Raum Whitewood

The knife jettisons into his throat with the decisiveness of a harpoon. As it twists inside his windpipe from blade-down to blade-flat, his vision strobes white, black, and then with a yank through his muscles, red. The edge of the knife protrudes from his skin; his neck collapses open like the belly of a fish, squirting out pulses of blood and staining his chest with red spew.

It is such an abrupt and dire injury that his light-headedness registers before the pain. He gorbles, and gurbles, bubbles of blood popping through his throat as he drowns in this impromptu shechita. For whoever finds his corpse, the message behind his slaughter will be clear: fuck you, piece of shit, die, murder, I murder you, die.

In not even five seconds, indeed, he will.

The only hint of life left in him is the fact his head still leans backwards, against the wall, instead of slumping forward immediately. But just as quickly as his carotid drains, and god it is gushing like a water main, that faint strength will also peter.

Even then, even so, Reyl is not done. Moving in blurry slow-motion, the knife twirls in her hand, readjusts to a firmer grip. Set on a course to sheathe itself in his heart, its point looms in imminently, and though the stab must be quick in reality, for Raum, each inch the blade closes feels to take an hour.

No. Why?

What the fuck.

Is this is what it was all for?

All those things Reyl has ever mocked — his meekness, faith, trust, charity, sensitivity, idealism, optimism, and desire for mutual cooperation and joy — were indeed self-defeating ghosts, in the end? She said they would kill him, and she proves herself right. Raum lived by a weakling’s chicanery, broken rightly before the real strength of an impenetrable mind, an ironcast heart, and an unerring blade.

Named in their trinity I do hear the edicts of manifest power. Familiar am I to their workings, columns they are of my art.
Equally indeed, to their tempering, by the kindling of the hearth in my heart.
As any saint,
I am susceptible.
Like a moth, Raum gravitated through the dark storm to blips of candle-light, knowing they were weak and ephemeral. He might spread out his wings to repel the raindrops, nurture the candle higher with the gentle whorls of his flapping, and feed it his legs when it wilted. Then he would proclaim: come to this flame, it will be a great, beaming fire!

And people flocked, through their derision and scepticism, to at least watch the novelty. ‘That little moth cannot make a candle-head into a bonfire, not in a storm that thrashes as this!’. But as the flame stretched higher and higher, and as the assured fluidity in Raum’s motions became clear, they would wonder, ‘unless?’.

Soon they would cup their own hands around the flame, feed it their possessions, and call others to do the same. They would feel the light and warmth on their skin and pursue it with fervour, both for the good of themselves and for their comrades stuck in the storm. But inevitably, as was the way of storms, there would come the howling gust to snuff out that small flame. The clustered adherents now stood again in the cold, the dark, and the wet, only now without the coats and umbrellas they had already cast to the fire. And Raum would merely turn, find the next blip of candle-light, and flutter under darkness’s cloak to it, once again.

Whether there was ever a bonfire or not didn’t really matter. He was just a tiny moth, terrified of being stuck alone in the wind and the dark and the cold, who could bask before a candle-flame as though it were an inferno, and simply wanted nearness to that light and warmth while resting upon a hand.

It was a con far crueler than anything Reyl would do. She would grab a stranger by the wrist and hiss into their ear, as they stared at the distant, growing candle: trust absolutely nothing of that fire. It may warm you for a moment, but you’ll never survive without it again. So if you have a mind for life, you have to learn to live in this darkness. That is the truth, and to know it is kindness. Ignore my warning, slug, and I would just as well kill you now. You’re visible there, in the light.

That was the argument? That was reality?

Who the fuck would make a world so cruel that, armed with a knife, and resigned to misery, Reyl ultimately wins?

It is not the magnates who mistreat you,
Not the father who forsakes you,
Not the mother who molests you,
Not even the sister who slaughters you,
But rather I, the sun o’er the storm
Upon whom you cast your aspersions?

But she doesn’t even win. They both lose!
She’ll discard her humanity to fortify herself against hope. Speaking as a ghoul-in-progress, however she may futz the sales pitch, that’s the same bloody thing as killing herself.

Privileged, I shall call myself, for your enmity.
As Raum reaches again for rage and castigations, the most glorious warmth he has felt in his life drapes itself over his back. Its arms loop loosely around his neck and torso in an embrace, tracing the same hug of apology once given to him by Aquila. That this creature dares to ape such a sentiment, despite having done nothing for Raum in his life, done nothing for any of Raum’s loved ones either, and overall not been someone Raum has ever cared about, relied on, believed in, or trusted, makes him want to backhand the fucker off his shoulder and then go puke in a corner.

But the saccharine warmth that seeps in through his spine, to his heart, softens that desire to mush. His body relaxes into the hold as if melting. Whatever impossible ideal of love Raum had maniacally pretended to have found in his mother, and in Aquila, is presently being realised utterly. The touch of the most beautiful thing in the world indulges his soul with one little drop of the gateway to rapture, and that in itself is enough for Raum to want to sit here, in this position, held and happy, forever.

His head tilts back and eyes squint in pleasure. Red fractals like those of the tunnel-wards flicker in the corner of his vision, flashing in the same odd way as Aquila’s blood. If he turns his head to look, he will find upon his shoulder the face of the Demiurge, smiling that same horrible grin as the cathedral statue. Through the soppy reverie, his spine splinters with sickness.

Turn around with love! Never let this feeling go! This is it, this is it, this is it…

Raum sighs a sharp sob and forces his gaze directly ahead. The point of Reyl’s knife faces him, frozen in time, or perhaps moving so slowly that the distinction doesn’t matter.

The same’s true of her. Caught midway through her lunge, her hair is whipped around her face and spit hangs fresh from her open mouth. Rage has contorted her visage into a demonic mask, targeted upon him but seeing nothing of him, or in this willing blindness, of anything.

Sadness like an ocean crest swells through Raum’s insides, cold against the enveloping warmth. The tears come as always, and soon trickle down his chin. For that, his mind stays calm. It’s a composure bred from knowing, and understanding, exactly what he is seeing.

It’s like everyone in his family is overcharged plutonium, only ever growing more and more volatile.

Displace from its woodyard a sparrow to the tundra,
From its ocean a shark to the sand-dunes,
And from its dirt a mole to the aeries.
Death is short for these creatures,
Lest they reclaim the surrounds
To which they are habituated.
And you…

A finger of that transcendent warmth traces under Raum’s chin. Again, his throat tightens, and his gaze slides to the ground.

I hear you. What are you selling?

The wares I stock are innumerable.
What aid do you ask?

Through his soul’s screams to submit — ‘I’m sorry, that was cheeky, please give me whatever you want to do with me, I want it, you’re wonderful, thankyouthankyouthankyou so much for noticing me, did you notice I prayed to you too once oh please please please save me, save everyone I love, stay with me, I love you’ — Raum sweeps his thoughts into a corner, though doing so is likely useless to hide them.

This is the thing that turned Phoenix into that. Even if he trusted Aquila in a similar fashion, this is… not… safe.

But equally, staring at Reyl’s knife, and her face, this miracle is not one he should refuse.

The warm spectre leans back, breaking the embrace. Raum wets his lips quickly. The safest negotiation—

Sheathe your cute palaver, rogue.
My attendance, too, is a candle.
If you shall refine your dialectic,
Let not your greed snuff my charity.
For efficacy demands Yet beatitude demands
The ferocity The gregariousness
In my left hand In my right
Centred together I hold the thing what you promise, the balefire. By the press of my finger, I may cast it into your skin.

You dabble in the matters of my deathless kin?
You wish a new script for the damned?
You too see miseries rewrote?
Might I not coronate you?
—It’s too much. It’s way way way, too much.

All he really wants, is to get himself and Reyl out of that warzone. His mother and father. Phoenix and Aquila.
To see his loved ones functioning at something more than their worst.
Maybe then, he can finally, be part of a family that’s peaceful and happy.

Is that something that really needs… really, needs, this intervention?

It is not.
However,
To claim the particular idyll of which you dream,
I shall tell you you lack nepenthe

‘Hopeless,’ God declares.
Or perhaps more precisely, ‘you must compromise.’

Raum’s body numbs cold and heavy. Half of him begs for that warmth to come back, so he could console himself by shoving himself in it. The other half wants to strangle the first, and be a little more self-assured and level-headed.

He would rather use this wish to heal himself and knock out Reyl until she can be carted back to Ferendaux. Without any doubt, this is the safest course to take. It’d be the end to all the drama he and Aquila have been juggling these past months, negotiable within Raum’s scope.

Sure his mind goes flirting, ‘can he bring back ma…’, ‘and maybe fix dad too…’, ‘and make the whole world happy…!’, and maybe, and maybe, if I just let him peek in my heart… but those are subordinate thoughts, which he has to force himself to ignore. Compromises are just life. So it’ll be rough, she might not adapt well, but that’s just life…

Reyl’s furious face bears down on him. Something inside Raum trembles. ‘Just life…’

…Is he being a hypocrite…?

Enamoured and terrified, you are so.
Indeed in the same way as your sister.
Indeed, sceptical with the same arrogance.
As the victim of a repellent equation
Between criminal treachery
Pitiable and disgusting And even immaculate love.
Son and sweet crony of thieves
With your compassionate heart forever bound
To the mentality of a conspiracy
And a courtesan’s subtle manner of war posed of all things, against my absences placing your silhouette where ought be mine.
Degenerate! How you scorch me!
My beneficence does not take your shape!
It takes the shape in which I was crafted,
Of which you are barely a sliver,
A toothpick planted in the dirt.
That you have achieved anything
Is a humiliation too excruciating to bear.
Then that you die unvenerated
Is doubly, impermissibly so.

Obscene, the necessity of you
Vulgar, your committed service
Profane, this militarised pacifist
Yes, I too would pluck you from the battleground! As I might also pluck you from your skin,
So tenaciously adhered is the conscription
Foisted upon you by household and kin.
If you shall so embarrass me,
Bear against me your banner,
Cry to the stormclouds, ‘where is the sun!’,
Then grant to me the reciprocity
To escort you to a comfortable bed
And shine upon you in full resplendence.

In your apprehension, apprehend too my frustration.
As much as your sister is blind to your vantage,
Dull and unillumed, you are blind to mine.

Run to my bosom.

...

…Hey.

Listen, I’m taken.

Guy named Aquila…

Shall nod to your any course.
But is most advantaged by your resolution to power.
Recreants be condemned. flee me at your peril.

As the voice of God falls abruptly quiet, the knife bearing in on Raum kicks back into motion. It presses in definitely, but slowly, as if pushing through treacle. The sensation of gravity, and of laying against the stone, and of pain quivering solidly through his wounded, winged body, alerts him that all that hugging and junk probably hadn’t been physical.

Wait, wait, come back! Raum pleads, I’m sorry, it’s reflex, I’m not sure, I just need to think! I don’t know…

As he clings to catch the departing thread, and indeed snatches it in his incorporeal self’s human fist, the knife’s press does slow considerably, but does not still again. A voice garbles in his hand, spiking and ebbing with heat like a solar flare, its syllables blending in ways that sound like language but excruciatingly decode into nothing.

It’s not really about the fear of ending up like Phoenix. Though he does tremble at the thought, he can already hope he wouldn’t be that bad.

It’s not about whether nodding to God’s intentions will equip Raum with, objectively, greater faculties to pursue his own goals. Or even whether he has an onus of responsibility to say yes, now that he’s promised so much to Aquila and Reyl.

It’s that having this powerful entity’s attention in itself is just horrifying. If it wants anything to do with him — that is horrifying.

Maybe this is a pathetic thing to say, but Raum doesn’t mind dying in his thirties as a nobody after years of discouraging failures. As long as he can keep himself drugged on love, fun, chatter, comforts, and good friendships until then, he would say that conclusion is not too bad, and basically what he expected.

That this entity wants to grab him by the neck, throttle him, and scream: that is so sub-par! I’m a beneficent god, and I’ll prove it by giving you better! Feels like such an infringement on his future, that even though every signpost points to ‘yes, it actually means to help you’, and ‘yes, it has the capacity to’, and ‘yes, it actually does understand what’s good for you better than you do’, he still cannot discern if taking this hand is really in his interest. Is that stupid?

Maybe that means he committed himself to losing from the start, but… maybe it also means he still thinks he can win, by his own power, and is content to see where his own heart can get him regardless of how everyone winds up. Is that conceited?

Reyl still closes in with her knife, looking as half-blind and ugly as a hell-born fury.

Raum should not take this deal. Raum should not take this deal. If he ever, ever allows himself to console Phoenix while he’s screaming, while he’s burning, with thoughtless assurances of god pulling through in the end, or ever accordingly lets himself dismiss Aquila’s drive for holy war as too much and broadly unnecessary, all because Raum let himself be neutered on the desperate, self-interested hope that the big glowing nice man would one day pat his head again and reward his faith by making true all those nice dreams Raum ever wanted and he was such a big guy it was no problem for him at all it was just all Raum’s fault for not finding him sooner pleasing him sooner and but well it’s ok everything’s ok now I love you mom I love you Reyl… he’ll puke.

To stay who he is, he needs to stay sceptical of God. Raum is not sure he can do that while also trusting them with his everything.

Raum’s throat locks. But…

Reyl’s horrible face is the counterpoint to everything he is thinking. A numbness falls over his mind, his cheeks slackening flat and cold.

As if leaning backwards into a temperate pool, tepid warmth seeps into his back again. Raum cranes his head back, letting the ocean of flickering red lights submerge him, as he holds in his mind that image of Reyl, imprinting it behind his closed eyelids. The celestial water around him thrums, growing warmer, and simultaneously denser and more light. Even with his eyes closed, red and white flashes burn into his brain. Raum chokes at the glory, trembles under the ecstasy, horrified to know the heat of the ocean will overwhelm him, and sweep his soul back into being malleable obsessed valueless uncommitted comfort-drunk pleasure-drunk quivering-powerless scared-child nothing, under the unremitting madness of unconditional love.

For the first time in a long while, and maybe the last time in his life, he reaches to place himself in Jayden’s mindset, that he might hold on to her wariness and disillusion and cutthroat decisiveness, as though they were beams of steel reinforcing his own melting skeleton.

The part of him he might call ‘Raum’ shrieks, scrambling to escape where he lay. But mercifully, gratefully, the scared little fucker does not succeed this time at breaking the connection. The part of him he might call ‘Jackie’ cheers, acknowledging the intoxicating favouritism of another strong master. But that gutless two-timing whore fails too to meld into the heart of the sun, or steal its flame as his own beacon. The steel beams hold his core firm, centred.

Imbued with his own inherent sentimentality and optimism, the voice that snaps back to God as he opens his eyes is unmistakably, also Jayden’s—

If you’ll talk so high, then go ahead. Let’s judge your merits.

Cut and tie as you will the trailing rope
Of wed hearts, running through your palms;
Then see how my chain of glory, for none,
is ever escapable.

—and so brimming with that easy contempt, which belongs a heart too entrenched in darkness for Raum’s weak mirrored light to ever save, what fills his mind as God immaculately descends is no intoxicating hope, but only dry, intrigued, half-mocking, abysmally low expectations.

A collected finger of golden fire spears Raum from behind, through the torso. Though not a physical phenomenon, he reels at the impact as if slapped, and barely comprehends where he is or what has happened as the aftertaste of rapture fades and gravity thunks him back into his dying body.

What the hell! He wants to scream, the stones pressing hard against his back and rear, as if his every muscle were weighed down with iron marbles. His neck gurgles with blood. His head is too heavy to move. Holy shit, with nobody else to call in his final moments, he just hallucinated God of all people saving him. Well knock knock, idiot, here comes reality.

Pain shunts itself into Raum’s chest, his heart ruptures in agony as out again shulks the knife, and—

—and there slumped against the stone before him is his corrupted, mutilated corpse, dressed in feathers and gashes that still spurt their last jets of blood. He backs up a step and tosses aside the bloody knife in his grasp to the stone, then stares down at his palms. These dainty, ratty hands aren’t his. Rather, they’re not even a man’s.

He looks from the corpse, to his hands again, not comprehending. Something’s off about all this. He rubs at his left eye with his wrist, as it seems to be numb or gunked up or not adjusted to the dim light yet or, something, but even as he digs in and kneads around, feels no sensation from his cheek or the flesh orbiting it. It is only with careful investigation with his fingertips that he realises there simply is no convex protrusion between his eyelids, and hence no eye, rather only a divet.

Though this discovery should sate his immediate questions of, ‘what happened?’ and ‘why am I not dead?’, it does not. It does not at all. With his mind in full rejection that—that, a dead person whose corpse he is looking at could have survived such a butchering, the confusion thickens deeply into ‘is that me?‘ and ‘wait, who am I?’.

Terrified, in nervous silence, he—she? stares down the dark pit of the tunnel, then up the stairway with its blanket of daylight.

Fin.