Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Ash

I woke up, to the sounds of sobbing. The world was tilted over, I was lying on my side.

I saw in a corner of the room, Flaze was hugging her own knees, crying quietly, her head buried in her arms.

I heaved a weary sigh and got up, trying to stand up straight on my four feet. My breaths were slow, yet heavy. The surroundings were dark, night had fallen while I slept. A peaceful darkness I longed to return to, instead of this abyss that threatens to swallow me whole.

Flaze raised her head, and saw me. She sniffed, and wiped the tears on her face, straightening.

I neighed, weakly. I felt so tired.

I saw Darkvoid's body, dead, headless. It was a bit larger than I remember of him, back when he was still a human.

I saw tufts of fur around his charred body, hooves instead place of feet. And yet the fashion sense, as well as the markings he'd left on himself, clearly identified the corpse to be that of our friend.

It would've been fine, we would have been perfectly fine with him being a monster, if only he hadn't lost himself in the process. We wouldn't have killed him.

[You have defeated a Level 65 Mage!]

[Your Level Has Risen to 47!]

[Your Level Has Risen to 48!]

I walked on wobbly legs, in no hurry. Flaze scooched over to the side, as if to make room for me on her random spot on the floor.

I shook my head and grinned, but the gesture did not reach my eyes. I'm not sure how my expressions are seen, given that I have the face of a horse.

I sat next to Flaze, and she stroked my fur.

Flaze was in her normal form, a metal box clutched in between her fingers. Something we've once risked our lives so hard for, pictures that she had long kept safe.

We leaned into each other for what felt like both an eternity and a single second. Her eyes were already swollen and spent when I woke up, but she still had so much to cry over our fallen friend.

"We killed him," she said, after a long moment. She sniffed and pulled away from me, really looking at Darkvoid's remains, his head long turned into ashes.

We did. I replied, eventually.

There was nothing more to be said.

~~~

I've never been one for funerals, I honestly found them uncomfortable. To pretend that I cared, and that I was sad. It was always a farce, a performance, and not the kind that is fun.

For once, it's real. I don't think I've ever lost a friend like this. Some, I've just drifted away from. Either we changed as people, or just sheer distance. But never a death; Mortality always felt so distant, despite the knowledge that it's not.

I didn't truly get it, even when people started turning into monsters, as did myself. Not even the constant deaths of the apocalypse, were able to convince me.

Flaze had placed whatever remnants of the goat head she could find, and placed it where it should be. I felt a buzz in my head, I instinctively identified his remains. Two pieces of intermediate material, but I did not care.

Flaze's lips quivered, as if to speak, but her voice never came. She mouthed a wordless prayer, one I knew was directed to no one but the winds.

I remembered something she'd told me long ago, back when her abusive mother had first gotten arrested. Her siblings blamed her for it, and attempted to run away.

We were atop the high and windy outdoor bleachers of Foxtrot Park. A place that holds so many memories, for the both of us.

"I don't know who'll hear my wishes, perhaps they'll choose to grant the opposite of my prayer, more likely they'll do nothing. But sometimes, when times are bleak and hope is seldom found, just the thought that help might come is enough to keep one going. I don't think the truth is always better, nor are lies inherently poison."

"Should we burn the body?" She asked, as if to no one in particular. "Or perhaps a burial?"

I thought about it, for a second.

Whatever helps us mourn. Was the only answer I could really arrive at.

Flaze stared at my face, studying what minute signs of my expression she could gleam. She nodded a second after, and wordlessly walked away, hacking apart pieces of furniture, a massive fire pit formation eventually built over Darkvoid's dead body.

We took several moments, as much time as we wanted, to just think in silence. Of what had happened, of what we'd done, and how we'd likely be forced to do it again.

We could have escaped.

We could have just leaved him be.

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We didn't have to kill him.

Voices warred inside my head, different possibilities we could have grasped. This is all new, and we're uncertain, really, if Ego Death is truly incurable. There could be a way, there could be multiple ways, and our lacking expertise in magic is horridly insufficient to even come up with the most hypothetical of answers.

"I'm sorry, Darkvoid." Flaze eventually said. "I guess deep down, I really do not wish to die."

She raised her head. "I had really thought otherwise, of myself."

I neighed, both sad and repentant. At the end of the day, I do not wish to die either.

It really was do or die back then, when we were forced to make a choice, between our lives or Drakvoid's. But it was undeniably of our own doing, that we cornered into that position, to begin with.

There was just so much we could have done better. And it's not even about whether or not we should have killed Darkvoid; It's that we should have at least thought it through a lot more.

Darkvoid was strong, able to use devastating attacks that could not be avoided. But in turn his body was weak, it would have been the simplest thing to disengage, had we thought of it before we were mere moments away from fainting, and then dying.

Perhaps he was already dead, from the moment we met him. The ego gone, never to be brought back by any means.

But the possibility alone, that he could have been brought back, eats away at me at every turn.

Why were we so stupid to fight and try to bring him back right that instant, when it would have been so easy to back away and actually think through our options!?

I feel nothing but despair, whenever I recall those thoughts. I cannot for the life of me deny that it's the truth.

I killed Darkvoid.

I killed him.

When I didn't have to.

I don't know how much time had passed, when Flaze finally tapped on my front leg, a resolute look on her face.

I nodded back, and looked upon the broken world outside. We were by a broken window that extends from wall to wall, giving us an unobstructed view of the constant carnage outside. So many beings dying, just as our friend had done, by our own hands.

I felt the breeze blowing against us and what's left of Darkvoid's body, covered by Flaze's makeshift fire pit.

I prepared for what must be done.

[Hellish Fireball].

These are the flames of hell, Darkvoid. I know that even if there were to ever be a heaven, you would have preferred the underworld. On the off chance that it does exist, conquer your way back to us. If anyone can do it, it'd certainly be you.

"Darkvoid." Flaze spoke in a clear and regretful voice. "You've always had a bleak outlook of the world. A cynical mind, but one that's never failed to see the beauty and the fun that lay underneath. Be it of individual people, or society as a whole. As terrible as this apocalypse is, and as much as I wish to say I'm glad you've been spared the pain, I know you would have found a way to make a positive out of all these deaths. Whatever you're able to build from the ashes, will certainly be better than whatever came before."

Flaze sniffed, and nodded at me.

I lowered my head, gently rolling down the flames. It touched Darkvoid's body, altered now in death, but I know he would've actually preferred his monstrous form to a mortal shell. It's only a shame that he wasn't present to see what he'd become.

I willed the fire to spread.

It enveloped his remains. From the pyre, to his flesh, and even the charred husk left behind by his ghost head. He was touched by the flames of hell, just as he had always wished for.

A burning scent followed, the sensation of burning heat. Somehow it was all so serene and relaxing, our many turbulent emotions eased if but for this single moment in the relentless flow of time; An experience nigh otherworldly, a piece of order within the unending chaos.

We watched on silently as the ashes continued to fill the room, before flying into the skies, and the wider world outside, carried by whatever winds struck its fancy.

The wood of the pyre crackled and fell apart, the blood red flames atop it had long turned back to orange. It was glow that stayed, long after Darkvoid had gone. We waited for the final embers to go out, before we finally intoned the rest of our thoughts. We, who have survived. We, who have been left behind.

"If you're still out there, somewhere... then get your ass back over here, first and foremost. We are not afraid of ghosts." There was the slightest hint of a smile on her face, and I felt glad that she was able to take even one step towards moving on, even if I haven't quite mustered the same courage just yet.

"But seriously..." she choked out, "I hope we're able to emulate even just a little bit of what you would have been able to accomplish, had you survived the initial chaos."

A true shame. I agreed. The world knows not what it missed.

 

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