Epilogue: Strange Highways

I lowered my staff and panted, staring blankly into the ocean blue carbon allotrope. The abysmal void that is my memory is never easy to view; neither from a physical standpoint, nor an emotional one. It is tantamount to willingly reliving the nightmares which would give lesser humans post-traumatic stress disorder.

I glanced up into the sky once more. It was night, now. The starry milk ocean was a beautiful contrast to the demolished Earth lying still before its apathetic gaze. I saw the constellation Orion and chuckled. What a great hunter he must have been?

I leapt off of the upturned boulder, a sizable chunk of concrete originating from a skyscraper, and started walking west following the setting moon; which was full this night, and red as if reflecting the paint which I had swathed across this pitiful world. My staff plodded into the ground with vehemence, puncturing stone and pavement and the occasional still body which had the misfortune to cross my path.

I followed I-66 out of Fairfax with no destination in particular. There was nothing left for me to do, here, nothing left for me to save; nothing left for me to kill. The planet was bare and I was alone; whatever bipedal creature escaped my ire was either dying somewhere in seclusion or buried under a mountain of stone. I was far beyond the conviction of ensuring a complete purge; there was no reason for me to do so.

I walked for several hours until at last the sun, that damned globe, caught me. It strangled the nape of my neck and stroked my thighs; its caressing embrace a great discomfort for me. I sighed. All about me I could see the continued results of my labor. Too much wonton destruction, too many crossfire casualties.

I turned around and the sun glare blinded my vision. I lifted a hand to offer reprieve and nearly collapsed when, after my pupils readjusted, I saw Alicia standing before me. She held that little pin-prick knife in her fingers, a practical shortsword in her tiny hands. She stared up at me with a smile, a trickle of blood draining out of the corner of her mouth. She was naked.

"So this is your Fear, huh, Zien?" She sputtered; a spray of sanguine escaping her orifice. Her big green eyes softened and glazed - there was no hatred in them, this time – and then she gently closed her eyes.

"Alicia…" I stepped forward and reached out. Her palpebra rose with shock. Just below her left breast a bloody gash manifested. The fluid trickled down as, again and again, hole after hole opened up and the humor spilled out. I jumped forward to grab the girl, to offer her one last embrace, but was prevented by the spear in my hand. It fell forward and stuck into the ground, so heavy, vaulting me back. I tried to let go of the diamond shaft, but it was fused to my hand. I was rendered immobile as a gaping perforation drained the little elf girl of all her life, "Alicia!"

She fell over, a bloody mesh on the pavement, and my spear flew out of the ground and towards me. The pommel slammed into my face and I fell over. I stood immediately, leaping up to my feet, only to see no trace of the girl before me. I caught sight of the spear; there were bits of supple flesh and humor dripping off of the head.

"Why are you afraid?"

I spun, my jaw trembling, to see Holly Whyte approaching me with a toothy, sadistic grin. She wore a translucent gown and twirled about her fingers the golden circlet. I was frozen, incapable of moving no matter how hard my muscles tensed. A cold sweat beaded on my brow as she came up to me, draping her soft arms around my neck. I tried to weep, tried to voice my protest as she brought her lips to mine and osculated, "There's no one here."

She stepped away, and pointed to the ground. I fell to my knees against my will and felt a familiar crushing sensation about the upper hemisphere of my nous. I noted that the circlet was no longer in her hands.

"Lick." She demanded, lifting her gown. My teeth chattered and my eyes darted, looking for succor, though I found none amongst the endless stretches of demolished pavement and automobiles. I fell to my hands and started to crawl forward. I muttered a squeal as that invisible entity possessed my body to action, it was all I could manage. My face pressed into her groin but met no resistance.

"I love you." Whyte fell limp and crumbled to the ground on her knees. I looked up to meet her face to see ribbons of flesh, sloppy grume and fragments of cranial bone where her head should be. The remainder of her face erupted and spattered mine. Chips of her bone cut into my cheeks and I could taste her blood on my lips.

Her corpse melted like ice on a skillet, seeping into the cracks in the pavement, until at last there was nothing left of her. Regaining control of my body I crawled back over to my spear, which I had dropped when I fell, and clutched it tightly with both hands. I clenched my eyes and started sniffling, shaking my head left and right. I opened my eyes again when I heard my whimpers met with sobs.

Right in front of me was the frame of a massive standing mirror, though no glass was being housed. On the other side of the frame was Janine, clutching her spear and mimicking my motions, "Oh god, oh god, oh god…" She rocked back and forth in her smallclothes.

"Please go away…" I whispered.

"Oh god, please save me!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

"There is no god!" On the other side of the mirror I saw myself lunge at the girl with a halberd, twirling and building enough centrifugal force to sever her head cleanly with the ax blade.

The head rolled off to the side, the dead gaze staring directly into my eyes. A single tear fell from her left eye as the head mouthed the words "help me." The air inside the empty frame fractured, beams of light denoting the invisible glass breaking. The frame crumbled in on itself and Janine's head disappeared. The last thing I saw was the image of myself grinning with wicked fangs barred.

I jumped up and started fleeing, my bare feet thundering down the interstate. I brought the diamond into my body and wreathed it about my fists, bringing thin push blades out of my knuckles and down my forearms. In my haste I tripped over an upturned segment of a retaining wall and grazed my face across the pavement.

I got to my knees and rubbed my cheeks. My stone skin absorbed most of the fall, but I had minor scrapings on my epidermis. I panted and looked forward once more. Before me was Yrr, dressed in that ridiculous carrion outfit with a flintlock pistol in his hand. The barrel was pointed at me; there was apathy in his eyes.

"Do it!" I shouted, eliciting a smile from the boy. I pulled the stone out of the dermis of my forehead and awaited my much deserved reward. Yrr grinned broadly and the emotion flooded into his glassy irises. He was elated, jubilant, and started laughing, "Do it! KILL ME!" I roared. In a single, swift motion the boy brought the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

A spray of blood vacated his hollow cranium and he fell to the side. The ground fell away beneath his feet into an endless void, a bottomless abyss of absolute black. His body fell head first down into the pit and I lurched forward, trying to grab at him. I caught some of the feathers of his suit, but the stitching tore and he dropped regardless, "NO!"

He was swallowed by the black, and I never saw him again. The pavement around me shifted and twirled like a maelstrom in the deep seas before finally reforming itself as it was before. I fell back to my rear and looked down at my hand. My diamond fist clutched feathers, but the feathers were made of steel. I opened my palm and the feathers spun about in the air, melding into one another until I held that flintlock pistol in my hand.

I screamed, tossing the gun to my side, and resumed my flight, lurching forward desperately.

"Wait!" I turned around and, atop an overturned sedan with the bodies of a woman and three children inside, stood a massive man with an equally impressive great blade slung over his shoulder. He was fully armored, but I could recognize that unique body of his anywhere, "Draw your weapon, beast."

"Why? Tell me, you nescient knight!"

He leapt off of the sedan, removing the amazing sword from its holster, "For my god, for my lord, for my love I will kill you! I will grant you the honorable death of a man, though you do not deserve it. Draw your weapon!"

"Your god is an illusion, fool! Your lord is yourself, and your love is dead!" I seethed, stooping over on all fours, "Your entire life is a lie fabricated by your inability to cope with your problems. Honor? You don't know what the word means!"

"To whom do you speak to, dog? Me, or you?"

I grit my teeth and charged the knight. Gaunts took the blade in stance but was no match for my primal ferocity. I dodged the crushing weight of the blade by juking to the side with my arms and countered by tripping the man with my legs. He fell over and I mounted him, stabbing with my arm blades, "Shut up!" Over and over I punched his armor and a small stream of scarlet stained my fingers each time I plunged in. The entire time the knight merely laughed, even after he had long since perished.

"You're so brutal, baby." A familiar voice in a familiar, serpentine language cooed me. I turned my head to see a dark skinned lamia a lane to my left. Her voluptuous body was wrapped around the corpses of Kant and Perry; she was picking them apart with her fingers and biting with her teeth.

"Help me, Nassaux…" I cried.

"I told you not to be weak," She pulled Perry's eye out and popped it in her mouth like a berry, "What is it you used to tell me? You can only help yourself?"

I dismounted Gaunts, and like Whyte he, too, melted into the pavement, "I'm all alone…"

"You were always alone," She plunged her tail into the chest cavity of Kant and ripped out her heart. The lamia brought her tail to her mouth and started munching on the arch of aorta, ripping scraps of the artery with her wicked fangs, "Why do you want that to change now?"

I stepped closer, my eyes locked with hers. Her face was marred with flesh and blood, but it was appealing to me nonetheless. I smiled at her sadly and she reciprocated the gaze warmly, consolingly. She ripped into Perry's face once more, pulling the skin off of his cheek and slurping it up like a potato peeling.

I opened my arms and moved in to embrace her; I was comforted by her cold blood, "I've missed you so much…"

She bent over me and sank her teeth into my neck. The pain was exciting, familiar… so familiar, a lost comfort. She pulled my hair back, craning my neck up to meet her face, and she kissed me, "I've been dead a long time." She pulled back and spoke softly. Her body began going gaunt and I could see her skin strung tight against her bones. Her hair fell out and her finger nails grew, her golden eyes shriveled up and fell out of the sockets, hanging by the optic nerve for a brief second before evaporating. The rest of her body followed suit and dispersed into dust, as did the mutilated remains of Kant and Perry.

I began weeping, then felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun and my heart skipped a beat; I stared into Rebecca's brown oculus. She wore one of those wry grins and laughed, "You're into some pretty freaky shit, eh soldier boy? Damn, son." She pressed the barrel of her revolver to my forehead and I crossed my eyes to follow it. She popped the chamber off to its side and held up the gold and diamond bullet I gave her, plugging it in, "Feel lucky, punk?" She chuckled.

"I do."

She spun the chamber around and pulled the trigger. Click. The weapon did not fire, "Bummer, dude. Better luck next time?"

"There won't be a next time… I had fun, Revy."

"Heh, don't get all sentimental on me, pussy."

Her head erupted, exploding from the inside out as a strong flow of Fire and Wind seeped into and out of her skull. My eyes bolted open at the horrific sight, her body falling away from me, and I followed the flows of mana.

"HAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Anthony was stooped over, clutching his chest at the painful erratic laughter, "Oh, wow! Did-" He paused and sputtered. His jubilation was manic, brutal to watch, "Did you SEE that?! Her head was like…BOOM!" He snapped his fingers and a ball of fire flared above his head. He resumed his laughter.

"Anthony…"

"Oh, man, now you're gonna kill me, huh?"

"It doesn't have to be this way, Anthony." I restrained my anger, my disappointment.

"I'm afraid, Zien," He stopped laughing immediately and donned a melancholy countenance, "Hell's fire isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"Why…?"

"Because I hate you." A voice, my voice spoke from behind me. I spun to see a younger me standing on a turned over segment of retaining wall. Standing at his side was Dagmar, clutching his shoulder and preventing him from running forward.

Beyond those two were Letta, quarterstaff in hand, and Gleam Fang. The woman and coyote were engaged in mortal combat. I rushed forward, past Dagmar, but was stopped when, with her free hand, she gripped my shoulder.

"Choose, Zien," I stared at her. Her eyes were set dead ahead at the conflict, though her hands were no less aware of their hold, "Man, or beast?" Both the younger me and I glared into her face, our eyes darting back and forth between Dagmar and the others. Gleam Fang was being pushed back, her muzzle had been broken by Letta's staff and she was battered from head to toe, barely able to keep alive.

I grit my teeth but could not move. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw my younger self take a small leather working knife out from beneath his coyote skin kilt and stab Dagmar in the throat. The two of them dematerialized right before me, but I did not hesitate. I lunged at Letta, but not before she landed one last blow to Gleam Fang. The coyote bitch fell over from the force, laying still.

I screamed and my vision went red. I couldn't focus and before I knew it, before I could even get my fingers around that fat woman's throat she was gone. Instead, at the end of my diamond fingers was the boy whose intestines I pulled out during my first siege. His neck snapped in spite of the fact that I let go of him immediately and his guts spilled out through a slit in his stomach.

"No…" I whimpered, cocking my head to the side, the rage in my eyes fled and were superseded by fear once more. I started running west once more down I-66. Where am I going? I left his body behind but I could not flee the scent of blood and the sight of death.

To my left and to my right, as far as I could see and beyond, were armies of nameless, faceless soldiers. Plastered upon each and every one of their chests was a sheet of paper with large print numbers, each one possessed a unique number though the features of their bodies were nondescript… with one exception. Aside from the numbers, there were also lethal wounds bore by each body.

21004563 shouted after me, "You killed my wife, and then cut me to ribbons because 'I couldn't live with the tragedy.'"

I looked to my left and saw a faceless woman holding her severed head, "You decided I was a 'sinner' because I used a Magitech vehicle." Her number was 5022964.

"You were high on some drug and started pulling my organs out one by one because you wanted to check the accuracy of your anatomy book." 48880981 screamed.

10034 flipped me off, though half of her fingers were missing as was her nose, "Cut me apart when I startled you on accident at an inn one night!"

"Tore my neck out in one of your primal fits." The living corpses of 245564, 201, 50081 and 660982420 shouted.

"Heh…" One voice muttered silently. I ran at full speed and looked to my right. I saw a face I recognized in the crowd: that disgusting Geraldo with his bloody phallus hanging limp out of the corner of his mouth like a cigar. He held up the peace sign but I rushed by.

"Shut up!" I covered my hands over my ears, but the voices pressed onward.

"One of the millions crushed under a mountain of rock."

"Punched a hole through my head with your bladed fists.

"Severed my daughter's head and then shoved it back inside my uterus."

"Ripped my arm off and stabbed me through the throat with the jagged bone."

"NO MORE!" I ran as fast as I could, but the legions of corpses never ended.

"Broke all of my fingers and toes and then made me crawl to a guillotine for the sweet release."

"Slaughtered my family in front of my eyes… I was one of the few you let live; you said 'I deserved it.'"

"Pulled the intestines of my lover out and hung me with them over the rafters."

"Threw me off the top of a tower."

"Crushed my skull with your fingers."

"SHUT UP!"

You are afraid.

Why?! What am I afraid of?!

"Yourself."

I couldn't believe my eyes. I never wanted to see her in those throngs of bodies.

"Not you… Gaea, please, not you…"

The young Crytean woman stood directly before me, the only one of the endless corpses impeding my path through the strange highway. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as I, and slender. She had a relatively toned body, with arms and legs that, while not out of place on her thin frame, showed considerable muscle. Her long, pointed ears sloped back from her head almost parallel, and her vibrant green eyes looked upon me affectionately.

Though, as is typical of the Crytean species, the strangest feature of the petite young woman had to have been her hair. It was a completely natural azure blue. On her forehead, to either side, were what looked, at first glance, to be two separate locks of thick and wet hair falling down and draping her shoulders. They were actually antennae, of a sort, which housed the Crytean interior mana focus.

"Judith, not you… Not here…"

The millions, the billions of animated cadavers surrounding me were silent, bearing their wounds and faceless bodies in contemplative meditation. Judith sported a long pike-like spear, one used by the Wyvern Knights for aerial combat, and her crested armor save for the helmet. With her free hand she held an open palm at me, halting my escape, "You don't need to run, anymore."

"I want to go home."

The Crytean sighed and looked askance, lowering her hand and speaking soothingly, "You know that's impossible," She looked up at me from beneath her bangs with pity in her beautiful green eyes, "Come here."

I obeyed, falling into the embrace of my love's arms. I hate touching people, but Judith knew my limitations and accommodated; she squeezed me hard. I rested my head on her shoulder, between the crook of her neck and her pauldron's crest. She dropped her pike and stroked my long hair, "I've done so many horrible things." I looked down at the dead pavement behind Judith with empty eyes

"You have."

"And here I am, pitying myself."

"You are."

"I only did what I thought was right…"

"You did."

"But I've failed. Time after time after time, I've failed."

At this Judith ceased stroking my hair and instead clasped my face with both of her hands and brought mine to hers. I tried to avert eye contact, but she was so close, so demanding, "You only fail if you see it that way, honey. You will continue to fail until you can accept yourself."

I teared up and sobbed, "How, Judith?"

She reached around and hugged me tight; cradling my face on the breasts of her armor, "Wait for me."

"How…?"

"Wait for me."

"Don't leave me, Judith. Not again… please. I can't do this alone."

"You've never been alone, honey. Just wait for me, I promise I will free you from this hell."

"Don't leave…"

But my words bore no fruit. My wife dissipated, as did the unquantifiable throngs of numbered bodies. I was left standing in the twilight of another evening, alone, surrounded by a battered and bruised world.

-----

I stared up into the starry sky. My stomach was producing an abnormal amount of bile, likely due to the fact that I had not eaten in almost two days. My eyes wandered to the constellation of Orion once more and I sighed. If only I could be a hunter of that magnitude.

"What do we do now?" I ask.

"We wait." I reply.

"How do we wait?" I ask.

"We live." I reply.

"What does it mean to live?" I ask.

"Nothing." I reply.

I have never questioned my answers; nor have I ever been satisfied with them. I stared up into the sky one last time and closed my eyes. Whispering in the back of my head was the echo of her voice

"Wait for me."