Cycles of Entropy

The world wasn't real. I couldn't accept it. I had waited too long. I had spent my mornings in idle apathy, refusing to leave the bed. I was looking at the result. Weary and tired people walking past the shells of shopkeepers. There were so few people left to help. I changed my mind about going to the inn. Or, rather, I decided to make a stop first. I didn't know who Matthew Cross was, much less where to find him. But I could open the gates. I could let people run. I thought it might be all I could do.

So I went to the front gates and... my knees trembled under me. It was like the garden again, but out in the public square. Maybe half the crowd that had been there the day before remained, but all were dead. All victims of the Quiet. The guards were among them and the gate was open, but it hadn't happened in time. The road leading away from the city was littered with bodies that failed to flee. I shambled out the gate like a ghost. The world wasn't real. My eyes rested on the corpse of a child, his broken hand reaching out for a parent who was no longer there.

My throat was dry and my lips cracked. It was like the world had gone gray itself. I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't understand why. The woman I met on the road came to my mind and her words echoed in my ears. 'Don't. Don't go there. Please. I don't know why you are traveling to Beddenmor, but you'd be best served by turning around now. You won't find anything worth looking for there,' she had said. She had begged me to turn back. The people here knew this was coming. They had told me, before I even made it inside, what to expect.

Still. I had no stomach for what I was looking at. It made me feel so, fucking small. Because I turned my back again. Because I was too weak again. Too slow, too self-absorbed, too... small. It wasn't about me, I knew that. But it was unlikely anyone else in this city knew magic like I did. There wasn't anyone as prepared to stop this as me. And I hadn't even tried until... until it was too late to matter. Even when I did start looking I was half-hearted. I cared more about feeling better about myself than about the people I supposedly wanted to help.

And, as always, I achieved neither result. I helped no one, and I felt as worthless as ever. But some part of me protested. The little ember that pulled me out of bed that morning flared. It screamed at me. It was too late for the people around me, but it wasn't too late for the people left. They had lost a lot, but not everything. I could still do something. I had just been trying to talk myself into giving up. So I shut my eyes tight for a moment. I could still see the child, like a vivid light memory, but I took a deep breath and turned around. I needed to find Matthew Cross. If he was actually responsible for this, I could...

I didn't know what I could do. But I knew I had to try something. So I found my way to the inn. I shuddered as I walked past the bodies. I had to clench my teeth when I saw the empty eyes of not just the quiet dead, but the living. The people left were just spirits, now. Moving through the roads because they didn't know what else to do. The lively atmosphere the city had clung to before was gone. Idly, I wished I had tried to enjoy it more. I wanted to know these people before they watched the people around them turn into horrific ornaments.

I don't know why I thought this. I hadn't felt comfortable around people in a long time. When they were happy, I wanted nothing to do with them. But watching them all stalk through the city like apparitions made my heart ache. Like I had lost them, although we had never been close. Nevertheless, I made it past them intact and without the world forcing me out of my body. I sighed in relief and walked in. Even the pretense here was gone. I recognized previously jovial bodies frozen at tables. One woman had beer soaking through her blouse as it had continued to pour into her mouth as she died. Another table had a living man, ignoring the two bodies seated with him as he searched for the bottom of a bottle.

Livia was still behind her bar. Still working. The world was dying around her and she was cleaning her bar. She had circles like mine under her eyes and she'd aged a decade in a few hours. But she was still working. Still taking care of her patrons. She still attempted a feeble smile when she saw me. "Still around, huh?" she asked as I stood, weary, at the entrance. I found my way to the bar and she started pouring a drink for me.

"N-no," I said. "I mean, nothing to drink," I clarified and she shrugged, then drank it herself. "I'm looking for someone named Matthew Cross. Do you know the name?" I inquired. She looked at me, but finished her drink before answering.

Clear alcohol ran down her cheeks as she hadn't been careful in downing the spirits, and she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "What do you want with that creep?" she scoffed.

"Mayor said he might know why..." I trailed off before looking around the room. "He said if I wanted to stop this, that's who I needed to find."

She gave me a skeptical look. "Still think you can do that, do you?" she asked.

"No," I answered honestly, "But I don't know what else to do." She actually gave me a bitter laugh, then started refilling her glass.

"Well, that's fair enough I suppose. Aethon knows that's one thing I can understand. Yeah, I know the man, but I don't know if I can help you. I haven't seen him in weeks. Haven't a clue where he is," she responded. My heart didn't sink at this. It might have, before I got back to the city proper. But after seeing what I'd seen...

"Can you tell me anything about him? Something to help me find him?" I asked and she crossed her arms.

"Not much. He's not a happy man. He's certainly not friendly. For most of my life, he was just some rich asshole. In my younger years, he spent a fair amount of time trying to trick me into his bed, even after he married. But he always left when I or Marcus..." she trailed off, then sniffed and rephrased, "one of my patrons would always tell him where to shove it if I didn't have the energy.

"He mellowed out, once he had his son. Even more when he had a daughter a few years later. His eyes still rarely made it all the way up to my face, but he stopped harassing me. His most severe change was maybe a year ago, when... well without his family, he wasn't the same man. He was like..." She nodded to the nearest body over my shoulder and I understood.

"He was empty," I finished and she pointed at me to indicate a correct guess.

"He was ashamed. I never found out what exactly happened, but it only took one look at his face to know it was his fault. It was no longer my eyes he failed to meet, but everyone's. He hated himself more than any of us ever had. Then, a month or two ago, he disappeared. I don't know where he went. Maybe the Quiet got him early. But that's all I can tell you," she finishes before taking another drink.

I put my finger over my lips in thought. "Is he a mage?" I asked after a moment.

She shrugged. "I don't think so. I think he boasted about having a mage uncle or something a couple of times, but I always assumed that was just bluster to undo my belt. He certainly never used any magic around me. But, I wouldn't have pegged you as a mage either. Even so, if he could do magic, he was the type to do it. So my guess is no," she ventured.

I sat down and looked at the table for a moment. None of this was enough to find him. If I couldn't find him, knowing his past wouldn't help me. "I changed my mind," I said, "I'll have a drink." I didn't know what to do next, and I needed something to take the edge off. Still, I pondered my next move. I couldn't just sit there forever. If I didn't do something... it would prove I was right about myself, in my darkest moments. I thought of the rope I carried in my travel pack. If I did nothing, I knew its allure would only grow.

After a moment, the drink fails to come. "I'm sorry, would a drink be alri-" I stopped. Livia was, of course, dead. I looked over at the grandfather clock in confusion. It was cracked. Broken. At some point, someone had lost it and smashed it. And with it, my warning. I looked back at the corpse, still looking at me with her mouth half open. I'd never hear the words she had been preparing. With that, I couldn't hold back anymore. I began to softly sob. 'Why did I even come here?' I thought. 'What was the point of everything?'

I knew I was dead. I gave up. I had been fighting the voice telling me it was hopeless, and this was the final straw. There was no point. Part of me welcomed it. It would be easy. I just had to wait, and it would all end. I didn't have to do anything at all. Even if I ran, that didn't work for half the people that tried. For all I know, it didn't work for any of them. Camilla couldn't blame me for that. I didn't do it myself, I just... couldn't run.

The more I convinced myself, the more relieved I felt. So I waited in that bar. I didn't drink, or eat. I just waited. Every hour sounds behind me would disappear. Every hour more people were quiet. But never me. I waited, and waited, ready to accept the end of my journey. But when I finally turned and looked around, I was the only living human in the room. Even then, I waited. Another hour passed, and again I was spared. A darkness settled over me. A panic that gripped my bones and crawled across them like termites.

I rushed outside the inn. I ran to the market, as quickly as I could. I didn't pass a single survivor on the way. When I got there, it was crowded with the dead. There was no one. Not a single living person... except me. I couldn't search the city in its entirety, but somehow I knew. I was alone. The Quiet had spared me, and it was going to keep sparing me. I had given up because it was hopeless, but it wasn't. Not for me. I was safe. I could have gone out there and tried harder. But I didn't.

I fell to my knees. 'What have I done?' I thought. 'Is this really who I have to be? Why am I so pathetic? Why do I have to keep going? Why do I always have to keep going?' I was worthless. I had been spared and I did nothing with it. Trying doesn't count for shit. Especially when you bail as soon as things get hard. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to move forward, but then... the world was gray. It didn't just feel that way anymore. The color had drained from reality. I looked at my hands and I could see no color. I was like the corpses around me, but alive.

Then, with no warning, the earth shook like an animal in captivity. It cried out beneath me and everything came crashing down. The bodies and stalls fell to the ground. Walls crumbled and collapsed. The city groaned and wailed as everything ended. Before my eyes, color returned, but not everywhere. A pillar of light erupted in rage, prying its way through the sky. It was a sickly green and it made me ill.

I clenched my fists. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that spell was why this had all happened. So, I decided to do one last thing. If I couldn't save the people around me, I could at least fight whatever killed them. So I began to chant. I called upon all of my magic and everything I had ever learned. I didn't mutter under my breath. I screamed my incantations in defiance of the end before me. My blue aura exploded out of me and tried to stop the world in place.

But it collided with the other spell. I couldn't stop it. It was... swallowed. Time stopped around me, but my aura swirled into the green pillar, changing it to a teal. I had never seen spells interact in this way and my eyes widened. I had planned to stop time and jump through the city to stop the mage from casting it but... somehow, I had hijacked their spell. I could feel it. It was desperation and malignance and death. But it was also hope. It was a feeling I knew better than anything in this world. It was regret and desire. And it had my spell with it.

The teal spell split the sky and darkness enveloped everything, only the glow of the spell illuminating the grey world around me. Then, just as the thrashing of the earth felt like it could grow no stronger, the spell exploded. It flew in three directions, its sparks decorating the black sky like stars, and disappeared. Everything was black.

Barely a breath later, light returned and I was... in bed at the inn. Staring at the ceiling, and gasping for air.

End of the Final Day