Chapter 60: High on Life, Part 2

I wouldn't mind if you wanted to take her. I can't give you that, after all.

The last thing he wanted was to think about that conversation.Sylvester wanted to pretend it never happened, even though he knew Heather would never allow it. Not for long, in any case. But he couldn't help it. If people could just not think about things they didn't want to think about, there would be more mentally stable people, and the world would be a better place, perhaps.

Except for external problems. Like the Lunar Remnants, like this damn game.

Caught in a dilemma, embarrassed, he hadn't thought much about it then. But thinking about it now, it was quite sad. He wanted a relationship with his only equal, but he felt incomplete, defective. Sex, of course, wasn't the most important thing in a relationship. Although too often it kept shitty couples afloat, who then inflicted their shit on the children they shouldn't have had. But it was important. There were very few people who didn't care. It was a biological imperative, so to speak.

And he could never give that to him. There were asexuals, but he wasn't sexual, and Heather wasn't interested in finding a partner among the masses of normal human beings. Even those who were a bit more different, diverse.

So, yes, it was sad. No one wanted to be alone, but their differences ensured that he would always be alone. Being different wasn't bad. No matter how different you were, you could find people like you nowadays. But being different from everyone, not having anyone to identify with?

That must be a crushing loneliness.

Sylvester couldn't imagine it, in any case. The pain. He had felt alone for a long time, but when it came down to it, he had never been alone. His mother. One companion after another. Cynthia, Ryan.

But Heather, she... She killed people, I know. Innocents. But still, she turned thousands into monsters, but damn. Is it so bad that I feel pity for her, that I can imagine...?

What? Imagine what? Sylvester frowned and stopped that train of thought. He wasn't sure he liked where it was heading.

There was one more thing to think about, a bit safer. Heather didn't have many options, but he did. He was privileged. Why was he thinking about it as if it were a great revelation? For ten years, while the world changed and humanity trembled in fear, he had been an invincible, superhuman protector. Fearless.

For ten years, he thought. But not anymore.

At that moment... The world, destiny, whatever, provided him with a distraction from his terrible thoughts, all with sharp edges. The worst possible distraction.

A face appeared in the sky.

Among the clouds. No, made of clouds.

"But what the hell?"

He held his breath. This was a different world, after all. Could it be something normal? No, of course not. The face in the clouds twisted its 'mouth' into a smile. Stretched that way, he realized it looked like a baby's face, however poorly defined with only the clouds outlining its shape. A very large baby. And full of malice.

Dizziness overcame him. Sylvester staggered to the side, and for a moment, he thought he was going to fall overboard. The wings, the wings. But he didn't have time to activate the ability, nor did he need to.

Suddenly, he found himself in a completely different place. A narrow, dark hallway. Claustrophobic, almost. The stairs on the side only led to more darkness. Deep, impenetrable.

"Where am I?" He said it out loud, but it sounded more like a thought. Weightless. Without even an echo in these narrow walls like a cave...

That was coming down.

He took a step forward. The hallway shook. As if it were made of jelly, it jumped, shrank, twisted. This isn't real, he thought. But he couldn't remember what was real, what he had been doing until now. What is real? What does real mean? My life has been an unreal disaster for a long, long time.

Another step. Everything returned to its original place, calmed for a moment. But it twisted again when Sylvester reached out and pulled out a knife embedded in the wall. What is this here for? Why am I here?

He continued down the hallway, knife in hand. Into the darkness. He didn't get lost in the darkness. He wasn't swallowed by the shadows. He passed through them, and on the other side...

An ordinary room. A room he knew well. A room that smelled like a hospital. I feel like vomiting, he thought.

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I don't want to live in a place like this. I don't want to die in a place like this. Everything is wrong.

Sylvester raised the knife with two trembling hands.

There was a bed. On the bed, the remains of a person who had surely been there for a long time but was still breathing.

"Oh, I see, that's what it's about." A completely unknown voice that seemed to come from nowhere. "Typical. If the body fails first, it's sad, but at least it ends. If the mind does, it's like dying before dying, huh? What was your mother's name again? Ah, Isabela."

Sylvester shivered. What is happening here? I don't understand.

"Isabela was your mother, but this shell is nothing, right? Not even her shadow. You should feel free to hate her as she hates you. There's nothing wrong with that."

Even if she doesn't remember me, she's my mother, he thought.

"But she does remember you. Just think that you're not yourself, right? Why are you trying to deceive yourself? What exactly are you hiding? I can't wait to find out. There's nothing more interesting in this world than people."

He could almost see him licking his lips in anticipation. That unknown voice, that ghost haunting him. The knife trembled over the remains of his mother.

"Kill her. You know you want to. Push the knife and kill her. No, stake, because she's just a vampire, right? She's sucking your blood, stealing life, slowly. She was already dead, deep down, but you can still live. Do it. Follow your heart and do it."

That's not true. I don't... It's not true.

"You don't sound like you trust even your own thoughts. Of course, it's true. For starters, I know you better than you know yourself. People are like icebergs. Ninety percent or more is underwater, and people can live quietly without looking, without exploring those waters. But I'm inside you. All your doors are open to me. I know exactly who you are, how you are. You can't hide from me, from your pain and..."

Don't say it.

"Your hatred. We are enemies, and I'm not doing this because I want to help you, no sir. But you shouldn't be ashamed of that. It's normal. It's very easy to love someone who loves you and hate someone who hates you. It's the most natural, the simplest thing in the world. What you should be ashamed of is that you were the first to step away. Maybe you were still a child, but that's not an excuse. You were old enough to know what you were doing. You let it get to your head and poisoned your relationship with your mother. Ah, now I understand, the pieces fit. Deep down, that's what you're ashamed of. You think she wouldn't have lost her mind if you hadn't lost yours first.”

A cruel laugh.

"What a bad son. She wasn't a perfect mother, but she didn't deserve an ungrateful piece of shit like you as a son. No wonder you can't stand it. It's one of the worst mistakes one can make, and you have no way to fix it. The opportunity slipped through your fingers with the illness. So, lower the knife. Kill her before things get worse."

The wretch opened her eyes. She fixed her dead gaze on him. There was nothing there, really, not even hatred. But he... He hated her. He shouldn't. I'm a good person, I'm a good son. He shouldn't. But he did. Lowered the knife. Stabbed the stake into her heart, and the vampire regained her strength on the brink of death. The strength given by blind desperation, the fear of dying.

She twisted and spat blood from her mouth as she showed her long, shiny teeth and extended her trembling, flabby-skinned arms towards his neck. But her hands didn't reach anywhere. She died miserably, and with that... Sylvester returned to the aircraft. Back to the reality where only a tenth of a second had passed. He knew that before fully 'waking up' by feeling his hips hit the railing.

He reacted quickly, out of pure instinct, and grabbed the railing. Secured his posture. Made sure not to fall overboard. He could have easily saved himself even if he had fallen, but that didn't mean it was okay to be careless. This was a very important mission, after all, and... What had happened here? The vision. The strange voice. What he had done, with his own hands... That wasn't real.

Mom had died in front of his eyes, but she simply passed away. He hadn't murdered her, and he hadn't wished to. What the hell had happened? The face in the clouds was still there. Twisting, laughing sinisterly, soundless. The face of a baby that couldn't be more sinister. For some reason, the aircraft began to fall.

Sylvester had to stab his sword into a wall to avoid falling overboard for the second time in less than a minute. His luck was still as great as ever. He quickly concluded that whatever had happened to him had spread throughout the entire crew. Hence the fall. But if it was just that, they should be able to regain control quickly, and the aircraft showed no signs of stopping the descent. Something else, sabotage?

Good thing I'm the only person out here anyway, he thought. Inside, they had a better chance of surviving the forced landing. Sylvester climbed the wall as fast as he could, clinging with his nails where he could and thrusting and tearing away the sword.

He headed towards the cockpit with hope, but not expectation, of stopping this. He wasn't the type to throw in the towel, waving the white flag, even when it seemed there was no hope, though. If he were, he wouldn't have come this far. He opened a hole in the window with his katana and slid through. The broken glass grazed him, but Sylvester ignored it. Everyone in the cockpit was unconscious.

"Well. That explains a lot." He tried to wake them up, and was unsuccessful. They were probably trapped the same way he was. Different illusions for each, however, and different whispered words, pretending to make them destroy themselves. He tried to control this thing, prevent the fall, and had even less success. But he didn't have to worry about that for long.

Once, he found himself in a different place, and this time he painfully remembered that he shouldn't be here, anywhere but here, but he couldn't do anything about it. What was here? Good question. A too colorful, fantastic, and strange carnival. A carnival floating among the clouds. He saw the roller coaster moving, with a skull drawn on the front, and all the passengers were humans, but different. Like rubber men, legs and arms stretched too long.

"I feel like I'm high. Could it be? Have these bastards drugged me?" He advanced, and the rubber people disappeared from the roller coaster. No, not exactly. In the ride, only their skeletons remained.

"Damn." How long would it take for him to be the next?

High on Life, Part 2: FIN