Run From the Sun

[Pippi]

She did not respond to him. At least, she did not respond in any way that he could comprehend. She did not move. She did not speak. All that she did was stand with her back to him, facing down towards the ground. His arm stretched out ahead of him. It quivered, the tension coursing through it like it was a wire. His hand hovered just above her shoulder. All that he would need to do was perform one simple action.

He exhaled. He could see a cloud of his own breath hang in the air, even with the safety of the fire tracing a comforting pattern over his back.

“Can you hear me at all?”

Little bolts of lightning jumped from his fingers to her shoulder. He stared at her. He stared through her. The collar that comprised her entire neck did not disappear.

He lowered his arm.

What was she doing here? She was not part of this world. She did not belong in this universe. She was an intruder upon a special sanctuary, but an intruder from where? An intruder from what world? What universe? This was the only one that had ever existed, the only one that could ever exist. He knew this was true. He had always known this was true, for as long as he had existed here, and here had existed for as long as he had.

That was the truth? Was it not?

Or…

Was she one of the teeth?

He could taste the reverberations of his heartbeat in his jaw. The sound of war drums that wished they were thunder. He felt in the air the ashes and smoke, drifting and swirling around him. A revelation was coming. One that the beings of starlight surely had already seen, that they already knew was the truth, that they wanted to hear from his own lips once he had returned to them.

If this figure in front of him was a pair of fangs, then she came from his world. If there was a world from which he had arrived here, then this was not his own universe. Their two planes of existence had somehow, inexplicably, collided. How had that happened? What had been the cause of this?

What was this girl looking at?

His bravery, although abandoned and unnecessary, had not fully left him behind just yet.

Let there be light.

His footsteps made ripples on the grass. His orbit around her was slow, a waltz through the universe. The trees rustled their intrigue, bows bending to study his movements.

And then, with a click of the fingers of the universe, he stopped. All of him stopped. His mouth. His body. His heart. His lungs. His eyes widened. The light of the bonfire had snuffed itself out, leaving him with nothing but the pinpricks of starlight to see with.

There was a figure lying facedown on the ground, as motionless as he was. The back of his head, the scratches on his legs, the knife in his back. He had never seen the things that he was witnessing ever before, and yet they were all instantaneously recognisable. But, of course they were. Everything simply made sense now. Everything was clear.

He stared down at the body of Matthew Omeruo.

[Lilith]

((Seychelle would learn his name on the way to the Endgame.

She wondered if his last name meant anything in his native language.

'Omeruo,' she would say with a crooked voice, 'compassion, creativity, reliability, generosity, loyalty and a love for domestic life.'

The meaning came out through the same mouth. A pleasant last name. Seychelle wished she had anything to say about that. If she would know his name, that is. She would learn it later. Like most people. Like the rest she had killed. The names swirled together.

'Feeling the most harmonious at home you find pleasure in decorating it,' is something else she would say.

But until then, her only words were:))

"..."