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A deafening silence is all that follows. Grian half wonders if it will rain. He’s sure it rained when Scott watched Jimmy die. Maybe he isn’t extended the same atmosphere to grieve, considering that this is his fault.
He killed Scar. He is the last one left. An entirely isolated existence that is almost too much to bear.
His pale, unmarked skin is tainted, stained crimson by the only person he actually cared for. Anyone else could see the glaring irony of that statement. Three lives, and Grian had taken two. After the first he’d begrudgingly taken on Scar, and fallen much quicker than he could fathom.
Now, all that was left was a poppy, a pathetic show for the cavity in his heart. A final image, a singular homage to the loss of his life and normality. A perfect indent in the sand in the shape of his heart painted a pretty red that still only paled in comparison to the crimson flower. A cruel memory, taunting him.
And he has no one to turn to.
Everyone is dead. He watched everyone drop like flies, a tiny pawn in a cosmic game of chess. He had come into this game of death knowing the inevitable outcome, that he would have to be the last one left. But he couldn’t stand it. Ascending back to their ever watchful eye, rejoining their ranks after three years. It was all he had wanted only a few months ago.
Now, the silence in the wake of Scar’s death catches in his throat. It is all too heavy at once.. Empty eyes survey the landscape that once was a home, and he shakes his head silently.
If he closes his eyes, he can hear Scar’s laugh roll across the dunes, and envision the statue that was his love: tanned, scarred skin that looked hand carved, long hair, longer that Grian could ever consider wearing it and perfect emerald eyes that held the keys to his soul.
Poppies everywhere. He considers that he would see those flowers in his sleep. Grian crouches down, knees grazing the sand which catches in his every wound, and plucks the poppy from the pool of blood it lays in. He stakes a sign in its place, a final inscription, a testament to the ending of the strongest feeling of his life.
“Scar. I’m sorry.” insufficient, he knows.. He whispers the words to the sign, though no one listens. He could have screamed it, and still no one would have heard. Grian was not made to be heard, and he was not made to listen. He was built to watch and be watched. And Scar had died for it. The emptiness within him was unfathomable. The heart within him that he had believed to be so infinitesimal was torn open, and he himself flooded by grief.
A poppy crushed in his grasp as though he were a child, he stumbles away from the grave. His eyes sting, but from sand or tears he is not sure. Thoughts are few and far between, and Scar is all of them. Pain is everything now, and everything is pain.
An open expanse of desert lies before him, a sharp drop at his feet. He knows that Scar would not have wanted this for him, but he never was good at putting others first. Bile rises in his throat and he swallows it, relishing the burn. He closes his eyes, and a single tear tracks down his face. It’s almost cinematic, he bitterly finds himself thinking.
He steps off the edge, and his wings do not catch him.
He hits the ground, and is free for the first time. He is reunited with his love, by his love.