cascade | kotlc

37. The Goodbye

some few years ago, or after, who can say?

-

Blink. Blink twice. Blink three times, and Fitz's eyes slowly drifted open, adjusting to the blinding white around him.

Every muscle in his body screamed a song of pain. All he wanted to do was close his eyes again and fall back asleep, drift back into the blissful void of ignorance, but something chorusing in his mind tells him he cannot.

Go, it is saying, and do what I cannot.

Slowly, he staggered to his feet, feeling the world tip and turn as he struggled to move. His vision faded, losing opacity and clarity and sharpness, and suddenly it jerked back into perfect HD again.

Where am I?

It's so quiet here.

He is saying the words to himself, thinking of them, turning them over in his mind and examining the tiny details, ones he could've ignored on the first pass and ignored on the second.

In front of him, he hears a voice, sobbing, weeping, hitching with broken spasms, praying, begging, speaking to the cruel wind.

Who is this? What is this? Did Theron send me here?

God, he thinks, stepping forward, witnessing the white line arc past him in beautiful rainbows, before he steps into the light. It blinds him, sears his corneras and burns his irises, but just in the moment everything recovered, as if some divine lightning had struck him. He opened his eyes again.

The living room is pale, dressed in gleaming white marble that rose up in spiraling ionic columns, the floor tiled in a dainty sheet of plaster, perfectly smooth and perfectly white. The couches were stuffed with only the finest silk and cotton, and gold-framed paintings hung from the walls.

Perched on the central table was a young boy with shockingly white eyes and brilliant blonde hair that draped in bangs over his face. On his messy hair was a hairpiece, styled with gold and bronze and silver, and lying on the table was a silver knife.

The boy wept, weeping his soul out, crying his tears onto the table and onto the knife. His hands grappled uselessly at the handle.

Fitz started, stepping forward before drawing back, lost in his own confusion. The moment rang a bell in him, a resounding melody, something that he remembered but did not remember, something that spoke to him but did not.

"I- I have to," the boy was murmuring in a trance. "I- I can't- not- not her- she was- everything- I've lost her- no point- I give up, you've won, are you happy now, you've won- I'm done- I'm sorry..."

With trembling fingers, he managed to pick up the knife, examining its silver gleam as it glittered under the cool-toned chandeliers above and shined with the candid whiteness of the stone.

"This- this- I can't- why am I- why, why, why? What could've I done, what cue did I miss, where did I mess up, what was it, what was it? Why, why, why did it go wrong, when did I fail, how- how- I... no, no, I- I don't-"

He sobbed, shedding his tears, and raised the blade, slashing it through the air in one fluid motion. The momentum unbalanced him and he fell headlong on the table, the knife hovering dangerously close to his neck, before it drifted over to his shoulder.

"No, no, yes, no, I- you- how, how, how did this all happen? One moment ago, some days before, a month, a year, I don't know, I was happy before, and now I'm not, what changed it, why couldn't I settle? I- I thought it would be fine, I thought I would be happy, happier, but- but-"