Black Sunshine: Stay Out of My Mind

Anthony's vendetta had been exacted. He'd become a changed man, then. We returned to the lodge several hours later, the long walk kept in silence. Aurthur The Indomitable, scourge of the mortal planes and demon incarnate, had been laid to rest; fodder for the worms with the rest of his army of detestation. What was it to me, though? What meaning did it hold? It was another slaughter, another genocide, another instance in which I sullied my hands with the lives of thousands for a reason most would deem invalid.

Our companions, along with hundreds of former slaves and roulette "winners" were camped out around the lodge and celebrating that evening. Carrie was diligently sorting through each and every case individually and attempting to determine how best to re-integrate these people back into society, or find their families, and how best to restore the former territories of the tyrant. The next several years would have seen her the busiest…

Langley and Hundir were getting plastered and being fawned over by dozens of women who were recounting stories about how "valiantly" they fought to protect them. No one recognized either of us when we returned; though, for that I am grateful. I walked down the long hallway with Anthony towards our room; we were ready to retire. Out of the corner of my eye I caught glimpse of Erica behind me; she was surprisingly stealthy considering her mass.

She approached and laid her hand on my shoulder, which I promptly shrugged off, "Oh, the touch thing…sorry…" That was the first time she had ever apologized to me, I was quite surprised. Anthony, who had stopped temporarily, sighed and continued onward, around the corner and out of sight until at last I heard the creaky oak door to our room open and close quietly, "So…. It's done? He's gone?"

I turned around and face the muscular elf, who stared at me with an ambiguous expression, "Yeah." Was all I managed.

She lowered her gaze and closed her eyes, exhaling slowly for a prolonged period of time; as though she had been holding her breath all day long, "I, uh… I have to thank you, I guess," She grit her teeth and scratched the back of her head, jamming her other hand into the pocket of her leather breeches. The woman was really swallowing her pride, speaking to me like this, "I don't… I don't know what I'd have done if I actually got up there and saw the freak… I just know I wouldn't have come back the same person I am today."

I couldn't help but sinking a little. Was that what happened to Anthony? Did I sacrifice his entire being on a whim? She continued, "Killing that fuck was all I've been living for this past decade, but now that it's over… well I got something else to live for."

"What's that?" I inquired, non-committed. I couldn't divert my attention away from Anthony.

"Killing you," She lifted her gaze and smirked at me playfully, "The guy who whacked my nemesis now holds the honor of being number one on my hit list. I saw you out there, you were a beast. Since I know I won't ever possibly be able to beat you, I guess I'm just going to have to keep living until I croak or find a way," She pointed an index finger at me and grinned wryly, "But that doesn't mean I won't give it my all, so you better be fucking ready!" She finished with a swift punch to my chest, which doubled me over, and walked away.

I couldn't help but laugh.

-----

Anthony was already in bed and wrapped up in blankets by the time I got to the room, breathing rhythmically. I took a seat at the small table, the last of the setting sun's light coming in through the window and illuminating patches of the room. The majority of the light fell on our bookshelf, and I perused the contents.

Typically I only read a book once, and as my diamond memory helps me retain most information with respectable accuracy, I never have need to touch the same one again and transitively discard them after consumption. Anthony, while capable of anamnesis to a similar ambit, was an avid collector of literature. Over the years we accrued so many pieces that I literally had to tote around a cart meant to be pulled by oxen.

Just scouring the titles of the books I couldn't help but feel remorseful. Medical textbooks, biographies of mass murderers, encyclopedias of torture devices and weaponry, rare compilations of police reports too vile for public consumption, necromantic texts and dark fantasy - to name a few genres. It painted a picture clear as day: the boy was drawn to the macabre.

I told myself, those many years ago, that the boy would walk that path; that he was born a creature like myself and would inevitably find this mentality. I knew it before it occurred; I had seen it so many times before… and yet I could not help but ponder if I made the right decision in his rearing? What might have happened had I taken him in and given him a more stable lifestyle? I tried to tell myself there was no chance, but does that justify not trying at all?

He would have been better off dead, this much I knew regardless of the circumstances. It was my selfish whim that he lived to see that day; my capricious nature that he suffered so. I knew that, and acknowledged it as my sin to bear.

I rolled into my mattress, at the foot of Anthony's, without undressing or cleaning myself of the dirt and dried blood. I was tired.

"Sleep well." Anthony muttered.

"Sleep well." I replied.

-----

That night I dreamed of terrible things. I dreamed of the horrible people I have known, of the treacherous things they have done. Of the people I have slain and the corpses I had left. Of the atrocities of war and the broken shells of lives left in its wake.

My mind was plagued with violence and fright. Of emotions inconceivable and ecstasy ill gained. I remembered Alicia, that beautiful little elf girl I loved like a daughter. I remembered teaching her how to skip rocks across a pond with water lilies; teaching her the difference between right and wrong; teaching her how to forgive. I remembered hearing her melodic laughter each time we played a game together.

And then I remembered killing her. I viewed the scene over form an extrospective vantage, watching myself plunge the crystalline blue spear into her tiny heart. I saw a malevolent grin dominating the face of the man I thought I was as tears streamed down his face. I lunged at him, but my body froze. He pulled the spear from her chest with a tear and faced me, striking me with a backhand so forceful I tumbled over.

"This is what you wanted…"

-----

I sat up with haste, gasping for breath with a rapidly beating heart. I forced my breathing to slow and focused on my surroundings. It was almost mid-day, if the amount of light seeping in through the westward-facing window was any indication. I clutched my head, throbbing painfully, and kicked my feet off to the side of the bed.

I glanced over at Anthony's mattress and noticed he was gone, which was a rarity; the boy rarely left to use the bathroom without me. Despite being one of the strongest beings in the world, he was, like myself, still an incorrigible coward.

I got to my feet, still disoriented, and moaned as the blood in my head rushed. I stumbled for the door groggily; my only thoughts dominated by hunger, and noticed myself in the mirror hanging next to the frame. I sighed and pressed on; I'd eat first and then clean up.

I entered the foyer expecting to be chastised by Carrie or Erica, only to find the entire place empty. Not a single soul, not even one of the survivors was present in the lodge. Confused, I piqued my mana perception, only to be even more confounded by the fact that I only felt one human mana signature aside from my own.

"What…?" I could not rationalize my thoughts readily in my waking stupor, but then the realization struck me like a cannonball, "He didn't…" My eyes bolted open. The only other signature I detected was Anthony's…

I opened the front door of the lodge and saw what I could only describe as a massacre. There were no immediate signs of a struggle, but one might not notice this underneath the conspicuous layer of gore.

Tents were pelted with stains of crimson, strips of flesh and punctured with bones tossed like projectiles. The ground beneath my feet was supersaturated with humor and the side of the lodge was dripping with blood. All about were the corpses of men and women ruptured from the inside out, exploded in combustive eruptions of gore. Chest cavities were blown wide open, skulls split like coconuts, organs shredded and splashed about and bloody husks toppled atop one another like oyster shells.

The dominating scent was that of obliterated intestines and raw fecal matter, coupled with seared soma. There were various "decorations" scattered about, as well. Planted in the ground to my left was a long pike with no less than twenty severed heads speared through it; a veritable totem pole of death. Off to one side I saw one mound of torso husks arranged in a very queer fashion; the arms of each stuck through the rib-bones of the next so that each cavity wrapped into another in a circle.

Dozens of reprehensible examples of gory creativity; at the center of them all was Anthony. He was naked and sat atop a "throne" made of the various body parts of our companions; Erica's torso for the base, Hundir's rent cavity serving as the back. The arms and legs of Langley and Carrie had been torn apart and their bones used as sockets for the chair's. Anthony rested his feet on Erica's severed head, which he rolled back and forth gingerly, and stared at me with hands folded on his lap.

I merely gazed back at him; fear inhibiting my action, uncertainty blocking my voice. What could I say? What would I do?

"Don't think on it too hard, big bro," Anthony broke the silence after a long moment, his voice rigid and lacking modulation, "I'm ready."

"This is…" I started, and lost track of thought. What was I going to say?

"Hell, I figure," Anthony answered, "At least, this is what I envision it to be."

"What happened?" I stuttered. It was all I could say; I became numb with confusion.

"I happened, Zien."

"Why?" I dropped my hand to my side and my mouth hung limp.

"Because I am afraid."

"You are afraid… of what?" I asked, knowing full well the answer.

Anthony kicked Erica's head off to the side and rose; the flimsy throne of naked flesh toppled over and collapsed on itself. He stepped closer to me, a look of deep-seeded understanding in his eyes; the gaze of enlightenment, a melancholy stare I see in the mirror every day.

"Of them," He made a broad gesture at the cadavers, "of you," He pointed at me, "of me," then to himself, "of the air I breathe and the darkness of night. Of the light of day and the stares of the populace. Everything, Zien." He opened his palms upward and looked into them with empty eyes, curling his blood drenched fingers, "It is a Fear that transcends reason and thought, that rises above even life and death."

He closed his eyes and fell to his knees, splashing in a puddle of blood and dirt, "I can see it in you too, big bro," He let out a long sigh, "you hear him too, don't you? That voice in the back of your head, always telling you how to escape the Fear that defines us? But in the end the Fear is too strong; it bends life and reality to its will and none can escape it… but I found a way."

"Anthony, it doesn't have to be this way," I started, and laid my hand upon his shoulder. I had difficulty maintaining my grip without being too forceful as the blood lubricated my palm, "Look, we can just forget all of this… we can run away, just you and me," I paused. What was I saying? I didn't offer poor Alicia the same opportunity, and Anthony was on an entirely different level, "Please…"

"No," He lifted his left hand up to mine and shrugged it off of his shoulder, "you're going to kill me now."

"Why would I do that?" I asked innocently, paying no heed to the carnage about me.

"Because if you don't kill me," Anthony rose to his feet and glared up into me, "I'm gonna have to kill you."

He snapped his fingers.

-----

I thought he was like me: born a monster and cursed to live a damned existence without validation. I was wrong; he was stronger than I was. He possessed a will more determined to escape his fate than I will ever be capable of. He set a goal in life and achieved it. When his time was up he bowed and left the stage.

I pulled the curtains.

My Fear was stronger; as such, my ties to fate were as well. Damned to a bondage I loathe and fight tooth and nail to break, I could only stand in awe over the corpse of my little brother. A mere child, an infant when compared to this aged body of mine; he was more of a man than I could ever hope to be.

His death was hard fought and well earned, a peace he deserved at long last, but it weighed heavily on my conscience. Once again I was responsible for the death of someone close to me. Had I the strength, those years prior, to end him before he became what he was – my brother – I might not have had to suffer the sight of his blood on my hands. The boy I would have given my life to protect, the boy whose existence gave me meaning, the sole human alive I deigned to call family, felled by these two accursed hands of mine.

I roared in ineffable rage against myself, my actions, and my life. All I felt was odium without focus, my existential being was personified as animus propelled by enmity directed at the self. Mana welled within me to such a magnitude that my cells began to destabilize as the tangible matter was supplanted by the ethereal force. I was collapsing in on myself and literally losing my place in the physical world.

When a living being taps the wells of their mana capacity without regulation, the excess of mana may flow through their body. When particularly powerful beings flood themselves with mana without release or direction, a physical manifestation of the energy may appear on the body of the creature, nearest its internal mana focus – the "spiritual" point where the body produces and draws mana from.

In my case, as an ancient human from a distant world, my interior mana focus is a segregated dual link found on my back between the shoulder blades. When my body courses with undirected, raw mana, I grow translucent blue "wings" of pure energy that cascade down my back in waves like a waterfall. As raw mana itself exists in a separate plane from the physical world of energy, these wings serve no actual purpose and cannot be perceived by any means other than sight as they technically do not exist, but the sight alone reveals the state of one's mana. My raw magic, when exposed through this primal expression, takes on a transparent pale-blue hue; this is my wrath, those are my "wings."

In my rage I sprouted my manifestation. Without a focus for my animosity they grew in size and intensity until at last I was cloaking myself in a shawl of ancient magic. My body began to flicker in and out of existence as with each scream I found new limits to my own potential, dug new trenches in my pit of self-loathing. I clawed at my skull but the pain in my head would not cease, the blood vessels would not sedate. My oculus nearly vacated their sockets.

I was at my limit. There was nothing save myself I could be angry at, but for some reason I denied myself even that small succor. Still, the emotions would not stop, nor would the mana.

"Imbecile."

I rounded on the voice, spreading my wings of tepid blue in a flourish of hate, to see myself staring back. I crouched over and barred my teeth, my claws, growling and roaring like a feral dog. I wanted to rip him apart.

"All your heart's desires," I muttered.

"SHUT UP!" I belted.

"Everything you see…" I barred a monstrous and toothy smile.

"NOT ANOTHER WORD!" I roared.

"If you only let me in…"

"I'll kill you!"

"But you don't want it."

"I don't need it!"

"You are weak."

"STAY OUT OF MY HEAD!" I couldn't hold myself back any longer. The earth trembled without cessation, my wings shrunk but would not disappear, and I drew my diamond out into a long double ended glaive. The other me smirked and mirrored my actions, tapping a well of mana so deep that even I could not conceive it.

Like me, he too manifested wings of pure mana; but his donned the countenance of blood red feathers, "What do you want?" He poked. I rebuked by lunging across the ground at him, slashing with my polearm. He blocked me handily, his grip sure and his pole sound, and countered with a similar stroke.

I bent backwards, under the riposte, and kicked off; throwing my arms out and back-flipping out of range of his attacks, but was surprised when the brute appeared behind me. He made a swing for my head which I instinctively ducked under. I countered with a swift kick upwards, which he mirrored, and the two of us ended up sinking our heels into one another's cheeks.

The blow was so powerful that I flew backwards, tossing my glaive to the side. I rolled on the ground a few times, once over Anthony's corpse, and regained my bearings. I ended up on all fours, growling at the image imitating me a few meters away. All about me the ground sundered, revealing depthless chasms in the earth which trembled at our contest.

I rushed to my right, and he, his, on all fours until we armed ourselves with the weapons once more. I faced him, disgusted by his red wings, and he, me, before leaping forward once more and making a thrust for his neck. He mirrored the motion and our weapons glanced one another, deflecting the blow just enough to send the blades beyond our necks as opposed to through them.

I was quick to react and with a twist of my wrist and a quick jerk I brought the crystalline edge to his supple neck. I was about to twist the polearm once more to slice his throat, when I realized that he had his glaive in a similar position to my own.

We stared each other down for a moment, the manic grin on his stupid face growing ever more disturbing with each passing second, before he erupted in laughter, "Do it!"

"Shut up!"

"Do it! What are you afraid of?!"

I pushed the glaive forward carefully in threat, but could not bring myself to push it in, "Stay away from me!"

"How?! Why?! What do you really want?!" He spat between laughs. I cannot accurately recount the seething contempt which I held for the man.

"I don't know!"

The man stopped laughing in an instant; he was insane, unpredictable. He lowered his polearm and looked at me with a confounded derision and furrowed brow, "Then what hope is there for you?"

"Hope?"

He took a step back and the ground ceased its never-ending disruption. He stared at me with glassy blue eyes and muttered, "You are pathetic." Before his wings turned to blue and shrank back into his shoulders.

"What am I supposed to do?" I enquired with no force.

"How am I supposed to know?" He turned around and faded from existence.

-----

I reached after him longingly, alas my fingers only grasped at air.