tossed into a large box, soaking into each other, the stink sickening.
“I’ve…” Vincent paused before continuing, “I’ve done unspeakable things.”
And really he had, whether he could put them together clearly or not. Unspeakable things. Foul murders. Foul intentions.
The old man burst out into laughter, the sound rolling in from afar, and the images haunting the soldier tied to the tree vanished like phantoms sinking into filthy walls.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Vincent said, his head numb. His eyes dry and empty. He felt as if he had fallen off a high cliff and lived. Was in pain.
“No,” the old man coughed out in laughter, “but I think you’re lying to yourself, boy. Hiding something from yourself just as I had been hiding.”
Hiding? He thought.
“Why the laughter?”
The old man quieted a little. “I’ve never seen a man look so afraid.”
“I know who I am,” Vincent lied. “What I am.”
The laughing stopped. With an odd–almost sad–expression, the old man said, “believe what you want.”
Vincent’s frown was heavy. Despite what the old man said, the Vellonian knew he was a soldier. Whether he joined officially or not, he was a soldier. The onslaught of distorted memories proved it. He had grown into one over a long period of time. He had made the monster which was himself. Constructed it with every ugly murder. Chiselled out of chaos. Born from bloodshed.
“Enough games,” the old man said, “tomorrow the wolves will be closer, the day after that who knows.”
“Then why are we here?”
“I told you already, we–”
“You said yourself, quite the games.”
“I have, a long time ago.”
Anger raked across Vincent’s patience, but he managed to keep it to himself this time. He was too exhausted to act upon any anger. Too used up.
“Why were you fighting that war?” The old man asked.
At first Vincent didn‘t answer, seemed as if he would never answer. It was a strange and random question to throw out there the way he did, after the other things discussed, but there seemed an importance to it.
“Why do you care?” He replied–finally.
The old man ran the dagger across the sky as if meaning to spill an invisible belly. “I care more than you think. We have both seen that door, but from opposite sides. You were locked inside without a key, backed into a corner without a way of escape. I heard you in there, from the other side. The side with the latch.”
“So you let me out?”
The old man didn’t answer.
“What was I doing in there?”
“Screaming.”
“What?”
For the first time since Vincent had met him, the old man blinked. He then walked away without saying anything else. Walked out towards the wolves with his strange walking stick, and began to scream himself.
Think, Vincent pleaded with himself. What’s happening?
Why am I here?
Where have I been, and what have I done?
He looked out towards the ocean again, the black line striking out the horizon’s underside, a sinister void swallowing all light cast against it.
And why is my mind trying to convince itself that I died?
7
Guilt is something that grows over time. Something like ivy, flowerless and stubborn. Hard to kill. With long arms, it creeps into a person and chokes them from the inside. Cuts off all hope of escape. It was a stormy day the guilt began, rain pouring down the narrow alleyway as if attempting to drown out the filth of a city gone sour. It could very well have been that single day which led him here, tied to a tree and helpless to an old man’s ranting. Could have been the very seed which grew into this inevitable situation, the seed which sprouted into this healthy nightmare.
Yes, it was a stormy day.
But what else?
What happened that stormy day in the muddy trenches of an alleyway? It was a hint of a memory that was peering at his thoughts from afar, a featureless face watching from behind a curtain.
How long ago was it?
Day melted into night, and still the answers didn’t come to the soldier tied to the tree. Nothing but blank spots where memories should have been. Vincent had been with the army for years, that was one thing he knew for sure now. More than two decades. Over that time span, he had seen and done many things. Made mistakes, but also claimed victories. Learnt a great many things. It had been a home for him, and even gave a sense of security, a sense of belonging.
But he didn’t remember how he had gotten into the army–and everything he did remember of his life as a soldier was disoriented. He only knew his armour did not belong to him–and that it had in fact been stolen. He tried thinking back to his boyhood and found it shrouded in thick shadows as well, found that he may have drown those memories in the darkest pits of himself, drown them, and left them for dead. Left them there to float undisturbed in oceans too dark and too deep to go back and check. The only life he had any form of recollection was that of a soldier. That of being a slave to death‘s hand, bringing it murdered souls without really ever wondering why. And truly, why? The question was so blunt. So honest, yet so obscure and secretive. Why had he lived such a life for so long; why had he never questioned it until now? Two decades of bloodshed, Vincent thought suddenly. What had stopped him from thinking for himself? What had blinded him? He almost relished the chance to ponder these things, and felt his hate for the old hermit dwindle a little. He would still murder the hermit given the chance, but he didn’t crave it so badly now. He also felt thankful in a strange way. Lucky. If not for the old man, after all, Vincent would still be out there somewhere, lost within the blackness of his life, and proceeding with the violence of an empty mind consumed by hate. Lost within something which wouldn’t have changed.
I’m facing the within, Vincent thought, tiredly amused. Just as the old man had said: “We shall face the within.” Vincent questioned whether or not the hermit was facing his inner shadows, and then let that thought slip away. Let it slip into the back of his mind to drown all on its own, let it fall backwards into the shadows with the things which seemed to scuttle from one chamber to another, with the things which drown but never died.
There were no stars in the sky tonight. No moon. Just darkness. The campfire had died to something small and timid, and the hermit was gone again. Vincent could see hints of the wolves' eyes glimmering in the distance like tiny stars, coming closer perhaps. Maybe they would finish him tonight.
He felt his eyes wanting to close.
He forced them to stay open.
“Why would a dagger be a key,” he whispered, “and what door?”
8
The poor bugger doesn’t remember anything. Not that girl he tried to save, that girl I killed, the medicine man thought with a face twisted and distressed.
Doesn’t remember stabbing me with my own sword either.
That was foolish on my part.
Won’t happen again.
He strolled behind the tree, down the steep hill, and to another tree growing up from the beach, one tall enough to touch the cliff’s half-crumbled lip. Unlike the one Vincent was tied to, this tree still had the odd leaf–although, the thing was clearly at its last days. The hermit climbed down it, careful not to snap any of the brittle branches, and hopped onto the sand–which was compacted, feeling more like stone than anything. His bare feet made muted thumping sounds on impact. The air down on the beach was cold and salty. Quite refreshing.
“Doesn’t even remember that room I locked him in,” he whispered, his eyes scanning the beach littered in boulders. “Only remembers the door to that room. How long ago was that?”
He paused.
Really, he didn’t know.
“The boy has an odd way of hiding his thoughts. Hard to read. Only little glimpses–and even then… Dark. Twisted.”
He took a few ste
ps away from the cliff, eyes still searching.
“Now where are you?”
He walked out further, blinded slightly by the starless, moonless night.
“Ah yes.”
He found what he was looking for.
The old man’s little cabin was tucked in behind a boulder by the water, and was hard to find due to the darker than usual evening. It seemed odd that he had trouble finding it though, the thing had been his home for some months now. But there were a lot of boulders on this beach, acting like a maze of stone, so he didn’t curse himself too badly. Sometimes you just forgot, or got side tracked by distracting thoughts. Sometimes things didn’t go so perfectly, and that was ok.
His voice hurt from screaming, so today he decided not to sing. That could wait until next week.
“The city was abandoned,” he said.
Thought I wasn’t gonna speak?
“You’re a dumb bugger.” He laughed a little. “Said I wasn’t gonna sing. I can talk all I want.”
This made him smile.
“Yeah, it was abandoned. Sure it was. Mostly anyways.”
He hadn’t even thought of that old city much at all until finding the boy again, hadn’t even remembered such a distant time. Hadn‘t actually remembered much from those days at all. He remembered now however, found it in the cobwebs of his thoughts just like finding the cabin from behind the boulder. Found it as if it were hiding from something, hiding from him perhaps. Yes, he remembered a great deal. Remembered everything in fact.
“Few were still left, including us. More of them though. Came in quick they did, like ants. Ebony armoured ants with cruel blades. Butchered most