Tryal's Curse 11.2

When he opened his eyes it was to mist lightly snaking along his forearms. He was clammy all over and his tongue felt heavy. Looking around him, he realised that he was standing in bleary nothingness--if you could call swirling grey clouds nothingness. Yet, beyond the mist, there were strange shadows of what appeared to be … mountains? Or perhaps some other structures? He got to his feet, shaking. Rubbing his arms, he stumbled forward. It was so cold that he could see the breath issuing from his nostrils, look at the patterns it created when it curled through the air…. His teeth chattered. He tucked his hands into his sleeves, but it didn’t make the smallest amount of difference.

‘Lira,’ he croaked. ‘Lira.’

But there was no one there. Nothing to keep him company but the patterns his foggy breath drew on his skin.

-

He sat there for what seemed like hours. Somewhere between wondering why he had not frozen to death yet, he looked down and realised that he was in a cloud. The realisation was fuzzy and he shrugged it off, his mind numb. He stared at the space between his feet.

That was when he heard someone say his name. He froze, staring at the bottom of the cloud, then got to his knees and pressed his face into it. His breath came in quick, short gasps, and he inhaled the cold air deeply despite the way it seemed to tear down his windpipe.

‘… one Evian Threshold,’ he heard the voice say. It was crackly, not clear as the voices had always travelled through the orbs in the Office, and he strained his ears. ‘Fi-ih-ihnd him,’ a deeper voice was saying. And then there was quiet, and then there was a deeper, more tangible silence.

Something shattered the blockage and Evian was forced to clap his hands on his ears. Someone was yelling his name, blaming him for something—for a war? Someone had inserted his name in a poetic verse. Someone was murmuring his name—was it Edith?—and talking about perseverance. Everything everyone had to say about him came slamming into Evian like a tidal wave, and he screamed. His skin was burning now; each and every cell in his body felt like it had been doused in oil and set aflame.

‘Evian, Evian. Mr Threshold!’

He closed his eyes. He gasped when he saw flames climb along his eyelids, too, higher and higher like pillars.

He smelled something burning. His nostrils were clogged with tissues of smoke and his fingers felt brittle.

‘Mr Threshold!’

Eyes snapping open, the first thing he registered was Lira standing above him, shaking him. Her face was pale, but when she saw that he was awake, her frown turned into the widest grin he had ever seen from her. He tried smiling at her, but the moment he tried to lift his head, he groaned. Pale light sifted in around them, all in pastel colours of green and yellow. Curling above him were wisps of smoke.

‘Where are we?’ he mumbled, rubbing his head.

‘I—we keep shifting places,’ Lira whispered, as if she was afraid to speak any louder for fear something else would happen. ‘Right now, I can see mountains. And maybe a village. There’s a red house that towers above the rest, as high as a mountain. Though’—she squinted into the distance—‘maybe the mountain is painted red? I can’t tell which is which.’

‘Can we walk from here?’ Evian asked. ‘Can we go where we want to go?’

‘I don’t know.’ She lapsed into silence. ‘I’ve never tried,’ she continued in a quieter voice.

There were many things Evian could have said in that moment. ‘You have a lot to explain’ sounded like a decent option, as did ‘in the name of all that is akiel and torrid, what has happened to my life?’

Instead, he pushed himself on his elbows and looked at her seriously, sincerely, throwing all the unsaid encouragement he could muster into his gaze. ‘Try,’ he said.

So Lira folded her arms around herself, inhaled deeply and puffed out her cheeks. Then, exhaling slowly, she made a few clumsy movements with her hand; it looked like it was supposed to be graceful, but she stumbled through it, sometimes pausing for a while to glare at her palms.

Evian watched as her figure went rigid; her eyes turned pale and unseeing—cold and untouched by emotion, like large coins on an unattended till.

The smoke around them solidified. Evian yelped as a wisp of smoke turned into a thick layer of grime and enveloped his wrist; it was hot against his skin. He tried scratching it away, but realised what a futile act it was to try: the moment his nails dug into the grime, more of the dark, oozy substance settled on his hand.

He watched, helplessly, his gaze flitting between his hand and Lira's face. Her mouth sagged open slightly; her shoulders began to shake and her hands shook, still suspended in air as if she was reaching out for something. The grime did not settle on her--instead, it created a black halo around her head, splashing around and forming strange shapes in the air.

It was when she clutched her chest and crumpled that Evian realised he had made a mistake. Her face fell against the grimy ground--could it even be called that? It felt like a black box. A cage. A carriage floating from point A to point B but rotating along an undetermined axis of 'x's and 'y's and 'z's.

Lira continued shaking. The blackness fell in dollops along her spine.

'Lira,' Evian gasped, struggling to get to his feet--but the grime was thick and heavy on his legs. It seemed to be pouring in on them from everywhere, like a tangible darkness trying its best to suffocate them, to bury them alive. He tried to push against it, but to no avail. It was thick on his chest, on his hands, on his feet. It had encased Lira's arms and legs completely; all Evian could see of her now was her reddish-brown hair.

The next few minutes were difficult; Evian tried to breathe, to stay calm as he considered the possibility of dying in the middle of nowhere--that was nevertheless somewhere--and never seeing Edith again. She would never know what happened to him. He wondered if him dying would make any difference at all in the world, and decided that it wouldn't. He was not important enough to remember. He had never been someone to leave his mark on the world--no one was important enough, really, he thought, to be remembered forever.

We exist not to be remembered, but to remember, he thought dully, as the grime settled onto his lips. It had a pungent smell and slithered into his mouth; he tried not to swallow.

The world exists to leave its mark on us.

His eyes fluttered shut as the blackness settled on his face, heavy and excruciatingly cold against his skin.

~*~

Around midnight, a man and a young girl walked out of the Forest of O'Gluhm, their clothes sticking to their skin, their faces gleaming with sweat. The girl shivered as the cold air pricked at her face and the man held out his hand to her. She grasped it tightly. He threw her a look, one that she could read quite clearly: You're not off the hook. You have to tell me what's going on. 

She nodded, almost imperceptibly; the shadow of a smile flickered across the man's face.

Together, they walked along the train track.

They walked until the moon kissed the night goodbye.