Max,Ch 3
There was something dark that had entered me. An evil and a sickness, like a poison that knotted up my stomach until I wanted to puke. I wasn't even going to pretend that I had any composure left. I doubled over, and let the racking croaks rattle my body. My neck and mouth burned, like the souls of those I had killed were now sliding up my throat and out of me. I thought the death and pain would've ended with Aesir. Instead, I was standing at the bottom of a hill just as large as that one, and the carnage had already begun again.
A highway patrol pulled me over and started to question me. He told me about what happened at the motel, and wanted to see if I knew anything. The whole time, he kept staring at me, like he had seen me from somewhere. Truth is, he had, but I sure as hell wasn't gonna verify. Then again, I wouldn't have needed to. After a while, he recognized me, and went for his tazer. I was a faster draw.
I left the truck and the police car and wandered off into the woods at the side of the road. I didn't know how much help that would be, but if I couldn't run, I might be able to hide pretty well. But I didn't even want to do that. I was tired of fighting. I was tired of getting up after every fight, and having the crushing weight of hundreds of people press down on my chest every time I drifted off into a fitful sleep. In your dreams, nobody you kill is evil. Instead, they are just standing opposite you, searching for the thing that drives them. You know that if they had killed you, they just might have those dreams too. Their voices whisper neither malice nor anger, but only sadness, deep and cold and eternal. If hell is full of sadness, then I had already died. Every path in front of me just lead to more sadness. There was no victory for me. No vigor was left in my broken heart to keep going. I couldn't keep killing. Not for my family. Not for me. I had lost my family, I couldn't bring them back, and now I was dead as well.
I fished the revolver out of my pocket. The sound of metal, brushing gently against leather, so familiar to me, had always been a like a hush at a funeral, quiet and ominously mournful in its silence. My eyes took the cue, and welled up with tears that bubbled up to the surface from far within, making my face ache. I held the gun on the flat, open palm of my hand, fixating on the cold, smooth shape of it, the soft curves and the hard lines. The devils that manifested themselves in my rage had already soiled the memory of my bride. I pressed the gun to my lips. So much like her. The cold metal in my hands appeared to melt away. The taste of steel was so much like our last kiss. The blood and the tears mixing together as we both knew it was her last moment. The gun disappeared, and what remained was the image of my love. I held her in my arms and rested my head on hers for what felt like eternity, and yet it wasn't long enough. She looked up at me, and finally, put her lips to mine, and I tasted once again the blood and tears. It was real. She was here with me, and I would never let go. I would stay for eternity and cradle the flesh of the fallen angel.
She spoke to me, with words of love and of life. The tears were still there, and the blood remained, but there was no ache. The longing I felt in my heart that had felt like an emptiness, had renewed itself into a promise. And in an instant she faded away just as she had come. It had begun to rain, and I knelt there on the ground. "Michelle…" I said quietly. There was no answer to be heard. But I knew she was listening. The gun fell from my hand and landed softly in the wet grass. The sky was dark, but no longer was I. I had a destiny again. I raised my face, and let the rain fall as it may upon me. Footsteps splashed on the muddy ground behind me. "Michelle…" I said once again, "I love you."