Escape from Paradise

Chapter 26: The Final Choice

Larry's mind shattered into tiny pieces. He lost awareness of the world around him. Time and space ceased to exist. He was alone inside a damp pitch black darkness while everything – who he was, what this world was, what his future plans were – floated in the distance as shards of broken glass. He was all alone. Nothing remained. Nothing mattered. Everything became pointless, useless, a total and utter nonsense. It felt so cold, so damn cold and lonely.

Voices echoed in the distance. From far away came Diana's giggle. Far away, a great explosion roared and a shard shone in bright light for a second and then faded away. Voices of the unsatisfied crowd came and passed him by. None of them touched him as if he floated in an invulnerable husk of imperturbable calm.

Broken shards that would form a puzzle that would reconstruct him to who he was approached closer – sly daggers ready to pierce him. He wished them to go away. He did not want to be where he was. He did not want to be or exist at all. Only one of the shards was allowed to approach him, the greatest of them all – the lovely image of Diana. The man with no identity stared at her with great satisfaction. She was silent and lovely and then she began to change. Her image transformed little by little. She aged in front of his eyes and as she aged her visage became less loving, lost its shine and innocence. Little by little, it saddened, blurred and vanished. Sadness crushed in on the man. It hurt.

In the desert that was left after Larry's rage, William approached the tragic, misguided opponent who had become nothing more but a statue. This new, human-sized statue stood dull and empty as if an artist who produced it failed to breathe life into it.

From a distance, Jessie approached the two powerful humans. She was running. But before she could get closer or let out a sound, she was blown away by an invisible hand and William's whisper, "Not now, you fool. Stay away. You will never get home if he sees you."

"Are you here, Larry?" William asked.

"Are you here, Larry?" the man in the darkness heard a faint echo. "You need to wake up. It's over. We won."

'Who won what?' the man wondered. 'Winning and losing is so damn stupid. A waste of time. Go away and let me be. Just go the fuck away. I want to be alone!'

A little jolt shook William. He took a step backward.

In the void, below him, the man in the darkness saw a lake of fiery blue. It radiated unfathomable power. Its waves produced electric and azure sparks that flew upward and exploded into marvelous fireworks. The curtain separating him from the power was torn to pieces. There was nothing to keep him from taking it. He could tap his hands into it and do whatever he liked. Whatever he liked at all. But did it matter? With all that power he wouldn't be able to bring back the gorgeous woman he had seen in the image, the love of his life.

An exotic energy source pulsed behind him. Two narrow holes in front of him showed a little creature curiously staring at him. There were two ways out of this place. The one through the empty eye sockets into a world he knew, a world he once loved, a thing familiar and beautiful, a thing of utter calm which he could rebuild. The other, that exotic energy which if the man turned he knew he would see a rippling portal, led to a world of the past, the world he had once hated, a world dangerous and in all ways imperfect.

He was only a man, an imperfect man and imperfect men tend to make wrong choices. The phantom broke his husk off and allowed all the puzzle pieces to come to him. In a split second, they all struck him at once. Once again he was Larry Smith, the tragic stubborn fool. He dove downwards and sucked all the power into himself. A bluish shimmering aura surrounded him from head to toes and he darted into the two sockets.

"William, were you saying something?" Larry asked.

"I said we won. Let everyone out."

A maddening laugh came out of Larry's jaws. It took a while for it to subside during which William observed Larry with great curiosity, thinking, 'What happens when a god cracks?'

Still grinning, Larry said, "Oh, you little freak. You can't imagine how I hate your guts. You come here, thinking 'Hey why don't I mess a perfect world. Hey, let me help everybody.' Well, screw you. You and Jessie will fucking die for what you did." Strangely, Larry saw no fear in William. He added, "There will be no winners this time, William, no winners at all."

William wished to back off, take a step back. No, take a hundred steps back, a kilometer. As he began to float away from Larry, a firm hand caught him by the neck and lifted him up. Larry stared into William's eyes.

While the drama of two men took place, Jessie spent her time gathering a crowd and rousing it to stand up, to face their puny, selfish god. Jessie told them what should be done. "Let us go. Let us tell him that we wish to get out of here. We must tell that scumbag that the time has come for us to leave. Go, everyone, go and ask him. I'll stay here. He hates my guts. The moment he sees me I am a goner but you go. Go now!"

They all went but before they could get into the range to produce any comprehensible vocal sound they were blown away. A sound explosion boomed away from Larry, "Go away you maggots. Your fate is already decided."

"Why don't you resist? You don't make this fun at all." Larry said.

In between the gasps for breath, William spoke, "We both...both know...it's...it's...pointless."

"We do, huh? Then goodbye to you, you cancer."

Just like the buildings that melted at William's request, William melted at Larry's. The matter from which the little monstrosity was made began to lose its shape, turn into goo. First, the eyes fell out of their sockets, then the tongue drooped out of the mouth, then from his limbs dripped drops of black and white ink. In the end, the dark goo slid out of Larry's grip and splashed into the ground and sunk into the ground.

"Now, about Jessie," William said to himself and leaped into the center of scattered crowd. The shock-wave of his landing blew everyone away and sent them rolling as rags blown by a gust of wind.

"I can smell you, you sly whore!" Larry roared.

Vigilantly he strode to an ordinary man in dark violet straps. The man lying on the ground, his eyes fixed on the demon, retreated on his elbows in swift, frantic movements. Everyone rushed away, leaving the stranger to his grim fate.

"You can't hide from me," Larry pointed his finger at the man whose contours slowly changed into those of a woman. Momentarily he shapeshifted into Jessie, her eyes filled with fear, her body shivering. The demon fed on her weakness, on her realization of incoming inevitable death. Larry did not wait for her to speak. He said, "There is no romance in death, Jessie. You'll see. Here it comes." She exploded into a million pieces that dissipated in the air.

Larry scanned the area around him, saw the dread in all citizens. He shouted at them, "Time has come for you to make a choice."

They all popped liked candies into chunks of matter as if a hammer had struck them. Some of them remained solid but most of them hit the ground and shattered. The game was over.