Epilogue 3.10

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---Em---


     It's strange. Ever since the world ended, I've been trying to find Olivia and Colby. I've risked my life—and the lives of everyone in my group—time and time again even on the slightest of whims. I guess, in the back of my mind, I've always been holding out hope.

     But seeing Colby now really puts things into perspective. He's not exactly the Colby I remember. The temporal discrepancies between worlds have caused us to age at varying rates; he's got three or four years on me now. But that's just symbolism. A physiological manifestation of a deeper, darker truth.

     We're not the same people anymore. I'm not the same person anymore. Bryan, the boy who used to catch snakes down by the creek, is dead now. I've become Em. And when Em looks at Colby, he doesn't get all nostalgic for the good old days. Em snatches Comma's chakram and presses the blade to Colby's throat.

     Eloise leaps off Colby's lap and scuttles backwards, hissing. I don't pay her any mind.

     "Necessary precaution," I mutter, trying to keep my breathing steady. Colby doesn't so much as flinch. He brushes away a bead of sweat that trickles beneath the shaggy black mop he calls hair. Stares back at me with his amber eyes. Not everything changes. "No hard feelings?"

     Colby chuckles. "No hard feelings." He turns his head to the side and spits. Blood dribbles down his lip—those strixes must've really done a number on him. Or maybe it was the fifteen-foot fall. "I was wondering when I'd run into you."

     "You knew we were coming?"

     "Em..." Comma places a hand on my shoulder. She's probably not too happy that my past has resurfaced. And can you blame her? When her past resurfaced, it killed Tahj and ripped out a chunk of my soul.

     I glare back at her over my shoulder, my gaze sharp and my expression taut. "I got this." Both Gail and Melody are looking at me funny. Rex continues chewing on raw meat in the background. I turn my attention back to Colby. "Well?"

     He whistles. "You finally grew a pair, huh? Apocalypse'll do that to a guy. Yeah, I knew you were kicking around. Olivia gave me a heads up."

     I swallow, a wave of heat washing over my forehead. Olivia's been in contact with him too? Of course she has, you idiot. What? Did you think the two of you had some sort of special connection?

     "Um, buddy?" Topher approaches with caution. "Not to undermine you or anything, but we didn't rescue this guy just to kill him, did we?"

     "Off his blooming rocker, that one is," Rex mumbles through a mouthful of strix flesh.

     "He's been travelling with Eloise," I say, tightening my grip on the chakram. I've got to say—I feel like a badass wielding this thing. No wonder Comma's so fond of it. "For all we know, she could've brainwashed him."

     Colby nods. "Smart thinking. Lucky for me, I can prove that's not the case." He unzips his jacket and then grabs my arm. He slices his shirt open with the chakram. I glance down. There's something on his chest—some sort of runic mark branded into his flesh. And this is the guy who went running from the tattoo parlor before the needle even touched his skin.

     All the girls—and Jun, for some reason—blush at the sight of his bare abs. Oh, for the love of...

     "You do realize you just ruined your shirt for no reason," I point out.

     Colby grins. "It was worth it."

     "So what's this supposed to prove?"

     "It's a nyametic rune," Comma, Melody, and Rex say in unison.

     I frown. "What's a niah-medic rune?"

     Edgar puts on that smug grin of his, shaking his head. "Don't you know anything?"

     Something tells me he has no idea what a nyametic rune is either, but Miu-sama butts in before I can expose his ignorance. "A nyametic rune is an anti-magic warding spell. It prohibits the bearer of the mark from communing with the forces of mana." Her facial muscles relax as she switches back into Gail. "In other words, he can't use magic, and he can't have any magic done to him neither."

     All right, so maybe he hasn't been brainwashed in a literal sense. But that doesn't mean he isn't a threat. I narrow my eyes at Eloise, who tugs down one of her lower eyelids to taunt me.

     "You do know she's evil, right?"

     "Actually," says Colby, "if you want to get technical about it, deities are the ones who define the terms good and evil. So by definition, deities can't be evil. Morality is whatever they decide it is."

     Now there's the Colby I remember. Always poking holes in my arguments with his twisted yet somehow convincing logic.

     He leans in and whispers in my ear, "But she is a little nutso."

     I hand the chakram back to Comma, who absorbs it back into her aura. I try not to think too hard about the fact that I was technically just touching a piece of her soul. She'd probably slice my head off if she knew what I was thinking.

     "It's good to see you again," I say, holding out my hand.

     Colby slaps his palm against mine, and I help him to his feet. I meant what I said, even though his being here means I won't have Olivia all to myself once we find her.

     The sun continues its journey across the clear sky, the cloud forests no longer visible. The dry, dusty earth starts to heat. There isn't an arch in sight where the fur-boulders haven't crammed underneath it for shade. We'll have to retreat to the woods—the temperatures here can be pretty extreme, as we learned the hard way.

     "So, you can get us to Ganeden?" I ask, wiping the sweat from my brow. That was the point of this whole rescue mission, after all.

     Colby removes his jacket. Points at his bare chest, exposed between the sliced fabric of his shirt. "Nyametic rune, remember? I'm cut off. Haven't heard from Olivia since the strixes branded me."

     "The strixes did this to you?" Melody asks, crossing her arms.

     "Yeah." Colby stares at her. "What about it?"

     "Nothing." She tilts her head back and squints up at the sky. "We should get moving. Wouldn't want to roast to death."

     "I don't mind," says Edgar, his fingertips aflame. "Bring on the heat."

     "I know I wouldn't mind seeing you spontaneously combust," Crawford mutters under his breath.

     Colby and I have got a lot of catching up to do. But as we make our way back to the woods, I can't really think of a good place to start. It really does feel like I only knew him in a past life. I wonder if it'll be the same way when I see Olivia. God, I hope not.

     We travel in two separate clusters: Ace, Liluye, Jewel, Jun, Rex, Edgar, and Mya up front, and the rest of us trailing behind. Martha and Crawford are having an argument about whether laser swords can even exist according to the laws of physics. The debate amuses Melody.

     "So what was Em like?" Gail asks Colby after a while. "Before the world ended, I mean."

     "Em?" Colby furrows his brow. "Is that what he has you calling him? What kind of a stupid name is that?"

     I look at Comma, but she just giggles. Great. Let's all laugh it up at my expense.

     "Em," he exaggerates the name as if to draw attention to how ridiculous it is, "used to be a big wuss. Fatass Pete—that was our middle school bully—threatened to bury him alive in the sandbox after school this one time. So Bryan—Em, I mean—thought he'd scare him out of it by pretending to be psycho. He picked a fight with a chair during French class. The chair kicked his ass."

     In my defense, that chair was on steroids or something. But I remember that day. My pathetic outburst netted me detention and a visit to the principal's office. I remember Olivia being there waiting for me after I got out of detention and telling me the whole thing had been taken care of. To this day I have no clue what she did to Fatass Pete, but he never dared to even look me in the eyes again after that.

     We manage to make our way back to the cover of the woods before Colby gets the chance to regurgitate any more anecdotes that paint me in a less than flattering light. Exhausted, I flop down beneath the shade of a bone tree. Despite the lack of a canopy, the bone tree woods are always cold for some reason.

     While we wait for the sun to go down, we snack on roasted strix meat. "You know," Colby says just as I'm beginning to enjoy my meal, "From the point of view of the strixes, we're a bunch of monsters who came to their home, slaughtered them, and then chowed down on their corpses."

     Martha scowls. "Thank you for pointing out that we're being morally reprehensible."

     Rex licks his grease-slicked chin. "Flame boy, you cook a mean bird."

     "Emphasis on the mean," Ace mutters, rubbing his bruise from when the strix assaulted him and Crawford.

     Jewel stops chewing and spits out her strix meat, a horrified look on her face. Must've struck a nerve.

     "Could we please change the subject?" asks Jun, placing a hand over Jewel's shoulder to console her.

     Eloise, on the other hand, chows down on the meat like there's no tomorrow. I guess all mortal beings are nothing more than prey in her eyes. She's huddled up next to Gail, who I feel a little sorry for. Not sorry enough to take Eloise off her hands though.

     "Agreed," says Mya, sharpening her katana against a stone—of the non-hairy variety—that she picked up during our travels. "We've been here a little under a week, and so far all we have to show for it is a few extra mouths to feed. When do you reckon we'll be knocking at the gates of paradise?"

     "I can get you there right now love, just undo me shackles," says Rex with a sinister grin. Topher whacks the demon on the head with a stick.

     "Ganeden is a safe haven," Colby chimes in. "I'm not sure I'd call it paradise."

     "You've seen it?" Comma asks.

     He shakes his head. "Not in person. Just flashes. Only what Olivia's shown me. Oh—that's our friend from back home. She's been communicating with Em and me, psychically."

     Gail stares at me in disbelief. "You never told me you were psychic too."

     "I'm not psychic," I reply. "At least, I don't think I am."

     "Nah. Not psychic," says Colby. For some reason, hearing him deny it so matter-of-factly pisses me off. I mean, for all he knows... "Olivia showed me how to get there. She transmitted a map to me through the dreamscape. Imprinted it on my consciousness. But as long as I'm bound by this nyametic rune, I can't access it."

     "I think I can help." Melody. She stares down at the cylindrical hilt of her laser sword, which she tilts back and forth between her fingertips. She looks up at Colby. "I can remove the nyametic rune. I've done it before."

     "Great!" Crawford exclaims. "Then what are we waiting for?"

     Melody hesitates. "Well... Nyametic runes are strong magic. I'll be compromising the purity of my own soul by trying to remove it. If I'm going to take that kind of risk..." Her gaze drifts over to Comma. "I want something in return."

     Of course. The compass thingumabob. And here I was thinking she'd taken a liking to us.

     "I'll get rid of that pesky rune. But in exchange, I want your phorophyx." She smirks. "Have we got a deal?"



Author's Note:

So what do you think? Does eating the strix meat mean crossing a line? Does anything go when it comes to survival? 

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