If He Only Knew – Clay
Clay doesn't like leaving Desmond alone.
Clay doesn't like Desmond leaving him alone.
He knows they have to.
He knows Desmond has to go off so he can separate his own memories from those of Altaïr and Ezio, before it's too late.
Clay gets lonely when Desmond is gone, lost in those memories.
And he hates the haunted look in Desmond's eyes when he comes back from his own memories, having to re-live the life he grew up with, having to re-discover the memories of what he had to do.
Clay hates the fact that he needs to go through his own memories, wishes there was another way.
But he can't go with Desmond, and Desmond can't go with him. Which is something they both know.
It takes Clay a while before he gathers up the courage to enter his own memories.
He knows he makes a bigger deal of it that it really is, but he can't help it.
Clay knows that, unlike Desmond, he can't feel pain anymore. His body is gone, long turned into worm food, or rather fish food – he was dropped into the Tiber after all.
But it seems his form can still feel the pain, can still remember what it's like to hurt, and it seems it can still feel the emotions he thought was long gone; memories stirred because of Desmond.
So Clay enters his memories, hoping to survive the torment he knows is hidden within.
One of the first things Clay sees is his grave or memorial or what the hell it is. He doesn't know. He's not sure if his family ever got his body.
Well, it's not technically his grave or memorial or whatever, but it looks like what he guessed it had. Still, it looks fake, not real. Ten to twelve chairs around the hole in the ground, some flowers, one wraith, a picture of him in the clothes he'd worn since he began at Abstergo, and a simple headstone, which only had his name and date of death on it. No Rest in Peace or Requiescat in Pace, no date of birth, no words to say he would be missed or be forever in someone's heart or memory. Nothing.
He hears the words of the priest, something from the Bible or some shit, something that was said at all funerals he guessed. Not that he'd ever been to one.
Clay sees no other way out, and so he takes a deep breath and walked off the edge, into the grave.
He has no physical body in here, inside his memories – not that he has one any more outside of this place anyway – but he can still feel the jarring impact when his feet touches the ground.
Only one way to continue on now, so he walks through the narrow tunnel surrounded by tight-packed earth.
Some roots stuck out of the walls, roof and floor, and even though he is six feet underground, it wasn't dark.
The tunnel takes a turn every once in a while, and soon the tight-packed earth gives way to concrete. Clay continues walking and soon sees a staircase materialize at the end of the tunnel.
As he walks up it, a white light surrounds him, blinding him, as a sharp noise grows louder and louder until he wants to scream.
Then it all faded.
When Clay wakes up, he's back at the Animus Island, lying on his back. Opening his eyes, the first thing he sees is Desmond standing over him, a worried look on his face.
"Dude, are you okay?" Desmond asks. Clay wonders if Desmond remembered that he's dead, and could therefore not feel any pain. He decides against telling him that, not wanting or needing to see a look of sympathy or pity on the other man's face.
The voices. So many voices battering against his brain, trying to get inside. But how could they try to get inside? Weren't they already inside his head?
Clay didn't know, couldn't answer. Three voices; one in English, one in French, one in Italian – and all inside him, and outside him; surrounding him
He kept on pushing forward, only one goal in his mind; to get out of there, to get out so he could see Desmond again.
Voices. All those voices. Tormenting him, trying to make him stop, trying to make him give up, trying to make him surrender and not find the truth again.
He has to keep going, he has to. Not for his own sake.
No, for Desmond's sake. Desmond needs to be safe from harm; he needs to be safe from the traitor.
If only Clay could remember who it was.
The answer was hiding somewhere, and he knows he's getting closer, for each task, each memory gets harder to get through, harder to figure out.
'Soon', he thinks as he walks on, his shapeless body curling up against itself, as his hands pressed themselves against his head, trying, trying to keep those voices away.
Numb with the realization of who the traitor is, Clay has barely any time to react when an alarm goes off.
'Out. I need to get out!' Clay looked around, seeing the black and red boxes move towards him. 'Find the escape!'
Only one way out. Clay moves, runs - whatever it is this form does – towards the only exit he can imagine; the door on the movie screen.
Sings and symbols. They cover the walls, glowing a faded red. They are the marks he painted on the walls in the room he was held captive in and in the room with the Animus. They tried to wash them away, but Desmond told him he could still see it by using Eagle Vision.
Some of them he hid in the Animus throughout Italy, each of them holding a piece of the Truth.
Very few things make sense now however. He can't remember most of the symbols and their meaning, and the Chinese and other languages are impossible to even try to translate.
No matter.
Two sentences make sense, the first one being 'I've entered the Abyss and never returned.' The other is 'We are all books containing thousands of pages and within each of them lies an IRREPARABLE truth.'
The symbol that makes the most sense, is the barcode he placed on the villa in Monteriggioni; the one with the number 12212012 under it. The date the Templars sends up their satellite.
Visions. Through all his memories, Clay had visions. A staircase, a church window, an arch and a hole in the ground where floorboards have been ripped up… Some others as well, but he can't remember.
Now he sees them. There is the staircase. There is the hole, the window, the arch.
Clay knows they must signalize the end.
So he walks on, winding through the paths.
He struggles with crossing the river, and finds peace in the garden. Just like the first garden, this one offers solitude and rest. In here, his memories doesn't plague him, the voices leaves him alone.
In here, he is free to think about Desmond.
Clay didn't know when it happened, for as time went on (he wasn't sure about the amount of time that had passed; it was impossible to know inside the Animus), he found that Desmond was constantly on his mind.
The ex-bartender was always at the front and centre of Clay's thoughts, and always his motivation for moving on, for getting through these memories, and enduring the voices which plagued him so.
When he was ready to go on, he did. As he walks, closer and closer to the end, he ponders the thoughts he now has about Desmond.
He tries to figure out what has changed, and finds it difficult to do so.
Clay decides he cares about the man. It's as simple and complicated as that.
It's simple because it explains quite a lot; yet complicated because he doesn't quite know which way he cares about him.
Does he care about him as a friend or family? As someone he was destined to help? Or is it something more, something he doesn't feel quite confident phrasing or thinking about just yet?
The former engineer doesn't know if he wants the answer to that question.
Yet it seems he can't quite stop wondering, hoping.
Because even though he's not ready to admit it, he cares about Desmond as more than a friend, which is something he did not intend.
Desmond is his successor; the one Clay killed himself for in order to help and guide him.
Clay knows it's impossible, he knows Desmond loves Shaun; he's heard him enough through the Animus 2.0, and Desmond talks in that state he's in sometimes, when is neither awake or asleep.
Still, there is a voice in the back of his mind, whispering to him, trying to make him keep the small flicker of hope that has ignited during the time he's been lost in his memories.
And so Clay's last thought – as he takes a leap of faith at the end of his last memory – is 'If he only knew.'