Chapter 85: The Cold of Outer Space, the Warm Embrace of Death, Part 7
"I'm proud of you."
Sylvester frowned and slowly turned to look at the specter on the bed, who had a firm grip on his wrist with long, black nails. If it was as fragile as it appeared, he should be able to break the grip easily, as well as its arm. And surely it was. Surely it was just what it seemed - a woman on the brink of death, trapped in bed, skin as white as the sheets covering her up to her shoulders. Dark, sunken eyes. Lifeless. He wasn't even sure if this had been his mother's actual appearance or if it was a memory twisted by his mind and the passage of time. Not to mention fear, hatred and rage. He didn't know. It didn't matter either. The point is, the woman before him wasn't real. She was like a mirage. It was obvious. His mother had died many years ago, and beyond that, he knew she would never have uttered those words.
After everything he'd been through these past few months, he wouldn't say resurrecting or talking to the dead was impossible, but even if this were truly his mother and she had seen everything he'd done after she died, she wouldn't have said that. She had never given him reasons to be proud. Neither before nor after her death. It wasn't a bitter or happy fact for him, it was simply a fact.
He wondered who or what was responsible for this and what they hoped to achieve with such a cheap tactic. The one responsible must be that being, doing everything it could with its limited understanding of humans (because they must be like ants to that thing) to make him turn back. Digging into his head, playing with his wounds to try to manipulate him, however clumsy it might be.
He already had more than enough reasons to crush that being, erase it from this world and any other, leave not even a speck of dust as a trace. It didn't need to give him more reasons, but it just had.
"No, you're not," he said. "You're not even my mother."
With his free hand, he crushed that illusion's head. It exploded under his fist, scattering blood, gray matter, and skull fragments everywhere. Too much blood, actually. Further proof that this wasn't real. The sheets were painted almost completely red in seconds, as if they had just changed color while he wasn't looking rather than being bathed in blood. But, anyway, everything disappeared quickly. The trace of what he had done, the corpse, and also the bed. More proof, if needed, that it had been false from the beginning. Even more false than the train he was in in the first place
He doubted a train would have ended up in this space just like that. It was just one last obstacle. That being was scared, he was sure, now that they were here, knocking at its door. Threatening to break it down.
Sylvester turned around and then felt as if the ghost's eyes were boring into his back, although there was no trace left of that thing. He shuddered despite himself while walking forward, leaving that car. He wondered what else awaited him. The pattern was obvious, but there weren't that many people he cared about in this world, alive or dead. He supposed it wouldn't be bad to see some of his other fallen companions again, regardless of whether the being was trying to manipulate him by validating his feelings, giving him what he wanted to hear, or making them torment him. Either way, it wouldn't work. It had never been possible, but even less now that he knew with certainty it wasn't real, just a trick.
He didn't see any of his fallen companions. He didn't see his drunk and abusive father either, which he had feared for a few seconds - it didn't fit the theme of people he cared about, of course, but it could have changed tactics. After all, the person before him wasn't someone he appreciated at all either. Quite the contrary, it was the person he had most persistently hated, for better or worse.
Yes, there was only one possibility. Himself.
"I am the last obstacle," he said. "Well, it was to be expected."
Sylvester raised his sword, his wings extending.
"Better to kill myself than die trying," he muttered, his voice barely audible. Then he smiled from ear to ear, once again amazed by the madness his life had become, where that was a relatively normal phrase.
He launched himself at the enemy. Strangely, for a reflection of himself and for an obstacle, all it did in response was turn around and start running, passing to the next car. It was so surprising that he almost stopped completely, like those idiots who stood there staring when there was an accident instead of getting the hell out of there, just in case. He passed to the other side, to the next car...
Except there was no next car, only darkness beneath his feet. Another void, but much better than the previous one, because at least for now that steel wind hadn't made an appearance again. Were things getting easier as he approached the end? He supposed it made sense, that you could say he had already broken through its greatest defenses. It was a logical explanation, although just the opposite could also be true (that the best defenses were reserved for the final layers), and anyway it wasn't an excuse to lower his guard.
Sylvester took a deep breath and kept flying forward. With nothing but void wherever he looked, he simply had to trust he was flying in the right direction. It must be so, or at least close enough, because he almost crashed into Heather.
"There you are," she said.
Sylvester hugged her tightly. Part of him had thought as soon as he entered the train that he had already seen her for the last time. He kept making mistakes, but for once he was glad to have messed up.
"Oh. You're the real one."
Sylvester broke the embrace.
"Did you see me too? When we separated, I ended up in an empty train. In each car I saw a different person. At the end I saw myself."
"Yes. I saw you too, but I don't think it was an illusion."
"Then what?"
"The thing we're after. The being that's been erasing our world from the map, little by little, these past few days."
"Why would it take a human form?"
"I'm not sure it's something conscious. You said you always had the theory that your powers appear as numbers and statistics not because they're designed that way, but because your brain tried to simplify something from outside this world. Maybe it's something similar. Or maybe not, maybe it copied you on purpose or because you're the only human in this space or for a million possible reasons. I don't know. But I'm sure it's that being. The last obstacle. The enemy we had to defeat."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"That works for me. I trust your instinct."
Sylvester and Heather kept flying, and it wasn't long before they advanced. The void gradually turned into simple darkness, and the darkness was illuminated by stars. A large ball came spinning toward them and, since it was the only thing besides them and the stars, they silently decided to land on its surface. It wasn't difficult. It was as if they were in the middle of space. Just like. The space, the asteroid, even the stars. Everything was as fake as the train and the ghosts that had wandered through its cars. The only thing that existed in this reality besides them was that "being". The ultimate enemy, the only true enemy. The others had just been... necessary collateral damage, while the creature played with their lives and those of other universes.
This was what they should have done from the beginning. If only they had known, if they had had the right tools, which was of course impossible. Although it didn't help him feel better, the universes he had destroyed with his own hands had paved the way for this. The liberation of his and countless other universes. The end of this crazy infernal game. If only they won. If they made this count, this last fight. This leap of faith.
The being appeared before them, still as a complete copy of Sylvester. Black sword and wings included. The moment of truth had arrived. The surroundings reminded him that as little as there was in sight, even less would remain of their universe if they failed. Maybe of all of them - what told him that in the end one universe would win the right to survive? What if from the twisted perspective of these beings, it was simply pruning the leaves of their hedge? Each trampled leaf a world and millions of stories of incalculable value.
"This has to end here," said Sylvester.
And it would, one way or another.
Sylvester and Heather lunged at the enemy, flying straight and with great force, like twin cannonballs, swords ready. There was nothing to say; due to their experiences on the train, he knew that creature could imitate human language, but that didn't mean they could communicate. That was a very different thing. It would be as useless as him trying to desperately talk to ants trying to defend their hole. Besides, at this point, he wouldn't be satisfied with any creature's word.
So they crashed violently. They crashed in the air, under a meteorite that had shot out of nowhere and was spinning toward nowhere, crossing swords, wills, and powers. Sylvester felt as if he were changing moment by moment. Since he had stopped breathing and somehow overcome that impossibility, he felt as if he were transforming into something completely different, truly inhuman. Which he would accept with open arms in order to win, naturally.
When he tried to launch one of his special abilities, the enemy copied it perfectly and made sure they canceled each other out. Heather, who usually didn't see the need to use anything more than her strength and her black crystal sword, was unleashing her powers for the first time. Going far beyond, naturally, what she did even in her brutal training sessions.
But that being was too fast. Naturally it had copied Sylvester and seemed to silently dodge each and every attack Heather sent at it, while with his own it just rejected them with the same special ability. Reacting so quickly that it gave him the feeling it knew what he was going to do before he did it himself.
This battle would decide the fate of all universes. He couldn't fail. As selfish as it was, anyone would bleed. Or gladly, for the sake of defending their own existence. In any case, precisely because he was selfish, he wasn't willing to lose a single thing. Bleeding without sacrificing, no.
Sylvester and his clone exchanged dozens of attacks in a matter of a few seconds. Each attack was a rejection, an attempt to break through the opponent's guard. But none worked. Heather came falling like a shooting star. Her impact shook the meteorite like an earthquake shakes the ground. But nothing more, because by then his copy had already moved away. And now it was preparing to return the blow.
Sylvester grabbed his beloved, pulling her back to avoid getting her decapitated. It wasn't easy, but they were handling it very well, all things considered. It was easier than might be expected. A fight at a dimension and scale that he could understand, that he was used to. Truth be told, he had expected all kinds of unreal horrors, but they were only fighting against his own reflection. He felt capable of overcoming this, of shattering his own reflection and walking toward the future.
Outer space, illusion or not, was very cold. Each wound inflicted on him provided some warmth. Blood flowing abundantly, dancing on his skin. There came a moment when Sylvester grabbed his beloved, and grabbed that being by the legs and neck, standing below her, and together they made it crash against and through the asteroid which burst into a thousand pieces. And these were lost in the infinite darkness of space, before he could blink.
He had used the asteroid as the only point of support in this nightmare, but it didn't matter, they didn't need it, that's what they had wings for. And the destruction of the asteroid with its fucking head had done some damage to it. At least it looked a bit disoriented.
That being said nothing, didn't insult him, didn't acclaim him, didn't even call to him. It didn't emit the slightest sound of pain, completely mute, or so it seemed. He wished it would speak, he needed an explanation for the madness in which his life had become irrevocably entangled. The demented game between universes, a contest of life and death. There had to be a why, something beyond entertainment, if these beings were capable of having fun. And also something more than a bit of care. A cosmic spring cleaning.
As much as he feared that answer might be real, deep down Sylvester knew he didn't need the answer. What was done was done, and any answer only had the potential to worsen all his suffering, not improve anything, not undo a damn thing of course, that was completely impossible.
They crossed swords again, it seemed to be willing to fight him, on his own terms, with his same weapons, as if to overcome him with what he did best, and plunge him into despair before finishing him off, as if it were just playing with its food. He couldn't know what was going through that creature's mind, but one thing Sylvester was sure of. This form, this foolish copy of him wasn't the only one it could adopt, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. He would be exposed to horrors that would defy his sanity. How extracting, how getting the information had endangered Jonathan's sanity.
If he were human at heart, he would have said it was impossible, but as he had already made clear, he was transforming into something unrecognizable. His lungs didn't even pump oxygen anymore, his chest rose and fell as if by habit, as if it hadn't yet realized the change. It's not that they were pumping another substance, they seemed to have simply stopped. He was like a living dead.
One of Sylvester's attacks missed because the enemy pulled back, unexpectedly jumping. And instead he almost wounded his own ally. Thank goodness Heather raised a dark crystal barrier between her and his sword making it bounce off. And although it hadn't been intended, that impact sent Sylvester's weapon to a better trajectory.
Quickly his sword reached that son of a bitch's forearm and sank in forcefully. Dripping blood. The blade was soon bathed in blood, from head to toe, so to speak. He did what he could to cut his arm in half, but unfortunately he wasn't able to. He had to pull the sword back, prematurely yanking it out. Taking it away before they could snatch it from him.
Chains wrapped around that being's arms and legs. Black crystal chains, raising him in the air like a crucified one, like a condemned man waiting for him to execute him. But the chains were useless, rather the opposite. It didn't escape from them right away, but it didn't need to either. It rejected him by moving its arms and legs, hitting him with the very chains that were supposed to keep it tied up. Sylvester received several blows to his arms, chest, legs. The head was the only thing that was saved, as he did what he could to protect it instinctively. One could die as easily from blows to other parts as to the head, but still he felt the need to pay special attention to that.
As soon as the rain of blows ceased, Sylvester tried to return at least one blow. One good hit would suffice for now, but his sword didn't sink into the impostor's chest. It was about to do so, but then his arm failed him. And he couldn't wield it far enough. It fell helplessly between them. His arm had stopped working. Why? No, it didn't stop working exactly. He was still putting strength in his hands to keep gripping the sword. But no matter how hard he tried he wasn't able to lift it. What was happening now?
The Cold of Outer Space, the Warm Embrace of Death, Part 7: END