The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Fifty-Three

When Belladonna, Lil, and Zeri arrived at the Firelight hideout with tears in their eyes, it marked the beginning of the apocalypse of Ekko's life. They'd brought the kids from the community with them, apparently having been handed off to them by Starley before she disappeared.

The Vatalia hideout was in ruins, the blitzy crystals nestled underneath it having exploded from the ground. Mostly everyone who was in the hideout at the time had perished, including Momo.

Ekko had originally been in denial, refusing to accept her death as fact. Not until he had absolute proof.

But when he took the tunnel connecting his scrap heap to Momo's bedroom and found both her jacket with Cheese curled up asleep on it, and scarf next to a bleeding crystal, he felt the universe fall to its knees.

The constellations lost their stars.

The cosmos misaligned.

Celestial bodies torn to shreds.

An end to an infinity.

He stared at the scene, unable to pry his eyes from the crusting blood that smeared across the sun-coloured crystal, dried cracks beginning to crater through the splats like aged paint.

He didn't remember what came after. Not picking up her jacket and scarf, or taking Cheese up into his arms, going back to the Firelight hideout and ascending the stairs, or even entering his bedroom.

He'd been a moving man but only by muscle memory.

His head hit his pillow, the soft surface cold on his face and neck. His gaze was empty as his eyes peered blankly at the wall.

It took hours, but eventually, he broke, the lump in his throat and snowballing agony in his chest finally giving way. He cried until he ran hollow with an ever-expanding emptiness that threatened to eat him alive from the inside, like a swallowing vortex had formed in the new abys in his heart.

How could the sun rise tomorrow if she was no longer here? How could time tick forward?

How brazen of the world to continue without her.

His grief was layered, each level taking its sweet time unveiling itself, phasing through him like a moon cycle.

Ekko was a leader and had faced death countless times. He'd lost friends and comrades, at one point so frequently it became apart of his routine to make additions to their memorial mural.

But this time, he lost the love of his life.

Momo wasn't just a friend or a comrade. She was tethered to his soul, moulded into his DNA. She was the shared warmth in his bed that made getting up in the morning harder than it'd ever been. She was the smudged white paint on his face after they kissed, the splinters in his palms when they got carried away in the safehouse.

She was his everything, and she was gone.

For the first time since forming the Firelights, Ekko found himself unable to lead. He couldn't join his people during mealtimes. He couldn't plan and lead missions or formulate solutions to problems within their community.

All of that would require him to get out of bed.

He hoped that maybe if he stayed wrapped in his sheets long enough, the mattress might soon give way and allow him to wake up and find Momo alive and sleeping beside him.

In his bed, time seemed to stop passing, like her death had paralyzed him between seconds. The only real sign that it hadn't was Cheese consistently moving about next to him, the poor whump unable to find comfort there. Not in a bed that wasn't Momo's. Not beside someone who wasn't his owner.