Chapter 16A: Array of Infinite Emptiness

Chapter Sixteen

It was a mistake that haunts every memory that inhabits my hopeless mind. The mere invocation of that mistake has the power to transform a daydream into a nightmare. If only I asked her to freeze time in the moment Hayatama took the stand, then perhaps we could have completed our campaign as it was always intended. We could have finished the inscription in seconds and spent the rest of our vacation from time splashing in the shallows, dancing beside the shore which would witness the death of an entire city. We would have danced hand-in-hand on a future cemetery.

But because the thought had not crossed my mind, because my tunnel-vision had driven me to complete the Array, I became blinded to the world around me. I became blinded to the obvious solution to a more important problem. That mistake was mine. I’ve mentioned before that I know enough about math to understand the infinite eventuality of my own mind. My memories will fade one-by-one as I walk into eternity, but I believe the memory of that mistake will be the last that I lose. It is tattooed in my brain as a portraiture of my own self-hatred.

The next mistake was hers, though I can hardly blame her on any level. If she had simply chosen to not use her power, I could have protected our path with parapets made of rock. We could have listened to the clamor of blades clashing pointlessly upon palisades produced by my power while we finished forging our Array. She wouldn’t have had to lift a finger. She could have simply bled slowly into the sand while I devoured everyone in a burst of black fire. And then with the stolen power to heal, I could save her from her injury and also her sickness. I could even save myself from the perilous plague that now pervades my veins.

But the unfortunate truth is that it takes time for black fire to break a soul into fuel, so now that we were locked in this timeless space, we were locked away from our only salvation. Only she and I were unfrozen in time, so she poured blood upon the beach without any recourse.

“Please tell me that you can cancel your power. It is only when we unfreeze that I can devour. I can save you as soon as I steal the power to heal,” I said as if I were giving my final appeal.

But Aeliana simply shook her head and said, “I’m afraid I am already practically dead. I wasn’t willing to risk your survival just for the off-chance that I could somehow save myself. This injury will kill me in this timeless space, but at the very least I can save your life.”

Despite the state of her body, she broke free from my hold and stumbled toward the only opening in the Array of Black Fire. I could see her struggle to survive beneath her hazel eyes, but a valiant spark spurred her to complete the inscription. She reached for her paintbrush with her trembling hands, but they were too frail to grab ahold. She winced as she dropped the brush onto the beach. I scurried to complete the Array with her brush, but it did not circulate its energy or ignite with black fire. Even its power was frozen in time, set to awaken only when the world resumed its course.

Aeliana explained to me as she winced from the pain, “Your heart yearns for a freedom that’s enchained by your brain. You waste no time and sprint through your tunnel toward the light, so I stopped the clock beside you so that the timing is right. I heard a theory that our powers have significance. I know for a fact that my power’s no coincidence. I may be in pain, but you’ve been hurting yourself since the start. It’s because of your brain and the way it imprisons your heart. You focus on forging a future at the cost of the present; you rejected a reality where we all are evanescent. We contrast each other like a beautiful mosaic, one made by someone both heartfelt and formulaic. My power eliminates both the future and the past, so at least for now we can pretend that this will last. You can hold me now as if this is not our end, as if we have nothing left to destroy or defend.”

I realized then that I had lived life like a rusted railroad running past a paradise. Perhaps she and I could have ignored the underworld and lived a simple life in our humble home. Perhaps we could have spent our days toiling away like everyone else, and then we would come together in the evening like ordinary people. Perhaps I had focused too much on rewriting a reality I rejected too quickly. But at the same time, I knew that we could never have the same peace achieved by others in this city. We were bound by a love that cycled across time and space, conscripted by fate and cursed by the stars as a threat to their supremacy. We were star-crossed since our wayward souls first converged in a long-lost life. They feared the power we possessed and condemned us to dance in an endless spiral as twin flames, knowing that a double helix can never conjoin in the end. It was once a warm welcome where we were promised eternity, but it is an eternity in which we are forced to be apart. We were caught in a crisscross cursed to confront this same separation until the end of time.

“I need you to know that I will find you again. It’s a matter not of if; it’s a matter of when. I swear that I will somehow find you in your next life. I’ll defeat the stars that crossed us and make you my wife. You asked if I could let the future go, but the truth is that I really don’t think so. I’ll burn this world to ashes and find you in the afterglow. But the blood on my hands will remind me that I have loved and lost. I will kill my conscience and the crowd in a crime I call a cost. Bones City will still fall tonight because by the stars we’re crossed. I will never forget the future for which we have both been fighting,” I said to her as I saw in my head two different worlds colliding.

There exists in mathematics a concept known as the complex plane. While most numbers are real and others are imaginary, some straddle a space with one foot on each side of the boundary. A complex number is partially real and partially imaginary, almost like the timeless world to which Aeliana and I are now temporarily bound. But in that same way, I could also see the tunnel in my head shuffle like the light of a kaleidoscope, dancing between imaginary futures and complex possibilities. Perhaps the twisting kaleidoscope reversed the universal script and showed to me a wave function’s collapse in slow motion.

Aeliana said as she strived to soothe my regret, “Your soul has been on fire since the moment we met. Please be careful what you wish for because it might just come true. You don’t have to destroy the world just so that I can have you. Even with my dying breath, I will whisper that I love you.”

Note: There are still 3 more parts to this chapter