Chapter Two Part Five

 Eric was blindfolded again. He succumbed to the darkness and believed that he was it. Light never seemed so far beyond the tunnel of unfortunate circumstances. Endlessly, the tunnel wound through mountains. It was almost like a portal, a threshold where if one passed, the world around them changed for the better or for the worse. A Timeless notion that exists throughout time, space, and spiritual realms. Never broken, never disturbed with all ordinance of divine and ordinary power. Hope was a word that was as close to truth as a lie. Hope was the incorrect word for light at the end of the tunnel. Change was what was at the end of the tunnel. After a short while, Eric's blindfold was taken off, and his eye revealed to him that he was back at the syndicate headquarters. He traveled down the endless stairs once more, and he began to grow weary from the repetition of the spiral staircase. Eric's rage grew to the size of an unclimbable mountain, and Eric was stuck at the bottom of it. Trying to push past this awful feeling, he bottled it up inside, and when he entered the syndicate room, that terrible, evil, vicious place, he let loose and couldn't control his anger.

"Why did you make me do that? Val was the last person that I ever had!" Eric shouted at the syndicate head.

"Congratulations, Mr. York, you are no longer a dead man. In five years we will release you." The first head of the syndicate spoke.

"I don't want to be released now. Kill me! For I have killed too many for my own sake."

"How much do you think you're worth Mr. York? Ten lives, Twenty lives?" The second head of the syndicate questioned.

"I don't know. Don't care either. Just kill me!"

"It appears, from our records, that you are worth at least seventy people. All of those people died, so that you could live. Do you really want to give away what they gave to you?" The third head manipulated Eric into agreeing with them.

"You made me kill so many people. I never wanted this."

"You have our word that we won't put you inside of the pit again. We will put you in our guest room."

Eric was escorted to the guest room. It was dark and dingy, but there was at least some basic accommodations. There was a bed. Eric was almost in tears when he saw it. It had been months since he had slept in an actual bed. There was fresh soup everyday, and it was the first time he had food since he came to Glenwood. Finally, Eric felt at peace, but he never looked like he was. Covering his body, his scars made his skin look burnt, and his eye that was completely blind, was decaying. There was sadly not much to do about it. He then smelled like death, and if anything, that was what Eric was beginning to look like. Eric was beginning to look like the walking corpses that he executed. His hair grew scraggly and his skin grew pale because he had not been exposed to the sun in five years. 

It was a miracle that he lived in that room for as long as he did, for the drywall of it was cracked and all of the things that live underground crawled through the cracks. If anything, the room resembled Eric's life. There was a light, but it was falling out of the ceiling. The only furniture was an old wardrobe which did not do Eric any favors for he had no clothes other than the ones that he was wearing. There was also a desk with some stationary on it. This proved to be the only thing that Eric cared for in his room. He wrote constantly for hours on the tails of men and mythical creatures. Five years he lived in that filthy rotting place. Nobody kept Eric alive. Maybe it was hope, but it was lost to all but the land above. There was no hope down here, only despair. There was a hint that maybe it was pure rage that kept Eric alive. Pure hatred, as red as blood, was what coursed through his veins, keeping his heart beating so that he would never expire. 

Eric was not a forgotten force in the world though. Jose still uttered his name even though he had not seen him in years. Sadly, this was the way of things. Jose wanted vengeance. Jose had not learned about his wife's passing, but he was going to find out in a little while. He had moved out to California after Eric shot him. He needed to escape from all of the things that haunted him in Colorado and Utah, so California was his only option. Out there, the ocean hummed a sacred melody and the air was fresh with its breeze. The air was breathable too. Sand and dust from the desert and prairie didn't penetrate the nose like it did in Colorado and Utah. There was just always a sense of rejuvenation in the air. Jose's shoulder never fully healed which induced his anger and hatred towards Eric to a level he had never even conceived as a possibility. Out there, in California, Jose had no one. The bars were only fleeting glimpses of the life he used to have. He missed the days when it was him, Alex, and Richard, but those were gone and erased completely from the knowledge of the universe only to be remembered by Jose. Jose had no idea what happened to Eric. He hoped he was dead, but hope only brought pain. Despair tasted like an orange and was as easily consumed.

Each one of them sat at a desk hundreds of miles away from each other thinking of the memories of old. Remembering one another and cherishing the time that they spent together. Reminiscing the good times they had, but the memories of their quarrels stained their brains. The mistakes, the fights, and the promises fell to nothing. Their memories were nothing to the rest of the universe but a speck of dust on the industrialized road of tomorrow.