Cycles of Entropy

My heart began fighting to tear its way out of my chest as I tried to process what I was looking at. I would have thought it was a statue but... there was an undefinable quality that the body had. It didn't fall to the ground like a body should and it didn't have the colors of flesh. Somehow it still felt undeniably human. Neither a stone nor a corpse has a soul but the absence feels different in one than the other. This didn't feel like looking at a stone. It felt like when something knocks the breath out of you and you can feel the collapse of your stomach. Or rather, it felt like the following struggle for breath.

This wasn't simply absence, but palpable emptiness. My breaths grew short and rapid and I stumbled back a step before someone steadied me against the door frame with their hand. That's how it felt in the moment at least. In reality, I had grabbed the frame and steadied myself but... it didn't feel like my body. I was outside it, looking in. My fingers moved like deja vu, a second later than it felt like they should but in a way that felt like they had actually been early.

I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes as I tried to force my breathing to slow. I took in as much air as I could through my nose, held it, and let it out just as slowly. 'Alright Mars, open your eyes. Count the red things in the room. You are okay," I thought before forcing my eyes open and following my own instructions. There were thirty-two red roses, two red flower pots, a red dish towel, and four red apples. By the time I was done counting, the worst of it had passed. My body was my own again and I was the one moving it. I paused and put my hands over my mouth as I looked at the corpse again.

The man I assumed was Hadley still had a gentle smile on his face. He forever looked at the iris he had drowned when he died. I slowly approached him, reaching one hand out, pausing to pull it back, then steeling myself and touching his arm. It would have felt like marble. It was smooth and cold in the same way but... his skin was still pliable. It still depressed where my finger touched and returned when I stopped. I looked up into his kind, empty eyes... Then I had to throw myself to the side. I fell to my knees by an empty flowerpot and vomited into it.

I released deep, heaving waves of bile as my nearly empty stomach struggled to find something to regurgitate. Then I paused over the mess I had made, my eyes clenching shut again. 'Get it together Mars. This isn't the first dead body you have seen. You can fix this, you can help him if you just pull. yourself. together.' I mentally argued until I managed to regain my stomach. I had saved a dead man before. If he had been dead for less than an hour I thought I could bring him back.

It would have been easier if I had brought my grimoire with me, but I couldn't waste time retrieving it. I had to cast without a focus. But I had reversed time a million times. I could do it. I held one hand toward him, my fingers twisted to focus my energy and chanted the long memorized spell. As the blue energy flowed out of my hand and enveloped him, I stared over his shoulder. I stared at the hate-filled eyes and flinched from the clear harm they wished upon me. I stared at the sickly sweet smile underneath. I couldn't get distracted, so I closed my eyes while casting.

'There is no one there, Mars, there is never anyone there. Focus on the spell,' I lectured myself, but even with my eyes closed I saw them. The face of hatred as I cast. The faces of sneering onlookers. I felt their spit landing on my boots... my robes... my face. I smelled the shit and the animal carcasses left by the formerly adoring masses of the town. I always did when I used my magic, but especially now, casting this spell for this reason.

But I pushed through. I finished the spell. I saved him, and there was no one here to ridicule me or call me a liar. I opened my eyes to greet the man but... he was unchanged. He was still dead. He hadn't so much as moved. Even the water can was still empty. I was too late. I hadn't done anything, and I hadn't helped anyone. And my best lead on Camilla was standing in front of me, like some sort of grotesque statue. His smile didn't look gentle anymore. It mocked me. It taunted me and reminded me that I would never find what I was looking for.

If I had anything left to vomit, I would have. Instead, I just sat at the man's table and collapsed my head into my arms. I should have known. It always ended that way. I sat there for several minutes, unable to think of what else to do. But I couldn't stay with the body. He deserved more than that anyway, so I forced myself from the table and shambled out of his home. I didn't know where to go, so I went to the garden entrance.

"There is no entry to the garden ma'am, I'm afraid you'll have to come back another day," The first guard tells me and I shake my head.

"No, that's not it," I answer, "There is a man... Hadley, I think, I wanted to ask him some questions, but he... he..." I began and the man's eyes widened.

"Right, come with me then, you can tell me all about it," he answered before I could say it out loud. I numbly followed him to a nearby shack where he closed the door behind us. It had little in it, just a table, a couple of chairs, and some gear. He whispered something to the guard on break inside, then invited me to take a seat. I struggled to describe what I had found, and he listened patiently until my story was over.

"Right then," he said, standing. "We'd better take a look, show me the way," he ordered and I looked at him in confusion. He was guarding the garden, but he didn't know where Hadley's house was? I figured it must not have been important enough, and stood to do what I was told.

"Well, alright, it's this way," I answered before retracing my steps to the house I had just left. My feet were heavy and my stomach churned. I really didn't want to go back in there. But he deserved to be found, so I showed him the way. "It's right there," I said when we arrived, pointing at the door which was... closed. I didn't remember closing it but I had been out of sorts. I must have without thinking about it.

"Alright, let's go take a look," he ordered and I choked. I showed him where it was; I didn't understand why he wanted me to go in with him. I also didn't have the stomach to challenge the idea, however, so I followed him up the door. He knocked, considerably harder than I had, but was met with silence. He knocked again, and when there was no answer, he grabbed the handle and pushed it open. I grimaced at the thought of seeing the body again, but when the door swung open there was... nothing.

Hadley was gone. The pot with my bile leaking out from the bottom was still there. The Iris, drowned in water, was still dying on the windowsill. Even the watering can was sitting on the table, untouched. But the man's body was missing. He had been there for at least an hour before I got there, but after leaving for half that time and he was gone? It didn't make any sense.

"Ma'am, is there something you want to tell me?" the guard asked, accusation dripping from his tone. I just gaped at the abandoned room.

"I don't... I don't understand, I thought..." I answered, and the guard glared at me.

"Ma'am, I have a job to do. I don't have time to be chasing ghosts," he reprimanded and I looked back at him, my eyes wide.

"No, I didn't-" I started but he cut me off.

"Why don't you get some rest ma'am? I believe that you believe you found something here. But you look tired, and there is nothing here," he insisted and I couldn't muster the words to challenge him. There was a time when I could have. When I would have told him to give himself Luna's gift. I did need rest, but what I saw was real, and I wasn't an idiot. He brought me to the side, sent his friend somewhere, and the body disappeared right after I reported it. The same thing happened to that man Marcus was talking about. His husband's body disappeared when he went to get help.

But... I was not who I had been, so I just... awkwardly nodded a few times and left the house. It shouldn't have even mattered to me. I wasn't there because of whatever this... Quiet was. I was there to find my sister. He was my best lead but he was gone. So I didn't actually have any business there. But I didn't know where else to go. So, I began walking back to the inn.

About halfway there, I started to get dizzy. Before the world started to spin, I stumbled to the nearest seating I could find. I hadn't had any water all day, and I puked up whatever I had left. I'd used an intensive spell and been more than a little startled. I needed rest, and it was getting to me.

"You alright lady?" A young girl asked and I looked up. She was dressed in an extravagant robe and a wide-brimmed hat, and her face was caked with white makeup.

"Uh, I'm alright, I just need some water," I answered and she skipped away without responding. I blinked a couple of times, then looked around in confusion. Then I realized where I was sitting. There were theater-style stone seats all around me, surrounding a stone stage and a half-built set. From the extravagant sun they were painting, I could tell they were prepping to tell the story of Aethon and the Wandering Souls. It was odd, seeing a theater company in the middle of this melancholy city, but I suppose most everyone else was acting normal as well.

"Here ya go lady!" The girl said, offering me a glass of water and giving me a wide grin. Then her make-up and clothes made sense. She was wearing a costume for a dress rehearsal.

"Thank you," I answered, accepting the water and taking a deep drink. "You look great, are you playing Luna?" I asked and she gave me a fearsome growl as a way of confirmation.

"What do you think, am I scary?" she asked and I mustered the best smile I could.

"Like a true goddess of death," I answered and she beamed.

"I'm just the understudy though, Auntie Stella is playing Luna in the real play," she explained, pouting.

"Well, if you ask me, they made the wrong call. No way this Stella can play Luna like you," I whispered to her and she grinned.

"Thanks lady, but I'm just a kid. Plays are better with grown-ups, silly," she disagreed before skipping away. I just watched her go and shook my head. For a second, I forgot everything and felt normal. Kids had that effect on me. The world was so simple to them. But reality waited for me as she went back to her rehearsal.

Finally feeling better, I stood and walked back to the inn. I didn't think I had it in me to find any more leads that day. It was only the middle of the day, but... It wasn't a good day. And like I always did, I took the first excuse I could find to go back to my room and stop caring for a while.