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Their hands were shaking; dust, dust everywhere. It was gritty and dirty and was almost beautiful in a twisted way. It was in their hair, their clothes, their knife. Behind them was left a trail of sparkles.
Desolate, empty. There was nothing here; not anymore. Everyone was dead. Had the world stopped spinning, had time stopped? It felt as though.
Was everyone really gone? Their lives had been toyed with, over and over, they meant nothing now. Time repeated itself, every time they followed the same script, no one ever remembered except him. Even he was gone now.
Reality blends into dreams, timeline melts into timeline. Is everyone dead right now? Or was that last time? Was anyone left alive, really? Killing was not killing anymore, sparing was not sparing. LOVE was the same as love, mercy the same as fighting.
Desensitization. Over and over, the same old thing, there was never anything new. The dust on their hands, their footprints, what they used to be only playthings. They were only as attached to the characters as if they were absentmindedly listening to a movie from the other room, as though they were strangers walking by on the street.
They quietly sat, hands drawing pictures in the dust. It really did look like glitter. It was almost as if they were some mimicry of a child, distantly remembering arts and crafts. When was that? Were they a child, were they an elder? Ageless, or a mere adolescent?
No matter. That was no reality anymore. They fingered the dust with morbid fascination. Were these the remains of ones once loved?
They were tired. This was exhausting, going through timeline after timeline, each time experimenting, watching could-be friends die over and over. It was tiring, when they once fought with their partner. The first few times, it was a conscious choice they made together. Then it was a fight, but by then it was too late to convince them that these toys were anything but. Now, they were both tired, exhausted, and they never spoke, or tried to think. Was their partner even still there?
Yes, they were there, but they were not present. Somewhere far away, perhaps in a fantasy where the now dead were living and content. There was no use for such delusions, false dreams of happiness. There was only time for what existed then.
What was the point? Why did they kill, why did they hurt? There was no difference between hurting or helping these monsters; it would not matter once time repeated itself once again. They had no control. They watched utter despair, and pure joy, they watched anger and comfort, they saw everything and experienced everything, only for it to be reset. What was the point?
They might as well keep walking. Dust themselves off, but it will never get rid of the dust littering the castle, this entire world, their own body. Why were they here again? Yes, they had just killed him. Murdered him, just like they murdered everyone else. Those people (they weren’t really toys, were they? Only to them.) had families. Families who missed them, but it was all the same. They erased the hurt every time the timeline repeated itself. Why were they still doing this? There was no point in pretending.
They had long ago stopped killing out of anger, anger that it had to be like this, that their plan failed and he died so soon, anger that they didn’t die when they first tried to. Now they killed because it was the only thing they knew how to do. The monsters had never made it to the surface.
They were the angel. Time and time again, they made the Underground go empty. How many times had they already been here, in this golden corridor, danced the dance until they won? How many times had they killed him, made him watch his brother’s murder, how many times had they killed their mother? Made a lover watch her love melt to death? Children, adults, ghosts, all cut down, only to be alive again within the hour. How many times?
Why were they here? Why were they here, of all places? His dust was a mere 10 feet away from them. They could be anywhere else, but they were here. Were they too exhausted?
What is life, except denying death its chance? Is death the only true escape, the eternal plane where everyone goes to rest? Were they cursed to never truly lie down to rest, cursed to aimlessly wander and toy with everyone’s lives like some sort of game?
Was this some sort of sick joke? They missed the punch line.
All was quiet. There was no movement. Not even a breath. Surely this murderer did not need to breathe, since they were not truly alive. They did not really have a soul, did they? They were more heartless than the flower without a heart.
What was good, and what was bad? What was the difference between the most evil and the most pure in the world? Perception. It all depends on the way the situation is viewed, and by who. Did they deserve to burn in hell, as he had said? Or were they really just a misguided child given too much power and no escape? Oh, but they were no child.
A stir. Was their partner finally coming back, after so long? Or were they just trying to further remove themselves? Either way, it was the same. Did they deserve this punishment, of absolute silence and exhaustion they themselves had caused? It did not matter whether or not they did, because they were here now.
They lied down in the dust. If only they could rest, here and now, and never wake up. What a relief, what a blessing that would be!
But they were cursed.
Surely, time would reset itself any moment now! They lie and wait for it to happen.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Ah, so their partner has returned!
But were they suggesting that they could make a difference, that they weren’t stuck in this eternal hellscape? Ha! That was a joke that they understood!
Haunting, lilting childish laughter echoed throughout the corridor.
They stop to consider, though. It doesn’t have to be this way. Is that true, could they really change something, escape this hellish cycle? Maybe after they set things right, they could finally lie down to rest.
Together, partners reached out for a feeling they had not felt in a long time. Now, with their own DETERMINATION, they were the ones who reset, no one else.