Time stands still.
Time stands still.
Time stands still.
The air is dust. The dust is darkness. The darkness is a void of time. And time...
Time stands still.
How...
Time stands still.
How long have I been here?
Time stands still.
Why?
Time stands still.
The question isn't why I'm dead. That was never a mystery. The answer was obvious from the start.
The real question is
why am I still here?
Time stands still.
I said I would follow them. Is that why I'm here?
Time stands still.
Watching. Guarding. Waiting. Are those purposes that keep me here?
Time stands still.
Kill.
Is that why I'm here?
Kill.
That's it, isn't it?
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Kill who?
Kill. Kill. Kill.
The murderer?
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Kill the murderer.
Time stands still.
Time stands still.
"You still haven't forgiven me."
Daylight filters in through the door. It reveals the rash has spread close to Lady Miko's hairline, but it lends new life to her face.
A heart too loud and too fast. A galloping pulse.
A pulse.
I wait. It wasn't a plea; she has never once pleaded for anything. It was a statement. It requires no answer but a look.
"But you're here today as well."
My mouth doesn't feel like it belongs to me, but it moves all the same. "Forgiving you and staying by your side are two separate things."
"Well. I'm grateful."
"As grateful as you're regretful?"
For some reason, this elicits a real smile from her, the first one today. That isn't so strange. What is strange is that she doesn't hurry to say more. Maybe she agrees with me. Maybe she too believes the time for explanations, for excuses, for endless, endless justifications, has finally ended. Now is the time for silence. The silence which is the truth.
Or, more likely, she's too tired to say much.
In any case, she cannot say she's sorry. Because she isn't. She isn't sorry for anything.
Time stands still.
There is a slight breeze outside. It roars like thunder.
Lady Miko's hands tremble as she lays them on her lap. In her expression there is no tremor, however, only placid thoughtfulness. "You can go rest. No-one will try to see me today."
"We don't know that."
"Futo will take care of it."
Breathe, breathe.
I don't need to breathe.
"She will until you tell her to let someone in. We both know you want to be bothered even after you were specifically told to rest. And she won't be able to say no."
"I doubt being scolded is good for my constitution, either."
Time stands still.
Her eyes fix where I knew they would. "I was serious before. Should you really hold this vigil without breaks?"
"It's fine. I can do this much."
"I can do this much for her."
The air is dust. The dust is darkness.
The dust paints swirls onto the screen behind Lady Miko. The air is thick with it. Should I crack the door open? No-one should be near, and the vast majority of the time I've spent in this room has been in
a void of time.
Lady Miko sees the dust too. Her eyes follow it away from me. It's good to see clarity in them again. "I wouldn't have expected indolence to be this taxing." Her expression is ironic. "If nothing else, this is good practice for the mortuary."
The jewel is here. Where is the sword?
"No, I figured that wouldn't make you smile."
Time stands still.
Lady Miko speaks again, and the words flow through me as I'm both far away and locked within my skull. They keep coming, rushing from underwater, thickening and suffocating and filling the grooves on her palms before expanding and shattering, shattering...
Perhaps the truth has already been spoken and I didn't hear it because I was too busy slipping out of my body.
"It turns out I have always been a coward."
"What did you say?"
I don't want—
A loosened arrow, a breaking branch. A pulse rising to fever pitch. It was, as I keep listening and meet a wall of silence, most likely a bird taking flight from the roof. No use telling that to my frantic heart.
I force myself to settle back down. Turning sends shooting pains across my chest and to my neck, and so I still. It subsides.
Pain is a very distant thing now
as I sit here in the dark
as I sit here in the light
and the light-headedness when I'm upright is far more annoying. Not that it matters while I stay still, half fused with
the door and the shadows
as water wells up through the cracks in the earth.
What happened to the knife?
"Tojiko."
She looks at me. For the first time since the poison seeped through her, she meets my eyes. Somehow, I didn't notice that she hasn't done that until now.
The mirror lies shattered on the floor. I have no memory of it intact.
"Are you sure this is what you want?"
Moonlight dances on the water where the wind weaves across the lake.
"I can't hear as well in this body as I once could, but when it's quiet, I can still hear your desires."
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Sitting in the sunlit room, in the tomb, in the labyrinth, feeling the crackle of thunder beneath skin that isn't my own, I do what I always do. I wait.
I wait.
I wait.
She waits, too. But there is nothing left to say.
Well, maybe one thing. Because her eyes are dimming again. "Do you need water?"
"Not right now." It's there again, that genuine smile wilting at the edges. "Thank you."
Those rare words summon the silence. Companionable. Suffocating. Resigned.
Permanent.
Time stands still.
The air is dust. The dust is darkness. The darkness is a void of time.
To think they feared death.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Enough with that insistent pulse. I have no need for one now.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Enough with my will not being my will.
Kill.
Enough.
Silence. Silence and dust.
Time stands still.
That's fine. I will wait. I will linger. I will survive.
Because here's the thing. I can still see it. That light. That shimmering radiance.
I don't need to drink. I don't need to breathe. I can wait out the dust, and the darkness, and the lightning that's become my blood insisting to be unleashed. I can wait it all out.
That light.
Time stands still.
Time stands still.
Time stands still.