Chapter Two – Echoes and the Infinite Spiral

           The Emblem of the Star-Crossed Lovers (Interitus 1: Book X)

            Chapter Two – Echoes and the Infinite Spiral

I walked for days through the dark desert with just a sword in hand; I trudged endlessly onward through an ocean made of sand. I searched every horizon for any sign of trees, but all I ever found was a forceful desert breeze. I lost the love of my life and lied to my head; I swore to myself that she wasn’t really dead. I both denied and lamented the tragedy, but it burrowed in my heart like a cavity; the truth was inescapable as gravity. I screamed in my head to force myself on track; I swore to myself that one day I’d have her back. I forced my frail legs to stumble on the path, whispering the reality that there was nowhere to go back.

I wandered that windswept plain for what felt like an eternity, but I limited my body to only its most essential functions. My legs ambled onward with practically no instruction or direction. My eyes scanned the starlit sand for silhouettes of either giants or towering trees. But just as my body endlessly traversed the desert to distance myself from her body, my mind danced hopelessly through histories and hypotheses to distract itself from the finality of love and loss.

Bones City always had a fascination with those that they call heroes. Even when I lived at the orphanage as a child, we were occasionally visited by a group that called themselves Vaida’s Disciples. Vaida was the name of an ancient hero to the people of Bones City. The story goes that she herself first lived as an orphan in our city countless generations ago. Like many others at the time, she lost her family in flames to an Interfectus—an ancient demon of flashing blades and shifting shadows. She set out to take revenge and strike down the demon, but before she did, she spent her time in the orphanage as an inventor. She designed low-tech weapons and vehicles which steered the course of progress for years to come.

The story goes that she and a second hero both died defending helpless people from the shadow demons, but they found her notebook some short time later. She had written countless pages detailing mathematics and her observations of the physical world; she wrote the foundational treatise for science as we knew it. This group felt compelled to instruct the orphans to follow in her footsteps; they taught us the fundamentals of math and science in hopes that we could use her knowledge to build a better world. They were overall quite successful, as many of their students went on to facilitate the technological boom which made Bones City so prosperous. But as for me, I simply studied the material and learned the concepts; I never had the ingenuity to invent anything worthwhile. I retained many concepts that I seem to have internalized, but constancy is the one that hangs heaviest in my head. The law of conservation of mass, the law of conservation of energy—it is the notion that there are certain quantities in this world that can never truly change. They can transform in type but never in number.

In my younger years, I stumbled together a hypothesis of my own to explain the ebb and flow of misery in our broken world. I call it the law of conservation of happiness. Just like the total mass which builds this universe, or the total energy which sets all life in motion, or the total water which dances between the sea and the sky, I believe that there exists an immutable sum for all things in this world. Happiness itself is bound by this same constraint, which means to me that any happiness we find in this world is invariably stolen from someone else, indirect though it may seem.

This means that when Alyssa was thrown from her life of comfort to the outside of the wall, humankind seized the happiness stolen away from her. When she wandered for days in a desolate land where only monsters lurk, she lost the last of the happiness she had taken from the world. When I found her body in the darkness and buried her beneath the stars, I lost everything that mattered to me. With every step as I wandered the desert, as I slowly came to accept the gravity of her eternal absence, I lost a small portion of the little I had left. I thought of myself as a bowl begging to be filled, but I have a small hole in the bottom through which all water I find eventually leaks out. The ocean itself could not fill this broken bowl. It all leaks out of me, never to return. And just as water may trickle down a mountainside and wander into streams or lakes, the happiness I lost was not simply gone. Nothing can be created or destroyed. The happiness which pours out of me inevitably trickles into the lives of others. They are enchanted by my misery. It is a mathematical truth that the rest of the world is happier because of the tragedy that stole her away from me.

I think there are people who would find solace in knowing that their tragedies leave surplus happiness for the others who wander helplessly through this hopeless world. There are those who would find solace if, after having their wealth stolen, realized that a portion of their wealth was given to those who needed it most. There are those who would find solace in sacrificing themselves for others in the world. I envy those people because they possess a clarity I could never achieve for myself, but I am not one of those people. I owe nothing to the people of this world.

I told myself as I walked through that desert that if I had the power, I would crush everyone and everything. I would intentionally destroy their lives and rob them of their happiness so that it could flow into me instead. Perhaps, then, as the universe struggled to realign itself into equilibrium, death itself would bend over backward to give her back to me. After all, Alyssa is the only thing that ever meant anything to me. Like water overflowing a bucket with only one hole, the stolen happiness would have no choice but to pour itself back into me by recreating her. Otherwise, it would violate the law of conservation of happiness.

But as I dreamed of distant joys which I sought to steal, I swore to my soul that that dream was not real. It was a hope and a prayer and a makeshift ideal, but the hole in my heart still would not heal. There was even a moment when I dropped down to kneel, when I screamed to the sky as some hopeless appeal; I swore if it’d save her that I would make any deal. But God is unhelpful, uncaring, unreal. He stayed in the stars and used the clouds to conceal. It was then and only then that the truth was revealed. I could not have her back, no matter how much happiness I stole from the people of this world. If I truly believed it would recreate her, then perhaps I could convince myself to betray my peaceful nature. But I could not convince myself that my calculation was true, because as mentioned before, I am an empty bowl with a hole in the bottom. Even if I could refill with water, it would not last forever. Reality itself had condemned me to misery without her.

But if I stayed resigned to my gloom, I knew in time that it would consume; it would grow and swell up just like a balloon, so that was the moment my journey resumed. I searched the sands for a forest that the stars would illume, begging the desert to let me find her soul soon. I silenced my mind as I searched as if in a cocoon; I walked the wide wasteland and pressed through the simoom. I buried her body, but her soul found no tomb; she settled my shoulders as I scaled a sand dune. The starry sky was open, but the crypt had no room—she stayed with me since dead flowers don’t bloom. If we could make it to the forest, I knew we would reune, so I pressed through the gusts as if I were immune.

And while I managed to ignore the howling winds and the effects of my body slowly consuming itself, it was not long before I noticed a concomitant of the simoom which sent the desert in an uproar. I could hardly see anything in any direction. Because of my curse, that acute tunnel-vision I mentioned before, I had deluded myself into believing that the only threat this posed was that I may walk past the forest without noticing. But in reality, the most immediate threat was that I could come upon a monster and not know it. It was only after a blinding whirlwind passed that I found myself just a short distance from a towering silhouette. I found myself at the crossroads of that classic question, but instinct drove me to choose flight over fight. I ran diagonally away from the outline at a speed augmented by adrenaline, driving my hungry body forward with what little I had left.

Perhaps it was a whisper of the future coinciding with the past—that was all I could think as I took off running. But even as I ran, I felt like an invisible hand guided me forward, physically pushing me toward a fate I could no longer see. I had not admitted it until that moment, but I confessed to myself that the forest of lost souls was a whispered prayer for a bright future where I could somehow reclaim a fraction of what I lost. As I felt the monster’s footsteps shake through the dense sand, I realized that I never actually planned to find the forest; my rational mind had already concluded that it did not exist in the first place. It was simply a fantasy worth chasing until my dying body would collapse beneath me. It was a dream to die on my own terms so that we could rejoin our souls in death. Everything else was a mindless indulgence of interwoven self-delusions. It was an echo of the anguish I knew before I met her, catapulting back into life now that I was left without her for a second time.

But all the self-delusion in the world could not protect me when a sandy gust struck my side in the simoom. I could feel the shape in the swirling wind step closer by the second; she steered the sandstorm like strings on a puppet. I ran as fast as I could, but I was blinded by more than just the forceful gusts. The sands forged clouds in the sky which blocked out the stars, leaving me to stumble in darkness until I impacted the monster from which I was running. The collision nearly knocked me to the ground, but I jolted back and unholstered my sword, clinging to it as if it could in any way defend me from her. Before I could even steady my sword, she struck me with a kick which sent me stumbling backward. I saw through the faded light that she held a dagger with a symbolic inscription stained upon its blade. The inscription was familiar but not from a place I could recall; it danced at the edge of my brain like the aftertaste of a morning dream.

As if adrenaline itself hijacked my shellshocked head, I threw myself at the towering shape in the sand, swiftly slashing my sword six times in succession. But she effortlessly evaded the first five strikes with a backward step, and then she clashed her blade against mine to deflect the last. She then jolted to the side and lifted her empty left hand as her whole arm flexed. Like a forceful geyser, a plume of high-speed sand shot forth from the ground and shocked me into stillness. If it weren’t for the shockwave of this sandy burst, she would have invariably struck me with the slash of her blade. My stinging eyes instead watched the weapon pass on by, shimmering in the faded light of the shrouded stars.

I said to the monster with a hate-filled gaze, “A woman once wandered this wasteland for days. I found her half-eaten with her necklace stolen. Are you the one who killed her in this open-walled maze?”

She answered almost as if she were taken aback, “Anyone out here could have done that. It is clear by your words that you came from elsewhere, but that naïveté in itself begs a question in response. If you do not understand how hopeless it is to find a single murderer out in the badlands, then you must also not know how I steer the sandstorm with my hands.”

I retorted as I clenched my sword in both hands, “I don’t care how it is that you steer the sands. I don’t care who killed her and then set me on this track. All that truly matters is that I must have her back.”

“It’s a shame you’re my fuel. I respect your ambition,” said the giant as I ran on despite my condition.

I could practically feel my body breaking with every step, but I dared not try to fight against her. By her own admission, the giant possessed the power to command the sandstorm. Without any true purpose driving me toward victory, I had no means through which to defeat her. Even the sword in my hand was powerless at best. I did not understand at the time what she meant when she declared that I would serve as her fuel, but I could feel her heavy footsteps send tremors through the ground. She chased after me at a faster rate than I could run, so instead I swerved and swung my sword as a desperate final endeavor. She deflected the slash with a clash of her weapon, and a white spark flew forth from the crashing blades like a tiny star which instantly extinguished from the touch of sand. The giant lunged at me for a second time, but I deflected her strike with my sword.

The impact forced me to stumble back against my will, and then I lost my footing. I accelerated backward and stumbled with each step, nearly tripping onto my own sword. I heard the monster exclaim in the background, but I swerved around and realized that there was a reason for my misstep. The impact of her strike had sent me down a large hill made of sand. I ran down the slope and steered my own descent; I let gravity guide me away from the giant. When I reached the foot of the hill, I sheathed my sword and swiftly sprinted through the sand. I resolved in that moment to face forward for the rest of my run. Whether she outran me or not, it made no difference if I knew it. If I were to end, then I would just end, and there was nothing else to it. I resolved to face forward because I had nothing left behind me. The ashes of my failed past stained the world I left behind; the only thing that mattered now was my fragile final endeavor to see her one more time.

               Almost as if she were the force of fate now testing my resolve, the giant unleashed a whirlwind of spiraling sand directly in my path. It was a trap surely set to block my escape, but she and I fought two separate struggles simultaneously. She sought to cage me as fuel for her weapon, but I saw her sandstorm as a hurdle. I mentioned before that I watch this world with eyes locked in tunnel-vision, but there is a duality to this condition. Just as I sometimes stumble over the details I disregard, I can also always eye my ambition and the only path there. It was in such a way that I saw the silhouette of towering trees on the horizon, swaying deeply in the wind, even between the blinding gusts of searing sand. Certain that I had found the object of my hopeless hunt at long last, I drove my broken body through the whirlwind with all the strength I had left. I truly felt like I burned a portion of my soul itself just for the strength to overcome the sand. But nature itself was too weak to stop me; even the monsters in the badlands could not keep us apart. I pushed through the whirlwind and raced on toward the forest at the edge of the endless desert.

            I barely remember pushing myself across the threshold between the sand and forest. I pushed ferns and bushes aside as I rushed between the trees, desperately running forward on worn-out, broken knees. The wind sent flutters through the branches and leaves, but I dodged every dancing obstacle with ease. I felt with every step that my lungs began to wheeze, but I pushed myself onward as if driven by the breeze. I ran on until I saw a sign which made me freeze. Written in blood were words which stained a sign, “You may enter in peace, but only for a time. Dark spirits will consume you if you stay here for too long; the dead may meet you here, but this place you cannot stay.”

            I stumbled into the shallows of a river which flowed slowly through the forest. When I collapsed into the water, I could practically feel the cool touch soothe the sores which stained my skin. The water rinsed my hair of sand. I immersed my green eyes beneath the surface and stared up at the sky. In the rest of the forest up until now, the path was shrouded by towering trees. But in this place, where the wide river pilfered the forest of space for trees, I could clearly see the starry sky. Even beneath the flowing water, I watched galaxies dance across the darkness. Variegated nebulae drifted slowly like clouds. Twinkling stars pierced the sky and forced the river to shimmer even in the depths. Even when I surfaced and felt the water pour from my long hair, I watched a large star tremble as if it fought against its own gravity.

            “Do you remember the night we met? We watched the stars together at the edge of the sea,” whispered a voice that sent shivers straight through me.

            “Alyssa, is that you? Please tell me this is real,” I whispered to her ghost as if in an appeal.

            I saw her stand at the edge of the riverbed, gazing at me, smiling with glee, unfolding her arms as she stared straight ahead. With a whisper through tears, she gasped as she said, “I don’t want to believe that this is all in my head. I brought myself to you, but my body is dead. This is my curse; I wish I was with you instead.”

            I could feel her pain, so I said with a sigh, “I will stay with you until the day that I die.”

            But she shook her ghostly head and answered, “In death I’ve glimpsed the calling for which we both were meant. Just as you are sentenced to live for eternity as penance, my time in that body was ephemeral; it is an intransient injury imposed by an imperceptible entity—one which could not enter words. We are star-crossed by design and star-crossed now forever.”

            “Are we cursed to spend an eternity apart?” I asked as fear paralyzed my hopeless heart.

            But she shook her head as she tried to reason, “We are destined for each other like the changing of the seasons. You and I are twin flames dancing in an endless spiral. We are bound by the other but cursed to a cycle; you and I will intertwine infinitely in our past lives and our futures. We are two supernovae dancing for eternity in the other’s orbit, illuminating the universe with the fiery grandeur of a love unbound by time and death.”

            As I set my right hand on her ghostly face, I wiped my tear-filled eyes. I asked with a heavy breath, “But how can that be? I already lost you to death.”

            “We are together an ebb and a flow. Just like the tides which dance from high to low, or the seasons which sway from warm to cold, you will find me again if I am to go. My memories may dissolve into the dark fold, but when I find you again, I just pray that we know. Our love is immortal just like an echo. I am your echo, I am your twin flame dancing in this endless spiral, and I will cycle back into your life like the afterimage of a past life lost to shadow. We shall defy time itself in our infinite orbit,” she whispered.

            “Does that mean one day I’ll have you back?” I asked as I held her closely.

            She smiled and answered, “In another time, in another place, perhaps in another life. My soul is not bound to my body or this world; it is bound only to you. So when we meet again, you will not recognize me. I will not recognize you. The memories of the life we shared are the price I must pay to join you again in life. But when we meet again, we will defy and defeat our star-crossed curse. You and I will stand together, hand-in-hand, shoulders facing forward, hearts beating in unison, when we arrive at the edge of eternity.”

I trembled as I wrapped her in my arms and said, “I truly believed that this would be my end. I thought since I lost you, I might as well be dead. I was a dying flame which never could be fed, until I learned that I could still see you again. Your ghost is a gust which blew away my doubt, but will you fan the flame or will you snuff it out?”

“It will be my next life that forges our fire and follows through on fate’s command. Meet me by the ocean’s edge. Find me on the shore at Ember Bay, my love. I can see our reunion in space but not time. Can you meet me there, Asivario?” Alyssa asked.

I nodded and held her closely with one foot on the sand and the other in the starlit river. She stood as a ghost in my arms, struggling just to stay cohesive; she had drained the warmth from the air just to summon her spirit. Ice crystals formed upon the surface of my skin, and the shallow edge of the flowing river froze over in her presence. Prisms of ice shimmered in the light of the sky. She smiled sweetly in our immortal embrace, but it was then that her form started to evaporate. The details of her face slowly faded into frozen moisture.

“I will wait every night where the water meets the sand until the day we meet again. If you are to return this world, then I will trade everything for you. I would sacrifice my very soul and force the world to pay the price in my place. After all, every inch of this world is ours—both the land and the sea. We are destined for each other but condemned to pain until the day we are rejoined. We said goodbye once before, but it was only in a dream,” I whispered as she faded into the frigid air.

With the last of her energy, Alyssa struggled to say, “We will meet again in Ember Bay.”