Chapter 12: Ghost Eye

The orange light told him it must be evening, but he saw no sun. Everything else here had no color, no features, and offered no way out with only a few cracks between them revealing that anything laid beyond. They were amorphous, towering things, conforming to no material logic, much less architectural design. At times, they appeared to be massive structures bearing the vaguest of similarities to the cityscapes of the first world. At others, they were mountains with polygonal crags of an impossible contradiction, being too smooth to grip and sharp to the touch. They merged with one another in a senseless unity, a skyscraper one foot then slab rock another, and only breaking just above his reach, where a warm glow pierced through to mock him.

It was a labyrinthian place, both in construction and in the concept of its very existence, and he had no way to explain how he had come to be here. But why did it all seem so familiar? He could recall everything else that mattered, his creed and accomplishments most of all, but the finer details before he wandered under these spires eluded him. The last clear memory he held onto was his arrival in Veracruz and the girl named Alejandra. He kept her close in his mind as he attempted to navigate the senseless design of this impossible maze, reunion the closest thing he had to a goal at the moment.

There were no sounds to hear and no sights other than the massive grey mounds that made his prison, but his sense of smell caught something. It was a crisp, refreshing scent, unmistakable as anything but water and lacking the tang of the sea. It was either a lake or fresh water reservoir, judging by the intensity. He was not thirsty, but it was his only lead to something other than endless grey.

Tracking the scent, he stalked through the misbegotten halls to the point of exhaustion before he found what he sought. Stepping into the warmth of the light, he was more pleased to be free of the constricting grey than anything else. A clearing was the lake's home, no boundaries in sight but the ones behind him. The water seemed to glow an inviting shade of orange from its surface, despite there being no sun visible in the sky. However, staring upward for the first time in what could have been hours, he realized that there was no sky at all. Worrying as that was, he kept his focus on the water, deep blue, clean, and with an unfamiliar, but friendly reflection staring back at him with an open grin.

He saw himself as an Australian shepherd with a shaggy, yet handsome merle coat. The tip of one of his ears was bitten off, the size of the mark indicated it was lost in a fight with another dog, one larger than himself. Most jarring were his pale blue eyes, ghost eyes as they were better known, something that was both a gift and a curse for the breed. Regardless of his worries, that long road here had left him with a brutal thirst. He only needed to lean a few inches down to the surface to satiate it, lapping up the water with a familiarity that didn't feel wholly natural. It did nothing to slake his thirst. Its flavor was as full and robust as one could expect from water, but no refreshment came from it. If anything, it felt like each ounce only added to his thirst. Assuming it to be a trick of the mind, he persevered despite the futility of the moment.

He drank and drank, even as the lake began to shrink and he had to walk further in to continue. In truth, he did not notice the change and the instinctual movement he had taken to compensate for it. Deeper and deeper in, the thirst only became more agonizing and he was lost to the frenzy of trying to release himself from the pain. There was no satisfaction to be found in the water, even what little taste it once held had left, but he had come too far to stop now and instinct told him to push on. Then, the repulsive flavor of mud met his tongue and he looked up to see the lake had been drained, emptied to satisfy his desires.

Looking back, he saw only a solid wall of grey earth and much of the same in all directions. Defining all logic, he now found himself at the bottom of a dank hole with only the light of the distant sun as his companion. The thirst clung even tighter to him, burning into his throat and he scratched at the walls in desperation. There was little point in struggling, the colorless sludge was far too thick and his claws too short to make any progress digging. There was no flaw in the wall's formation, they were purely vertical and offered no notches or cracks he could attempt to climb with, difficult as that would have been for his canine form. He was completely and utterly trapped.

Exhaustion and despair forced him to his side, lying on the damp ground and staring at the sky. The wide opening above his prison gave him a clear view of what was now the night sky and the stars unobstructed by clouds or light pollution. It was the same sky he'd become used to sleeping under before he had met Alejandra. He whined at the thought of her, it was only natural for a dog to grow sorrowful when separated from its pack.

With her dominating his thoughts, he realized just what cluster of stars he was gazing at. The twin giants of Pollux and Castor burned bright as he recognized the constellation of Gemini, her birth-sign. As much as he had feigned a lack of interest in superstitions like Astrology, his curious nature lead him to study it after that fateful day when he...Couldn't remember. The finer details about himself were still elusive in this forsaken place, but the feelings remained. He was confined in both body and mind and he didn't need to know a thing about his zodiac to know why he hated that.

He lethargically flopped back onto his feet, searching the sky for his own marker of birth. He soon found Kaus Australis, shining as the brightest marker of the bow of the great centaur.

Sagittarius.

The sign of warriors and sages alike, of the free and the free-thinker, and many other things that seemed too poignant to be a coincidence to him. Even his preference for the color of blue was something the pseudoscience foretold. He knew he was destined for greatness deep in his bones, even the stars said it was so, so how could he allow himself to be trapped like this?

He felt anger now, hot and heavy, threatening to eclipse the dry heat in his throat. Anger for his foolish drives overpowering his reason, anger at the false promises he had been offered, and anger at needless cruelty of this place that had spawned them. He bore his fangs to the centaur, wishing he'd fallen under a lesser constellation rather than suffer the lies of the glory it had told him. He remembered pain before his arrival here, pain and strife, but never any achievement beyond a moment's victory.

Languishing in the dark hole without food or water had left him without any sense of time and the eternal night did nothing to help him. He had tried to sleep, but the agony of starvation denied him even that. He was in no condition to try to climb again, even if there was even a sliver of a chance he would make it. He was going to die here. He did not fear the end or the pain that would slowly bring it to him, but the thought of it being like this, a death without purpose, that terrified him.

Purpose. Memory suddenly returned to him as he chewed the word over in his brain. He was of purpose, he knew that much if the stars and his instincts we to be believed. A battle that wasn't his, a woman that eclipsed Alejandra in importance, and the destiny she had revealed to him. Sensing its cue, the sky shifted with his thoughts and he beheld a new set of stars.

The great Nemean Lion, the marker of Leo, was his to observe and its meanings his to ponder. The sign of the dominant and the jovial, the soul of a lion with the heart of a kitten, as one of the more pretentious astrology websites had described it. It fit her all too well, even her name matched the mark as well as Lena's preferred color of orange. Their signs were brothers of the element of fire, something that he both did and did not find agreeable. The peak of life she had achieved being something the stars deemed possible enticed him, but the two of them being incompatible was beyond disappointing. He wasn't so great of a fool to truly think that would be possible given the many, many barriers between them, but to have it so blatantly denied to him only dug the wound deeper.

As he gazed unblinking to the constellation, he noted an odd discrepancy in the formation of the stars, namely one that should not have been there. In between Epsilon and Kappa Leonis was an orange sun, one that burned brighter than even Regulus, that served as an eye in the rough mapping of the shape of the lion. Was it there before and he only noticed it now? He discarded the thought immediately, knowing he could not have missed such a glaring change until now. A new star had suddenly appeared in the sky.

On his feet now, all of his focus was locked on the orange sphere, something about it stirring half-remembered feelings within him. His forehead pulsed with a daggering pain as he gazed deeper into the burning plasma giant. It was no simple headache, as his first instinct told him, it was far too focused and far too great of a coincidence for it to occur now. Muscling through his agony, he forced buried memories from his mind and soon discovered why the pain felt so familiar.

The landscape may have morphed into an unrecognizable form, there being a landscape at all was a massive difference, but the feeling of it had never left him. He had torn the half-existent memory from the black matter of his brain and knew the limbo he found himself in now to be all too familiar. The orange star expanded to a size that defied all scientific reason, absorbing its neighbors into one, terrible whole. In the death of over two-dozen stars, a black hole was born in the center of the impossibly sized sun. The all-encompassing, eternally judging eye of terror had returned. It spoke again without voice, without emotion, yet somehow with a precise sardonic venom.

Do you care now, Slayer?

If there was meant to be any praise in that title, Brian did not want it.

"I didn't do anything wrong," He said, suddenly human once more "And I've never killed anyone!"

You would not be here if you did no wrong.

The Black said as the remaining stars joined it and wiped the sky clean and colorless, bringing it closer to how it first revealed itself.

And you may not have driven the blade, but do you truly believe that Inigo's death was not your fault?

Brian struggled to respond at first, the idea of him being responsible for the gangster's death at the hands of his own comrades had weighed on his shoulders ever since Santana had told him of it. He had tried to keep the doubt from his mind by teaching Alejandra of his craft, and to some degree, he had succeeded, but the burden of guilt still weighed on him no matter how deep he tried to bury it.

"What else was I supposed to do? They could have killed Ale if I didn't jump them."

One life for another with you as the arbiter. Do you truly believe yourself qualified for such a role?

It was with the utmost reservation that Brian told the truth.

"No, but someone needs to do it. I have the talent to make it happen and that makes me as qualified as anyone can be."

The laughter of the dark one came as an all-encompassing blast of white noise and an agonizing palsy surging through the courier's body.

'Just because everyone else is worse doesn't make me good'

The Black took great amusement at quoting the would-be hero's convictions from their last meeting.

You cannot keep your morals in line and yet you seek to enforce them for everyone else. Even you must realize the folly in that.

The terrible being's change of character not going unnoticed, Brian snapped back.

"And you know I was right this time! Three scumbags gang up on a girl and you're trying to act like I was the bad guy? I did nothing wrong, how was I supposed to know what Santana would do? I didn't even know he existed back then!"

The action was not flawed, the morality was not flawed, you were.

"What do you want from me!? Should I be crying after every punch or something? What's wrong with taking some enjoyment in doing the right thing?"

You do not fight for the sake of what is right in your mind, you fight simply for the pleasure of it. You may not wish to admit it, but it is dangerous to ignore the truth.

"Stop beating around the bush!" Brian's fury finally reached its apex "What in the hell do you actually want?"

Yours is the path to ruin, Slayer. Soon enough, that title will be more than mere jest. Alejandra wants to help you. She wants you to be happy. Let her.

Brian began to chuckle, not in humor, but in disbelief. "That's it? I'm happy enough with my life and I'm making the world better for everyone else by living it. Even me staying isn't going to change that."

And what reason do you have to fight for the world, other than your childish lust for a woman who doesn't even know your name?

Brian was wrong, he had not reached the height of his rage, not until now.

"I outta piss on you for that! I'm not some fanboy, I'm way beyond that! I found my purpose in life and she helped me find it, that's all."

And this destiny is to starve to death in a pit of your own creation while you stumble your last in the all-too-fitting form to a mangy canine?

At that, Brian clawed his way up the walls again with all hell's fury intending to make good on his threat. His ears rang and his muscles spasmed as the noiseless laughter returned and nearly drove him tumbling back to earth. The uproarious silence had done nothing to stay his advance, making a 30-foot climb on a flat wall in mere moments with newly regained hands. Each flare of pain seemed to strengthen him as his fingers sank deeper into the dirt and the rage beating through his skull drove him higher. His strength had returned to him, malnourishment only a memory now that he was enveloped in his new purpose as he bared his fangs to the Eye. It was pointless and it was petty, but proving this new adversary wrong was all he had now.

Still a slave to the hunt. I suppose there is nothing I can say to stop you. I can only hope you heed my words when she speaks them.

From the formless void of the iris, a shimmer of golden flame cascaded across the sky. The comet trailed with brilliant streaks of royal blue and burning orange, repopulating the sky with glimmering stars it left in its wake. The beauty of the celestial rebirth brought pause to the growling hound, if only for a moment. He wanted to admire the sheer spectacle of such a divine phenomenon, but he had a duty to see his self-issue task though, no matter how small it may have been. He was of purpose, that's all that mattered to him.

Not so much as a moment after he had made his decision that the sky caught fire. In the latest defiance of physics, the comet has shifted in its path and began descending. It fell with a speed that defied all logic, but that was to be expected, insane as this realm was. This impossibility was something Brian could not help to stop and witness, only continuing his climb when he realized where it would be falling.

He clamored diagonally, attempting to evade the blazing chunk of space debris without losing the ground he had struggled so hard to gain, but the sheer speed of the meteorites approach denied him that path to safety. A drop back to the bottom would be his surest route, but he quickly discovered another flaw of the canine form in that he could not look down without hitting his chin or twisting his body in a way that would lose him his already unsure grip.

The golden flame of the comet became a furious orange as it entered the atmosphere and despite Brian's best efforts in escaping to the opposite wall of the pit, it still seemed to be heading straight for him. His options were limited to continuing to climb and try outrunning it once he reached the high ground or dropping down and hoping that he had not come too far for it to be fatal. Considering how driven he was and the ability he possessed, Brian figured that he had gone well past the point of a death drop and as such, he tightened his grip with one hand and reached higher with another.

The desperation to reach the top had served him well, the stories worth of earth disappearing even faster now. The comet sped forth for its final attack as Brian just barely reached the top with barely a breath in his lungs. The incandescent space rock had grown very small now as it came so close to its goal, but Brian had tossed himself over the breach with just enough remaining strength to clear the area and look back on the impact as it fell straight down the pit.

"I win…" He exhaled with a toothy grin to the one he had defied.

Arrogance, as it often did, doomed the would-be hero. The impact was sundering, defying the size of the meteorite itself. The ground exploded with megaton force, sending stone shrapnel flying with lethal force. One rock among thousands found its way to Brian, a stone half the size of his palm, and plunged itself straight through his chest. Bone and sinew collapsed in on themselves and tore organs apart as he flew backward through the air. Blood catapulted through the air with a gurgled attempt at a scream of pain. The Black's laughter returned and his forehead burst open with all the gunshot that had first sent him here. Brian-

...

-Opened his eyes. The decoration of the place told him he was back in Hernandez General, though naturally not in the same recovery room. The saturation of unnatural light told him it was most likely night, and from that, he assumed he had only been here for a few hours. Memory returned in an instant as the nature of his injury was far different from when he was last here. Dream or vision, more of his time with the Black had stayed with him than before. He swore to keep a tight grip on these already fading recollections, knowing by instinct they held infinitely more value than any other thought in his head.

"Finally awake, eh?" A voice slimed out from the only corner untouched by the light. Brian knew the voice immediately, even if they had met only once. "Hell of a thing, ain't it? Medicine, I mean." Santana continued as he leaned forward from the visitor's chair "Get a lung punctured and you're back up in eight hours. Weren't like that back in the day, lost a lot of prospects to stuff half as bad as you've gotten in two weeks of being here."

Brian wanted to leap from his bed and there and then, but that kind of thinking is what put him there in the first place. He listened with anger, the emotion causing almost unnoticeable phantom pains beneath his chest. The feeling told him he would not be in the condition to win a fight against him even if he did try and that only added to the pain.

"Can't say it's cheap though," The gang leader stood and leered down at the would-be hero as he carried on. "It might be a shock to a bay-boy like you, but down here you have to prove you're worth something to get out of the grave. Getting your lungs ripped open ain't gonna be cheap and if you have to go through an assault case in court too…"

"2281 Porraz Avenue, 10 to 4 am, you're getting 10 matches." Brian cut straight to the point, anger seeping through his teeth with each word.

"3K a fight? You ain't Alexander, boy. Try 15 fights, and that's only if they're quality." Santana hissed.

"Good, now piss off and let me sleep." Brian lashed with venom

Santana chuckled at his arrogance and left the courier in silence.

"'Yours is the path to ruin, Slayer'." The words echoed in his mind as he stared at the ceiling, dreading how he could explain all his failure to Alejandra.

Sneak peek at Part 13: /watch?v=eb0D0-aMhpY