The Final Day

I stared at Margaret, and she stared at me. Time moved like an aging tree. Then, she was moving. Running toward me, a blind panic on her bloodied face. I froze, something in her frantic run not prohibiting me from fleeing, but... discouraging it. For some reason, I didn't feel like I was in danger. In a single breath, she was upon me, her hands wrapped with the dirty folds of my shirt.

"How? How do you do it? How do you-" she interrogates, pushing me to the ground where my head cracked sharply against the cobblestone. The throbbing in my head distracted me for only a moment from the blood and snot dripping from the woman on top of me. Her eyes were glassy and red in a way I recognized with the deep ache of unsatisfied longing. Regret like a hole in the heart. "How are you changing them back?" She begged and my mouth opened in surprise.

"Y-you want me to... change them back?" I stuttered and she shook me. No, she wasn't shaking me, she was just shaking.

"Of course I want you to change them back! I... I didn't know! I thought I was... but... just tell me, can you still do it? Can you... fix it?" she sobbed and I gaped.

"I... can't" I responded, terrified. Not of her. Not of the woman who had hunted, and hurt me so many times. Not even of the power she had over me now. I was terrified of what the answer would do. It was the kind of answer that could end a person. The knowledge that their mistakes can't be undone. That they have them to hold, and carry, and drag with every step. The answer that there is no escape from what they've done. I didn't want to give that answer to anyone, even this woman. "I only have an hour to do it. Anything after that and... there is nothing I can do," I explained, only a slight tremor in my voice.

She maintained her tension for a moment, gritting her teeth and struggling to keep her eyes still. I watched the thread behind her irises fray as her desperation finally snapped. Then she collapsed all at once on top of me. She shook with deep, lurching movements as she sobbed into my shoulder, gasping for breath. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't Camilla. I couldn't make this better. It felt surreal but... I wrapped my arms around her as she cried, screaming into my shoulder. I hated this woman, I think. I feared her. I despised what she did to so many people.

But I felt her. I felt that agonizing regret. I understood her. I didn't understand how she got to this point from the last time I'd seen her. But I knew her. I'd been walking next to her since leaving home. I'd been her. I hadn't hurt anyone the same way she had. I hadn't hurt children. But I had felt that emptiness. So I let her cry into my shoulder. I didn't use any magic. Not even to heal her wounds. She wouldn't want that right now. It was strange, doing that for her. It was like finally letting out my own pain and regret. Each muffled scream, reverberating through my bones, felt like my own. We stayed that way for too long. I still had hope for the girls.

Finally, she rested her head against one collarbone, before slowly rising. She looked at me on the ground for one last moment, turned, and began to walk. I hurried to my feet. "W-wait," I called after her. She paused, looking over her shoulder at me. "Yesterday, there was a fire. In the homes, north of the cemetery. There were... two girls there. With a man, Harrison. I have to know. Did you... Are they..." I asked. Pleaded.

"... I thought... I thought I was saving them," Margaret replied, hanging her head, then turning to walk away again. I fall again, this time to my knees. My hand is over my mouth. I did hate her. I wanted to hurt her like I hadn't wanted to hurt anyone in years. Like I had wanted to hurt Camilla. I choked back the scream. Junia's face flashed through my mind. Millie's crying. Harrison's sympathetic smile. Margaret's haunted eyes. She was leaving again. I needed her. Again, I forced myself to my feet. My head throbbed. My throat ached with mourning I wouldn't let it express. My mouth tasted like copper.

But I followed her. I had to pick up my pace just a little, but I caught up and walked with her. She looked over at me, but said nothing. I wasn't sure where we were going. I don't think she was either. We just walked. There were no quieted in the streets. Only us. Eventually, we found ourselves at the fountain. The same where we had last seen each other. Margaret looked down into the water for a moment. She let out a deep sigh, then turned and sat, burying her face in her hands. I took the seat next to her.

"... What happened?" I asked. "What changed your mind?" She froze, Two of her fingers parted and one eye glanced through them to look at me.

"The eyes," she answered. "My nephew's eyes. I finally faced him. I saw what was left of him." Of course. She'd had a sister, in the memory. I knew that. So she'd had a son. "He was one of the first, you know. The first to be taken. By the Quiet. My sister brought him to me. She was always the strong one. The leader. But this time, she needed me. She had such pain in her eyes. Such... desperation. I didn't know what I was doing, the first time. I didn't know how my aura worked. It was... new. When it... brought him back, I was horrified. I'd taken something from him. I'd taken Luna's gift."

"The aura was new?" I asked, confusion distracting me for a moment.

She paused, removing her hand from her face, then looking up and nodding. Talking seemed to help. "Y-yes. I've never been a mage. But I found... something. It landed like a falling star, behind my mother's grave. It- well it doesn't matter," she replied. My mind immediately went to the boy, digging behind the grave on the first day. It landed like a falling star, she had said. I decided I wanted to hear the rest of her story.

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"Why did you change your mind?" I asked. She looked confused for a moment before she understood.

"It was Scylla. She was so... happy. So relieved. She hugged me like she hadn't since our mother died. She had her son back. I thought about that. I thought about our mother. She was sick when she died. She was so miserable. So hollow. Little Albus was the same. Empty. Denied pride in his death. Denied any real kind of death at all. And... I could feel it. The emptiness. Not like a normal body. Like something had dug a spoon into him and hollowed him out. Devoured him. Left him as nothing. It scared me. Scared me like I was a little girl again. Like I was watching my mother die again," she explained, nearly whispering the entire time.

"And was he..." I trailed off, wincing at the pained look she gave me.

"Violent? No. When I brought him back he was... strange. But he wasn't violent, not yet. He felt full again. Not like he used to be. Not the lively, cheerful child that called me Aunt Margie. But he wasn't hollow, and that was something. No, the violence came later. Because the bodies... they wouldn't stop. The hollow. The quiet. The painful emptiness. The guards started collecting them. Hiding them. And they started coming faster. I tried saving them. I tried bringing them back. I'd use my aura to hide them. Send them into the soil to sleep. Keep them safe from anyone who wouldn't understand.

"But the bodies kept coming. They came more and more. To me. To the garden. And people... they wanted to ignore them. To pretend it wasn't happening. Like I did, to my mother. When she was hollow. Before my father... showed me how to help. They wanted to leave people hollow and pretend they weren't there. I hated it. It hurt. It hurt like burning rocks beneath my feet. But something strange happened. They stopped coming. The only dead I met were the naturally dead. I thought it had finally ended. But... it hadn't," she paused, looking at her feet.

I waited without responding. Just... thinking. Waiting for her to catch up to her own thoughts. I didn't have to wait too long. "I found them all, later," she finally said, a little louder. A little more confident. "In the ground. Asleep. They hadn't stopped. It was my own magic. I didn't understand it, but I started using it. All around the city. Without even being there. My determination to help them all... it reached them. It reached all of them," she said, clenching one fist as she recounted the events.

"The... killing?" I asked, after a moment of awkward silence. Shame clouded Margaret's eyes, and water leaked from them when she shut them tight before answering.

"They wouldn't stop. They just... wouldn't stop. They were dying, you understand. And I was able to fill them up again, but it wasn't the same. It still wasn't an honest death. It was still... wrong. I had to stop it. I had to do something. Anything. I couldn't stand back and watch. My father taught me that. You can't stand back and watch. But I realized something. It wasn't going to. It was going to eat, and eat, and eat until there was nothing left. Until there was no one left. I had to stop it, but I didn't know how. So..." she trailed off.

"So you gave them Luna's gift... before it could be taken away," I guessed. She nodded, eyes still shut, water flowing more freely from the cracks.

"I thought I was helping," she repeated. I understood. It's so easy to hurt when you believe you are helping. When you are told you are helping. When you make a promise to yourself.

"I know," I answered. "I know." I let her cry for a moment. I cried myself. For her. For her mother, and her sister. For my own sister, and my own mistakes. Most of all for Junia and Millie. For how I'd failed them. We both had enough to cry over. But, even this dignity couldn't last forever. It was the final day, and she was right. It wasn't going to stop until it was full. I needed to know the rest of the story. "What changed?" I finally pushed, and she choked on a sob. She looked up at me, meeting my eyes.

"I started the violence. The killing. The salvation, I told myself. I started it the same way I brought them back. From a distance, and everywhere. I was so caught up in myself, I forgot my nephew. I forgot little Albus. Early this morning, I saw him. I saw the rope burns around his wrists and ankles. I saw the dirty brown of dried blood on his clothes. And I knew. I knew what had happened. I made all of them kill anyone they saw before they made it to me. I told them to give everyone Luna's gift. It was a kindness I thought. But... I forgot my nephew. I forgot my sister. I ran to her home but... she and her husband were both dead. They must have tied him up when he tried to leave. But Scylla... she could never live with her son like that. They must have... let him," she says.

A phantom stabbing in the side of my head makes me wince. "Your nephew, you made him..." I asked and she nodded, biting one lip to hold back the strangled cry that tried to escape.

"It's funny. I'd never looked into his eyes, before. In any of their eyes. I saw their faces, but I never really looked. But this morning, I really looked at my nephew. And I saw agony. I saw pain. I saw a desperation for escape. I saw a hatred for what I was forcing him to do. This. This was the true indignity. This was worse than being hollow. It burrowed into my stomach like a fish hook and pulled me out of myself. It reminded me of some nameless horror that has hovered over me as I slept for my entire life. I had to end it. I had this friend, Hadley. I tried to talk about this with him but... he told me the truth. Well, he was right. I needed to end it.

"And I tried. I tried so hard. But I couldn't undo any of it. I couldn't fix it. Everything I had done was done, and I couldn't even leave them to the quiet. So I went looking for you. You were my last hope. I searched all morning. I thought you must have died. I'd given up when you showed up. I sent all of them to the ground, where they couldn't hurt anyone. And I was ready to die. But... I found you. And even you couldn't end it. Now. Now I'm just passing the time until it ends for me too. I wonder if this magic will turn me into one of them. If it'll let me join them in their suffering. Or if I'll be spared," she finished.

I sat next to her for a moment. The teal aura in the sky was intensifying. The pillar would erupt, soon. "I'll find you, Margaret," I said. "I'll find you, next time, and I'll show you everything. I'll save your sister too. I promise," I said. She didn't respond. We just sat together and watched. We watched as the city crumbled, and the pillar of aura erupted. I hated her. I hated her for Junia's sake. But I reached over, and held her hand as we died together.

End of the Final Day