Episode 26

1

The Count was near.

And not dead. Unconscious, in other words, helpless. He just had to get to him and tear his throat out. He would do it with his teeth, if necessary.

Rather, he'd gladly do it. He couldn't wait to sink his teeth into his neck.

Rip and tear.

Tear.

He has to disappear from this world. He has to die here and now.

As he crawled across the sand with one hand, Jonathan opened the status screen with the other. He possessed ten undistributed points. He put them all into the Strength stat, bringing it to level twenty-nine.

It was a joke compared to the Count, who had all stats at nine hundred and ninety-nine.

But it should help.

Jonathan needed all the help he could get.

Flames were rising to the sky, sparks were dancing. He couldn't see his surroundings clearly. From beyond the curtain of fire, the sounds of the battle that was still raging reached him.

Not a single cry of pain. Or faint whimper.

For only the dead were fighting.

I'm dead too, he thought. But I will come back to life. I'll come back to life when I have that bastard's neck between my teeth.

At last, he reached the Count. It had taken forever.

Yes, it had all been an eternal journey, from flames to flames. But there was nothing really eternal. It all had to end.

Jonathan bit his neck.

I've lost my sword; I've lost a leg.

But I will kill you.

I will kill you.

I will kill youkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill

Tearing.

He just had to tear his neck. Then he would bleed out, unable to get medical attention in time. The ship was in pieces and all his crew members were dead.

Even if his stats were so far above his own, Jonathan could kill him. He was the only person who could do it. He could already feel it.

The skin tearing, the taste of blood in his mouth.

He could feel it.

It wouldn't be easy or quick. But he could do it.

He had to do it.

Unfortunately, Jonathan needed time to accomplish that... and he didn't get it. The Count's eyes suddenly widened. He wouldn't be fast enough to escape, even if he could move well, which was no longer true.

So he didn't even try.

He kept biting, pulling.

But, as Jonathan had said, he needed time. It was no use.

The Count grabbed him by the neck.

Again. Picking up where he had left off, where he had almost finished. His iron hands, like pincers, closed over Jonathan's throat, cutting off the air, cutting off any chance of escape.

Had he lost?

After so much time, so much effort and sacrifice? So much agony? Had he... lost?

"Why do you fight so much? Why... Why don't you understand?" The Count sounded as distraught as he was, though for different reasons. Which made his hair stand on end. If Jonathan still doubted that he was serious, his doubts would have been dispelled in an instant, hearing him like that.

The Count didn't strangle him until he fell unconscious.

Nor did he snap his neck, nor did he beat him until he could fight no more. What he did was to throw him.

With one hand.

Like a garbage bag.

With too much force. That lunatic didn't mean to kill him, but still his heart rose to his throat, fearing he'd fall into the flames. Yes, Jonathan would come back to life later, but what did that matter? It didn't mean he couldn't feel pain. He didn't want to die burning alive.

He didn't want to end up like them.

Ashes in the wind.

Jonathan remembered the haze of the flames. Their crackling.

But most of all, the smell. The smell filled his nostrils, reached deep into his gut.

But he didn't fall into the flames.

Jonathan landed earlier, rather hard, he already had very little air in his lungs, so it left him feeling as if someone had stuck his head under water. Ironically, when everything was on fire.

Albeit only for a few moments.

He took a deep breath.

After hitting the ground, he had continued rolling forward a bit before stopping, of course. It couldn't be said that he was at a safe distance from the fire. Not at all.

But at least it hadn't caught him.

Yet.

He took a deep breath.

"I have to show you. Somehow I have to show you."

That was what the Count was muttering, as Jonathan struggled to stand up once more, although a part of him recognized the battle as lost and the effort as futile.

The Count was mad. He was no fool, but he was completely mad.

Locked in his own world, where nothing else mattered.

Locked in his own world.

What was he doing? Hadn't he accepted it already? What had he lost?

One foot in front of the other. And so on and so forth. Little by little. He couldn't even walk straight. The Count turned in his direction, suddenly wild, angry.

Just as suddenly his head exploded.

Not all of it, but enough, the bullet took about half of his face. The Count staggered. Yet somehow he kept his footing.

"Fuck me," The Count mumbled, taking another step. And another.

It couldn't have been a stray bullet.

Would be too much luck. Elizabeth... Yes.

She entered the circle of flames, climbing onto some crates so she could jump over them. She landed on her knees, grimacing, but recovered quickly.

She wasn't going to waste time reloading. The woman pulled out a knife.

Even though The Count was missing half his face (and a good part of his gray matter), the bastard didn't hesitate for a moment, he didn't even seem very slowed down by his wound.

He grabbed her by the neck, just like him.

Lifting her up.

Slamming her to the ground hard.

The knife remained in her hand. The rifle she had been using too, but she was in a bad position.

She kicked the rifle, sending it in his direction.

Elizabeth then swung the knife, which the Count stopped with one hand. The knife went clean through it, but what did he care? That was only a temporary obstacle.

No. I can kill him. I can still do it.

Not only had she kicked the rifle in his direction, ammo as well. Jonathan raised the rifle in his shaking hands, preparing to reload. Firearms might not be his thing, and he would only get one shot, but he could do this.

He could still win, incredible as it seemed.

He just had to aim well and pull the trigger, while Elizabeth distracted him. It shouldn't be hard to blow the other half of his head off.

Don't drop it, don't drop it, why are my hands shaking like this?

He reloaded carefully.

The Count pulled his hand back, easily resisting Elizabeth's attempts to tug the knife away. Yes, he took the weapon, still stuck in the wound. Then he grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled it unceremoniously, without the slightest care, from the wound that was practically splitting his hand in half.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter.

It was already closing.

To get the knife out, he had had to let go of Elizabeth, of course. Since his other hand had been rendered useless. But that hadn't helped much. Now the woman was writhing on the floor, one hand on her neck, struggling to breathe.

The Count wasn't worried at all.

Because he lived in his own world. But also because if she tried to escape, he'd catch her right away.

Both of us... we have no escape, do we?

No. No.

"I think I understand now. Why you refuse to listen to the voice of reason." Even though he was talking to him, The Count didn't take his eyes off Elizabeth. Not once. "Why you do nothing but fight. I thought we were similar, but you have hope, someone to depend on. I see, I see."

He'd already recharged.

Jonathan had already reloaded, but he was too nervous to pull the trigger. He only had one bullet. One chance. And the Count was standing, not leaving the spot, but even so he wouldn't stand still, he was shaking from side to side as if he couldn't keep his balance. He shouldn't even be alive, for fuck's sake, with half his brain scattered around. Let alone speak coherently, what a monster. In any case, if he failed, it would be all over.

For both.

For both?

His hands were shaking too much.

He couldn't wait any longer.

(No? Why not?)

Jonathan pulled the trigger.

Without making sure his hands stopped shaking, without worrying about whether he was really aiming right. In a way where that one bullet would be enough to kill him.

Jonathan simply fired as fast as he could.

That could only end one way, and it did. Instead of in the head or neck, at least, where he could count on him bleeding out later, even if it wasn't a one-hit kill, he hit him in the arm.

Not even in the arm with which he held Elizabeth's knife. On the other.

He couldn't stop The Count from stabbing her.

Center, in the chest, hard. As if he were plunging a stake.

Elizabeth gasped, as if it had just surprised her. Her head turned toward him, slack; blood flowed between her teeth, painting her lips.

"Nothing in my life goes right. I should have known better..."

Even the look in those murky, unfocused eyes burned him. He had seen too many people die, too many. And he had killed thousands more. But still...

It still hurt.

The shot still echoed in the dead air, where only flames rose. The bullet, the only chance. That he had wasted. And now it was all over.

For both of them.

Both of them?

Both of them.

Both of them.

"Wait!" His throat hurt as if it were raw, but he did his best to scream. To make herself heard. "Stop, stop! She's...!"

She's...

What?

He couldn't call her a friend, not when he barely knew her and could count the times they had talked about something unrelated to their mutual mission on the fingers of one hand.

Nor, of course, was she a love. Because of everything said above, but twice as much, and because his heart was dead. He couldn't even love himself.

It didn't matter.

Maybe he didn't have a word with which to define their relationship, but he didn't want to see her die. That was enough.

"I'll come with you, just stop!"

Jonathan couldn't believe those words had come out of his mouth. Total and complete surrender. What do you think you're fighting for, stupid, he thought.

It didn't matter, that didn't stop the monster, maybe his words hadn't even reached his ears.

The Count stabbed her several more times. He stabbed her to death.

And Jonathan could only scream.

The Count sat up, slowly, with his hands on his knees. His face, neck and forearms were soaked with blood. Which wasn't his own.

"Do you see it now? Do you see it?" The monster's voice was a whisper barely louder than the crackling of the flames.

But to Jonathan, it was as loud and loud as a gunshot.

It shook his whole world.

The Count was speaking to him, no doubt. But he still didn't take his eyes off Elizabeth. From Elizabeth's corpse. It was said that the eyes were the window to the soul.

Well, there was nothing to see there anymore. Nothing.

But Jonathan had an image burned into his retinas, obscuring reality. An image from just a few moments ago. Something that was now a thing of the past. But to him it was still very real.

Her eyes, burning him.

The blood running between her teeth, staining her lips.

Especially the words she'd spoken.

Nothing in my life goes right.

How much had she suffered, and how had she been rewarded?

He should have known.

That was what she had felt in her last moments, above all else. Not pain. Not anger. Just resignation, accepting that it was over, and a bitterness as if to say that maybe she should never have tried in the first place. Because it could never have worked out. Because that's the way life works.

The Count had set out, again.

But he couldn't even hold out much longer. The darkness soon claimed him.

For the last time?

2

No, not for the last time.

Jonathan wasn't unconscious, but he wasn't fully awake either. He floated in the darkness, with only a thin tentacle tethering him to reality. He saw the Count's boots.

That monster bending down as if to get a better look at him.

Then it spoke to him.

As if he knew he was there, when Jonathan himself didn't really know.

"I hope that... when you open your eyes... you'll realize what you've caused. "That's what he said. But it didn't end there. "And you make the right decision. I'll be waiting for you, Jonathan.

He watched The Count walk away, not really registering anything. Nothing. Nothing at all. And at last even the sound of his footsteps was lost, leaving only the sand floating in the air that he had kicked up.

He had a vague feeling that something was missing.

Maybe it was Elizabeth, still nearby, though she couldn't be farther away.

Darkness.

He saw a door.

A door without a handle.

I...

And then, sleep. The only thing that resembled peace he could have now.