I wave
Tim waves back.
Turning around, he glances at me one final time before he skips away, heading to class.
I look away too, marching toward Jan's desk.
"Desmond, you're early. Here—this document needs your urgent attention," a young and upbeat voice calls out, breaking my concentration.
"You are?" glancing down, I see his closed folder and give him the side-eye.
"I'm Reece, your assistant and as I said this document needs your urgent attention." Holding it out in front of me, he blocks my path forward.
Snatching it from his hand, I investigate its contents reading the first line.
"Missing person report:"
Can't this wait. But underneath the name written in bold.
Todd
Todd
Fuck
Reading further, I recognise a familiar cursive:
"Upon inspection and analysis of all available reports, the subject's cause of death has been deemed accidental suicide.
The body remains mostly intact, except for chirps pecking away at the moongrass seeds located beneath the deceased's nails, leading to an unfortunate defacement of the remains.
Witness statements confirm that the deceased, Todd Looser, had high concentrations of alcohol in his system prior to his death, and some nearby logistics equipment had unfortunately malfunctioned and buried his fall beneath the piles of corpse cargo.
Signed: Ileane Jones.
The signature here has different handwriting.
Well thanks Ileane, I must owe you one, but I won't forgive you just yet.
Walking to Sevinstine's desk, I knock against the table top.
"Pass me your green stamp."
"It's already prepared."
Pushing it to me, she continues with her work paying me no further attention.
Thump.
Her desk shakes for a moment.
"Still here, huh? No matter, I must see Jiord!"
"He's currently occupied."
"I need him now!"
"He's in the prayer hall, finishing his morning sermon."
"Directions—give me directions!"
"Opposite side from your office. Down the left hallway, last door at the end."
"THANK YOU."
Stamping my feet, I scurry away, following her directed route.
Familiar luminescent moss flares along the walls lighting my way.
Then at the corridor's end, a door hangs wide open.
Stepping through it, the first thing I notice is a ceremonial dagger, plain but silver, it hangs mounted over the doorway; past that though, the room opens up.
The sanctuary is large, not only that, it is crumbling; pillars have fallen into disrepair, dusted cobwebs are thick with the scents of caught prey, watched over by dangling spiders that strung them up.
Noticeably, the main entrance conceals this decay: It's clear, open and grand, filtering through a mirage of purified white light that pours past the nave, attacking at all the discoloured stone.
Illuminated by the sun's path through the cobblestone aisle, sit a few hundred heads bowed in deep prayer. They all face this direction—toward where we stand above.
Raised high by this platform, both me and another shadow reside within their focus.
Obscured by the brightness below and shrouded by the curtain's shade, we stand as the central part of this room's centerpiece.
Focusing on that figure, Jiord's face looms into focus; chanting to all those penitent below.
Still as a statue, his eyes meet my gaze and then, he smiles.
He continues his heartfelt orchestra, causing the crowd to cry.
Clawing at his chest, it's as if he's trying to free his trapped heart, serenading me for the remainder of his choir.
Then, when he finishes, all goes silent.
Even the flies are killed before they can interrupt this sacred moment.
The shadow parts, as he turns his face. Thereon lies a smile of which I've never seen.
Happy.
Complete.
Fulfilled, but also…
Dead.
The bell chimes, echoing around the vaulted ceiling.
Slowly the people rise, exiting the room. All compliments and gratitude go with them, leaving the empty room for us to stare at one another.
"So, you are finally ready to talk. Took you a while Des."
"The note said I should find you. Out with it before I punch your face."
"How else do you think you landed a vice-leader position here on your third day? How else did that report fall onto your desk—every account was dressed in clinical ambiguity, thanks to the effort of Sevinstine of course; all except for that one Todd entry. I made sure he was obvious. You noticed, right?"
Did you notice the obvious code? Follow my paper-trail? My note? I even told Sevinstine to allow your every request. Who knew you'd use the robes to convince Todd you were an agent!"
To think you would actually kill him in that way too. Genius. I only told you where the pit was, but that was spectacular. Truly, a brilliant play to watch.
Don't worry, I covered it up. No one will ever know. Not even the Sky Palace."
"I see so it was you who wrote the note. Why? It said that if I did it in the pit he wouldn't be found, SO WHY DO I FIND HIS MISSING PERSONS REPORT THE VERY NEXT DAY."
"We moved before they could react." He pauses for a breath. "We were going to kill him ourselves if you managed to fail, all was planned. It's good that even now your brain is considering everything. That being said he won't be the first agent they use to try to kidnap Tim. The only way to keep him safe will be by listening to me.
"No, this doesn't make sense, how were you watching me? I killed him of my own free will."
Shaking his head he tuts to himself.
"That drink, I added a something special in it, just for you."
"What dri—" Ileane. Forget everything I said before.
"What did you do to me. Is my life just some game for you to play around with?"
Of course it is. Everyone's is. We live under their occupation, so, we must abide by their rules. And what you drank, it's just some beast glands, all it does is amplify what was already dormant at the cost of a bit of bad memory under its influence. All in all, a cheap price to pay considering what we got out of it.
He spits out onto the floor.
"Don't ever forget, we are nothing to them. Nothing! So why should I not test people I deem to have potential. I tested many, but you were the one who passed and, one of the few I trust."
He leans forward, eyes narrowing.
"I sacrificed everything to get to you—burnt my relationship with Ileane, directing that obsessive need of hers with a false promise of the past.
Of course she flipped when she found out. She couldn't handle being indirectly complicit in manipulating you.
But it was worth it.
You are so much more than what I hoped for.
Through you, we can get so much more."
"Why me?"
"You want the truth... fine, here it is. Anyone can want change, but it takes a truly insane person to become it. In all my years searching I almost gave up, but then I saw that spark in you. That unexplainable fire; I had a vision, and in it you alone stood atop a desolate world and carried the flag of our hope."
". . . I--I don't even know how to respond."
"Then don't, just sit there like a good listener and I'll explain everything to you."
He clears his throat.
"You see, It's the small things—the details no one notices that keep us Mort's shackled. That's real power: subtle, coercive deceit.
Most here carry shame, guilt, regret. But they're too busy lamenting the past either through drink or through prayer to see the present being as it's stolen from them.
"Why should I believe you?"
"I think you already suspect it yourself, the inconsistencies. Things don't just happen here without a reason."
I jump in. "The convicts? The refugees? The Sky Palace's people taking his body? The missing people?"
"Yes, they're all connected. You've read the reports, but you don't yet understand the 'why'. So listen closely."
He takes a slow breath.
"This place… is a farm. And we are the animals.
Except, instead of beasts, we have people. Well-trained and obediently sad people. More specifically, it is the rejects, the weak, the powerless from diverse backgrounds but equal in their disposability."
"Surely this is a fabricated lie, what evidence do you have!"
"Is it? You know what happened to your friend Marsley. He wasn't sent here by chance, none of them are. The Heavenly Sky Palace has agents everywhere, even in this camp. Watching, reporting, inciting. You even killed one yourself. They don't merely tell people what to think; they cultivate them like tending to crops. The method is simple but effective.
Control!
They steer people to reach conclusions they've already constructed for them. They shape how to think, how to feel. It's not a single act; it's a repetitive ongoing system through the weekly announcements.
Condition their beliefs, draw out their most passionate emotions and dilute them, direct them toward something distant and futile all to keep them docile.
It's undetectable to the ignorant, an easily concealed burden wrapped in the veneer of compassion. It stays with them, carried with the calm of someone pretending it doesn't deeply wound them."
He pauses, his voice softening.
"But stripped of it, they go hollow listless, dull and obedient. Every day becomes rehearsed. This well-worn track of thought becomes their new irreverent identity.
We perform our lives for our own show, forgetting that we are its audience.
They choose ignorance, and it destroys them."
"EXPLAIN! What does that have to do with the farm!"
My tongue slightly bleeds, its tip bitten, and blood tasteless. Biting back my vicious outburst, I try to listen.
"Everything!
Isn't it suspicious how much they know about De'sin? They might not grasp the mana-absorption of the Deadlands, but they have the bodies, lots of them. Infected corpses with similar properties. Enough to study and refine.
They cripple ascenders and morts, estimate their expected potency, then send them here to be infected and then, extracted. The yield isn't as desirable as beast cores, but it's controllable. Scalable. Predictable. And way, way cheaper.
This place is a garden of weeds and we are the nourishment."
Swallowing, my body deflates onto the floor.
"Who..."
I want to finish but my throat closes. Watching me he returns a strange look.
"Who else knows about this?" I finally manage.
"Just you, me, Sevinstine and Nelson!"
"How..." I swallow some bile.
"How could you know all this? Can you say with certainty—" My voice cracks. "Can you swear what you're telling me is true."
My body goes numb.
"How would I know?? In this game I am the farmer, the feeder who sows the seed to keep you the livestock well-fed and the weeds growing good. You ask me how I know, I've seen it all first hand. Even I would become their fodder if I suddenly died."
"This.. is it all your doing?" Spit flies from my mouth.
"Why, why are you doing this?"
. . .
"It's because of him."
"Who?" I choke out.
"My dead best friend—Jimson."
"Best friend? You said it yourself in your speech, you were just close acquaintances." Pushing my knuckles to the floor, I leverage my body up to match his gaze.
"You don't know anything! What he meant to me! I did everything I could, for him, for his family just to keep them alive.
I pretended to be someone I wasn't, and hid from almost everyone my past.
If I'd acted like we were close, they'd have seen right through me. If they suspected my motives, then he'd have disappeared too.
You never really lose that sense of paranoia, especially when you've seen what I have. Nothing is beyond them, and I swear to you, Des, they'll kill Tim and you, just to get to me."
"I won't let that happen." I argue back, standing up before him.
"What can you do? File a complaint? Write a report no one reads? You are powerless here."
I laugh dryly, my voice breaks.
"So convince me. Why was it all his fault?"
His face grows weary then he exhales.
The insides of his iris sinks toward the distance.
"It all started some years ago. I was the fourth young master of a Saintly House, studying under Reverend Ming, a prophet-class ascender respected by lords and patriarchs alike.
Jimson was there too, all those orphans were. We all grew up together, became as close as a family could."
His robe crumples as he leans against the wooden altar, holding his forehead with a twitching hand.
"Then came Sophia—Jim's daughter. They tested her mana at the age of fourteen and found it to be, 'Too pure'. Greater potential than the clan heads, stronger than even Father Ming's himself. No lineage, no apostle blood, yet she shone like heaven's chosen.
She threatened order itself. The Houses wouldn't allow it, and they couldn't ignore it either. They wanted to understand her power, defile it and then, take ownership of it."
"They came for her?"
"Yes, of course they came for her. Played nice at first, drew her into their factions, paraded her around, discreetly took her blood, her mana samples. Crushed pills into her food. When they couldn't find what they were looking for, they turned to the source."
"Jimson." I mouth.
"Precisely. They came to our town, but Father Ming's formation protected us, so they needed someone on the inside."
He looks down, voice tightening around his throat.
"It was me, I became that man for them. They held my family's house captive. Said they'd all die unless I opened a door. One door. That was all. I didn't know what it would mean at the time, told myself it was harmless."
Grabbing his scapular, he drops it and letting it fall on the floor.
"They slaughtered everyone, Des. Every child, every resident. Father Ming fought them to a standstill, he was even winning at first until he realised just who they were: Heavenly Sky Palace. The supposed preachers of Esmerald herself and the center point of all his religiosity."
A bitter laugh escapes from his mouth.
"Years of misplaced devotion nearly drove him to madness. Looking at me, the only other survivor of what happened, he finally knew how they got in, but he also knew about my critical weakness. My family.
Taking control of me, he forced my body to kill him. Smiled while he did it too. Called it a mercy, I still see that damn smile every single day."
Only his ragged breaths fill the suffocating space as he slowly slides down to the floor, both his hands cover his grieving face.
"Worst thing was, they were impressed. Thought I was ruthless enough to be useful. Made me their tamed pet all to track down Jimson. Crippled my mana-core for insurance and gave me this new Identity.."
"And you helped them."
"I helped him. I thought if I played along, I could keep him alive. I knew it would only be a matter of time before he turned up to their gate to meet Sophia. If I said I managed to trick him into coming then maybe just maybe I could have enough leverage to help set him free."
"It worked… after a year of imagining them tear them all apart in captivity for nothing. I told them to send him what was left here, to the quarantine lands—'a good opportunity to study De'sin and that power of his' I said,. With everything I had I convinced them that if would be worth it to study him from afar, perhaps even get a high quality mana-core in the process.
They agreed, of course and appointed me their correspondent here."
"What about Sophia, did you think about her?"
"She'd become something entirely different at that point. From all that they did to her. A demon, they called her, this was after she turned traitor and fled, who wouldn't want them dead after finding what they did to your father.
They told me to kill Jimson if he ever turned sick. There was no way I could do that. So I made a deal—gave them a harder task. Kill Sophia instead, convinced them that she was the prerequisite to getting him to willingly turn into their desired subject to study his power.
I thought it'd buy us time. She was at the time aligned with the demons. I thought she'll be safe there. Far, far away from here."
He stares at the cracks in the floor and then tears off part of his robe.
"Then they announced the one thousand and thirtieth war. In my eyes, they started it for one reason. All to get her back.
They did it. Spent countless lives in the process.
Sent her dead body here to be burned as a cover.
They gave me her corpse... and a relic. Told me to make Jimson use it. Said it would complete his transformation.
A long pause.
"Who would've thought they managed to get that far, to actually wield a weaponised version of the plague like it were a weapon."
His voice trembles.
"You bringing back that body, saved this settlement. They'd have razed it and killed us otherwise."
He looks up, his tone is flat.
"They doubt me sometimes I think, but I deliver. They want a man, I give them one. They want numbers I always reach them. The people never know. But I always do."
"Why tell me this now?"
"Because I'm sick of it all. I used to be proud, pious; I thought I understood duty. Had clarity. But my hands are sin soaked in sin.
I always thought I had it in me, to keep pushing through and persisting. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I pushed, I never went anywhere new and only ever made things worse.
I felt it, I still feel it, Des. The responsibility. Responsible for my best friend's pain. I couldn't do anything to help him but hurt him, And that hurt me.
I took ownership over something I should never have touched, but If I didn't, I could never touch it again.
I thought I could change, Des. Not something so grand as the world, just myself. Through helping others, I thought I could overcome this feeling. And yet... it all remains empty.
Routine, community, pills, alcohol.
I've tried it all and I've felt nothing.
Life is the hardest thing that I still can't do right."
He coughs into his hand then looks at me pitifully.
My heart forgets to beat.
"I'm tired of pretending anymore. I am caged, unable to reach the potential that I once dreamed of as a child. I don't even remember if such things ever existed.
I constantly compare myself to the drinkers, to the broken. Why are they so easily yielding? Why don't they persist like me? Do they not care?
I need someone to carry this with me. I need you to fix me, to punish me, do whatever it is you need to do to make me feel whole again."
His eyes give that same look.
"Will you do this, will you do this for me?"
I could say yes. Take his burden, let him have his rest.
It would be so easy.
But with all he's done, all he's gone through, why do I feel nothing?
Tim's face flashes in my mind - not smiling, but I'm watching him through that window.
Our distance grows with every compromise.
"No"
For a moment, confusion, desperation and fear.
His eyes search into mine for answers, clarification of what I just said.
I only stare back, witnessing as my refusal as it replays in his mind again and again and again.
His gaze goes limpid, but his actions become increasingly certain.
"I thought I could never ask for help. Then I met you. You're competent. Ruthless when needed. Ambitious enough to act instead of just thinking about your escape. I made compromises sure, one's I can never undo. So if I can't hand you this burden..." Those eyes harden.
"I'll force it onto you."
He jumps up from the floor and lunges across the room, reaching for the ceremonial dagger.
Oh no you don't.
I kick his knee out from under him, he kneels, falls then tumbles, lying against the podium again.
I pin him to the floor barely holding him down.
"As much as I want to hate every fiber of your being, I'm going to tell you the words you need to hear most. So, SHUT UP."
Taking a second, I steady my breath.
"I forgive you."
"What?!"
"I said I forgive you. Yes you did acts that I don't condone. But I can see why— perhaps even feel some sympathy for you.
I can make you suffer, but that won't free you from your guilt. You exist to me and I see all of you, in crooked clarity; the monstrous victims that we are.
Alive. Struggling. Here. On this floor, with me."
"Impossible."
"You didn't let me finish earlier. I will not be your crutch. You will be mine. Follow me. Walk down this unpaved road behind me and amend your wrongs. I will be your guide.
You may trust in God for perfect dreams, but in reality, you will trust me with this vision seized. And I swear, I will become not what you want from me, but much much worse. Even with all you did, all your deception, manipulations, is it still not true they killed Jim, and sent the hit out on Tim.
"But I manipulated you, no one in existence can be this forgiving. From what I've done."
"You say you manipulated me, tested me. No, my actions were always my own. I may have been a player in your game, but only I could chose my every move. Don't even attempt to take from me the only thing I have left—my agency"
"..."
His carefully constructed mask cracks. For once, he has no answer for me.
"I don't like you, but now I understand you. You are now a part of me, Jiord. This town's suffering means something to me. And tonight, father, you showed me something I never knew about myself.
There are things I have hated, despised, loathed and of course things that made me feel that righteous need to tear apart evil with my own two hands.
But now, I know why I regret the kindness of my past. It was empathy that drove me to despair. That's all."
I pause, the weight of my words settling.
"Ironic how love leads one down the path to damnation. I see it in you too. To ignore our feelings is to ignore ourselves. Your words resonated with me.
I thought I was aware, that will be my hubris. Moving forward without ignoring the vital core of my identity. I may not be able to feel it, but now I can at least recognise it."
I reach out a shaky hand.
"Join me. We will go and plan our future independence."
He brushes my shaking hand away.
Clap
I slap him in his face, hurting my hand in the process.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it. I have plans on how to act, this is who you made. Don't deny yourself and finish what you started.
Free yourself from this burden—or will you submit and die by your own hand?"
His pupils diverge on the point of me, as if I were a far distance away and not right in front of his face.
His eyes refocus.
Then slowly, he nods.
Tim needs me at my peak. These people need direction.
I can crumble later in my sleep.
Right now, with the privilege of my passing wake, I will actively be the best version of this breaking self.
I nod back, reaching out a hand.
He grasps it.
My grip tightens, but he doesn't pull away.
"Get up. We have work to do"