spiritfall

it doesn't leave a scratch so therefore no one's hurt




There is no place that feels more alone than the Heart of Darkness. There is no hope, no reassurance, only infinite and unyielding lonliness.

So he lights a candle. There are three standing lonely, sentinel guard in the space before him, as invisible as his own hands to his single unseeing eye. Once, his eyes had been considered remarkable, the warm color of cinnamon, rich and inviting. His first love said he'd loved his eyes. His second was content to stare into them when he thought he wasn't paying attention. But now, the warmth has faded and dulled, both his loves have left him long ago, and his remaining eye is just one more testament to how his life has changed; his single living eye is the color of rust, the color of dry blood. The other is dead, drawn closed and shuttered forever by the scarred remain of heavy eyelid.

He is bound to the ground only by gravity, and perhaps the heavy weight of his heart. It is more than enough. He doesn't know if he can stand, even if he tries.

The candle light, at first only a pin-point of light in the empty room, has grown, surging upwards in tiny bounds until he can see the curving lines of his own two hands. He leans forward, lights the second, then blows out the match. He watches absently as the thin stream of smoke curls sleepily, the candle's fragile light catching the fading wisps like dust motes in a sunbeam.

He has broken the Heart of Darkness. He knows exactly how it feels.

Perhaps it is a trick of the light, or maybe his own wishful thinking, and he wonders for a moment if the first candle is blue-hued, the second crimson: beneath his fingernails, the wax is a dirty white.

Five fingers, he thinks, and spreads them out before the simple light. One for the first flame, the dancing summoner who stole his heart before he even realized he had one, or understood what it meant. Another for the second, the stranger with a heart as soft as his tongue was sharp, who made him wonder if there would be something left for him after the Calm; the one who did all the things he could not. One for his own life. One for his own death. And one that seems like it would fit snugly within the empty space in his heart.

It would be something, but not enough. He wonders how the blood still flows within him, and if it is warm.

He closes his eye. Maybe then, the pain will ease.

He is drowning in time. Not that it matters, for he is already dead, a corpse trapped among the living. This he knows, but still his feet move, still his heart beats, still he keeps his promises. He knows the end will come again for him again, and this time he will be ready.

He touched it once, when he first died; nothing like the farplane-theatre that graces cavernous Guadosalam. There were no shimmering pyreflies to dance in his wake, nor any welcoming arms to bring him into peace. He thought he might like to stay there a while. There was no blinding joy, but it did not hurt. His frost-devoured, broken body did not ache, his mind did not tear itself apart in futile equations of how to turn back the time.

His heart had betrayed him then, but he supposed it really couldn't be held at fault. He had given it away willingly, and it had returned in bits and pieces, pulling him back from the emptiness, filling him with life as false as the teachings of Yevon. Sometimes he wonders why he accepted it at all, and then he remembers something, a strange dream of a cynical smile and crimson eyes and sacrifice far greater than anything he could have imagined. It brings him back, and the false life flows within him again, like the rising of the tide.

During the course of his thoughts, he realizes, the first flame has flickered and died. His heart clenches at the irony. And for a long moment, he stares at the remaining flame, fighting the darkness alone with all the strength it possesses, fighting a losing battle that is understood in too many ways.

He brings his thumb and forefinger together, extinguishing the last flame between his fingers, deep calluses shielding his hand from any hint of physical pain.

It is a promise of another kind. It is the last promise he intends to make.

Alone, he embraces the Heart of Darkness. It is the closest thing to peace he has, the closest thing to the death that eluded him over a decade ago.

In the darkness he almost smiles, his eye wide open to the emptiness that resides within the four walls of the room, granted the illusion of blindness and oblivion. His lips move, silently, and for a moment he wonders if he hears the sound of wings, beating weakly against the cool night air.

I've found that I belong here.

- fin
5.11.02

Song used: Home by Depeche Mode.