Chapter 15B: Lamentation at the Precipice

Even as we stood huddled on the shadowed shore where scores of people arrived every minute, I found myself remarking for the first time at the malleability of this reality. I had declared since I lost Alyssa that I would rewrite reality and render a world where we are together for good. Where we are together forevermore. But when I said that back before this all began, I had no idea how I could accomplish it. I had the will to warp the world without a way to actually do it. But these powers we possess, all unfueled in their natural state, define the way in which we each warp reality to achieve our own designs. My power is not bound by singularity, so it continues to grow with every life I devour. Every soul I swallow expands my power to bend this reality. And as time passes, as stolen souls approach infinity, I will eventually become unbound by the chains of what I once called reality.

The same city leader announced with a booming voice, “If we want to grow past this then we have no other choice. I know some people decry us for risking the spread of the plague, but we cannot let ourselves fall victim to fear. Fear is the enemy of progress; fear acts only to prevent the future we know we deserve. But as for me, I cannot fathom the thought of surrendering to fear on the night when we are meant to come together and honor our heroes. They gave their lives in an act of bravery to provide the peaceful prosperity we all now enjoy! How could we dare to defile our prosperous present by wasting the peaceful times they gave us? We cannot and must not poison their legacy or derail our future for something as dehumanizing as fear.”

I almost found myself moved by his words. If it were not for the fact that my cynicism infected my view of every city leader, then perhaps on some level I could take him at face value. He spoke as if he truly believed that the people of the city were champions who valiantly fought their fear to honor the valorous heroes of the past. At the same time, he had to know to some extent that this tradition would cost scores of people their lives. After all, even Aeliana and I silently spread our sickness to the crowd all around us. Surely there were other infected people as well. But then again, this city leader was right to minimize the terror of the paralytic plague which poisoned the people and percolated through the crowds. Even I, who struggled to suppress the symptoms of sickness, posed a threat far greater to this gathering than just the spread of germs.

“This is the time; it is now that we act,” I said to my accomplices as if bound by a pact.

Aeliana nodded and then wrapped her arms around me. She grabbed Claire with her shaking hand and activated her power by burning the fuel she seized in Bellaina’s home. It was in that moment the world around us froze altogether; even the ocean waves froze in place. The steam which lifted from the sea glowed in the light of lava in the distance. Tiny drops of suspended sea spray scattered the shore and shimmered in the starlight. But despite the orchestra of reflected lights locked in time, we resolved to ignore the beauty and enact our task as quickly as we could. We each had in our bags the plans which detailed the specifications of the inscription we would create. We each carried enough diluted ink to stain the ground with the barest minimum to trigger the Array. As long as the Array of Black Fire could circulate its power by connecting to itself, it would activate even if it were practically invisible.

I could not help but sense an ambiguous reaction inside myself as I stained the sand with the curved lines of the Array. When I was younger, I wasted hours of each night scribbling nonsense into notebooks while wondering if I would ever join the joyous crowds. I now found myself within these crowds but not among them. Smiling faces stood frozen in place all around me, gazing at each other with wonder in the excitement of some inane conversation. I could not help but feel like I could have been one of them in another life, with just a shuffle of circumstances or a second roll of the cosmic dice. It was like a last look at a long-lost life or a final glance at what never was but could have been.

Perhaps my ambiguity was not even my own. Perhaps I had slain a soul which lamented the action as I slowly committed it piece-by-piece, and it decried my crime so completely that it could echo even in death. Perhaps their merciful souls had poisoned my own such that my tunnel-vision dropped from 100% to 99%. Regardless of the reason, it made no difference in the end. I continued with bittersweet adamance, scarring the shore and staring at the faces of victims who could have been my dearest friends in another life. But this is the consequence of impotence. The weak have no way to exert their will on this world. They are bound only by chance, unconsciously begging invisible algorithms to steer them clear of a monster like me.

I could tell just by the unguarded smiles of the people I walked past that they were optimists in the same sense as me, except that their optimism was borne of the trend that they had so far had it easy. My optimism is borne instead by my realism. I learned long ago that we can forge a bright future, but only if we are willing to force it upon reality and annihilate any obstacle in its way. This resolve is so central to me that it manifests the power that put me on this path; mine is the power that turns obstacles into ingredients. It turns roadblocks into steppingstones. Everyone I passed was another ingredient for the future we swore to forge, and one among them possessed the power which would save our fleeting lives.

Even as I stained the sand with the unholy inscription, I couldn’t help but remark that this in itself was an object lesson on our biological ultimatum. We as people when faced with a threat are forced to choose between flight or fight. Some, like Donovan, find a way to wander the space between the two extremes as if walking a tightrope in the sky. When faced with a threat that endangered the love of his life, he had chosen to enter the darkness and use it to protect himself – almost as if he fled the threat so that someone else could fight it instead. Other people, like the underworld healer who had hidden himself in the crowd, choose to hide for protection. But I on the other hand chose to fight the threat and crush everything in our path. I staked my life and my future on this one gamble, and in mere moments, we would see the consequence of this cosmic gambit.

But among the delighted faces of conversant people trapped in time, I saw a single face stick out from the crowd. Instead of catching up with friends or making conversation with peaceful strangers, Donovan stood frozen in place with his hands balled into fists. He appeared to have been walking briskly and scanning the strangers that he passed. I invented a story in my head to serve as an explanation for his haste, like perhaps he sought out some old contacts from the underworld. Perhaps he was searching for his favorite city leader after hearing a rousing speech. I knew these reasons were nothing more than nonsense wished in reverie to deny the grim reality. When I dismissed the fictions I forged in my head, I knew that he only cared about one thing in this world. Since his family was not with him, his ardent search served as proof that he wanted only to find them. When I dismissed my daydreams and diagnosed the reality, I decided not to complete my segment of the Array. I left a small stretch of the final curve incomplete.

There is still one more part to this chapter.