A Sense of Dark

by PenguinKye

Chapter 15

October 12, 199X 9:20 P.M.

I brought him back, a little walk of the body, and though I reckon him as not the most emotionally dependant of men, he was not cracking a smile within at the sight that greeted our most usual eyes. He would have been sick if he hadn't been me, and we would have had endless troubles from old coppers then. So what of it, I kept his dinner down and he kept up a holler in our head. Whoever would have known he'd raise such noises at the timely deaths of such foolish people. I had not sussed him as a foolish person, but when he wept inside and I stopped him from the outs, I had just cause to wonder, my deary dears.

I had to whisper things about it right into his brains, poor lovey, and what terrible things they were! And all I told him made him sick, and all I told him made him angry, until we had to rush rush, rush away, so as to not leave a stain on the carpet for the coppers.

When he was well, it was but his stomach as was well, for there in unwellness his mind and blood did tarry, until we were as it were in a tizzy and a fix. What else for it but revenge? I knew he'd like revenge, and so he told me, and all of the wonderment of almost finding me there was nothing at all, because there was duty after all, chums, duty after all! Who minds a ghost of a thing when there's a duty to be dutifully done? Who can get up in a morning if there is no duty lying by to hit us over the head?

Or not, if we haven't got any head.

Why, what did they do when there was no duty to do it to? Why, they lay about as layabouts, my, my! And how do we end when we lie about? we die about! And that is all, my dearies, and he knew that lying about they had died about, and he was to learn from a mistake like that, learn everything, every lesson, perfectly. Learn to do your duty, deary, or pay dearly.

He was always the cleverest, wasn't he, not that they paid a moment's mind. He was always there in the quiet, thinking thoughts and things. Now they couldn't pay a moment's mind and he could think all the thoughts he liked, and no one to tell him to think otherwise, or worse, act. He would act in the perfect time, the ideal time, the time he arranged and deranged and decided. He would fail, but he would play a pretty battle for me, and then I could stab thine enemies in the back as he held a knife to their throats.

I brought myself and him to a comfortable place and didn't let anyone know who I was playing at, so they let us in without a breath of suspicion, not a word to the coppers, how foolish, isn't it? I want to laugh, always, because humans are so trite, so easy, but I must hold it in and recollect that without them I would not have much to do.

He didn't want to remember, deary! He wanted to forget the fallen and dive into unmemory, what a weak thing as shock and awful. What a delicious feeling, the shudder of a mind when you press against it lightly or break into it, harsh abandon. Focus, I wanted focus, deary, so I pushed, and freckles of memory rose, first the distant and then the near, and then he cried and shook and came dangerously close to understanding. I let him go so far, and snatched it away when he reached futher. It was like rolling a ball back and forth against the far side of the pool table, it was idle, and lazy, and somehow entertaining.

I pushed him far enough for him to remember revenge.

In one of his almost conscious moments he asked me the universal question. "Why," of course.

While he wondered I whiled away thinking of my other plaything, though he's so much more than a game that I almost had to take back the thought of play. Pretty thing, really, but the satisfaction to be gained from him is more than mere prettiness. If I weren't what I am I would be eaten alive by my own hatred. Though if I weren't what I am I would have no reason for hate. It's a paradox, isn't it? If I weren't what I was I wouldn't have become what I am. If they hadn't been what they had been, they wouldn't have become what they were, and now I wouldn't have to make them what they will be. If they hadn't done what they did, I wouldn't be what I am, and I would have no way of getting them back for it—but then, I maybe wouldn't have anything to get them back for. They would be brothers for their pains if only they hadn't been the cause of mine. It's a mad world.

I looked through him, at the unlit little room, the almost ludicrous glove on the built-in shelf (ludicrous if it hadn't worked, ludicrous for being alone). Out the window, only a barrier if you were put off by things like matter. Occasionally that kick of stubborn intelligence belied below a boring brain, pleasing me, annoying me.

Intelligence to distract, not destroy. All I wanted, all I needed, what a pawn, you silly, sad little thing.

How will Schwarz die? I enjoyed the way they killed Weiß, especially Nagi's work. Vicious, vengeful, skillful, perfectly executed, so to speak. That, that, that is what I want. Not his way, no, but something that good. Or evil. Or whatever it might be. I think of Eszett, I think—that was not as well done as it should have been. Schwarz shamed me by doing better on Weiß than I did on Eszett. I think, Schwarz I will do better by.

I sidle off and out and into my little boy who thinks he's all grown up, and he is pale inside because the uncatchable has caught him, and I say, Hello, Schuldig, and he says, Fuck You.

Of course it's all the other way around, because I swirl minds and he doesn't have a whit of what he's swearing at. Poor little thing. Fate left me a window to play in and before Brad Crawford there is only us, my beautifully ill animal and me, and I pull down walls brick by brick, creation in reverse, and it puts him in agonies, and I take the walls down, and he thrash thrash thrashes inside and out and not a sound, and before you know it the job is done! And the world is a book so open it won't close at all. And Schuldig screams at the thronging throngs, the crowding crowds, and Brad Crawford who is all for himself runs, runs, RUNS from the next room to find the problem with our poor pretty telepath. And he doesn't understand at all, deary, only moves useless hands in useless plans, half-forgotten before they begin. Both of them broken for now at least, deary. Both of them useless and losing to me.

Yes, yes, of course—Schwarz is going to be my masterpiece.

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March 8, 2006

PenguinKye