moved.
"There's nothing but death for you out there."
The words seemed to echo quietly between them for a few long seconds.
Listening to the first words the man had ever uttered on Stonework, he couldn't quite comprehend the message. "Nothing…? But… you came from somewhere… Somewhere Else. An island, something - it has to exist!"
The Islander only shook his head slightly, a subtle change in his expression indicating apology and remorse… but more than that, he would not offer.
Further pleas fell on deaf ears. The Islander watched him in silence, unwilling to speak further. Shouts, recriminations, and begging garnered nothing but a neutral stare - maddeningly the same as he himself had employed throughout his life.
"Rolf," Kitna whispered, stirring. "Let's go."
He fell to one knee, finally giving up on the watching giant.
"How do you feel? Are you -"
Her jaw trembled with repressed tears. "I'm sorry."
"Oh…"
"But I don't want to go to the Fields. I don't want those bastards to have my calories. I don't want to be part of the Grand Cycle anymore. Take me east."
He nodded, overwhelmed.
The boat sputtered to life again, taking them east, in parallel to the Unsetting Sun idly watching them from the north.
The Islander also watched them go, his neutral gaze following them to the limits of sight, the hammer still loose in his grip.
Once society and all its ills were out of sight, he stopped the boat.
Only the sun and a split sphere of silver and blue surrounded them.
He curled up next to her, his hand lightly on her weakly beating heart.
"You never answered," she breathed, pushing blood out of her mouth with her tongue to clear her words. "You never answer."
He ran his hand lightly down her neck, wiping away dirt and dried blood.
"What do you want?" she asked, intent.
He shook his head, at a loss.
"Tell me, asshole. I'm dying."
He laughed once, his forehead pressed into her neck. Totally private for the first time, the world nigh on ending, the words finally spilled forth. "I think about kids sometimes. About how I would never let this happen to them, never sell them out, never abandon them, never leave them to survive on their own. I would raise them without fear, without hunger, without pain if I could. I think about a family sometimes."
"With me?"
"Yeah."
"I'm pretty messed up," she whispered, a single tear smearing the blood on her cheek. "I… just always thought that you had a place in your heart reserved for me, no matter what I did, no matter what fights I got in, no matter who I pissed off, or what promises I broke… I'm sorry…"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes," he said again.
She laughed without sound once, twice, and gripped his forearm weakly.
He sat up some indeterminate time later, truly alone for the first time in his life.
The only features that distinguished the endless sea from the endless sky were a subtle tint of silver and the Unsetting Sun reflected, two suns burning him with unceasing light. He studied these things with his real eyes - his fuzzy, nearsighted eyes - unable to proceed east into the unknown and unable to go back west into certain death. He would have rolled the dice on heading east, hoping to find some unknown land by pure chance before he starved, but the Islander's words echoed in his thoughts.
He waited for a time, gripping the hard metal side of the boat - a similar boat's side had once left an imprint on his forearm, not less than a week ago, on his return to the hellhole called society - but nothing changed. The Unsetting Sun seemed to grow larger in the sky, and the spilling heat began to reach painful levels against his scraped, battered, and raw skin.
"How did things fall apart so fast?" he asked, but her empty eyes just kept staring blankly at the other side of the boat.
He curled up in the bottom, seeking what scant shade he could. Minutes passed, or perhaps hours. There was no way to tell.
"You know, I think I'm over it," he said randomly, his skin beginning to redden. "Over this, over everything. It's a good question - what did I want? They never let me have anything, not even wants."
And still, in his deepest keep, in his most protected spaces, a black figure sat across a roughly hewn table and smirked at him.
"What?" he shouted, his voice echoless for the first time. "What do you want?!"
The silhouette touched the base of the ledger sitting on the table between them, as if testing its substance. Where before, it had always been blank by technicality and rationalization, a single mark now unmistakably marred the open page. He had lashed out in anger - killed, even - and there was no denying the world had finally gotten to him, finally sullied his soul. "A curious life, you've built for us. A castle of dreams to hide in. Too bad it wasn't enough… and it will never be enough."
He scratched at the sunburn working its way around his body. "Well, what would you suggest?"
"Stop hiding."
He tilted his head, his lips painfully dry. "Genius advice, there."
"Stop hiding. Start taking control."
He sat up for some time, painfully aware of the warm metal against his legs and the searing sun against his peeling arms. The sea ran smooth and silver, and the sky ran smooth and azure, but nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. It was a universe of cycles, so he'd read, but nothing ever changed.
He fell back into the shaded bottom of the boat. "What has it been… a day?"
The silhouette across the ledger grinned. "Two. With your calories, you starve to death in another two, but you die of thirst in one."
"Go to hell," he spat, standing abruptly.
A smile crossed his face as one of his old favorite songs burgeoned through his awareness. The slow but emotional beats gripped his limbs. He began dancing in the searing sunlight, truly blissful and happy for several minutes, totally free of embarrassment, totally free of judgment - totally free of others.
"Ta way rahn, na way yeh -" he shouted, twirling.
He fell prone between the benches, laughing.
"Stop screwing around," his haunting shadow muttered. "We're going to die unless you do something."
But the song only grew louder, filling his consciousness utterly. "Na way yeh, ta wey in -"
"Focus!" the shadow roared, slamming his hand on the hewn chrome between them. "We're not going to die this time just because you've lost our damn mind. There's more at stake than you know."
He shook his head. "He was right. I did it. I refused to cooperate, and they starved. I tried to rationalize it, but it's always there, following me…"
The shadow only glared at him.
"And I stabbed that man in the throat. I just stabbed him, didn't even know I was doing it. I hated him so much, I can't even put it into words. But does that make killing him right? Maybe this is what I deserve!" he shouted at the empty skies. "I played it to the end, Rolf the Rude, and I bought myself twelve more years. And yet, here I am… alone, the way I always wanted."
"Stop blabbering. The optimal strategy is to return."
"To what? They're all dead. I have nothing. Zilch. Zero."
"To run the risk of repeating ourselves: don't be an idiot."
Staggering, he relived that demonic fist rending the heavens, felt the explosion tear apart the buildings all around again, felt the force of the blast throw his body like chaff in the wind.
"A nuclear bomb…" the shadow whispered. "They built it. It's somewhere out there."
He glanced down at Kitna's pale body, licking his dry lips with a sandy tongue. "If it's a bluff, they'll know. They won't listen."
"Would it be a bluff?" his pain incarnate asked. "Would you kill one hundred million to save the other nine hundred million? What about three to save seven? Five to save five? It's all just numbers."
He curled down, his head pressed against hot metal, his face screwed up
in despair. If he had any water left, it would have left him through his eyes.
"Rolf?"
He tried to sit up, but his body refused to comply.
Arms closed around his chest.
"Rolf, you're alive! I knew it!"
His thoughts addled, he even imagined himself lifted up. Or was it imagination?
"Am I… dead?" he croaked, his bone-dry lips croaked, his blistered skin burning painfully.
Elizabeth smiled back at him, her face wet with tears. "No, you're not."
He glanced past her, seeing a second boat pulled up to his. "How… did you… find me…"
"I'll always find you. That's what I do." She laughed, holding him close. "I followed as soon as I figured out where you were. You're not that far away. The Edge is right over there."
He nodded weakly, rasping a breath before he replied. "Oh… I'm nearsighted."
They laughed together for a moment - one weak, one strong, both confused and amazed in unison - but then, covered in her long blonde hair again, he began sobbing, his every pain pouring out in horrendous tearless sobs. "She's dead."
"I know, I know." She stroked his ragged hair.
He broke down completely, the imagined rising tenors of his favorite song obscuring all thoughts but grief with heavy beats of long sorrow and ancient pain. Even as Elizabeth pulled him into her boat, his thoughts ran broken and pained, but he still had one idea firmly in mind.
"Wait," he croaked, stopping her at the controls. "Have to do something first…"
Reaching over into the boat that held Kitna's body, he hit the ignition button.
The boat spurred into life, picking up speed, heading east in sync with those endless ripples in the sea he'd often watched and wondered about. He watched her body head off into the distance