Chapter 140
Of Ghosts and Gods
Leo pulled back from the vision, his heart heavy; the childish apparition's distorted expression mellowed and turned human ever for a moment, before it began to fade, disappearing under the blanketed darkness of the night. The tumultuous and riveting forest turned silent rather abruptly, as though somebody hit a pause button; the silence was chilling, in some ways even more terrifying than the rhapsody of wails that he'd hear every night.
He felt spent and sat down, gasping for breath; they were growing... more vivid. But, more than that, more taxing. It felt like at least half of his Qi would be purged every time he helped an apparition, in addition to his mind being ravaged. A battle, he figured, would be less exhausting. And yet, he couldn't stop.
Taking out the gourd of water from his ring, he downed it in one go, feeling the cool sensation burn through his meridians as his Qi was replenished. He was alone once more, with Spirits and people elsewhere (mostly in and around the longhouse), busy with their own lives.
Standing up, he stretched lazily before suddenly freezing; some few feet in front of him, perched on a branch of the rather short, nearby tree, he saw a familiar figure. He blended perfectly with the darkness, and were it not for those shimmering eyes standing out like bejeweled, glistening gems, Leo would have missed him.
"Hey," he greeted, but a response did not come.
Chilly's being here was rather foreboding. It felt like whenever the bird was involved in something, it usually resulted in a life-altering event that left Leo confounded and somewhat haggard.
Though no words were spoken, Leo felt it; once again, he realized how different it was to communicate with Chilly over all the other Spirits. It wasn't words or images or intent conveying a meaning, no; rather, it seemed to shift and evolve and change with their every meaning. Right now, it was a haze of colors shaped ubiquitously, forming and deforming in contradictory manners. Beneath them was a future—rather than being told what to do or where to go, Leo saw himself doing and being. A glimpse, a fragment, a distant echo that never was, a projection of his current self.
It was draining, even more so than helping an apparition; he felt his soul being split in half, as though someone took a cleaver and crippled him from the inside out. He could feel it, the tears bearing down from his eyes... except they were heavy and thick and red.
Just before he felt his head would split into fragments that would never rejoin into the familiar whole, the pain ceased, and he felt wholly healed. In small ways, even stronger than before. And yet, there was seldom joy in his heart; he stared coldly at the bird, who stared in equal measure back at him. He didn't have to forward the information in this way, Leo knew; Chilly, however different he was from the rest, was still a Spirit, one capable of communicating as Blackie and Milky and Hoot and all others did. However, he chose not to, and Leo couldn't figure out another reason besides the bird wanting to see him suffer.
Staying silent, he followed the memory trail, darting past the bushes as the flap of the wings silently guided him. He'd been missing the bouncing light of the moon for a while now, especially during nights where he helped the apparitions; he didn't like how the world looked completely submerged in darkness, as though it was a foreshadowing for things to come, a prophecy that would have to pass. Darkness hid deep and stirring shadows, he knew, whether it was the actual or the metaphorical kind.
He didn't know for how long he ran before he found himself bursting through waist-high shrubbery and onto a clearing. It was valley-like, a dip contained within two smaller cliffs, and it was filled with scattered bits of rather... strange flames. White and undaunting, they appeared almost holy juxtaposed with the surrounding darkness. There were bodies strewn just about everywhere, their faces unfamiliar, unlike their forms.
Members of the Ancient Clan, or Clans, though it confounded him.
He approached one of the bodies and inspected it; it was riddled with wounds, hundreds of them, still freshly bleeding red into the dirt below. And yet, despite the carnage, there was eerily no scent of blood or boiling flesh. If anything, the aroma was... pleasant, almost like a vanilla-cinnamon-scented candle.
He spun back, his eyes seeking Chilly, but before he could veer past the 'valley's' entrance, he froze, Qi in him arousing like a dormant volcano. It was as though a completely alien sensation crept into his fingers as he quickly withdrew his sword and suffused it with Qi, ready to strike.
"You cannot win." It was a woman's voice, he supposed, though backgrounded with a choir of thousands of others. The form was feminine, too, though tall and hallowed, its face featureless besides the angled, kind-seeming eyes. Like the surrounding flames, she burned in white, her edges ephemeral, fading and reconstructing every passing second, as though the world was barely supporting her existence. For all he knew, that was precisely what it was.
"... who are you?" he asked, though already suspecting an answer.
"Ordinarily," she replied. "We would have waited many an eon to reveal ourselves to the Pretender. But the Shadows stirred and accelerated the world's circumstances. The stitched seams that hold this reality from collapsing are coming undone, and the Protector... is dying. Weak, old, and feeble, his blade dulled by the ages of use. His descendants ensconced within the mausoleums of greed and self-servitude, his child... lacking. The world is dying, and all those within are blind to its suffering."
"You said so much, yet still didn't answer my question."
"I am Mercy," the 'woman' said as Leo felt his limbs growing numb; he dropped his blade, losing control of Qi within him. He'd never felt this before--not since he first arrived in this world, lost, fearful, and desperate. It was as though he was a child caught, and no matter how much he wanted to defy... it was impossible. "Be not afraid."
"..." Leo almost wanted to roll his eyes, wondering whether he was being mocked.
"You seek answers, but I cannot offer them. Not the ones you desire. But you must heed me, Pretender," she 'walked' over toward him, her form shifting as though effortlessly levitating above the ground, edges dashing backwards like fading flames. "Children look up to you, and they worship and love you. The only reason you still live is their voices. Their hearts, shattered like shards of glass in uncountable pieces, strewn about the cosmic infinities, found serenity within you. Thus, we shall put our faith in you, human. One last time."
"... what's that mean?" He squeezed between his teeth. By now, she was right in front of him, towering. He had to crane his head up to find her staring down at him, her eyes burning like the entire cosmos condensed within those two marbles.
"I care not for the world; I care not for the humans; I care not for the abominations residing beyond the membrane, greedily eyeing these here vestiges. I am Mercy, yet I would have gladly watched the entire realm burn."
"BURN!!" An angry voice exploded suddenly, startling Leo; right beside the woman, another phantom appeared—a man, from the form and the voice, equally ablaze and ephemeral. Before he could so much as voice a whimper, he felt three more energies appear all around him, and he found himself closely encircled by two men, two women, and a seeming child. All faceless for the pairs of eyes, which all spoke of different emotions, yet equally mesmerizing.
"But children... they do. They beg. They plead. Every day. Every hour. Save him, they whimper. Help him, they beseech. Advise him, they urge. Guide him, they abjure. And yet you, stone of heart, are deaf to their songs. Ignorant of their munificence. Why, we asked? Because he is good, they say. Are you?"
Leo felt his mind burst into countless thoughts, as though he'd lived a thousand lives at once in order to be able to answer that simple question. And yet... he couldn't. He felt like he was being judged five different ways, and he had no answer to any of them. Just silence, weak and feeble. And yet... he couldn't remain silent. For however dull he was, he understood well enough that this was a test... of sorts.
"... they saved me," he said, speaking from the bottom of his heart for the first time since coming to this world. "Had it not been for them... I would have done the exact thing that brought me over here. I... I was broken," he continued, his voice a soft lullaby encaged within the roaring flames. "No... that's not the right word, either. I was just fragments that, put together, would not make a whole. But they... they didn't judge. They didn't ask. They didn't probe. All they did was take me in... give me a home, give me a life. Give me a reason. Am I good?" he chuckled. "No. Gods, no. But, for them," he looked up at the burning phantom. "I, too, would watch the entire realm burn."
"Prove it," a different, third voice spoke up.
"With flesh and blood and bones," the fourth voice said.
"A war approaches," Mercy said, a hand forming from the white fires that grabbed his chin and pulled his head up. "Win it." Her 'face' was a mere inch away from his, yet he could still not feel an iota of heat. Her eyes, up close, were galaxies indecipherable. "Compel us as you have compelled the children. If you fail..."
"I won't," he said.
She stared a moment longer before letting go, the five phantoms morphing into the tranquilizing trail of white flames that converged and condensed into a squawking caw. About ten yards from him, perched on top of a sword embedded in the dirt, was a crow. Ordinary, black-feathered, its eyes luminous portals to divinity.
"We will be watching," a voice came from nowhere and everywhere, like an arbiter of everything, as the bird flapped its wings and flew off, leaving him to fall back flat and gasp for air and life, having just come from the precipice of death.