THE FALL (HAZBIN HOTEL)

CHAPTER 17

GOODBYE, ADAM.

***

It had been almost two hours since the end of the war.

The cannibals had returned to their area of the Pentagram. Lucifer had used his powers to build a new hotel as the old one had been completely destroyed by Adam.

I wanted to help my friends, but I couldn't. My mind was racing to escape the heaviness of the reality. I was being crushed to the ground by the weight of my own thoughts.

After the battle, Alastor had eventually reappeared from wherever he had gone. He was behaving as if nothing had occurred. I knew it was selfish of me, but I would have preferred to see him be... real, rather than to witness his self-control. I couldn't stand anyone's presence at the moment, so I avoided the Radio Demon until he vanished again. I had no idea where he was, and sadly, I didn't care.

Instead of putting my emotions on the shoulders of the ones I cared about, I isolated myself. All the others were inside our new home, and I chose to stay outside.

Earlier, I had scavenged through the wreckage of our old home and discovered treasures from the past, like Sir Pentious' goggles and the crown Niffty had made for me the night before the war.

Alone, I buried Niffty and covered her grave with the crown. Regardless of the fact that there was no body to bury, I also gave Sir Pentious a proper place to rest. I carefully placed his goggles atop the stone that was assigned to him. Then, I used my angelic claws to carve their names on their tombstones. To use my nails on such a hard surface was terribly painful, but I didn't stop. My suffering was insignificant to me.

I never would have thought that losing Pentious would have hurt me as much as it did, and nothing could have ever prepared me for losing Niffty. Their departure was forced and above all, wrong.

With tears in my eyes, I looked over my shoulder to see my former leader's corpse. There he was lying, secluded from everything else, bathing in his own golden blood. And for the hundredth time that day, I sighed as I forced myself to ignore my feelings.

Leaving him there would have kept me up at night since I had fought so hard to persuade the cannibals not to eat his flesh. I went closer to his body, took both of his hands, and dragged him away.

"You heavy motherfucker." I quietly groaned.

At last, I was able to move his body even further from hotel than it was before. I hoped to bury my shame along with the First Man when I sealed him in the ground, but it was a lost cause. I was completely covered in blood and dirt, and yet the only the thing that made me feel unclean was the guilt I was experiencing. I was drowning with no water, suffocating as my emotions were begging to be released.

But I refused to cry. I refused to feel anything.

I engraved Adam's name on a piece of wood I has found among the debris before I planted it in the ground of his grave. Doing all of this came with a heartache. I couldn't understand how I could have killed him and then be the one to bury him with such tenderness.

The hypocrisy was a strong sensation that lingered down my throat and tasted like a rotten fruit.

Despite the short amount of time I had spent by his side, the First Man had played a massive role in my life. I resented the intensity of his impact on my being.

I was already a killer when we first met, but Adam had turned me into a weapon.

I had never been gifted of a proper education while I was alive. The only role model I had ever known was my former leader, who was by no means a teacher. I used to think of him as someone much greater than he actually was, back in Heaven. The impression of him that I had formed in my naivety was entirely my own fault. It was all an illusion, and I should have known that I would become exactly like him in the end.