Part I: A Breath of New Life
Chapter III
Adonis gagged, clutching a hand tightly over his chest, the tall collar of his coat fluttering in the budding breeze. There was no blood. No blood. He focused his eyes on a disfigured nail in the wooden planks, mind racing and heart thumping like a wild beast. No blood. He was alive. At that thought, he barked a laugh, the tone dark and mirthless.
Is this what it feels like to taste death for a second time?
One knee slid underneath him, then the other. Soon, the feet followed, clammy hands grasping at the damp wood for support as he shakily pushed himself to his feet. Steady, Outsider, steady.
Emily Tippit was rocking in the shallows, her hull heaving a hefty sigh as Adonis scoured her with his eyes. The shrine within still beat with a warm embrace, but this time he did not feel the call to him as strongly. What did he expect to see had he found it? Perhaps… Perhaps he was hoping for a touch of comfort, but the Void had never offered him its embrace-only a cold nothingness that devoured all. Adonis had been a fool.
He was completely and utterly alone.
He wiped his wet palms, his expression falling to stone once more. So the Marked, Amos Kalin, had discovered The Outsider's dirty little secret. So what? Did the Marked truly expect that the Void would choose him? Adonis had half a mind to expect that he himself was still the Void's favorite, but he was sure that was a lie. By the time Billie had cut the cord, it was over.
"She should have killed me," he murmured. Being alive was much more difficult than he'd remembered. You're being ridiculous, Outsider. This life is so much better than before.
Adonis' boots scuffed the surface of the eastern docks as he headed up the slab of wood that led to Emily Tippit's deck. It wobbled under his weight and threatened to snap and crumble into the ocean, but otherwise it held.
What are you doing? This is ridiculous! Turn back now. But Adonis ignored these inner qualms. He had to see for himself.
Glancing about once aboard, Adonis bent over himself and reached for a hatch into the inner belly. It screeched in pain as he opened it and cringed when he dropped it onto the deck with a thunk! With that, he slipped inside.
The walls were veiled by purple and black shadows. Somewhere, the shrine beat with the warmth of a heart, not quite beckoning him and yet also whispering that it was here.
The inside of the cargo hold left Adonis with a shiver up his spine, and the faint hum of bloodflies resonated in his ears as he drew nearer to a shrine he knew wasn't his. Where is it? Where is it? The whispers are growing stronger. Softly, his foot pressed against the stomach of a man, his face horribly disfigured by a nest of writhing maggots. Taking a step back, Adonis stepped on another, and then another. The buzz resonated in his ears, the sour odor of rotting flesh nauseating him.
There it was.
The rough-hew shrine was stacked on top of a cargo crate and tucked into the tightest corner of the hold. It's soft light lit up the faces of the deceased, the wings of bloodflies interrupting the glow with their hummingbird-like beat. Adonis didn't step a foot closer. Instead, he allowed the bloodflies to swirl around him. They kept their distance, the hum a hypnotic melody.
The spell didn't last long. Adonis had seen what he'd wanted to see.
Leaving Emily Tippit, Adonis mulled over the recent happenings. He'd made a mistake in ignoring Amos Kalin-so what? What bothered him the most wasn't Kalin, in fact, it was the Void's intentions. It wishes to devour all the lights in the sky-all that has been and all that could be.
As Adonis made his way back toward the more lively western docks, his eyes began to notice the mist-like fissures that he'd passed on his way here. Posters of Billie Lurk and some gang leader flickered in and out, replacing the other and then back again. The Void is here, there, everywhere. At every street corner something was out of place, flickering just under the normal gaze, but always there.
It unnerved him, to say the least. The Void appeared to be gushing through every crack and seam at his absence, cackling at the loss of its oppressive representative and touching the hearts of the weary and unaware with its heretical black magic.
Feet echoed off of street corners, stampeding in another time and yet quiet in this one. As Adonis approached one of the anomalies, he witnessed screams that did not belong, laughing that put any steeled heart on-edge, and cries that could shatter glass. His hand slowly rose to touch it.
An explosion of black, black, black. Screams. Hunger. Hunger. Hunger. Hunger. Hunger. It hungered.
Adonis ran. Even when his new lungs screamed in pain and his sides burned like they'd been torched, he ran. For thousands of years he'd never felt such fear, such absence of life, such bloodlust from that endless vacuum of suffocation and hunger and emptiness. His ripped coat fluttered behind him as he booked it back towards the skiff. Old Daud still mulled about just off the coast, no doubt preparing for a journey to somewhere. The Void nipped at his heels and trickled through his bloodstream, offering its unwelcome amusement.
Once you've been touched by the Void, it never truly goes away. It's always there-inside us… and waiting with watchful eyes.
The skiff was absent from where he'd left it, the empty waters filling him with irritation and dread. The Void festered inside his gut, prodding at his organs and biting at his intestines-It was not a lovely feeling. Jerking his attention, he attempted to search for the abandoned vessel. Karnaca suddenly felt stifling, like it was a cage and he was the animal.
The skiff. Right.
But it was still nowhere to be found, and as his heartbeat began to hiccup and slow, the teasing prods and whispers of the Void slowed with it, eventually leaving Adonis to wonder if he'd seen or heard anything at all.
The soft kisses of the sea breeze was enough to send a chill down his spine.
Here he was, on the cusp of humanity with eyes as green as peridots. He was here. He was now. He was
alive. In the past, he would have believed such a feat to be folly-a foolish dream of a boy, helpless at his own funeral.
But here he was, the assassin Billie Lurk at his side, one foot on the mountain of life and one lingering in the valley of death. He was The Outsider: a vestige of a boy, his name long forgotten, his past scarcely remembered. Of those he'd spoken to, only Vera Morey-better known as the witch Granny Rags in her last days of The Rat Plague, a shadow which still haunts Dunwall to this day-had listened, her deaf ears perked and her blind eyes seeing. She'd been a strange curiosity, and yet she died the death of a rotten-hearted murderer, the blood of the leader of the Bottle Street Gang, Slackjaw, forever staining her lips.
To a being of over four-thousand years, life was a strange concept, and yet it felt so
right.
"How does it feel?" Billie Lurk murmured, tilting her head and eyeing him from her peripherals, lids narrowed lazily and watching-always watching. He was the god of mischief, after all. "To live again."
The black-haired boy, now a man, ran a hand through the locks which now swayed in the salted breeze. How long had he awaited this moment? How long had he yearned to feel connected once again to this plane of existence? Too long-much too long. The hair was dry and crunchy-a testament to his days spent as a beggar on the streets of a Pandyssian city, its name wiped from any and all history books. If one were to visit it now, all they'd be met with was a crumbling ruin left to rot by a fleeing people. Civilization always ended the same. It was humanity's doom.
For a long moment, the former Outsider drew in a breath, the chilled air stinging his lungs and instilling in him further resolve. To yearn was one thing, but to feel was another. He'd forgotten what ocean air tasted like. "It is not as I remembered it," he admitted, turning away from the cliffside to face her, his face cast in shadow by the rising sun. "I died a boy, but today I live as a man." He paused here, considering his next words with care. "Tell me, Billie Lurk, what was it you sought when you came for me? What were your intentions behind your actions?"
For a moment, the assassin appeared taken aback, her mild confusion poorly concealed on her dark features. "Didn't you-"
"I was not all-knowing, Billie Lurk. I was no god, as so many revere me as. I was but an entity-a play-thing of the Void that I was contained in." Again he paused, turning back to face the ocean. He noticed as the waves crashed against the rocks far below, the turbulent mist spraying up in a whirlwind of fury. The ocean was angry, as it should be. For a moment, he almost believed that he'd witnessed the breeching spout of a great leviathan. "Why did you allow me life?"
Billie shuffled in her spot, watching the tall collar of his jacket whip and flare in the nipping breeze. "No one deserves what was done to you all those years ago." Her reply was ernest, the truth bare for all to see. "I only did what was right."
Amusement leaked into his words. "Ironic, for an assassin."
"Those days are behind me, Outsider. You know that as much as anyone."
"I do."
The silence that plagued them both was eternal, each moment pulled and twisted until it snapped, leading way for the next. Finally, the black-haired man turned back toward her, his intentions unclear. His footsteps halted inches away from her form, his face a mask of indifference just as it had always been-except for one thing: a twinkle in his eye. Had that been there before? "I believe you require a boat, captain."
The skiff was there, bobbing slowly against the docks, hidden from sight just moments before. Where had it been, he wondered, when the Void teased and treated him so? But it was there, he knew, and had always been there. The Void was a tricky thing-a mischievous illusion to deceive even the best. If one weren't careful, they'd believe it to be harmless.
But the Void was nothing but harmless; It would devour the world until there were no lights in the sky.
Almost in a hurry, Adonis stumbled over the docks and into the skiff, immediately starting it up and trolling off toward Old Daud. Serkonos was a pleasant Isle for the wicked to dwell, but the former Outsider was not yet ready to lay to rest old ties. The Void had other plans.
