Leviathan is dead, I thought.
The ocean was hungry. The remnants of the violent turbulence over New Delhi scraped against me. It seeped underneath my skin, into my blood and bone until every inch of me from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair burned. A large part of me welcomed the pain. It was distant, a layer of separation between me and the agony kept me functional. It kept me grounded as I floated through visions of pasts and futures, the threads forever twisting and turning into themselves like an ouroboros. The snake perpetually eating its own tail promised me in faint whispers that I could be someone else, be something else, that I could fix everything, if I just looked.
The pain was mine. It marked the separation between my being and the hungry expanse. It defined me. My fingers hurt, so I knew I had hands. My toes hurt, so I knew I had feet. My eyes didn't hurt, but my tongue, nose and scalp did. I was mostly intact, I thought, and held on to that pain tightly. If I let go, it was over. It would be easy to get lost in the void, to let the ocean bury me, to let myself scatter into pieces drifting on the currents. I knew I wouldn't be able to find my way back, claw my way up or put myself back together.
Even time would lose track of itself here.
Look, a faint, very faint whisper said.
"I am looking," I said. There was a dead woman and her dead two year old son, crushed under the remains of their home when Behemoth shook the earth under the condemned city of New Delhi. The skein of her life was filled with unremarkable events that meant the world to her. I stepped in close, before, close enough to feel the tiny, insignificant ripple of her death reflected into the ocean. Her essence shattered almost immediately and I caught a flicker, like I had for hundreds before.
Insignificant, but unique.
I steeled myself and reached for the next one. A boy, three years older than me, covered in concrete dust. Leviathan had wanted to escape, and he stood in the way. The force of the impact had liquefied his body and the void of the Endbringer's presence greedily swallowed what remained. The last thought he had was remembering how I promised it wouldn't hurt.
It hadn't.
Leviathan is dead, I thought. This was how I did it. By convincing a boy to kill himself.
I continued to drift.
I looked out at the ocean, boundless, formless and endless. My body burned from the inside out, lightning strikes of agony bolting up and down my spine.
Leviathan is dead. And I was tired.
I felt like I was back in early last semester, October or November when I was pulled aside after the bell by Mr. Quinlan to tell me how good my grades were not. I managed to get two assignments in out of twelve. I remembered standing there hearing about how I could be held back a grade if I didn't do better, if I couldn't get my work in on time or at all. I stood there like a stump, remembering my work covered in grape juice, or missing from my locker and the times when I came home so tired that I skipped dinner and just slept.
I remembered searching for the words to tell him, to condemn him. I remembered searching for the strength or the energy or the motivation to scream into his face. To cry. To do something, anything.
'I understand, sir,' I had replied. I had walked to the bus stop. When the light at the intersection turned green, there was this semi truck. It was a dark blue color with flame decals around the front grill. It had been coming a little fast and it was just this calm, whimsical thought.
About stepping out into the street, when I knew he couldn't avoid me.
The thought had left as soon as it arrived, and the truck had rushed by me. It hadn't mattered much at the time, or any other times. They were stupid, worthless ideas, like wondering what it would be like to walk on the moon.
This time, I thought about letting go. I had the cold, grim feeling that facing the dead was much easier than facing the living. If I wanted to do anything with my life, be anyone, I would have to go back to my body. My broken, weak shell. I could stay here forever, sifting through the threads for solutions, of ways to fix everything, or balance my ledger. I could.
I could stay here until my body rotted away to dust waiting for that perfect future that would never come.
I could still hear Sarah - Lisa's voice.
"This is you being just as stupid as Emma said you were."
If nothing else, I couldn't do that to my Dad.
Stay, the whisper crept into my ear.
"No," I replied. I could see the ocean move, a moving swell of corrupted eddies and whirlpools, like there was something moving just underneath the surface of the water. Something big. It was keeping its distance, but I could almost feel the laser focus of its attention. I smiled in its general direction. It wouldn't take the bait. None of them would, I thought. Not until the ocean's memory of a searing, golden unlight faded.
Behemoth was underneath that Antarctic peninsula, the void of his presence stationary. The Simurgh was just barely within the upper layers of the atmosphere. The strands of her influence were tattered, but taunt around unsuspecting victims. A young man, around twenty four years of age had already ordered the parts for a homemade bomb vest. His target was the local mall.
I closed my eyes and turned away.
Scion was in...London? Absently listening to a homeless man with a sick dog.
Leviathan was dead, I thought again. It might always feel hollow.
A faintly sung, melancholic low note beckoned me home.
I found myself standing in a formless landscape, spotted with Wraithbone ruins. It was neither hot, nor cold here with a blank ground beneath my feet that defied description. A dense fog shrouded the horizons as faded, transparent ghosts with long ears and thin faces wandered the space. The flickers I had caught were here, dimly shining. The pain followed me as a dim echo.
Foolish, a note of discontent said and I glanced around.
Vernasse didn't look too impressed with me, a subtle frown on her brow and the slightest tension of her spear arm as she studied me with a contemplative look in her bright eyes. Her right ear pulled, a tiny twitch as she hesitantly reached out and brushed the red tabard I was wearing with her fingertips.
I knew I looked like death warmed over. If the fact that I was seeing without physical eyes didn't hint that things had deteriorated a bit, the black lines of charred flesh running up and down my body certainly would. I was vaguely aware that I had lost my right pinky and I didn't want to see how many of my toes I still had. Blood was still dripping down my cheeks and I could hear my lips crack as I moved to speak.
"I am not doing it that way again."
Her ear pulled again as her chin made a slight incline in acknowledgement. You will not have a choice.
"There is always a choice," I gritted out. There had to be. There must be. I just didn't know enough yet on how. I made it this far by winging it, half instinct and half rough guesses that shoveled as much shit in as I could throw out. My first act after getting powers was condemning a plane full of passengers to a fate worse than death. I was the reason the Simurgh attacked New Delhi. I forced a nightmare on a girl two years younger than me so she could get the power I wanted to use. I fought the Simurgh by manipulating people into doing it for me. I killed Leviathan by -
That was not going to be me, ever again.
"I - " I stepped forward, intent on swallowing my pride and asking for help, but my leg gave out underneath me with a wet snap. The pain was suddenly in clear focus, turning my blood to molten lava filled with glass shards. I curled into myself, pressing my shredded face against the cool, hard planes of the armor I was still wearing. There was a note of alarm, warning, somewhere above me and I fought to stay conscious. White spots flared up behind my eyelids as I ground my teeth, trying not to scream.
Ulthwé, Vernasse's song said in a questioning tone. A song welled then with three voices. I recognized Vernasse's low register among two others, a man and woman arguing in short, terse notes.
Someone touched me and I stiffened at the new bloom of pain. They withdrew. After a long moment, I heard a whispered call from the other woman.
Iyanden.
Hands touched me again and I could feel the pain dull beneath their fingertips.
The numbing fingers gently turned me onto my back and pried my arm away from my face. I caught a glimpse of the scholar in his simplistic robes. His thin face was pinched as he took in the damage. He radiated emotions towards me.
Exasperation.
Concern.
Regret.
Protectiveness.
Young, he said sadly.
Crouched above me was the woman with the elaborate hairstyle and decorative robes, the corner of her lip curled in disgust like I was a turd scraped off the bottom of her shoe. She noticed me looking, rolling her eyes.
Sleep, she ordered.
My first instinct was to rally against the command. I could feel her derision increase as I tensed to get up. My muscles, my bones and skin screamed and I suddenly wondered why I was fighting. I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. If they wanted me gone, all they had to do was walk away.
Emma wasn't here.
It would only be for a minute, I thought. If I was sleeping, I wouldn't feel the pain. I caught Vernasse's eye from where she stood, observing. My vision was starting to blur, fading and I gathered just enough energy for one last task. I formed the words and gently broadcasted them to her.
Help me.
Please.
Darkness closed in swiftly, leaving me staring straight up with empty eye sockets. I didn't know if the cool, liquid I could feel drip down my cheeks were tears or blood. I could hear them still, talking above me. I don't think they knew I could understand some of it, or perhaps they didn't care. I caught isolated words and phrases.
Human.
Soul.
Stupid.
Untrained.
Shortsighted.
Young, human.
Young, eldar.
Fifteen years, to thousand?
Will learn.
I woke to brilliant agony. Some instinct saw me moving, trying to crawl out of my own skin, but it just made the bed of nails I was laying on dig in. My right arm felt like it was in a vice, and I pulled at it blindly, feeling a tether and feeling something tear. An alarm went off, screaming into my ears with harsh electronic beeping. I was blind. The room I was in was cold with sterile, pungent smells assaulting my nose.
The door burst open, frantic bleating noises of some language I couldn't understand drawing close. There were a few electronic beeps before the alarm shut off and I became vaguely aware that I was screaming. I scrabbled for the pain, drawing it in, locking it inside as I heard glass breaking. The room became colder as wind from outside blew in. I threw off the sandpaper covers, lurching off the bed. I knew I was going to fall. I don't know where I thought I was going.
Warm arms caught me, lighting up my raw nerve endings as I choked on my tongue.
Keep it in, I thought wildly. Don't let it out, keep it in!
" - aylor, Taylor, it's okay."
Annabelle.
"We're okay, sweetheart. We're okay...can we get anything for her?"
She pulled me to the floor gently. I felt the cold linoleum tiles under my legs as I tore at the jean jacket she was wearing. I tried to keep it inside, even as I felt myself break. It hit me then like it had just the day after that phone call. Hearing her try to comfort me I realized all over again that I would never see Mom again. The howling wail of a screaming banshee burst from my lips.
Everything I caused, everything I did, I felt like I was falling down a bottomless pit of despair. New Delhi. Twenty one point seventy five million. I had been willing to risk twenty one point seventy five million just to convince myself that I was a good person, that I could be worth something.
That was the kind of hero I was.
I regretted coming back.
"It's okay, breathe, hun. I got you. I got you."
Keep it in. Keep it in.
The ocean was hungry.
Keep it in.
No storms, my mind babbled. No storms.
No one else.
No one else.