From The Other Side

Chapter Sixteen: Tumour

Oliver felt their gazes burning his skin. He looked at his own hands, taking deep breaths as he tried to calm himself down. It was pathetic. What else did he have to fear from his reflection? But he still did, and he still refused to look at it.

And he closed his eyes, searching for the unrelenting comfort of his own darkness, his own emptiness. But all he found was his uncle's whip, his father's shattered bottles, his grandmother's disgust, and his mother's decaying corpse. All he found, were demons, demons all over him.

Just like they did to the python, they had ripped everything off him. He was now an empty shell, filled with fear and hate. He still had his heart, but they had gotten him, the same way they got Austin. Now, he was Phobos.

Except for one spot, deep inside him. He knew it was there; he felt it battling, desperately fighting to make a stand, to stop the wrath from taking over and obliterating what was left of him. The tumour from Phobos grew and spread, taking more and more pieces of him, annexing his entire being, to the point where the only remaining part of himself that was yet to fall now felt like a tumour, and all else felt like himself.

Shaking, Oliver looked up at his reflection. His spine resisted, forcing him to keep his head low, always low, always defeated. He could only take a short glimpse of his body, enough to see his skin covered in dust and dirt and an endless collection of scars. He was a walking skeleton, like the dead trees from the crushed forest. If he was still standing, it was merely as a mark, a grave to what he used to be.

He pulled himself closer, crawling against the floor. It didn't matter in which direction he went, there was a mirror waiting for him. The room was a tall circular hall with every inch of its walls made into reflective surfaces. He was surrounded by dozens of copies of himself, getting smaller and smaller, further and further, like distorted echos in a canyon.

Oliver grunted at his reflection, raising his head. His spine was even worse after all the oppressive weight of his sessions. He heard his bones cracking and his grunts growing louder, more violent, more desperate.

Then, he was screaming, and the whole world responded to him. The ground rumbled again, and lightning crossed the skies as the clouds got thicker. Soon, the day had turned to night, and with a final crack, Oliver finally managed to meet his own eyes.

All the mirrors shattered, and their shards covered the floor around him. He looked down for one last time to meet himself. He saw the reflection of a seventeen-year-old whose hair had already grown white, and whose face had deep wrinkles twisting his expression, permanently attaching him to the image of suffering and pain. Oliver saw his two black eyes, bruised, red and swallowed from crying, staring up at him, begging for vengeance.

He knelt, ignoring the pain from those shards digging into his flesh. The boy reached for a long, sharp fragment. He looked at his reflection before sticking it into his chest. Determined, he guided the improvised scalpel down his torso, until his guts fell out of his body, and his ribcage was completely uncovered.

Then, Oliver grabbed his own beating heart and pulled it out. It was weak, almost giving up, too tired and damaged to keep going. And before his eyes, his heart stopped beating. It froze; it turned to glass, and shattered just like the mirrors.

He was finally free of the tumour.

The boy erupted in flames, shedding a lonely tear as he crumbled into ashes. There was nothing but serenity, and for the first time, hope on his face.

It was time he tried a different path.

His ashes revolved around the room in a black cloud, coming together to birth something new. He was only a silhouette, the vague form of a human being.