The Fourth Annual Writer Games: Canon

The Assassin | Linwood Walsh

Linwood Walsh hasn't learned everything. Days have gone by and he's still not awake, his body weakly resting on a bed of white and silver. Machines pump his heart, machines give him breath, and machines intertwine with his veins with the colors of blood and bone. A few times, his eyelids flutter, his fingers go awry; all of him sleeps, so soundly, so peacefully, aloft in a dreamscape painted by a brilliant horizon.

Perhaps, every time his fingers coil, they're reaching for something. Someone. Even midrest, Linwood yearns. He sees the faded and jezebel colors that wring when the eyes are closed, like shimmering lights curving, swirling, too blended to focus clearly. Maybe he knows them as fireworks, as spindles of embers soon to be struck alight; he's as hopeful, now, as flames as they first ignite. He is those lights, about to burn. He is those lights, a second from being flicked on.

And eyes open. Slowly, adjusting to the paleness of a foreign room. It's the unwinding of a mystery novel, rainfall drifting to an end. Lin blinks, and he blinks, a few tears slipping down his cheeks as he settles into this gentle yellow. His red curls array on the pillow, entwined as fingers clasped together, freshly washed by nurse's hands. It's then, he asks, how long have I been here?

And why did I wake up?

His first instinct is to smile. To let his teeth roam free with the boisterous glow of a grin- accompany that with a small laugh, a shining glint in the eye, and the flurry of hands not knowing where to land, and thus becomes the reviving of a boy. A boy who didn't always want to live, but still does, looking at the past as if a different person had run those years. Clockwork never rewinds, but it changes the tune of its tick, and Lin wakes to find he no longer fears it.

The lightness of his breath becomes a habit once again. The curtains have been flung open, the stretch of sun illuming the tile and the metal posts of the bed. It's a lustrous view, a plant or two placed to brighten the room further, the sight of trees outside his window golden like a garden growing gemstones and jewels. He yearns for them; he yearns for the feel of leaves crushed beneath his nails. Lin yearns for a sunburn and the flick of heels on asphalt, for his voice, for his reflection. Everything and everything, whatever and ever.

Then, he sighs nicely, content. The scent of fantasy dissolves and the daze comes to an end. The heavenly feel of waking up trickles down, and he realizes where he sits. It dawns like dusk on his brow, a mixture of confusion and desperation lacing his features. He asks himself questions he knows he cannot answer, and the joy of being alive leaves, only to be replaced by the blistering thought of- at what cost?

He touches his chest to be sure it's there, running a hand through his hair to ensure the tangles are real, not figments of a dead imagination. A few more seconds go by and he understands, with certainty, that he's won, that he's the victor, and that he tried. He's going home, and the oddity of two different emotions existing at the same time clouds his mind.

Is he joyous, excited? That, tomorrow, or soon, or now, he'll be at home, among trees not covered by ash? Joyous, excited, enlivened by the idea that twenty-three others, whose names would take him time to remember, had died?

He doesn't have the answer, but the feeling coursing through him is different than anything he's ever felt before. It's an explosion. It's bombastic and loud, musical yet ineloquent; it's the surge of electricity that any ground runs upon, eels alight in the dark, so brilliant he may never feel it again. And so, he savors this moment. He loves it- though, still, he lives with a haze somewhere in the distance, still with shadows lurking in the background. But that's not important. What's important is that he still exists, even if the shadows and the darkness do, too.