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doing my best to wrest her head from her thorny shoulders.
We splashed beneath the waves of near-liquescent darkness,
the depth we achieved containing shadows sufficiently old
enough to turn away the glare of the sun. Once the light had
vanished, the quiet of buried secrets rose and stole the sounds
of thunder and death from the air, plunging them beneath the
unceasing knell of nothingness. We were alone in a void,
and for a moment, it seemed we were no less than gods,
floating within a primal void, battling each other for the right
to fill creation with our singular and inscrutable designs.
The fact that we survived the impact of our fall proved
further that a Red Dream had been joined by our meeting—
the Deadworld was denied the full measure of its power
over our flesh and blood, allowing wonder to undo the work
of wisdom. Burning debris rained down seconds after we
crashed to the shrouded earth, yet the darkness fought back
the fire’s light, begrudging it an impossibly small dispersion.
Miss Patience rose from beneath a mounting pile of
burning wood and fallen rock, throwing it aside with little
effort. Her dead eyes, while incapable of affecting me with
their hunger-inducing glare, bore into me with a hatred that
almost set me aflame. Just before launching into another
uncalculated rage, she paused—an expression formed, for
the first time reflecting her human origins.
Black Molly’s teeth scraped together violently as she
spoke through a mouth no longer designed for speech, her
tongue bleeding as she struggled through her words. “You’ve
made a fine revenge of things, little killer. You’ve destroyed
all that I’ve worked for, and now you’re trying to add me to
your collection of artwork. I am carved from a darkness you
can’t even remember, much less imagine. I’m a collage of
grimmest truths, assembled by grinning poets that watch and
laugh from behind this game of light and darkness. And like
some angry child, you would break me apart and leave me
in ruin? Destruction is the cheapest form of art, little killer. I
wouldn’t hold my head too high, if I were you.”
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