that screeched across the world, and he said to the others, "The End is coming, but do not fear my brothers, for the Heavens, the Nirvanas, the Purgatories are plentiful, if you cared to see what the world can give you, to care of the others that are suffering beside you, and to not thirst for power and vengeance, but I can only be sad and cry for my companions who are supposed to be smarter than the crows of today, as my right eye can see the past, and my left the future, but I see you only suffering in silence, as the world blazes to a cinder to a smoke to ashes, and I can only give you this gift only once. So you must sleep for the days ahead of you, and think of my words. And pray to the gods, whoever you worship, to keep your souls, if they're as good and as pure as you believe them to be."
The men continued to moan softly, in sweet blackened agony, as their throats were torn, their eyes were ripped from their sockets, and their bodies were roasted and their blood was drank. And the crow couldn't hold any hope, forevermore.
The rat men saw the plastic story as it sailed across the sewer waste, their little pink noses that were torn and chewed by their brothers and their clawed blackened hands prying at it and trying to tear it apart as they thought it was food, until they got the taste of paper that they realized there was something in other civilizations above that there was something called a "book", a thing with paper and ink and words, and they soon held the wet pages in their paws and looked over the first chapter and the rat men wished they could understand the words of the above, the words of those who held onto their sanity to tell of stories created by blood and bruises and silk, but they realized that there was someone who could in their world. Someone who still had a rat tail but understood the words of humans very well as he used to walk among them many years ago, and they told their brothers to preserve the pages the best they could and show it to the translator, as maybe they could benefit from the words of the humans. Even if rat people lost their brains and had only their sense of smell to guide them, they knew of an opportunity when they saw one, and the story that they held in their paws, it could have a secret that was tucked inside, and rat men were also curious, and were also cunning when they could finally think from their drug-injected and Alzheimer's and cancer like brains.
The Translator, of course, he knew everything there was to know about the humans, and they could learn, learn as much as they could as much as their disease-ridden lives would allow.
And they ran and skit across the shitwater and the machines that clicked and purred in their little civilization, and they were blinded by green and yellow lights, the lights of opportunity and sickness, as they wished to show The Translator the story of the raven, that little did they know a god created when he was disease-ridden too.
—-
The sun glowed and smiled like a piece of treasure, its golden face that rose and kissed his eyelids as he continued to sleep, imagining the sound of the roaring waves against his bed, softly rocking him like a cradle while the old man sung the song about immortality, when his alarm suddenly screeched and screamed and slapped him in the ears that it was 11 am, only a little short while before the afternoon could claim the tide of time, and the cars drove on by to work and the edges of the world, without so much as a recognition of someone who used to been so ordinary, who was suddenly going to have the taste of mead in his lips. He knew already that he had no school due to the death of his brother, and his parents were off in their own sad little rooms, either watching television or drinking boxed wine like their throats were parched. There were other things to drink Sonic said, like they had a case of Dr. Pepper in the fridge, but his mother so much preferred the box that was in plain sight in the kitchen, always leaking more pink rosy Merlot. Some had to choose their fancy poisons, while Sonic chose just plain whiskey at times, but he never seemed to drink it as much as his mom. Either she drank, or she went off to get some more. Sometimes she tended to buy dinner as she traveled to get her prize, usually some fried chicken or cheeseburgers from McDonald's, enough to quiet his mouth while she gulped it all the more down. His father would complain to her about it, sometimes he would cook, but often he sat and watched CNN. He just preferred to watch the world burn than watching his wife burn with wine. Sometimes they didn't notice if Sonic took a day off school for little to no reason, but mother was too inebriated, and father was too preoccupied with Israel. So he often never got yelled at for the things they did. It was his brother they cared about more.
And now that he was gone, there was nothing more that they could care about now, other than Merlot and senators and bombings, other than dried up sharp black bones of chickens and recorded tapes of the attacks on September 11th, so Sonic felt alone, but he knew he was free now, and his parents couldn't bat an eye about it. They already lost one adored brother, what would be the risk in losing one they barely noticed, as if he faded into the wallpaper, with his skin that reeked of paint and had the imprints of roses and stripes, that were dark green and white and navy blue?
His wallpaper, after all, still had the navy blues and the colorful airplanes for sixteen years. They never thought he would grow out of it. But his brother's soon turned to one that looked much like the ocean he almost wanted to kill himself in, with the black jutted rocks where the sea constantly gnawed at.
His mother poured herself some more Merlot and asked where the hell he was going when he packed some snacks in his backpack. He said he wanted to camp with a friend. His mother asked him if he still thought she was a pretty wife. He said yes, and after he grabbed a baseball bat, one made of black metal that had the words "Lil' Slugger" inscribed with white cursive paint, he put on a hoodie he remembered he bought with so much money on the Internet back when he thought fashion and looks were worth a damn in this world anymore, and he left from the white door that jingled of laughing bells and he said nothing more. And they never saw him again after that. The mother continued to drink, and his old man continued to be paranoid of the Arab men taking over the United States. They never realized he was gone, and no one, except the school and Child Protection Services, thought better of it.
I cannot stop the thought…
I'm running in the dark
Coming up a which way sign
All good truants must decide…
Oh, stripped and sold, mom
Auctioned forearm
And whiskers in the sink
Truants move on
Cannot stay long
Some die just to live…
12 pm when he got to the beach again, near the hospital where his brother whispered his last dying words. Once he was alive again he thought he would let him live in the shack that was near here, alone and with rotted wood as its skin, and he could buy him a laptop to write his stories. He didn't know what the shack contained, maybe some old tools to keep the beach clean, but he could throw them out and leave room for a small desk and a place to keep his files in. They didn't need to eat any more fried chicken and cheeseburgers, they could eat steak for breakfast and have lobster for dinner. His brother would be a millionaire who got rich off his stores, but always lived modestly in his little rusty shack by the gray sea, getting inspiration every time it turned white by the soft glowing hands of the moon.
He had the bat in case anyone wanted to cut him raw again, but he also had the pen of the gods to sign the contract, and he listened to the breaths of the sea dragon as the sky moaned and wanted to scatter a little rain, as he shivered (and his heart shuddered) under his gray hoodie, waiting for the fay to return, the chipmunk that promised him a life full of riches and power. A life that all the congressmen his dad watched always had, but never seemed to have a complete control of when their wives claimed they were gay or they cheated on them with a prostitute.
He could see the white waves drift to the shore. He could see the sun turn a glaring white as the rain continued to dribble on him, and his grip tightened on the bat, and he shook it a few times, and he watched the seagulls as they flapped their wide wings and tried to fly as fast as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, tried to reach understanding and acceptance and the concepts of the universe like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Sonic could hear the wind sighing to him, the sharp wisps like little cold blades, telling him that maybe the fay wouldn't be here today, that he had other clients, and that maybe he should return home to his mom and dad who didn't notice him gone, except when the Merlot was a little low on supply.
Waiting. He hated it. Sometimes he did listen to the wind. Sometimes he did listen to the ones who had the same namesake as his brother. But this time he didn't want to. Not when there was a life of power and freedom to live in. He told the wind of the constant neglect he lived in, and it sighed and understood, and it wished for his brother to be back too, and it said maybe the little shack would be a nice place to live in, and maybe the beachkeeper wouldn't mind, if he wasn't so busy getting his ass drunk from Budweiser. At least it wasn't wine.
1 pm. He still shook his baseball bat, while he listened to the cries of the seagulls and the roaring of the sea as it clawed and wretched away at the beach. The sea dragon was angry again, with its delicious meal perched too high on the beach, and it wanted to lick him again, devour him, engulf him into the silver body, but the rain and wind soon stopped, and the sun tore away at the sky and poked through the clouds like little needles that pierced the skin and it bled white lines of blood. Sonic was drenched, from the sky's droolings, but he considered it devotion to the creature that would sign him on. He held the pen, the blood of the sky shining on the rubies and the gold of the pen's needlepoint, and he clicked it back and forth, waiting. He still felt cold, as Seattle always was, especially in February. They said it would warm up soon, that the groundhog said spring would be here before they could even see their own shadows on the skin that bled much more than the sky's, but he always considered that as media's interpretation of the seasonal cycle, always wrong, always sensationalized for the kids. He never knew why people still considered it a tradition for the groundhog to determine winter, when he was always wrong, when he never saw his shadow because he was always too fucking cold to even move out of his cave. But he would have to make it his job to make people smarter. To make them into geniuses who never did wrong and who never spread lies and who never could see color or sexual preference. People were always people, and he would make the world realize that.
Rat-a-tat-tat of the bat. He thought he could see blackness on the piers again. The metal and tin of the raven god that Quetzalcoatl named Yetl. He seemed to listen to the waves and the breeze, as when you were a god all inanimate objects all had voices instead of simple names, and he could see his blood-ringed eyes as he stared into him, bored into him, as if he was close, only a few feet away, but he soon realized that Yetl was quick, and he was soon so close that their faces, their black noses met, and he knew that even with the thinking of the night and the slow arrival of morning, he still thought he would be a god, even if his life was already miserable and that he wished it simply for it to get worse, to constantly rain of blood and decay and sadness and forlornness.
And he thought he wanted to laugh. To laugh at how stupid…what was the kid's real name again? Sonic? How stupid Sonic was, to choose a life like this. Even if you had power, even if you had riches, even if you had love by your side, the world would only turn darker, the world would only die faster, and poor Sonic, he didn't realize that. He thought there was no cost in having everything. But only when you had everything you would soon lose only the things that mattered more than everything. His life, his love, his family…if he had much of one. It seemed that his parents didn't care that he wasn't in school at this time, at 1:45 pm, with a baseball bat that hung over his shoulder loosely like it was an attached body part the pigs in blue couldn't cut, and a hoodie that made him appear as the usual Seattle hoodlum. Of course, no one could see him, seeing as how he was a god, but they would question Sonic even more than him, even if he was wearing the head of a raven embroidered with tin and metal. He flapped his metallic wings, the ring-a-ting-ting being sounded off, the sheet alloyed metal that gave him the ability to glide towards him effortlessly, like a hawk careening towards its prey with hungry, sharp eyes. Of course it was a thing that defied logic, flying with metal and nothing more than that.
But he thought that the stupidity from the humans defied logic everyday. Of course the gods couldn't try to guard people who were this stupid, would they? But Chip, the fay, seemed adamant about them all protecting the lives of humans, even if they seemed to be so useless, so easily broken apart like toilet paper. But of course, there were some gods who weren't afraid to wipe their ass with human lives either.
His great wings kicked up some dust from the sand, scaring the seagulls off who seemed to surround Sonic, wondering what was in his bag and if there was anything edible to devour to fill their scavenger bellies. Of course, he knew it was because ravens were constant sworn enemies to the seagulls, as they stole a box from them that contained the sun the moon and stars, and they never forgave them since.
"So, despite what I warned you about, you're still going to sign on to become a god? Despite that I told you that it is a life wracked with misery, it pays only in pain, and even if you seem to have all the power in the world, you're going to die as horribly as the humans we protect? And that I can kill you once I say your name, any time I want? What is it to you, Sonic, that you want to become a god? To have all this responsibility thrust upon you, when you seem to never have any in your life, except the death of your brother. Are you blind? Are you deaf? Are you dumb? Why would you consider being like us? Why would you want to become as savage as Quetzalcoatl, who bathes in blood everyday and drinks and feeds on it despite us never being allowed to kill humans unless they directly involve themselves into our lives? And why would you want to be like the thunderbirds that shine and flash at night, that look like streaking stars that burn out and fizzle away like a flame on a candle at night, wondering their existence in this world, wondering if the next day they will die, because they've been looking forward to that day for so long? Or how about the Maiden of Death and War, who kills so many humans blinded by wrath? Or how about you, who is supposed to listen to the cries of help from humans all over the world, but you can't solve all their problems, else they won't learn, else you can't interfere so much in the lives of man? The only people in this world who want to become a god are simply fools. I was a fool many years ago, and you have the appearance of a fool all over you. Tell me why you want to be a god now, else I might as well kill you right now, and just end your suffering, seeing as your parents are too wrapped up with their own worries and concerns?"
He grinned, the pearly white fangs, iridescent in the darkness of the clouds, and he spoke loudly, he spoke with the rumbling of the wrathful gods when they shook the Earth with their mighty hands, and he said, quite simply: "I want to bring my brother back. And I'm bored. I'm sick of my body. I want a new one. I want one that will suit me, with all the mightiness that Chip would allow once he turns me into a god. And why not? I think it would be fun. I haven't had fun in sixteen years."
"And what would you sacrifice for fun in this day and age? Your life? Your family? Your brother will return, but not in the same way you saw him. Chip was angry with him when he didn't choose to battle the demons and only write stories. He's going to take away his powers and leave him as a sickly hedgehog who has no other purpose in this world, other than to sadden you that he left so suddenly when finally his cystic fibrosis overwhelms him and stops his heart and lungs and turns them yellow and full of mold. Your brother will simply die again Sonic, he will die again and he will have no other purpose in the world because he will lose all talent, he will lose all the powers he used to have as a god, he is now a spider who can't spin a thread or has fangs that reek of venom. He is a useless spider, one that is commonly smashed with newspapers anyways even if he meant no harm. Do you want him to go through that? Are you stupid? Are you selfish?"
The crow god could see the flicker of shadows before it occurred, his one eye that allowed him to see everything. He briskly gripped the bat before it could strike him, the bat nowhere near his head before he reacted swiftly, bending his knee and pelting his chest, the bat now freed from his tight white gloved hands, his once proud smiling self now gagging and struggling to get a full breath of the sea air as his lungs were hurting, and he gripped his body with his great taloned hands and hurled him across the sides of the beach with very little effort, the blue hedgehog continuing to cry and gag as saliva dripped from the sides of his mouth, as he lurched his body and wriggled like a little pink worm he felt like an infant again. As defenseless as one, acting like one, weak and tears flowing from his eyes and spittle flying from his mouth and speaking unintelligible babbling. His bat laid in the sand, as vulnerable as he was, as Yetl picked up the bat, his black shadow overcast on his curled up body, as he could see the bat so high in the sun, as if it was about to hit him itself for all the sins he committed in his life, that the sun was his god, and it was going to beat his brains for being bored, for not caring about his brother, for making so many stupid decisions that the great flaming and golden hands could only beat him senselessly to teach him a lesson. It was the only way to make the poor, naive, sniveling, weeping, 16 year old hedgehog who never had any fun and was bored out of his mind, to have some excitement, with the touch and screams of death.
"I'm going to say yes to both of those questions. Any last words before I crack your head wide open like an egg?"
His breathing was bubbled as he stared at the bat, hoisted so high in the sky, ready to split open the skies and ready to split him apart until there was so many of him, split apart like glass, split apart as it shatters on the sand, the pieces shining and ready to cut open anyone's wounds who dared to step on him.
"Yeah, I have some final words."
The bat still higher than the sun, ready to thunder down.
"Fuck you." He coughed, believing he could see some bloody phlegm rush out of his throat and into the sand. He was just like his brother. He was just as weak as his brother. He was just as dead as his brother. Cause of death: Cystic Fibrosis. Cause of death: Crushed with a baseball bat while meeting with a questionable youth. Yetl looked no more than 17. He had pearly white fangs just like him and he looked like a fool too. But he was too blind to see that they were a lot alike. Maybe they were long-lost brothers. His father probably fucked around with a lot of women before he grew out to be a paranoid near schizophrenic levels man who taped all the worst world events that ever happened.
September 11th…
"Well, I'm going to be doing you a favor. I'm going to kill you and rid you of your boring life."
The death of Princess Diana…
He looked at the shit he spewed. It certainly had blood in it. He could be sick too. Maybe somehow his brother spread the cystic fibrosis. It wasn't contagious. But it was contagious through genetics.
The JFK assassination…
And he could see the bat slice through the air, and suddenly, in all those last few precious seconds, he could see everything slow down, like the whole world turning into molasses. But it certainly wouldn't be sweet as molasses, even if he couldn't stand putting that shit in his mouth.
Hiroshima…
He expected the blow to his head coming in this moment, ready to split, ready for his mind to bleed with black blood and his brain to be punctured with the shards of his skull.
Pearl Harbor…
The blow didn't come, but he saw the golden, mercury-molded, rubied pen, and the fay smiled, and said, "Sign here."
The Holocaust…
The birth of Hitler…
The creation of the universe…
And he signed the best he could with his weak hand, his signature a scrawl from a child. But it didn't matter. The deed was done. The old Sonic, the bored, 16-year old, blind deaf and dumb Sonic, was dead.
And like Jesus, he rose from the dead, a new person, a god.
And at the contact of the bat next to his head, it shattered, like pieces of glass, to so many fragments, shiny and piercing and innocently looking up to the crow god, wondering what happened to them, wondering what made them no longer solid and hard and blunt, now sharp with still the ability to kill.
His face was just as blunt as the bat used to be, with nothing to show, no remorse or no anger that Sonic wasn't killed. He knew only that if he survived (his one eye should've told him, but there are things his one eye couldn't catch at all), then…the contract was signed. Sealed. And might as well have been a signature made with the very prick of his finger and the scrawling of blood. He couldn't catch it, and it happened so quick before he could smash him to bits. Sonic was no longer a 16-year old boy with parents who didn't care at all about him, who was going to die alone and nameless in the great big world that had absolutely no room for people like him. He was a god now. And as his one eye gazed upon him, glowing brightly with the vigor of flames, he could see that his future…he couldn't believe the bits and pieces that came to him as all the scenes became part of a mosaic, colorful, especially with the vivid hues of red and blue, red like blood, blue like sorrow, and those colors were too bright, but the blood was dark, and the sorrow was even darker.
Even when he was about to hammer him down with the bat, making his body bloody and blue and black, he knew that it wasn't in anger or zest or pride, it was simply that he wanted him here, alive in the world of the dead, not living a life of misery, living a life of pain and agony.
He looked at his body. The sun shimmered down his quills, appearing as azurite as the moon last night. He could feel that the pain in his chest was subsiding, and he was trying to pull himself up, the phlegm dripping away from his throat. His wounds from the night before were quickly healing, the scars and tears of his arm were fading away, his cells replicating swiftly, his shoulder no longer pinioned against his lacerations, the sting of moving his arms freely gone, in so little seconds, in so little time. The rewards of becoming a god were painless and came with the expectation of defeating so many demons, as the fay, Yetl knew, had so much hope for him. Unlike him, the fay hated him, and knew that he would try to murder him before he could sign the contract. But as much as the crow drowns in misery, tries to flap its wings into the sunset until the wax and feathers melt from the heat, the humans, the seagulls, the preparer of the documents, always won. And it wasn't any time soon the crow would win again. Especially not in a world full of blind deaf and dumb people, much like this Sonic. Who now had the ears and tongue and eyes and fingers of gold, who knew most of what gods knew for just being born from the imaginations of humans. It was the birth of his image, the birth of a god that was widely known, that stretched upon the many lands with His mighty fingers, made of stone. He was Yahweh. Yahweh, the defender of the Earth against all that was evil, all that opposed him, with his voice that reeked of rain and thunderbolts and his eyes that were a wide-seeing, wide-believing mirror. As He stared, the humans and the other gods would stare back at him, and only see their reflection. Their true selves, their morals, their upbringing, what kind of person it made them out to be inside, as either their organs were bright and full of vitality or were rotting and bleeding and would soon blacken upon the sun's glaze.
And Yetl saw himself, with his black wings covering himself, his eyes full of tears, his body broken and stripped away, and he knew he was seeing himself as Yahweh truly saw him, and as Sonic saw all the information that seemed to prick up to him and stab him in the brain, he saw that Yetl was as much as a suffering caricature as the crow was always shown in so many works, that he was truly like a raven, as he gazed at the obsidian-sliced pieces of the bat that lied around them, and all he could say, with his voice choked and gagging, "And now you will forever know of my name, Sonic. My name is Yetl, nevermore. It is Shadow. I was given no first name, and no last name. Only a nickname. Just Shadow."
Nevermore.
The very same poem his brother loved, back when he was alive.
And he didn't see his body anywhere, full of oxygen and full of lungs that could breathe and a brain that could tell him to type all the stories he wanted.
And as his pupils dilated right in front of the black hedgehog, great jades the same color as Quetzalcoatl's skin, he coughed up yet more bloody phlegm and felt that his lungs were sticky and braided with ail, but with so much of this god business suddenly happening to him, he could only think nothing of it and leave the thick spittle of blood lying on the sandy floor, darkening the white sand to a darkened wet pile, that soon dissolved away as the sun continued to shine with its golden rays, as he thought he could see a great golden eagle embedded with gems up in the sky watching them with great needle-like eyes.
