The Unwritten King

5. Pot and Kettle

When he was finally allowed to sleep, Nicholas dreamed of Eden.

It was strange– he hadn't been to this place before, this effusive garden, but he knew at the first stroke of green against his mindspace that it was holy.

It was strange– he hadn't seen the start of the world, but something here was familiar, something in the opalescent surface of the still pond. Was that mist rising from it, or was it boiling? He stretched out a hand to check and found his arm did not exist; he was not here. This was not his story.

It was strange– he hadn't been religious since his parents went up in flames, but he thought he remembered a river in Genesis, not a pond. One river, four headwaters, and two great trees. This was not the garden of Eden.

If this wasn't Eden, then the pair dancing between the oleander bushes wasn't Adam and Eve. The more he observed, the more foolish he felt for even considering it. They were too clothed, and too lewd when they moved together. They couldn't possibly be ignorant.

What would poisonous flowers be doing in paradise, anyway?

Still, they felt bigger than the earth they roamed. Like they existed to mark the start of something, or the end.

In a heartbeat, the woman was before him, or not-him, or whatever he was. She was beautiful in the watery light, and she was terrifying, and she was anything but holy. He had seen her before. Torrents of dark hair fell over her shoulder with the tilt of her head. She had a long neck and a sharp collar, naked and bruised where her lover had pulled down her shirt to mark it. She could nearly be called curious, if not for the black wells within her irises that seemed to already know everything. Her partner danced on, so naive Nicholas could've been convinced he really was Adam if not for the silk robes on his back.

"You are not supposed to be here," she said in a deep, echoing voice too large for her narrow chest. When she spoke again, Nicholas realized it wasn't coming from her chest at all. "So we're doing the impossible now, are we?"

Her words seemed to float off from the pond with the mist– no, steam– no, smoke. The air was turning black with it. Her skin, too. First a small spot at the center of her chest, then a blotch on her cheek, then her fingertips. Patches of necrotic skin spread and started to burn, peeling away at their inception, ember-red at the edges like she was made of paper. The flora around the pond wilted, from the moss hugging the stones to the topmost leaves. Everything except the oleander.

A cry rang out, laden with an anguish so deep Nicholas wished to cover his ears, if only he had any. Her lover raced for her as her hair caught flame, but he was wilting, too (and he seemed more familiar that way), until he was just loose skin sagging over a skeletal frame.

"I didn't think that was allowed, anymore," the woman said. Her lover's hand, now nothing but bone, landed on her shoulder. She reached up to hold it just as her fingers turned to ash, and his to dust. She seemed timelessly sad. "Well, anyway. Welcome."

Nicholas could smell the smoke.

He breathed it in, relieved to have his faculties back. If he had his voice, too, he could ask her for help. She would know how to get him home; she knew everything. But he breathed in too long, and smoke coated his lungs until he was coughing.

He shot upright. It tasted foul and burned his throat. He searched for a source through teary eyes and saw gray-black curling in through the gap under the infirmary door.

His hearing came back to him last, and with it an overwhelming surge of noise. Crashing, breaking, shouting. The crackling of flames was loud and close, right outside his door.

"Fuck," he choked. A window– there was a window on the other side of the infirmary. Its daylight crawled along the floor, beneath the divider. He surged from the bed, or tried too. A punching pain spiked in his left shoulder as his arm pulled taught, bound at the wrist to the bed.