I woke up to the sound of silence.
It's not really a sound I guess, more so the lack of it. Silence isn't something you're used to though, not if you've lived your entire life in cities. Even in the dead of night there's a quiet rumble of cars or other people moving within other buildings. The world around you quiets as it rests, not quite ever truly quiet.
But now? There's silence. Not eerie, just… odd. Where am I?
I jolt while heart seizes a little, as I hear my own voice bounce off the distant walls and back. I didn't mean to say that out loud. I lay there for a moment, on the cool, stone floors. I don't really feel like getting up. So I lay there and tried to go back to sleep.
Then, a distant thud, and fluttering of pages. Groggily, I rolled over and began to get up. I could feel a soreness all over my body, which, looking at the floor of stone, made sense. Making my way along the walls, I moved towards where I heard the sound. As I limped over, my mind began to finally wake up. Bending down to pick the book up, a thought occurred to me.
Where the hell am I?
Looking around me suddenly, I actually acknowledged my surroundings. Stone floors, wooden bookshelves full of books of varying widths and heights stretching to tens of meters above and somehow *bending* at the tops to meet and yet the books within do not fall, if they are books at all. From this far down, the merely look like swatches of color, but there definitely is a strange feel to it.
Moving my focus back, I look around me to only see that my path curves out of sight. I either go forwards, or backwards. Left or right. Up or down. Rise or fall.
Huh.
Why would I phrase it like that?
Are these my thoughts?
It's almost like I-
Another book falls, this time I see it fall from then ceiling shelves. It nearly hits me on the way down. I take a breath and take the two books of the floor. They are both hardcovers, but that's where the similarities end. The first book to fall has wooden parts, I'm not sure the name. The wood flows across the covers, and the logo is oddly familiar. The second book is clasped shut, with clean metal sides that click open easily, though I don't read it yet. The metal makes the book more like a sharp reflective brick, with another familiar symbol stamped into it.
~~~
A dried bloodstain where his head once rested fades as well.
Gonna figure out the linking there later
20 years. Maybe more. I honestly can't fucking remember at this point. Why the hell did I even bother? I could have just laid down and died, and in all honesty, it wouldn't have changed much for me. Yeah sure, there were good times. There'll probably be more. Does it even matter?
I've fulfilled my purpose haven't I? They're fine, they're all safe. I'm not abandoning any duties now, my code no longer binds me to my hell. I take a swig of something, I'm not sure. It burns.
"FUCK!" I yell. "I'M ALIVE! I'M REAL!!!!" I scream out, falling down to my knees. My voice barely echo's, and some birds fly out of the trees near me.
But even then, none of those words really mean anything. They're just another attempt at acting like I even care. I sighed, getting up and sitting on a rock. "Probably something fuckin with my head. Figures they'd treat feeling numb with just more numbness." Taking a pill bottle out of my pocket, I considered throwing it away, but keep it; I'd just try to not use it for a while. It could come in useful as could all things.
"Why did I even bother?" Turning the pill bottle over and over watching them fall from one side to the other. "It was always for them… for the people who I decided that because of random chance I'd sacrifice my peace for. I could watch them die and there wouldn't be anything there, but I still went this far." Again, there is nothing. All of this is merely a distraction on the surface of his discomfort. Of my discomfort.
I have to stop doing that. Probably the one sensible thing that Doc's said. Can't understand myself if I always look at myself as some strange beast I'm observing. I lean down and run my hand through the grass. It's not actually grass, I guess, but still, it feels real enough. I look around me. A small alcove away from everything where I can be alone with my thoughts. Doc thought that was a great place, they didn't realize I was sitting at the edge of a cliff into something else. I chuckle at that thought.
I'm in a melancholic mood today. I won't step off. But I feel like it. I'll wait 3 days. If I feel the same way for the next 3 days, I'll go. Not in a moment of thoughtless emotional sorrow, but in a calm manner of a decision of someone who has thought things through.
That leaves me a question though? Why a cliff, much less this cliff? I chuckle at my answer.
"Still afraid of heights. And this one's close. Private." Taking a handful of grass in hand, I throw it away over the edge of the cliff. Some of it spins lazily as comes back to the earth and stone near the edge while the rest goes over. Sighing, I get up to get back to work. I had the whole day booked off but really, even hours feels like too much time relaxing.