| Step |
| Step |
| Step |
| Step |
...
The rest of his short journey continued without interruption, for some reason, the background echo of titans had come to a halt after the last incident. The colossus hadn't attacked either, despite its eyes being locked on Elgan for what seemed like ages, the abomination seemed adamant to order its swarm to strike. He could only begin to suspect why whatever had killed one of its subjects was probably forcing it to act with caution.
It appeared strange to him the way time seemed to warp in his mind. Despite being certain no more than a couple of days had passed since his awakening, Elgan could almost bet it had felt like weeks on end. Especially those last steps had been so long... Feeling like he would faint several times, walking near the edge of blindness, then getting his vision back with a blink. Swaying side by side, limping on his crumbling knees. The pain had stopped being a problem long ago, in its stead was tiredness, hunger, thirst, fever... He didn't know exactly which, probably just a mix of them at that point.
That didn't matter though.
At last, the youth's steps came to a halt, and the carving of his footprints on the grey ash slowly disappeared. His bloodied gaze fell onto the building in itself, then to the surrounding valley of debris that lead to it. Old streets, buildings, homes... people, all amassed into some abstract form of art at his sides, fuming with columns of eternal smoke and the constant smell of iron. Yet despite the obvious signs of destruction, the passing of time had somehow spared that small building.
Approaching carefully towards the entrance, towards that still intact locked, glass door he had opened so many times. The surface of glass showed small imperfections, subjects of the unavoidable chaos the exterior had lived. It was a door, also a window to the vacuum of space, to somewhere other than the warm place he remembered it to be. For some reason, without hesitation or fear of that which could lay inside, or that which couldn't, clipping like a phantom, that young Elgan opened the door getting lost in the shadows that hunted its insides.
The videotape of memories stopped rolling, now it was Elgan's turn. The teen struggled to kneel down, picking the nearest piece of debris he could find.
| Crack |
Within a few hits, the door had cracked open and the path forwards cleared.
...
The crawling silence inside was enough to confirm that no one lived there anymore, not that he expected that. Glass shards cracking under his ruined black brogues, only his breath and heartbeat trespassed the barrier of time. The frontier between that past only he remembered and the present. Despite having built a rough idea of what was waiting for him inside, the kid could not help himself but feel... terrified? saddened? hopeless?
No, he felt grateful. Grateful for the fact that he had been able to get this far down the road, thankful for his second chance, and for the opportunity to give a last goodbye to his loved ones. Glanced at his still functioning, cracked wristwatch.
'This will be my last hour.'
He thought in contempt.
As he came to expect, all lights were long out despite their almost perfect state. Elgan started climbing the long series of stairs, his eyes shifting to the void living on those next floors, his hand instinctually reaching for the flashlight in his pockets, only to realize he had lost it long ago.
'As it -is.'
The youth continued advancing, bathing naked in the shadows. The first step felt foreign the echoes didn't find any further disturbance above, the second followed shortly after, and soon the third. His jade pupils weren't useful anymore, but he didn't need to see that much. He limited himself to following the faint traces of a distant memory.
Guided by remembrances of that place, the struggler didn't stagger once. Nodding to the lost faces behind those eternally closed doors, Elgan climbed the next set of stairs, his mind yearned for witnessing their fates, but he refrained. His decision was firm, their destiny was to remain closed forever.
The one in front of him though...
...
Staring silently wouldn't lead anywhere.
'It's time.'
Elgan's hand moved, shaking, weakened, still, it grabbed the handle of the metallic door with steeled will and repeated the motion. With a dusty creak, it opened. A hallway leads to a seemingly untouched interior. Grey-painted walls, a mirror, and a couple of plastic flowers decorate the scene. Little light filtered through the windows, but Elgan had seen through worse. The youth's steps burrowed in that cold marble floor as he traversed the door. the smell of charcoal that impregnated the outside seemed to fade away once inside.
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...
" You are back, took you a while. "
Elgan didn't move, his heart stopped beating. Those words were uttered by his mom, she would always receive him when arriving home late. Always.
It took him a while to understand that they weren't meant for him. A warm smile on the face of his vanishing memories, as his mom embraced the past him in a big hug, both disappeared.
Elgan stood there silently for a few seconds, there was unhinged friction preventing him from advancing further, but it was his last hour, and he couldn't lose time. The interior showed no signs of wear, everything was just a little dusty, otherwise the same. No noises, no clicking, no shouting nor talking, no music. Lifeless, as all he had seen so far.
The eerie orange light dancing on the horizon lit, a few spots of the floor drenched in a dried black substance, and the trail veered left as if leading him to one of the dorms. His eyes didn't turn just yet, he inhaled and exhaled a couple of times, trying to calm his fast-beating heart. A couple of feet before him stood a wardrobe with a picture taken in a gala the whole family attended years ago, now, as if claimed by death, droplets of blood clearly stained and ran down its surface.
...
Numb but fearful, his gaze followed the path of dry blood. Elgan's heart pumped in an arrhythmic manner, threatening with shutting down. Living room, bathroom, dorms, kitchen, every door in the house had been not only closed but locked... As if someone had wanted to hide something behind them. Now the exception to the rule was before him, the place all marks of death led to. The youth's bedroom.
'You already knew.'
Yes, Elgan already knew. Better yet, for a long, long time he had known. Remembering the framed picture, those smiles frozen in time. Don't want to, don't, don't. Do-. He didn't want to, but he couldn't bring himself to make his family wait any longer, they had waited enough already.
...
'Huh..?'
In a flicker of light, the scene shifted. The heavy air, the dark atmosphere, the dust, the blood were gone. The sun shined high in the sky, light flooded the interior of the building, and the outside, untouched streets shone under the blue horizon. Birds chirped, and trees shook as a breeze of fresh air filtered through the open windows. On that same room, that same desolate room he thought he had seen, were th-
Elgan's legs had moved on their own, stepping inside the room to accept the embrace he had been given. Hugged from all directions, his father, mother, sister, and brother. Not only them, his friends, his uncle, his grandparents... Streets swarmed with joyous, hopeful people.
They were all there, they were all here around him, they were with him. They were alive, Elgan was touching them with his own scrapped hands, he smelled the odors, heard the sounds, it was all real. They were all here with him.
Bombs of salty water streamed down his reddened cheeks.
"I'm- so glad you are- all well."
Elgan's raspy voice felt muted in their warm arms. His face buried in their love, scared to be seen in such a state he kept his face low, large streams of tears flooded down his burnt chest and neck, and snot poured down his nose. They understood how he felt and leaned even closer.
"I had such a bad- time. I thought I would die, every second. I thought I was alone. Done- for!"
The youth finally found the strength to raise his voice.
| Ugh-mm |
"I missed- you!"
Elgan's knees felt weak to support himself, but he didn't fall. Those people wouldn't let him fall. His little sister looked up at him with one of those tender smiles she very rarely showed.
"You did very well brother, who could have thought you were that strong."
She painted a smile on his face. His mother's fingers wiped the streams of tears.
"I'm so proud of you darling."
She had always been a woman of few words, her forehead pressed against mine. Agitatedly, his father's hand shook his messy hair.
"You seem to have grown a lot too, you are almost a man now you know?"
Someone snorted.
"This rascal is already more of a man than you punk."
His Gramp's voice, he stood seated in a chair not so far away, a wide, prideful grin on his face, one that Elgan hadn't seen in almost a decade. About to force a laugh out of him.
"I bet my kidney if you keep that up every girl in town will fall over heels for you."
In a half-mocking tone, his grandma spoke while picking a seat right next to grandpa... The scene grew silent for a moment. All of a sudden, the youth noticed his body growing colder and weaker.
"Hey bro."
His brother stood beside him, everyone staring at the youngest with soft expressions, hiding a darker truth, almost as if on the verge of breaking down. The lights coming from the outside inevitably dimmed down.
...
"Teach that bastard a lesson for us."
Brother's green eyes locked onto his. His vision grew darker by the second, excruciating pain in Elgan's chest grew by the second, to the point he had stopped breathing. Yet if he could just bear a little more, stay a little longer. Those voices in the background...
"GRahhh!!"
Elgan growled like a beast attempting to resist a little more, enabling the last words to reach him.
"Yeah, give him a good beating!" His best friend shouted in an attempt to grasp his ears.
"Make us proud son!" Dad shouted, his palm resting on his shoulder, his relieved tone never changed up until those last seconds.
"We trust in you!" His high school crush's voice.
The rest became a single wave of noise, falling to the abyss as Elgan crumbled to that cold floor.
...
Lungs gasping for oxygen, Elgan's heart beat fiercely against his chest as everyone disappeared, one by one. Still, he found the strength to talk.
"You can't, come ba-"
It was far too late, only one person remained by the time he could utter any words.
"Be strong, Elgan."
Letting the object coil around his neck, his brother too disappeared from his hands.
Yet, his time it didn't feel so lonely... The reality that hid behind the dream rose to the surface. Crawling, Elgan's hands didn't find ashes or corpses, instead, they found something similar, but not the same. His blood-drenched palms embraced that warm, tender heart hanging over his chest.
That was it. This was it.
...
There were no bodies to bury. Only black metal.
Steps sank onto those raining ashes as the youth sat on a pile of concrete, the teen glanced at the distant hell, frustration corroding his soul. His blood-drenched right eyelid was closed shut, the organ below wouldn't work anymore but he wouldn't need it. For the first time, the pent-up rage inside him enabled the youth to lock gazes with the colossus and its army without giving in to terror. The most dangerous people were those who had nothing left to lose, wasn't it?
Half an hour left, Elgan would live thirty minutes more. So he had decided.
"Even if they hadn't asked me."
Elgan's voice trembled not from horror, but from bitterness, furor, and borrowed insanity.
It was ridiculous thinking, imagining hurting that unending mass of flesh. Just one of those smaller than it had already been enough to deal with him, never minds something a hundred times more massive.
| Step |
Still, what if Elgan didn't even try? Would he be able to die like that? No. no, he wouldn't. Definitely not. Elgan would not die without a fight, and the pendant hanging from his neck wouldn't either. Morphing his left hand into a fist, Elgan cemented his determination.
['War.']
The heart of black obsidian began pumping vigorously, thriving with the essence of those broken bonds and encompassing Elgan's own heartbeat, merging with it. Guided by the very last living, the torrent of souls prepared for their very last battle. The youth's decaying body resurged, infused with pure might.
Indeed, Elgan was not alone. Humans were utterly flawed, fragile creatures all of them were without exceptions, if left on their own, they would crumble under pressure and die. Elgan had never been an exception, not in the least... Until now. Not because for once in his lifetime he was not alone anymore. Mom, Dad, Little brother, Little sister, Grampa, Granma. Friends, Neighbours, all People. For as long as Elgan didn't give up, those long-dead people would live on, in his memory and in that second heart.
...
Elgan stepped ahead, no longer running from the devil, this time he would run straight to its jaws.
['Fearless.']
It would be the first time the colossus's expression flinched, transforming into an equally distorted scowl. A thunderous shout resonated through hell.
"BRING IT ON YOU FAT FUCK!!!"
Bellow the sky of missing moon and stars, under the judging stare of the man that bore the purple cicatrice, on that lost city, somewhere in hell the horns of war resounded.