As I entered the inn, I knew my face was haunted. I had somehow distracted myself on the way back. I leaned into the apathy that had defined me up to that point. But it wasn't enough. Because I had seen corpses before, a couple of times. But I had always gotten there in time. None of them had stayed dead; I had stolen Luna's gift from them with the same spell that failed on Hadley. So when I tried it and the empty shell in front of me remained an empty shell... it felt like it was my fault.
It didn't make any sense. I didn't know who Hadley was the night before, and I had nothing to do with his death. It didn't matter. I didn't show up fast enough, or I didn't try hard enough. I should have brought my grimoire. I should have been... better. That's what it was really about. I should have been better. I should have been better when my sister needed me, and when things went wrong back home. I dragged guilt behind me everywhere I went, like a ball and chain. After a while, I started accepting it wherever I could find it.
It often made no sense, but some part of me wanted it. It was like when a new sharp pain cures the aches of an old and familiar one. I know now that it was just a new form of selfishness, but part of me craved that fresh feeling of guilt. Those new and vibrant emotions made me feel alive in a strange way. Maybe it was because it made no sense. Because after a while, once it stopped distracting me, I could let it go. I could face reality and remind myself it had nothing to do with me and it was out of my control. Absolving myself in the way was like wine. I got to taste the flavor of letting it go.
It let me forget what I actually had done. What I could never let go, and the absolution I would never taste. Taking on the guilt I didn't deserve gave me brief moments where I almost felt like I didn't deserve to feel that way at all. Like I said, it was just my new form of selfishness. But that day, I did it again. I accepted the guilt for Hadley's death. The man I hadn't met and hadn't tried to save in time. But it was too much. His empty eyes watched me as I walked back to the inn and they haunted me as I entered.
I wasn't self-aware enough, yet, to realize what I was doing. So the responsibility I carried with me was a knife in each foot. Stabbing with each step I took. I walked to the bar and sat down. I was as hollow as Hadley as I stared down at the counter, and it wasn't long before Livia noticed me.
"Everything alright, Mars?" she asked, snapping me back to reality. I shut my eyes tight and rubbed my forehead with one hand. I felt like shit in more ways than one.
"I'm fine," I lied, "could I get whatever is on tap?" She gave me a skeptical look at that request.
"Look, I obviously don't mind people drinking their worries away in the middle of the day. Business has never been better for me. But if ever I saw a woman who needed a glass of water and a hot meal instead, it's you," she dismissed before pouring water into a mug and pushing it in front of me. "Drink that, right now. I'll have another for you when your meal is ready."
I looked at her for a moment, but I didn't have the energy to argue, so I just started drinking. "You look like Lady Luna herself," Marcus said, pulling up a seat next to me. I didn't bother looking up at him, just focusing on my water instead. "What happened?" he followed up when I failed to respond.
I paused for a moment before deciding to answer him. He had been treated like he was mad the night before, and he deserved to know I believed him. "You were right," I responded quietly, "I went to visit Hadley today. It was just like you said. He was lifeless. Dead where he stood. And just like you said, he disappeared when I went to get help."
"Oh," Marcus said. That was the only response he had, and we both waited in somber silence for a moment.
"Not you too, don't you think I have to deal with enough of this silly doomsaying without strangers showing up and jumping on the bandwagon?" Livia scoffed, unceremoniously shoving a bowl of grits in front of me and a beer in front of Marcus. My stomach twisted at the smell, but with a glare from Livia, I picked up the wooden spoon and began to slowly eat. It did make me feel better.
"How many witnesses do you need before you'll believe that something is wrong, Livia?" Marcus asked and Livia laughed.
"Same number as any rumor, just the one," she answered pointing a thumb back at herself and grinning. I slowly forced the grits down. They weren't actually that bad, truth be told. A little lumpy, but I used to like them that way. But all food sort of tasted the same these days.
"Well, I hope you never get that witness," Marcus grumbled back before returning his attention to me. "So he disappeared did he?" he asked and I weakly nodded before dropping my spoon and pushing the grits away. I had eaten about a third of them and that was more than enough.
"That's one word for it, although that part isn't much of a mystery," I answered as Livia pushed the grits back in front of me and glared until I reluctantly picked up the spoon again.
"If you want to drink those worries away, I'd suggest you eat the whole meal. I'm not in the habit of killing my customers," Livia reprimanded. I did want some alcohol, so I choked down a few more bites.
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"What do you mean it's not a mystery?" Marcus followed up and I paused, the spoon halfway to my mouth.
"Just like I said," I intoned, "I spoke to the nearest guard, who took me to take my statement. He gave quiet instructions to his partner, then asked me to lead him to a house he should have known about. When we got there, the body was gone. It doesn't take much to connect the dots."
"Oh, so now it is a conspiracy about the guards," Livia laughed while replacing my water. Marcus, on the other hand, rubbed his beard and furrowed his brow.
"Why would they hide them?" he asked, more to himself than anyone else, but Livia answered anyway.
"They wouldn't! It's just a new surprise addition to the ever-growing rumors of gloom," she dismissed. I didn't have enough information to guess either, so I didn't speak. Instead, I focused on the food. I was actually feeling better, so I mechanically pushed until the entire bowl was empty.
The conversation didn't advance much from that point. Livia did eventually get me a beer, however. Then she got me another and another. I couldn't think of anything else to do, and I just wanted to stop thinking. I spent the rest of the day, then evening, trying to drink Hadley's hollow eyes out of my memory.
At the beginning of every hour, the clock in the corner tolled. Every time it did, the room froze, only for nothing to happen. And every time nothing happened, Livia would gloat and remind us all how foolish we were being. After that moment of quiet dread, relief, and mockery, the environment would recover and we would all go back to drinking. I understood then, why there were so many people there all day. They all had their own Hadley. Probably someone they actually knew for most of them. They were there for the same reason I was. To avoid reality.
It didn't work, but it didn't bother me as much by the end of the day either. So, like many days before, I grasped onto the excuse to waste the day and went to bed that night without any new information about my sister.
End of Day 1
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Day 2
I didn't fight the apathy the next morning. Instead, I fought to fall asleep again. My hangover would have been debilitating on my best days, but in the state I was in it was absolutely crushing. Before I knew it, half the day had passed me by. The sun had passed the middle of the sky before I finally forced myself out of bed. Once again I examined my haggard face in the mirror. This time when I looked at the wash basin, I decided to bathe.
It was more an excuse to stay in my room than anything, but it was a good idea anyway. When I went downstairs, I noticed the inn had fewer visitors than the day before. I didn't have the mental presence to wonder why, instead getting directions to the well so I could haul water up to my room. It took nearly an hour before I was finally clean and without an excuse to avoid the world any longer. I always delayed, but I always saw Camilla's disappointed eyes when I did it for too long.
So I dressed myself in my least dirty travel clothes and went downstairs. This time I couldn't avoid the worries as I was met with a quieter room. Not that many people were missing, but there were enough to be noticeable. Their absence calmed the atmosphere more than it should have as everyone wondered. Were they dead? Empty, gray shells of the people we had laughed and joked with the night before?
Livia continued to dismiss their worries and Marcus continued to argue with her as I sat in the same seat as the night before. "I'll tell you what," Livia was offering, "I'll make you a bet. If it turns out you are right, I'll give you free drinks for a month, but if I'm right and this all blows over, you have to pay double for just as long. How does that sound?"
Marcus just waved her off, "That's not a bet. I lose either way, don't I?" he answered and she scoffed.
"Well, if you are right you have nothing to worry about either way right? And if I am right, you'll be so relieved you won't miss the money. Come on, don't be scared," she teased while holding a hand out to him, and Marcus rolled his eyes. She just gestured toward him expectantly, looking down at her proffered hand.
"Fine, fine, if it'll make you happy," he grumbled before gripping her hand in a tight handshake. The bet ended before they even finished agreeing on it. The clock in the corner tolled, and Marcus died. Livia was already trying to pull her hand back and begin her routine mockery when her arm failed to free itself. She looked up at the man holding it and her face paled. Just like Hadley, he had lost all color. The emptiness of his corpse had its own presence. and we could all feel it.
I was frozen, my heart stopped cold. Livia tried to yank her hand away again and failed a second time. Then, the panic began to take her. She began jerking her arm back, over and over, growing more frantic each time. "H-help me," she ordered no one in particular, a haunting sorrow echoing through her plea. The room came alive all at once as different people jumped up to help pry the dead man's hand off of her.
As I saw multiple people pulling him and heard her cry out in pain, I finally came alive. "W-wait!" I cried out, "I can... I can save him!" I called out and a dozen eyes stared at me. Livia's eyes bulged and rolled to me like I was insane. "Just... just... just wait," I stammered out, before scrambling from my stool, almost falling over, and running up to my room. With more urgency than I had felt in months, I searched my bag for my grimoire. I wouldn't fail again.
Finally, I retrieved it and hurried back downstairs. They hadn't waited for me, and Livia was curled up behind the bar, nursing a bruised and possibly broken wrist. Two of Marcus' fingers had been broken off to free her and the people around the room were each looking to each other for a plan for their next steps. I ignored them, choking back the vomit when I saw his bone protruding from the removed fingers. I didn't understand why they couldn't just bend them back, but I didn't have time to ask.
I opened my tome and, using it as my focus, tried my spell again. Eyes all around the room widened as they saw my blue aura envelop him and his fingers on the bar. I put everything I had into the spell. I ignored the eyes. The smile. The sneers. All the phantoms I saw whenever I cast this spell, and I poured my focus into saving the kind man. I pushed, and I pushed, and I pushed. My aura sparked and skipped across his dead flesh with my effort.
After several minutes, I pulled back, exhausted. Sweat soaked my thick clothes and my nose had begun to bleed. When I looked up at Marcus, I fell to my knees and began gripping my mouth. My dirty nails cut into my cheeks as I struggled to accept what I was looking at. His fingers were back like they had never broken but... he was still dead. Still empty. Still painfully, achingly hollow.