ELDRITCH NIGHT (Rough Draft)

Chapter 48: Pearls of Thought

Some memories are cherished. They are like a splendid pearl kept in one's pocket to be taken out and gazed upon during moments of reflection. They become polished and made free of imperfections through constant handling. We revel in these recollections and they become the moments from which we define ourselves; facets in the jewel we call our conscious mind.

There are other kinds of memories.

They eat away at us – forgotten but never truly gone. We push them down into the darker parts of our psyche. There we keep them hidden. We bar these remembrances from our waking thoughts through an endless vigil. It is only in our dreams that we confront our demons, as they tear and claw against the hells we've fashioned in their image.

They wait in those depths and fester until the day we take them with us into our final rest. Or we confront them and risk a fate more dreadful still: acknowledgement. In acknowledgement we would see the truth of ourselves, and of the world. We would then be forced to face the certainty that we are weak, insignificant creatures in a vast and uncaring universe.

I had one such memory. I forged another in the moment I took the life of my best friend. This was twice now that I'd watched a man give up hope as his body betrayed him. Troy had asked for death, begged me to kill him. I had agreed, not in anger, but in mercy born from recognition.

I had seen that same look upon the face of my father. I had worshiped the man, even as his body gradually failed him. A strong man had been left a broken husk, nothing more than a shade trapped in a prison of his own flesh. The final time I had seen my father his eyes had held the same acceptance that I saw in Troy's.

In our final moments together, my father had briefly opened his eyes to look up at me, and even though he had long since lost all power of movement, I felt his hand tighten, slight and brief, around my own.

I had thought it a positive sign, but he never saw the morning.

For years I'd blamed myself. I'd pushed down the memory, completely forgetting that look in his eyes or the feeling of his hand grasping my own. It was the only farewell he could give, and yet I had never acknowledged it. I'd never understood the significance of the look in his eyes or the message contained in the final desperate grasp of his hand.

Now I spoke farewells to someone else. Mortality claimed my friend, and as it took him it left behind memories that resonated with pain long repressed.

I had torn Troy's head from a pool of pulsing flesh. In that moment, it was the face of my father that I had seen. The face I held in my hands was that of a man grateful to meet his final rest. I should have mourned him, and I would, but for a short time I clung to feelings of joy at having been able to release him from his prison.

I had failed once, but not this time.

Troy would not have to suffer a slow, torturous death like my father had. I refused to push down either memory. Instead the two memories became linked inexplicably as I made a new realization about myself. I would hold onto these memories and take them out when nothing else could give me strength. I was not broken, and I was not weak. I could kill, but I could also build and protect.

Perhaps I was going mad. If the Fisher was to be believed I already was. So what? If I was crazy, then so was everyone. It was no more rational to love the memory of my father than it was to hate or kill. I could do all three. I held the proof in my hands.

I lingered in the room for a moment, but I had more work to do. I set the only recognizable piece of Troy on a small bed in the corner of the room and covered it with a sheet. I didn't look back as I walked out into the narrow passageway.