April 1st, 2019 - 09h41 pm
The euphoria that came over me after Klaus and Ben's dazzling performance was short-lived, albeit intense and sincere. Could it have made me forget the reason that brought us into the splendid walls of the Icarus Theatre, under the beautiful glass roof where the full moon spies? No, I don't think I've lost sight of it for a moment, and for one simple reason: at no point during the shoot-out we've just been through - absolutely no point - has Viktor stopped playing.
The melancholy notes arising from his inner being now twirl unfettered, without the slightest blast of gunfire echoing through the room, making him the only soloist of his resentment and sadness. He no longer even looks at his siblings. And I feel his sorrow rising around him even more, the sound waves he moves causing the matter of all things to collide, uplifting energy. And yet, this is just a lullaby to him. I can't imagine what would happen if he were to play a requiem.
Perhaps he senses that his siblings are looking for a way to stop him, and I fear for a moment that his actions might catch up with my thoughts. For already, his bow lingers, his phrasing changes, and it's the whole edifice of the Icarus that I feel rumbling. Like Hargreeves Mansion just a few hours ago, in a terrible reminiscence of what has collapsed. The colonnades, the deck, the balconies, the Bacchus ornaments: everything quakes, while long vertical cracks tear through the stucco and concrete, right down to the gilding on the vaulted ceiling. I don't know if the Horror's intervention has weakened the load-bearing capacity of the walls. But handfuls of dust are now falling onto the carpets in the central aisle, where I'm still slumped over. All I can hope is that Diego - who hasn't turned up yet - isn't in trouble.
"You'll have to teleport for a while," Klaus says to me, examining my calf.
"Or, alternatively, hop around."
Chuckling would be my first reflex, but a twitch of pain quickly replaces it, as he tightens a bandage on my leg, improvised with a silk scarf left behind. I underestimated his abilities in combat first aid. After all the times I've had to patch up his cuts and scraps myself, usually healing within a day. The latest being three weeks ago, when he tried to cut a bagel in half with his finger in the hole. If Ben hadn't vanished, he'd probably be smiling to see us turn things around this way, but it seems that Klaus has given it his all and can't summon him right now.
Has something just changed, now that he's demonstrated his ability to materialize spectral energy at that frontier of his soul: where life and death collide? His siblings' trust, maybe a little. If only. And if I wasn't busy gritting my teeth in pain, maybe I'd tell him how proud I am of him.
I don't even catch a glimpse of Diego finally returning: my eyes linger on Viktor's diaphanous silhouette, raising opalescent rays under the stage's arches. Pure and white. White? I don't recall his costume or violin ever being white. Is this a sonic alteration of matter, or a visual expression of the energy he's now stirring up? Or just a hallucination linked to the fact that my wound is throbbing terribly?
"Are we all in?"
Luther's voice snaps me out of this questioning, almost startling me. A short distance away - in the aisle where Klaus has joined him - he's planning to surround Viktor. To surprise him by coming at him from all angles, so that one of them has a chance to get to him. Once again, I'm not going to comment - I'm not legitimate. And even if Klaus opines that it's a suicide mission, the general opinion quickly seems to be sealed.
General? No: Allison's eyes just met mine, and she doesnt agree. For the simple reason that Viktor's their brother, and this is an assault. But Luther isn't even listening to her: he's already assigning the positions from which each of them will dash onto the stage. He completely dismisses any silent feelings she might have, undoubtedly taking advantage of her voice's silence. And in as little time it takes to teleport - he heads to the stage-right side, Diego to the the stage-left side, Five and Klaus absurdly assigned to the front, which is suicide indeed. And I stare back at Allison, who remains as petrified as I am in the middle of the aisle.
"If Luther only tried for a second to understand his power...", I say.
Down on the floor, weakened, I can only sigh amid the shimmering air.
"... he'd know that Viktor will react to the slightest incursion into this aura".
Perhaps because his brothers are so close, Viktor begins to play a crescendo that tears through my soul. For this is my point: it is no longer possible now to threaten his physical integrity, to enter the bubble of destruction he has enclosed himself in. Doing so would only unleash the immense potential energy he's accumulating. I can tell Allison is aware that I feel it in my flesh, the energy Viktor is raising and channeling. It echoes with my own power, my nerves, my bones. And her speechless gaze questions me: asking me what I would do.
"Viktor is a tuning fork, Allison," I say, trying to push my words over the crackling air. "It's through sound waves that he bends energy."
The difference between Luther and me is that ~I~ have been doing odd jobs on the festivals technical crew, in the summers. My hand reaches for my chest, and the name Led Zeppelin.
"To prevent him from playing... it's his audio feedback: his ear, that should be jammed".
This is not a musical metaphor. Just as Viktor turned off Allison's voice, it's his hearing that should be suppressed, at least temporarily. But on stage, Number One is already shouting an assault order, sealing what's about to happen.
"Now!" he shouts, and this vehemence makes me flinch.
Allison stares at me one last time amidst the dust fallout, as her brother is assaulted from all sides, in the reverberating echoes of his pain, fanned anew. In the immense, audible exhalation of the blinding aura emanating from his bow's magnificent wails.
*SHHHHHHRRRAAAAA*
We're both thrown to the ground in the middle of the aisle, swept up and blown away by this new blast from Viktor. I expect to see Five, Klaus, Diego and Luther in pieces right in the middle of the seats, but that's not what's happened. When my blindness dissipates, it's to see Viktor gripping them, holding them captive through the energy of their beings, paralyzed to their very nerves. And he has that cold stare that's no longer human.
I pull myself up onto my elbows, Allison crouching nearby, and she sees my eyes fill with pure horror. For I feel in the convections of matter and energy what Viktor is doing, my blood frozen deep inside me, to the point of nausea.
"He's about to drain them," I can only murmur, livid.
To erode the very physical essence of their beings, now with the unshakeable will to kill them.
It only takes Allison a second to grab a gun, amidst the lacerated bodies of the gunmen, and I watch her disappear down the alley, a trickle of icy water sliding through me. I saw the conflict within her, and despite the call to "not kill Viktor" scribbled hastily on her notepad earlier, I just witnessed her doubt. I don't know if she'd listen to me, I don't know what she'll try.
*Crack!*
Against the stage edge, I collapse again, right under Klaus's contorted and transfixed shape. I close my eyes, in a desperate attempt to assess whether my power can at least slow down the erosion Viktor is inflicting. My fists clench, and if I had any breath left, I think I'd be screaming. I painfully sense that now - if I were to let go - they would all turn to dust and radiations, but I'm holding on, I'm struggling, and despite all my efforts, I can feel them wearing away. I can't hold on for much longer. Who could? Despite my will, my strength is running out, and tears of helplessness would come to me, if...
*BANG!*
Upon the blast of a single bullet, Klaus falls to the floor from some three meters above, almost crashing onto me. Five rolls against the seats, Luther destroys a whole row of them by falling. Diego doesn't even have the reflex to land on his feet like a cat. Everyone gasps for air, panting briefly...
Until a lazer-like beam of light cuts through the theater. Pure, straight, powerful, it passes through the ceiling, in a drastic release of Viktor's accumulated energy. The glass of the ceiling falls in sharp hail around us, in a final crash. Then the beam vanishes, the theater once again bathed in the faint glow of electric lights. No more notes, no more trills, no more vibrations in the air, no more hissing. Silence falls, like the one that precedes everything, or heralds the end. I crawl over to where Klaus has fallen, against the first row of seats.
"Holy shit," I swear unwillingly as I grab him and check he's okay, and he retorts, the swamp green of his eyes stunned but undoubtly very alive.
"Jeepers creepers!"
And right away, just like the others, he stands up again. For we all catch a glimpse of Viktor collapsing upstage in Allison's arms, the barrel of the gun still close to his eardrum. She listened to me. She understood what to do to jam his ear. And a buzz of relief fills my head as I realize what we've just avoided.
"We saved the world", Luther congratulates half-heartedly, and I don't dare believe it, I've hoped so many times in vain over the last few days. I slump against the red velvet, clinging to the eternally benevolent glow of the moon through the shattered skylight. Just like on so many chaotic, crazy nights in The City in the past. Just like...
"Klaus?"
I open my mouth, flabbergasted again. And I call out to him, as I rarely do, with the sole purpose of getting him to turn around.
"KLAUS!"
I just pointed a trembling finger at the sky, and his expression quickly mirrors mine as he stands up there on stage. It's not a hallucination: not of my exhausted consciousness, nor of his brain seared by too many years of getting high. On the pitch-black sky, its jagged silhouette growing larger by the second as it falls inexorably and vertiginously, a Moon rock has just broken off.
What is the reaction when the end of the world is finally upon us? When it's no longer an abstraction, a prospect - even a looming one - but an ongoing reality? In truth, every being in this world, at this moment, probably has the same reaction as we do: to look up at what's coming, in some odd spellbound terror.
The ground quakes. This time, it's not the foundations of the theater, but the very structure of the Earth that is shaking. From dozens of simultaneous impacts of what are 'small pebbles', compared to the lunar-rock monster hurtling in the very direction of the beam that tore it apart.
I think of Granny, probably asleep in front of her drama. At least, for her, for everyone, we've tried everything... I don't know what is the definition of failure, echoed in Diego's voice. But even though we are all together here, we are all collectively alone, at this moment, in the face of the meteor rain that is beginning to fall. No umbrella will protect against this. A derisory fabric shield in the face of the fiery storm. We won't save everyone. We won't save even a few. All we can do... *I just felt Five's little blue eyes staring at me*.
~All we can do now is implement Plan B~.
"This doesn't have to be the end," he murmurs to the disbelief of his siblings. Including Klaus, who catches the exchange of glances I have with his brother, and - as his explanations unfold - comprehends what we've been planning.
I don't know if it's still possible for us to open a bend in space-time, significant enough to take us all away. We've given a lot in the last few moments, Five has just been partially drained of his energy, and I'm injured. We each teleported half a dozen times. But his point is clear, and besides, what choice do we have? Is there anything left for us to lose, now that the whole city's electrical power is progressivly faltering?
Klaus manages to bring Ben back, which in itself is an agreement to leave. I know that - this time - he's not angry with me for not telling him about this possible outcome. For making a deal with his brother again. Because it's not a question of trusting him or not, this time. Because watching our backs has always been as much in my line as getting my hopes up. And because - he too - has faith in us to succeed.
*Crack!"
I teleport to his feet, Ben close by, and try to get up. But I don't have enough strength, and what's left I'd rather save. Luther lifts Viktor, not without hesitation. Did he just praise the fact that the family is reunited at the end of everything, just before considering abandoning him? I'd rather hang on to Five's proposal to try and 'fix' his power: I don't have time to get angry anymore.
Klaus looks down at me as the stage begins to rumble. At this moment, possibly due to the impact of the big meteor, a terrible quake makes us all wobble to the point we all have to hold on to each other. That's what Five and I need anyway: close contact between us all, to be able to jump as one.
As I cling to Klaus's and Ben's ankles, the theater's electric light cuts out, probably like the whole world. Darkness falls over the neo-classical moldings, while Five's full attention is once again focused on me. Then he looks up at the darkness of the ceiling, squints, inhales all the air his lungs can hold. And then, as if we were pulling at two different edges of the same veil, I tear the one of space-time along with him.
*Wooshhhh*
The anomaly opens up, above our heads, in circular furrows of white and blue light. Narrow at first, small, but expanding gradually as our wills coalesce. As we agreed, I'll let him set the destination, if it's even possible to choose one. This time-jump will be into a relative unknown, apart from the imprint the universe has kept of Five, some five decades in the past. And I cling as tightly as I can to Klaus, to Ben, my fingers possibly clenched so tightly it hurts, while all my nerve endings echo in the space-time continuum.
"Hold on! It's gonna get messy!", Five shouts.
But suddenly I feel Ben's leg matter fading beneath my fingers, and I raise an empty gaze to Klaus. He struggles to keep him tangible, his eyes screwed on the immense temporal vortex that will encompass us as soon as we finally seal it. He's given too much fighting the gunmen, he's at the end of his tether: without even really realizing it, he's losing it. And if Ben found himself dissipated now... I don't know if he'd be taken along.
Part of my focus immediately interweaves with Klaus's, right into Ben's matter, through the spectral flow running through both of them. For a moment, I seem to be made of nothing but energy, splitting my strengths between the vortex and them, no doubt perilously. But no one will be left behind. I can't imagine the tango no longer taking three, for Klaus needs him, at least as much as he needs me.
And my head spins, spins. For a moment, I feel like a child again. Like Bạch Liên, about to teleport to the greenhouse roof to Mom's screams. Like the five-year-old girl who had to rebuild her life on another continent, and is about to do so all over again. Like Marine, at thirteen, the day she shaved the sides of her head. Like Rin, taking her first breath amidst the scattered papers in the City Hall antechamber, after being brought back to life. Like the one of police custody, sewers, squats, retro movie theater, concerts. The one of a few shames, but mostly of all prides. The one made of tears and laughter, fiery outbursts and deep sighs. From the rehab hallways to the skyscraper heights. And finally like the one who could stay here after the end and refused to. My head spins, spins again, as a searing red light rises all around the theater. I close my eyes tighter than ever.
~Lock. Trigger~ *ZAP!*
In the blink of an eye and as hellfire breaks out, we no longer belong here. Words finally make sense: 'Ut Malum Pluvia', 'when evil rains'. And the rest is silence at last.
Notes:
It's not easy to find the right words when you're writing the last word of a story. But this one isn't over, as you know!
I really didn't know what to expect when I started this fic. Choosing the slippery path of a plot parallel to the main storyline, trying not to fall into rewriting, adopting the present tense and the first person singular. In full knowledge of the risks. I hope I've been able to bring you some joy in this anomaly of time.
If you have read it to the end, even if you've been reading silently so far, drop me a word, even just an emoji! I'd also like to thank you all for giving me the will and courage to carry this story on, especially my dear ReiraLoxar and CrayFee.
See you very soon for season 2, there'll be no need to wait a year, unlike on Netflix, I promise! :3 See you soon, whatever the year the story takes us now...