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[>>Now replaying: Log 2.3 - In Case of Fire]
Date: 9.9.175 AA / 4404 LTC
Location: UNNAMED_DOMAIN(LARES)
//It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.//
//Will it keep me safe?//
//Weapons never provide safety. It is not their purpose.//
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
Some doors resist being opened.
Some are locked, or rusty, or maybe the architect or carpenter hasn’t paid attention and they’re just a tiny bit too big for the frame.
Some doors are sleek and perfect, well-oiled and maintained, and yet, they resist. They resist by instilling in you a feeling that you would much rather do anything else than open them. Just by virtue of their existence, or perhaps their quality, they ask you if you’re really sure you want to twist that handle, give it that push, crack it open. Sometimes they conspire with the things they guard, absorb some of their aura until somehow, the door and the object and the feeling they evoke become one and the same.
The door in my attic—the one that led to the office-cathedral that held Pharus—resisted with the eternal, chilling might of snow-peaked mountains.
So it felt weirdly anticlimactic when I finally gritted my teeth, grabbed the handle, and the deadbolt slid back with a quiet click. Still, the tiny noise resonated in my memory, made me think of all the times I’d been told ‘well, it’s your funeral’.
I didn’t know if I would have had the determination to push the door open without remembering Zurne, Underbrook, and Lorelye, but push it open I did, and the door swung inward with nary a whisper, the absence of sound mocking my earlier reluctance.
When I entered the room, it was still almost exactly as I had left it. It was so long it was almost a corridor if it hadn’t been for the cavernous ceiling, held aloft by sleek quadratic pillars. Sleek, polished slate made the space feel even larger and colder, and it would have been easy to get lost in its cold emptiness if it hadn’t been for two things. First, there was a dark red carpet that ran from the entrance to a massive desk, designed to punctuate the sleek imposition of the office I’d willingly walked into.
And then there was the window.
It spanned almost the entire back wall behind the desk, framed by nothing but the support pillars when viewed from the entrance, and rising all the way up to the ceiling, where it seemed to get lost in darkness. At least I thought it had been a window. The last time I had opened the door it had shown nothing but a blazing flame, but as I’d approached, the view shifted into a mosaic of painful memories, revealing itself a staggering amount of individual screens forming a unified, if fragmented, whole.
Now the view lay dark and almost empty, showing only occasional strands of cyan wafting in the void, forming a stage for the reason I’d come here: Pharus, my weapon, my scepter, my Torch, hovering languidly a few centimeters above the desk, cold and inert.
I set my shoulders against the cold and began walking. As before, with each step, the view behind the window shifted, fragmented, glitched, and replaced itself step by step with so many memories until it looked like the window was made of stained glass. I caught glimpses of snow, and hunger, and the smell of frozen blood.
Underbrook had been right in the end. Zurne hadn’t been angry about the food. He’d been scared of the reason we had so little food to begin with. Just a couple of days earlier, there had been rumors that the conservationist alliance had overtaken us on our retreat, and we had to leave behind the supply train, guarded by Iruli, Tuyk, and Dezin. A day later, they’d gone radio silent and while we never talked about what that meant, considering we were all using nigh-infallible Saintech communicators, we all probably came to the same conclusion.
Zurne had been young and scared of being next. I should have consoled him, reassured him, but even more so than now, I was nothing but a woman forged by strife and fueled by hatred. There was no place in my heart for compassion, no time in my vengeance-beset mind to enjoy the few moments I had left with those closest to me. As much as it had fueled me ever since, giving into my anger and becoming the Tyrant Divine had cost me everything in all ways possible, far before the final tally was called.
Except I didn’t want to be that woman anymore. I was so done with loss and grief and being alone in the dark with only the rage to keep me company. That decision was made, and I wouldn’t ever go back, but it begged a razor-wired question: Without the anger, who was I?
I kept walking, the burgundy carpet swallowing my every sound, and try as I might, I came up with nothing. The window flickered and rearranged itself, and its white-red-black imagery asked another, more terrifying question: How long would my determination to become someone else hold if there was no alternative to being a tyrant?
By the time I reached the desk, I was as far from an answer to either question as I had when I opened the door. Pharus hovered before me, inert, its handle calling for me to grab it with its familiar shape. Behind it, the window kept shifting, and I was close enough now to see each individual picture making up the whole. Lorelye’s grin, Zurne’s frown, Underbrook’s reassuring stoicism. The first snow of the year, the first step on a long and bitter retreat, the first blood I’d drawn. Patti, holding me close against the cold. Olre chiding me, then inspiring me to greatness as it snowed outside the window. Stax, lying dead among the thick field of arrows spouting like flowers, white speckled with red. Jirrie, as I first met her, sharpening their plow with tears in her eyes because she was sure that she’d never again see her husband use it in springtime. My own hand, gaunt from hunger, and the Torch burning eternal, charring ice and bone, melting flesh and snow.
I trailed the nail of my thumb along my index finger, but in the end, there was no question about what to do. Without Logic, I would starve, and without a weapon, I wouldn’t be able to get more Logic. I only wished Pharus wouldn’t remind me of the Torch so much, and make me remember all the gruesome things I did with it throughout the years.
I took a deep breath to push the thoughts of pain and fury aside, and on the exhale, I reached out and grabbed the Torch.
{[Pharus, Wrath of the Torchbearer] IS NOW ACTIVE.}
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
The glass behind the weapon shifted once more as Pharus’ familiar weight settled into my palm. It went red, first fire- then blood-, flashed the brightest white of sunlight hitting a glacier, then faded to black in calming grace, with only bands of cyan moving through the void like rain across the landscape.
> It’s the last days of summer, and almost closing time on a Friday. I’m standing at the window in my office and watch the wind drive bands of rain over Berlin. This latest report is really kicking my ass, and I catch myself at the thought that I’d much rather go home and lie on the couch, but not fast enough. My boyfriend packed up his things a couple of weeks ago, and for once my place is immaculate, clean, tidy, and cold. The couch will be empty when I get home, the blankets neatly folded with no one to warm them up for me.
> I grimace and turn back to my desk. I’ve procrastinated enough. It’s time to get the report done, even if it takes me all day. Before I sit down, however, I pull my suit jacket from the backrest.
> It’s gotten a bit chilly in the office.
----------------------------------------
I was still cold by the time I grabbed Arx off of the coat rack, but immediately felt better once I put it on. I’d never realized how heavy it was, but it was a comfortable weight that promised protection and relief.
{[Arx, A Saint’s Terrified Embrace] IS NOW ACTIVE.}
With a sigh of relief, I slid Pharus into its holster. It had changed appearance, much like Arx and myself, once I carried it into my Domain proper. Where before it had been a sort of flail-slash-mace with a burning head, it now resembled a modern flashlight, all sleek and cold and gunmetal black.
I hadn’t tried it out yet, but I would’ve bet my Logic that if I pressed the bigger of the two buttons on the Torch’s shaft, the lightbulb would erupt into blueish flames. The other button would unlock the weapon’s head, allowing me to detach it from the main body and swing it like a flail.
With Pharus’ familiar weight pressing into my side, I opened the door and stepped onto the porch. The evening sun bathed the glade in its golden light. It reflected off of hundreds of droplets of leftover rainwater still clinging to the leaves, giving my Domain an otherworldly feeling. The porch creaked with moisture, and a few steps later, my boots sunk into the soft dirt.
After inhaling the rich forest scent, I looked over my shoulder and found Chris sitting on the balustrade, tail, and scarf wrapped around their body.
“You coming?” I asked. “Just going to explore a little, find a Feral or two, hunt some dinner.”
“Boop,” Chris said, licking their paw to underline the message that I could go out there and do all the hard work while they would just stay inside and enjoy the warm, comfortable couch.
“Just don’t burn the house down, okay?” I asked, resigned.
“Beep,” Chris said with a feline grin.
I opened my mouth to add some more rules, like for example not conspiring with the fridge, but in the end, I couldn’t enforce them anyway, so why bother? I gave Chris the satisfaction of closing my mouth with an audible click and swiveling on my heel, heading for the forest. I swear I could feel their smug feline smirk prodding my back until I reached the treeline.
My memory of those first couple of days on Tobes was a little jumbled, most likely eroded by hunger, confusion, and grief. Even so, I could confidently say that the forest in my Domain was exactly as I remembered it. With each tree and stone recalling another detail of that earlier, desperate hike, I chose to walk in the same direction I’d picked back then. Straight south, toward a village once known as Peruti. Just like back then, the forest was dense without a single road in sight. I’d learned later that this far out in the wilderness of the Kingdom of Wexler, rich people, including traders, paid exorbitant sums to ride a gryphon or drakeling carriage to get anywhere, while regular folk made do with barely visible trails dug through the underbrush as great expense.
Every year, the forest would swallow a couple of villagers, either stupid or desperate enough to try their luck past the edge of the fields, the natural border where civilization ended and nature began. A few lucky ones were strong enough to get picked up by some of the many bandit gangs that called the forest their home. The unlucky ones were never heard of again, either finding no mercy from the same bandits that used to be their neighbors or getting dragged into the dark by wild animals, magical beasts, or far more sinister things.
After I stopped being an idiot, I’d spent the better part of two years roaming the wilds together with Chris, cleansing the forest of threats to make it safe again for people to travel to neighboring villages. That was how my legend had started.
There were no monsters now. There weren’t even animals. Apart from the sound of my boots digging into the dirt and the rustle of leaves stirred by digital winds, no sound echoed between the trees. It was eerie, and I would have given a lot for some birdsong. Hell, I’d even take the ominous crack of branches breaking if it meant I’d find a Feral on my first hunt. I—
> It has been hours, but the panic doesn’t settle. It drags my mind through the mud, over coarse stones, and into violent river rapids. Every time I come up for breath, there are more questions, ‘Where am I?’ ‘What just happened?’ ‘What do I do?’ and my thoughts begin another downward spiral until a final question freezes both mind and body with its chilling implications.
> ‘What was that sound?’
> I strain to hear, but there’s only the wind. Even the birds are gone, taking with them their song that seemed so mocking just moments before, yet so consoling now that it is gone.
> Just when the wind-woven silence reaches its crescendo, a snarl rips through the glade.
For that insufferable second where sudden, painful recollection and reality overlap, I was young again, and afraid. The white gown the angel had left me with after my resurrection clung to my body, wet with dew, and offered less than no protection from the late evening chill, and no moon yet illuminated the early night. Then the wolves emerged from the underbrush, approached from all sides, tendrils of pure, icy hunger.
Then the moment passed, and I was in my Domain again, Torch out and burning in my right hand.
“Fuck,” I spat, slowly releasing the death grip on my weapon, but leaving it burning. It had gone dark, the way it does in early autumn. An imperceptibly slow dying of the light, and before you know it, you can’t see past your own hand.
No movie actor I’d ever watched held their torches right. They all put them out in front, waving them around like some sort of lamp or flashlight. But torches are primal things, untamed and very much unlike the electric light humanity bottled up and shoved into cylinders. If you aren’t careful, a Torch will devour you alive as much as it will warm you, but mostly it is going to blind you when you most need to see. I’d spent that entire first night on Tobes in front of my Torch where I’d stuck it in the ground. I’d kept staring into its flames like an idiot while trying to find the perfect spot that put the light between me and the carcass of the mutated Wolf I’d killed.
That way, I had actually been happy that I couldn’t see anything but the flame after a while, but I’d also been scared of the dangers that might lurk outside that circle of light that by virtue of safety had become a prison. I’d spent the entire night praying the Torch wouldn’t go out nonetheless until I passed out from exhaustion. When I woke up the next morning, I was still alive, curled around the Torch in a fetal position, desperate for what little warmth it provided.
Trying not to berate myself for letting my mind wander, I turned back the way I came, arm outstretched and Torch held behind me. Fortunately, I hadn’t made it very far, just an hour or so out from the house, which meant it was easy to find my way back, but that also meant I’d wasted the entire day and achieved basically nothing. I hadn’t found out much more about the layout of my Domain, and I sure as hell hadn’t found any Feral. That was good on the safety side, but very bad on the not-running-out-of-energy-side. So unless the Ferals started to come to me, I would need to get up bright and early tomorrow, and actually get something done instead of playing house with Chris.
I returned to the clearing in torchlight, still trying not to get angry at myself. I knew where that would lead; I told myself over and over. I wasn’t that person anymore, and I didn’t want to be her again. Yet every time I thought I’d finally pushed the worry down, a voice in the back of my head asked me who I was, if not a woman angry at the world and herself.
To make matters worse, as I stepped out of the woods and into the clearing, Patti’s face kept popping into my mind in technologically enhanced high fidelity. Her eyes were so bright, so damn compassionate that I wanted to drown myself in them and never look at anything else, even as she tormented me with the same question, over and over and over again.
> “Well, who do you want to be, Sam?”
“I don’t even know who I am,” I whispered to no one but the dead.