Phantom Chained

Chapter 6. Loss. Elm.

The sunset's vibrations bring me out of my blissful state of torpor that I've been in since last night.

I am in no rush to return to reality, much like a child waking up after their birthday party where they got buried in a pile of presents. Yes, I'm happy, immensely esctatic for the first time in almost a century ever since piles of dirt were thrown on top of my coffin.

I wish to prolong the festive feeling despite my entire being itching from impatience to once again gaze at my treasure. And I can't restrain myself anymore, so I slowly and solemnly withdraw...

What?! No, no... this can't be happening! No, please, anything but this! Where? Where is everything? Everything that I wound with intense care; my sun, dear, warm...

Where is it?!

And it was here... right here... or was yesterday's feeding just a dream? It couldn't have been, there's the seal; dense, heavy, I feel it! But then where, why, what the hell? Whe-e-e-ere?!

Okay, don't panic. It's definitely not here, there are only bones underneath. Not inside me either. Calm down, maybe yesterday I did something wrong? Damn it, I'm losing my mind... I need to think this through.

Was everything alright after my girl left? I put a seal, I remember that. I also remember how I scolded my tendency for drama; knocking down the door was unnecessary, and putting it back took some time. Maybe this? But what does the door have to do with anything? Think harder.

What was next? I attached the seal, and what a good seal it was, digging into the slot on the first try.

Once again, due to my love for wonderful allegories, I surrounded the girl's house with a blooming bush of roses. I even put up a dome of invisibility so that human males wouldn't even think about having a piece of her.

Then?

I counted the amount of collected energy. The reserve should've lasted me for a year of my half-starved life, so I chose to preserve it. Three layers of modified vacuum along with a gravi-magnetic field shell. I'm a professional, a leak is out of the question. Out of the question, you say? I wish I'd die six hundred and sixty-six times! There it is, the spindle's cocoon, whole and undamaged.

And no spindle, as if it was never here in the first place!

It's unjust, unfair!

Oh, my fate, what a complete and utter bitch you are! After countless years spent suffering to charm me with hope, lift me up to the skies, only to send me down plummeting with full force, leaving me even more dead and exhausted than before.

The flame left within me is now but a spark. A little more and even that will be gone, and then I will fall into the worst predicament; I will curl up and start devouring myself like a star turning into a black hole. An infinite eternity spent consuming myself is the only fate awaiting me.

I'm whining, it seems. Or in hysterics, as it's properly called. I can't think clearly like that.

Dumbass, you can't allow yourself to feel emotions, they are too energy-hungry. And I only have enough fire to call the girl one more time.

One. More. Damn. Time!

Last chance, that's how it is, Elm... last and final chance. I am trapped on the threshold. Tertium non datur!*

It's nothing, I will succeed. One moment, I just need to come to my senses.

Well, let's begin.

Concentrate on that seal. Observe. Infiltrate. Approach.

Activate.

Got it.

Now the call.

Is it heard?

The seal responds with a flash of darkness.

It is.

Now I hibernate, saving what remains of the flame...

No! No hibernation, I've slept enough already! I will remain on guard. The girl must come back soon. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if she doesn't.

All of them return. Always.

*(From Latin: There's no third!)