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You are the cruellest, most stupid, most ignorant man I have ever known.
Chief can feel it rolling on his tongue, he can taste it, dancing burningly hot before being held down again. It is not the time for this, it is not, he knows, and for fuck sake does he wishes it was.
“Get over here and bring the stool with you. I’ll grab the medical kit.” Was all he got to offer before his steps took speed
Mortal life is not something we could fathom. Chief remembered hearing him saying that once, with his face covered and back turned to the door.
You don't get to choose when,
You don't get to know how,
You don't get to realize who,
And you don't get to understand why.
Life and death is not a choice, memory is.
And memory is not a virtue, time is
He said the same way a God would; but if he was a God like Netti and Ray, he would have seen them. Chief figure
Two boys, one taller than the other, speeding through the field. The blood dried on their cheeks and scales of caked crimson fell from their lips through every shaken move. Feets thumping as they moved forward; a boy joined them, then another and another, one by one until there was a wave of them. If he was a God, he would look down at them through the bushy shades of maples, through light bleaching their eyes and wind tearing against their scalp. He would look past the bumpy surface of boiling sand and shallow rocks. Hurry-drenched their face, erratically, the way they feel his eyes on their back.
If he was a God, he would be amused by the way the boys crashed into a mirror of themselves—another group of boys from the opposite side. There was a stun for a second, then it was gone, and they turned into man, and into red.
If he was a God, he would amuse himself on this
But Clown was not, and it was neither a curse nor a blessing
“Better?” Chief asked in the middle of fixing up his wound, Clown looked up, blinked once, twice through his lashes then down again. He flexed his muscles a bit, checking for unspotted scars and ripped tissues only to be amused by finding nothing
“Better,” He said through his teeth, smelling like iron “How about you?” he asked and Chief shook his head
“Barely did anything, I didn’t join the fight. Remember?”
There was a sound, silently, ah! like a realization of the way tensed muscles on Clown’s cheek stretched out slowly. He rubbed his head, opened his mouth then closed it again, awkwardly this time as if baffled.
A long silence. Then Chief took out his communicator, took a quick picture of the sky through their base’s window, then put it back in his pocket without reviewing what he took with him. Their eyes met. He flashed an embarrassed smile, then look away and started picking an unknown patch below his lips
"It's weird right?" Chief started. "Pardon?" Clown looked up
"The sky remained the same no matter what," He said, fluttering his eyes close slightly "It's the same in Echocraft. Is it like this in LifeSteal too?"
"I don't know, I never notice" Clown checked his communicator, feeling it being taken from him. Chief tossed the device in the air, taking a picture through the window. Showing their cameras side by side.
"Here, you can check it next time you return to LifeSteal" Chief smiled, slipping it back onto Clown's finger along with his
Clown didn't protest, looking at Chief's then back at his. He liked the other man's blue better, tracing across the clouds as if they would move if he stared enough
“So, are you hungry?” Chief said after a while
“What?”
“I was making dinner before you returned bloody and all. I’m just asking if you would like some food?” Chief chewed his lip for a moment “You can share it with me”
He smiled, contagiously the way his grin found itself folded across Clown’s lips too
“Yes please”
They had beef that day, saté-d and baked golden. Trapped in a glass box like always, Clown stared at it before taking a bite. Chief didn't look
He didn't need to
He remembered well enough.
Of quick steps rushing over to the cattle cage after Fantst. Of the calf, they released back in through the fences, trampled to death by other cows. Of its bloody body motionless on the grass, hidden from sight by moving monochrome dots walking on four legs
"It's good" Clown had said, easily cutting through red meat like soft butter.
It's good, because it's juicy and soft
It's good, because the life it lived was only a type of alive
It's good
Because the calf is a child
Of cows, unripped cows. Kept in a box made in the shape of themselves, like a coffin, but alive; a guillotine made to nurture them.
In that locked-up box, the calf sat, still, very still to minimize the weight of life.
For the meat to be soft, the tension of this world must not weight onto the bones
The dish tastes just right when the meat is soft, people like soft meat. Don't they? – Fantst said, looking straight into him.
Chief will bring the calf back and make use of its dead body, he said; mentally. This just seems to be his way of implicating it
Chief thought about it as he ate, pretending not to notice the sight of Clown; throwing up in the kitchen
There was a door if Chief had remembered correctly; aimlessly wandering in the dark, with his feet on the floor causing the woods to creak loudly, buzzing against the deafening noise of silence.
Clown had said that he was here, but his teammates had told him he was not, wiping quick tears with their palms. If he was a God, he would have told them to shut up, to let the wind dry the water off itself. That the only useful thing they could do with their hand right now was to hold on. But he was not a God
He was a leader, a ruler, a fighter, and his friend was wandering through limbo while he tore a man's body open, waiting again. He had just cracked open a potion, for the fourth time, feeling the liquid patch him up and make him whole again. His breath came in the form of white fog, now that his mask had fallen to the ground behind him, he shouldn't have picked that up. He should only trail onward. Maybe he'll find that familiar sight of a suited body deeper into the heart of the battle, flashing by, as he must be running, it being so late.
So he took a breath and trailed on, leaving the corpse of the other boy behind. Bloody and trampled, with the glass cage shattering around him
The ground, it cracks like ice under his step. If he had looked down, it would have fallen apart; he pretended not to notice the sound.
He knew he would be better if he didn't know, so he took a step and slipped further down into the world of darkness and numbing silence.
Thinking about Clown as he sinks through.
Of the man who never grew out his child shell
Of the man who refused to eat the trapped child, throwing up when he did
Of the man with his face hidden and back tattoed, covered in black and red hearts
Of the single coma on his eyes, separating the child and the man abruptly from itself
In this disposable life, there isn't a second chance.
This is a lie.
So they live and fight and die despite everything.
This is also a lie.
There may not be a correct answer to this, Chief wouldn't know. He's fine with not knowing, and he's fine with falling asleep in the closet if there isn't a door outside.
"Where are you?"
Chief blinked, knocking quietly on the wood surface barricading him from it; weak enough to not be noticeable, but loud enough to answer its question.
I'm here,—
Not "here" enough to be audible, not "I'm" enough to change that fact.
"Are you slipping away?"
Chief thought about it and decided to stay silent. Hey, it said; muttering, not asking. There was a shift, reaching, moving over to wind up the music box, and Chopin starts playing. Nocturnes, Op. 9, in E-flat Major, gently-the way it continues
"Are you ready to come outside yet?"
"No," he responded "not really" and the music box is winded yet again
And to be stuck in this luminal space yet again, really made him think. Isn't being a king only ever meant to be a winner among losing men. Men whose existence is merely those of ghosts wandering with death on their eyelids
"We won, Chief. We, we won" Clown turned, there was only one boy left on the field with the broken toy in his hand. He called for his friend, frantically running in the opposite direction he had before. Where are you? Can you hear me?
If Clown was a God, he would have told him to stop running, to turn back. He would have told him how nothing resigns on the other side of the line. The line was dying, sparkling with blaze. Because he burnt the line.
Chief's line
But he was not a God so Clown told him to run, faster and faster until his steps tire him out.
And ran he did
Just to stop, and looked up, at them, not Clown, he wasn't one.
The communicator in his fingers trembled, calling for the one from the other side of the line until he finally found it lying below the dirt. The other device with its screen cracked, overflowing from the blue sky behind the digital frame. Colouring the space around it, painting the boy along when he passes through with blue
He picked the broken communicator up, watching as the picture glitched to black. Clutching it near him like a sign
The boy looked at himself then at it. Finally, with his toy offered, he said as if faith was his to decide
"Bring him back"
He said and the dead boy walked next to him, holding his hand
You are the cruellest, most stupid, most ignorant man I have ever known.
He muttered, with his bleeding eyes painted back into black, with his caked lips made thin again, with his darkened skin returning to light and hardened muscles strained and springed.
"I know" Clown responded, not a care to this world
And for now, this is all that mattered