To a friend—he penned on the corner of the page with sweaty palms. Beads of perspiration fell from his head to baptize the paper.
It may come as a surprise to you that I am still alive, even after all this time and silence. I have tried to escape from the life I once led in London in every way I could conceive, but now this past passion invades my dreams. It has become my nightmare—to see that placid, composed, grinning face in the moment when life stops.
It is time for me to tell you all I have come to know about the night the war ended and London was saved from the tyranny of a madman. It is true that Cain died. I have known this for many years, and if I have caused you any grief in withholding this information, then I apologize profusely. I thought I could sever all ties from the earl and my position in Alexis' organization, but watching their downfall has made that impossible.
It has occurred to me (now is not the first time) that you and your loved ones may find comfort in knowing how Cain left this world. He died very well. Noiselessly, really. He knew long before that night that he would not live past the final battle, whether it ended in victory or defeat, simply because there was no need to go on after the war ended. He was born with the intention of creating a perfect monster, and yet his purpose was to destroy his creator and prove his humanity.
You see, even after Cain defeated his father, if he had lived, the Cain we knew would have ceased to exist.
Did you know that manservant he loved so dearly was present at the end? Indeed, it was strange to see such a redemption, like a melodrama played out before my eyes. But, in hora mortis, many unresolved conflicts can be mended through double penance.
Cain's cream skin, hair parted, and speckled with dust. The manservant's body decomposing already—his left hand atrophied beyond any human explanation. His shoulders slouched heavily with no indication of the fortitude he held in life. Blood was drying. Yet, the master supported the weight of his servant, for the first time knowing what it meant to be depended on and suffocated by love. His hand held the black rosary, his eyes closed in solace. His lips, sealed, yet curled, as if the event of dying were far less impressive than he had anticipated.
And then, the tumult of falling rubble. The clouds of rock. The settling of the dust. The end of it all, at last.
Silence is my only companion tonight. I do not have art to convey the ultimate scene in its full severity. The magnitude of it all is ineffable, but this is my best effort and consolation. I have tried many times to familiarize myself with these images to evade its grip, but my results are thus futile. Maybe now, since I have finally told you what I have known for these years, God will give me peace.
Because in that moment, I glimpsed eternity. What wouldn't I give to unsee it?
D. Crehador
1920