DEIMOS
None of them could go back. It was a harsh, unwinding cruelty life had taught him at a young age. Friends, precious and vital, could be there one moment and gone the next, suddenly remembered only as wraiths, only as fragments, only as sullied, marred gloom. Everything was fleeting, soulful regard vanished, plucked from the edges of rapture, of reverie, and destroyed. Perhaps this was why he was avaricious, why he was greedy, why he was grasping, because he’d learned long ago that he could only have something for so long – before it left, before it sunk, before it died. Before it carved out a niche in withered hearts and empty, hollowed worlds. Before one became a void, indifferent, detached, and immoral.
Deimos followed, all he did now – placing one foot in front of the other, fearing if he stopped, if he ceased, if he desisted, something would break apart. Something would shatter. Something would splinter and fracture, and he’d have to admit he was losing the fight. He kept his head above the surface of all the guilt, of all the events, barely, just barely, so he could breathe and see, so he could listen and strive to understand the consequences, the circumstances, burrowing and burying them alive. But it was still drowning, still savaging, still choking, strangling down the length of his throat, sticking into his ribs, clawing along his lungs. The weight was dangerous and deadly, lethal and overpowering, and eventually he’d erode, he’d collapse, he’d crumble under its cumbersome bearings, under the distinction that survival came with its own wounds. That they’d made it out of the last trial, the last tribulation, but they had not.
A single step into the domicile suffocated him again: symbols of Adam in every capacity, from the walls, to the floors, to cluttered ramparts and counters. He half-expected the man to drift or slither out from the confines, a crude joke layered, a, irritating, ridiculous laugh echoing across halls and walls. But nothing came. Just ghosts, dust, and figments of a life he’d barely known. Wouldn’t have at all, if it weren’t for Amalia.
Long before, his hands had closed over his parents’ house and he’d stood stock still on the doorstep, stood over a warped, burnt precipice and shelter, a sanctuary, torn and mutilated, crumbled from the inside out. His father slain. His mother gone. Phantoms in the corner of his eyes. Decay, decay, decay, not enough a refrain in his head, a jumble of anthems and banners he could’ve recited in his sleep.
Before the Sword splintered right there, in the center of the room, he maneuvered, hands itching, form restless, listening to the sounds of the Shield walk amongst the house. His eyes passed over objects, over a life interrupted: of a man who’d likely believed he’d be coming home that day, a dragon captured, a mission accomplished. He swallowed down the trail of bile threatening, smothering him whole. You should have done more his mind pledged, and he hung his head, uncertain of what to do next – if he was just here to be further haunted.
The sound of her sobs merely opened up wounds that never had a chance to heal. Instincts born of a thousand other sleepless evenings and struggling, striving wakes led him to her, into a bedroom he scarcely noticed. Deimos went to her instead, a pattern, a ritual, collected and curled on the chair, face pressed into one of Adam’s things. The image alone was heartbreaking too, nothing more to be done, nothing more to be uttered, nothing more to be accomplished because they couldn’t return to those worlds before, to those instances where they weren’t covered and contorted between icy walls and engulfing terror. These were the times he wished he couldn’t feel a thing.
But his arms, his hands, went for her, meant to wrap, meant to pluck, meant to lift her into his chest, to settle either on the floor or the chair, to extend all the compassion, all the strength he had left. “I am sorry,” a whisper in her ear, a rattling breath, his head bowed into her shoulder.
Deimos followed, all he did now – placing one foot in front of the other, fearing if he stopped, if he ceased, if he desisted, something would break apart. Something would shatter. Something would splinter and fracture, and he’d have to admit he was losing the fight. He kept his head above the surface of all the guilt, of all the events, barely, just barely, so he could breathe and see, so he could listen and strive to understand the consequences, the circumstances, burrowing and burying them alive. But it was still drowning, still savaging, still choking, strangling down the length of his throat, sticking into his ribs, clawing along his lungs. The weight was dangerous and deadly, lethal and overpowering, and eventually he’d erode, he’d collapse, he’d crumble under its cumbersome bearings, under the distinction that survival came with its own wounds. That they’d made it out of the last trial, the last tribulation, but they had not.
A single step into the domicile suffocated him again: symbols of Adam in every capacity, from the walls, to the floors, to cluttered ramparts and counters. He half-expected the man to drift or slither out from the confines, a crude joke layered, a, irritating, ridiculous laugh echoing across halls and walls. But nothing came. Just ghosts, dust, and figments of a life he’d barely known. Wouldn’t have at all, if it weren’t for Amalia.
Long before, his hands had closed over his parents’ house and he’d stood stock still on the doorstep, stood over a warped, burnt precipice and shelter, a sanctuary, torn and mutilated, crumbled from the inside out. His father slain. His mother gone. Phantoms in the corner of his eyes. Decay, decay, decay, not enough a refrain in his head, a jumble of anthems and banners he could’ve recited in his sleep.
Before the Sword splintered right there, in the center of the room, he maneuvered, hands itching, form restless, listening to the sounds of the Shield walk amongst the house. His eyes passed over objects, over a life interrupted: of a man who’d likely believed he’d be coming home that day, a dragon captured, a mission accomplished. He swallowed down the trail of bile threatening, smothering him whole. You should have done more his mind pledged, and he hung his head, uncertain of what to do next – if he was just here to be further haunted.
The sound of her sobs merely opened up wounds that never had a chance to heal. Instincts born of a thousand other sleepless evenings and struggling, striving wakes led him to her, into a bedroom he scarcely noticed. Deimos went to her instead, a pattern, a ritual, collected and curled on the chair, face pressed into one of Adam’s things. The image alone was heartbreaking too, nothing more to be done, nothing more to be uttered, nothing more to be accomplished because they couldn’t return to those worlds before, to those instances where they weren’t covered and contorted between icy walls and engulfing terror. These were the times he wished he couldn’t feel a thing.
But his arms, his hands, went for her, meant to wrap, meant to pluck, meant to lift her into his chest, to settle either on the floor or the chair, to extend all the compassion, all the strength he had left. “I am sorry,” a whisper in her ear, a rattling breath, his head bowed into her shoulder.
i'm in the mood to dissolve in the sky
