Raime sat in the corner of floor 3’s hall, in the corner next to the stairs. They waited for something. They thought about lying down but the metal was too cold. Their eyes wandered between all the closed doors, almost hallucinating their movements. The eerie silence was only broken by sounds of shuffling from the other side of the hall, coming from their apartment. Raime moved to investigate but was distracted by Avril and Alina’s door. Closed as well, not a sound could be heard from inside as if nothing at all stood on the other side. Raime never knew this door to ever be locked, they thought about knocking but the strange ruffling from behind them persisted and they lost interest. Their door was slightly opened, letting faint rays of light peek through. Raime put some weight in their arms and swung open the door in one motion.
“Who trespasses in my home!” Raime shouted, more accusatory than questioning.
A tall and slender human stood inside, shoving stuff in boxes, Raime’s intrusion had surprised them but they greeted them with a wide smile. Their face was bony and their head shaven, dressed in clothes much too big for their figure but they were worn with elegance.
“Not yours just yet, Raime,” the person said warmly, “I’m still packing, but look, I’ve cleaned up the desk for you.”
They pointed to the right corner of the small apartment. An ornate desk that Raime remembered filled with pencils and papers now sat empty, the only trace of its past uses being ink that had sunk in much of the exposed wood. Soot could have painted over it to make the desk look cleaner but they claimed it gave “character”. “Looks like little sunspots, no?” Even though Raime didn’t know what sunspots were. They climbed up onto the desk, benefiting from a view that put them eye to eye with their interlocutor.
“You’re taking all of your pencils with you, Soot?” Raime asked.
“I’m not sure you’re meant to use the desk as a stool but… that’s the point isn’t it? Do what you want with it… Even if I take my pencils, if you want some of your own there is a big stash from the Scavengers in Freeway.”
Soot went back to stow away their belongings in small boxes. If they were to stack all of them together, they wouldn’t reach Soot’s head. Raime never thought there had been much of decoration but the apartment still felt sanitized by the absence of Soot’s marks.
“I also carved a place for you to put all your books under the bed, I don’t have any better place to store them,” Soot continued, “You’ll have to really make this place your own, right? Go crazy, just don’t break anything in the bathroom or Clay will… get slightly passive aggressive with you for a few days.”
Raime nodded, their eyes scouring the space that would soon be theirs. Even if the place was small, the prospect was so dizzying, Raime could think they were dreaming. They’d definitely need more place for books. Even before reading their first one, the idea of building new storage for them was enough to make them giddy, they could ask Tenor for help with the construction. Maybe also paint the bathroom a brighter color, the sickly red of Scarmetal was never to their taste. Raime felt a little bad but they couldn’t wait for Soot to move out.
“Where will you go, Soot?” asked Raime, their voice chipper, “the Glassway?”
“The Glassway?” Soot snorted, “Why the Glassway?”
“Dunno, it’s fancy.”
“It sure is fancy… but no I wouldn’t live there, doubt anyone from the Hull would and vice versa.”
A silence hung in the air, Raime rocked their legs in the air in rhythm.
“Then where?”
“Hmm…”
Soot closed the last box, patting their hands on their already dusty robe.
“The Scavengers are giving me a ride, I’ll be out of town for a while.”
“Aww.”
“Do better to hide your excitement, impenitent youth!” Soot accused with a finger, their smile as wide as ever.
Raime felt heat rising to their cheeks, they hadn’t meant to seem this disinterested, “Sorry, I swear I’ll visit you.”
“Hm hm, maybe when you’re older, for the time being maybe you can help me carry my things to the Grande Gate?”
Raime hopped down from the desk and decidedly headed to grab one of the boxes, finding their arms to not be up to the task.
“Heavy,” Raime gasped, slowly letting go of the box, fearing for their fingers.
“For me too,” Soot chuckled, “Tenor will be doing the carrying but you can accompany us there?”
Raime looked through the open door, opposite was their previous home. Tonight they will sleep in a big bed all on their own, wash their own teeth whenever they wanted but there won’t be anyone to read stories for them. Unearthed feelings washed over them as the dream faded, memory and reality blended together for a few seconds until Raime fully awoke. The red light of the bathroom had softened but still felt brutal coming out of how bright their dream had been. Raime tried to swallow, finding it easier but the dryness of their mouth still made it uncomfortable. It had been some time since they last thought of Soot, their face had felt blurry.
Raime got out of the bed, periodically stretching all of their limbs individually in a graceless motion. Everything was responsive, the feeling of filthiness had abated. The towel they’d been cradling while sleeping fell off of them. The loss of their previous clothes crossed their mind for the first time. Raime came to terms with the fact the shirt had only attracted bad luck but losing the paint dried pants was a bummer. They thought it gave them an interesting look, even without particularly wanting to catch attention, knowing they had a unique aspect about them that people could remember had given them a comfort that they only realized in the clothes absence.
Raime almost felt compelled to leave the apartment entirely naked but their eyes caught a pile neatly folded on the desk. A garb picked from Avril’s closet to be sure, not one of her fancy suits but still a sharp vest with a buttoned shirt and a pair of light slacks. Resting under the desk, clashing with the rest of the outfit, the shoes her former surrogate mother had found them were bright blue plastic boots meant for trudging in the lower stratum’s dark waters. It would be enough to keep their feet warm and Raime didn’t feel very picky. A note was symmetrically laid on top of the clothes.
“Come talk when you’re ready.”
The note wasn’t signed, without even recognizing the handwriting Raime could guess it was a summon from their previous foster mother. Had Avril talked to her already? How much time had passed? Through the closed blinds they could see the Sun had already set. What happened to them in the underbelly still pervaded their mind, haunting, but they felt further away from it now. After putting on the clothes and buttoning the shirt, their eyes lingered on the empty desk. The somber lighting of the room provided too little light for them to be visible but Raime knew the ink stains were still in the same place. They had never ended up making use of this desk. How long had it been since Soot left? They had forgotten wanting to build a shelf for books, they didn’t end up needing one, all that they had fit under the bed with room to spare, collecting dust. A profound emptiness inhabited them, the bed called to them, its warm embrace promising respite from a tide of unpleasant emotions. Raime decided to keep moving, it was all they could do for now.
How many times should they knock? Of all the times they did in the past, the question had never crossed their mind. One would obviously be too little, one knock amounts to a cup getting dropped, a pipe croaking from pressure, the wind slapping against a window. Two felt too few still, the purpose of knocking is to catch one’s attention, Raime thought that two knocks were only appropriate when both parties were not separated by a door. Two knocks against an open door’s frame, enough to make a focused person perk up from their desk for example. But there was a closed door standing in front of Raime. Three knocks, four knocks, five knocks. One more would border on the ridiculous, going down from there five knocks were a step in the right direction but came with an unspoken sense of urgency that simply wasn’t there, they had been formally invited after all. Alina knew they had been sleeping, if there were a time constraint surely she would’ve mentioned it on her note. Four knocks evoked a secret code, the number was too specific. One a seasoned spy would tell another to use to be sure it was them on the other side of the door in sensitive situations, sitting right between the unreasonable and the expected. Because it was expected wasn’t it? After sighing, Raime knocked thrice.
“Come in.”
Was her voice welcoming? Raime wasn’t sure they could tell. They opened the door and entered their old home. Like their own, the place hardly changed, Avril grew up to be more tidy than her mother and Raime, leaving the large apartment persistently clean and smelling like pleasant herbs. Raime made their way through where they knew she would be waiting. Alina was laying down in her black couch, the softly lit living room was comfortable enough she could have been well asleep. Had she been laying awake, waiting for them? Raime hadn’t noticed Avril’s shoes in the entrance, they knew she wasn’t there. They were both so busy, their heart would’ve sank in their shoes if they had to confront both right now. In the end it felt like an excuse, the only certainty they had stepping into the room was that they had never been alone with her before.
“My child ambushed me already, I’ve had time to think. Is it my fault you’ve begun to knock at our door instead of inviting yourself in?”
“Huh?” Raime’s voice cracked, the words came out clear but their vocal cords needed adjusting like an instrument’s strings. They couldn’t hide their confusion. Even if they hadn’t really known what to expect stepping foot in the room, the question stumped them.
“It’s not like you knock when you go to Tenor or Clay’s, hm?”
“I’ve rarely been to Clay-”
“Drivel, drivel, you should thank them for getting you out as fast as they did,” Alina sighed, straightening up and holding their gaze, “Do you, perhaps have any questions, dear?”
Raime hadn’t crossed her door with one in mind, they didn’t even know at which degree of seriousness they should approach this conversation. Alina looked mildly tired and not one bit concerned, Tenor had also felt weirdly nonchalant while sweeping blood off their apartment floor. Was this supposed to be a sentencing or something else?
“What am I?” Raime said, their voice softened by the rawness of their throat.
“I don’t know.”
Well there was that.
“I’ll save you another question,” Alina followed up, “None of us know what’s “wrong” with you. But we became aware of it. Do you remember who Prys was?”
The name didn’t ring any bells, Raime had completely given up trying to guess where this conversation was heading and decided to refrain from interrupting Alina. She had always exuded a strong aura of someone who knows how to adapt to any situation, no matter how unfamiliar, taking unknown factors in stride instead of stumbling against or around them. Raime remembered standing behind her a lot in their childhood, where Avril had taken the habit of standing by her side. Raime shook their head in lieu of a response.
“Would’ve surprised me if you did. Prys was someone who lived in a neighboring complex, can’t remember which one. Killed themselves a good decade ago now, they decided alone in their bed wasn’t their preferred way to go so they jumped off the rooftop of their complex into our courtyard, the one at the 2nd floor.”
“I feel like I should’ve remembered that…”
“You would have, but Prys fell on you.”
“Whuh?” Raime blubbered, genuinely dumbfounded.
“Maybe they didn’t look down, fearing to hesitate, or maybe they aimed especially for you. It’s too late to ask them now. Needless to say, both of you died on impact, no need to go over the details.”
With everything that had happened since yesterday the news was not indigestible but it still took Raime a moment to process. Having not been invited to sit by the master of the home, they decided to slowly slump on the floor, their back to the bottom of a full bookshelf that spanned to the ceiling. Books made up for almost all of the decorative density of the living room. Back when Alina had just taken Raime in, this space felt like an endless wonderland. Now that they were talking about their first and second death, the books could be stuck to the shelves that Raime wouldn’t be able to care. They couldn’t be sure if they felt excited or afraid, they hung onto Alina’s words to figure out how they should be reacting.
“And it would’ve been a bigger deal had there been more witnesses but the only one who was there to see it was Tenor. Must’ve been a shock for the big lad, he used to go in that courtyard a lot for some quiet time but I haven’t seem him there since, ironically he prefers the rooftop now.”
Raime’s heart sank, their mind recalled every conversation between them and Tenor in a frenzy. Everytime they looked down, the hole felt deeper. Why were they now discovering they’d been living a disconnected life? Who lied, who did they unconsciously lied to? Alina had stopped talking, staring into them.
“The next part is what we don’t know. You took from Prys, what was broken you took from them and fixed yourself up. I’m paraphrasing Tenor’s testimony here; he was too scared or shocked to approach, there were noises you would not expect from two victims of an accident like that, sounds and smells that persisted. He couldn’t tell us how long it took until it stopped, he didn’t even remember if you moved. He might have closed his eyes the whole time. In the end you were unconscious but breathing and Prys was less of what they had been.”
Raime felt sweat forming on their skin once more, taking them back to the inside of their bathtub. Alina’s retelling hadn’t resurfaced any memory from that event. They stared at the floor, making an effort to remember what happened in the underbelly. The gaping maw of the disconnected arm they had found, pointed at their head. Then a blur, a furious feeling to get out, to escape. A slow crawl through lightless rooms, their eyes barely open, no light to reach their irises, guided by something else. An excruciating walk through washed out streets, forcing their way against torrential rain, the thunderous crash of water dampened by clogged ears, guided by something else. A pathetic climb of the Hull’s endless steps, slides of dark water crushing their advance, making them violently stumble backwards, excess weight shaven off their back as their bones snapped back into place, falling and rising and falling and rising, guided by-
“Raime.”
They looked back up, their breath had become irregular and they had to focus on swallowing now that the pain had abated. Alina had left her couch and stood in front of them, kneeling so their eyes met. There was still a distance between them, Raime didn’t have the space to crawl backwards.
“Avril and I were at City Hall that day, she’s the only one aside from you that wasn’t aware of what had happened. The rest of us made a choice.”
“To say nothing? To pretend nothing happened?” said Raime, accusatory.
“Yes. We debated for a while, it’s not for me to say who thought what but I’ll share what I said then. You’re a monster, Raime, one from the stories I read to you when you were both younger. Avril confronted me earlier, she didn’t wait for me to come home, ambushed me straight out of City Hall and I realized I had never thought about what I would say if she ever found out. I expected her to die by your hand before I had a chance to explain anything.”
Raime felt like throwing up but they hadn’t eaten anything since that day, the thought of hunger provoked an even stronger wave of nausea. Their head was spinning, they wanted to argue back against her, repressed feelings that had been boiling for years begged to spill forth but looking in her eyes they couldn’t even open their mouth.
“But what would we have done instead,” Alina continued, calmly, “What were our options? Hand you over to the Cors, to the Doctor? Surely one of them would have an answer to your existence.”
“But you didn’t.”
“We didn’t. I didn’t choose to be born in this world, Raime, but I chose to give birth to Avril and every day I go out, I look at the Sun and I’m sorry I gave birth to her,” Alina smiled slightly, replying to something in Raime’s reaction, “Don’t look at me like that, if I had to go back, I’d do it all the same. It’s those conflicting feelings that led us to our decision. We knew you were a danger, but like all of us you didn’t choose to be born. None of us wanted you splayed across a table by Closer or annihilated by the Major. I don’t know what happened to you the other day and I don’t want to know, we made a choice in your stead, to look the other way. You can hate us, you can hate me, but this time-”
For the first time, Alina’s voice broke. It didn’t sound like a pause taken by emotion, she took a moment to think, closing her eyes. The air in the room had grown so heavy the light felt dimmer. The feeling of home was so distant, in the place where they had grown up, shared meals, listened to their stories, slept between them. The best part of their life, separated irreparably. Their life going forward…
“Do something about it, you can’t go back to running around aimlessly waiting for the Sun to take you.”
Raime had lived with it over the years, that weight, this insidious feeling that they were never an equal to Avril in her eyes. They had never attempted to compete for her love, her eyes had made it clear that this was not a battle Raime would have any hope in winning. So they had looked elsewhere, fleeing from this uncomprehensible feeling. They had explored nearly every corner of the city, climbed up and down the Hull in corners unseen, they could close their eyes and follow a path from Helix to the deepest reaches of the Caldera without trouble. Neither her, or Avril, or probably anyone in the Hull could claim this. Raime had never gone back to her for approval, instead shying away from her eyes entirely as they could barely stomach looking at Avril’s. But they had chosen this, noone had led them this way. Raime’s empty desk, seating in their room flashed in their mind, the ink spots looking back at them.
“And do what?” Raime spat, “What do you expect me to do?”
Pleading, once again venom mixed with their attempt at reaching for help. Raime hated seeing her superposed with Gale but their heart was beating in the same rhythm as when they were staring down the hollow barrel in the underbelly. Where did they both find this pity for them? What was it for?
Alina smiled and rose, stretching her back, “Even if you don’t understand it, or control it, you’ve seen what you’re capable of. Why wait for the Sun to decide, why wait for me to give you orders?”
Raime scoffed. They had felt it creeping between her words, resisting the urge to ask the question outright. They hadn’t known Alina to step around what she wanted to say but she clearly avoided saying something out loud. She saw in Raime an end. She expected an ultimatum now that they were aware. Had this been something she harbored towards them all this time? Trying to dig into their memories, Raime hadn’t felt a shift. Even when they started living away from them, it had been gradual. Things left unsaid, paths mutually avoided. As far as Raime was concerned it would have been fine like this, never having to face her again.
Alina’s uncontained expectation didn’t move them. She wanted to reel in something out of Raime that wasn’t there. Did she really want them to lash out? Had she been preparing herself for this? An ounce of pity formed, immediately drowned in bitterness. They couldn’t hold contempt for Alina, looking deep in her eyes they still saw a mother. In the end, Raime had wished for her support. They had spent so many hours since they were pulled out of the elevator barely fighting the urge to let themselves sink. They broke eye contact, looking up to a ceiling they hadn’t paid attention in years. Not decorated, the patterns mirrored those next to their bed, the ones they had tried to drown in to escape. They were all unresponsive, any answer they held were not for them to hear.
“Did Soot know?” Raime asked.
“What?”
“About me?”
“Hm hm,” Alina nodded, “It happened before they left.”
She stood still for a minute, resolute, but their stance hadn’t been met with defiance. Another similar disappointment to Gale exuded from her as she laid back down on the couch, arm over her face. A silence hung in the air. Raime got the idea that the conversation was over and Alina wanted them to leave. Both of them weren’t ones to hold back on expressing themselves, especially under pressure but no more words came out. Raime rose, expecting their legs and backside to feel the consequences of their uncomfortable choice of seating but their entire body felt fresh and responsive. The thought bothered them for a second but it undeniably felt good.
“They didn’t really leave with the Scavs, right?”
Alina slid her arm up to her forehead to look Raime in the eyes.
“They told me as much as they told you, why ask about Soot now?”
Was there a hint of annoyance Raime could discern in her voice? Raime remembered fleeting memories from when they had left this place, the space of their apartment that they slowly made their own, replacing another one’s life. It happened, as time went on, some would leave, like Prys and Soot. They had made a choice.
“I’ll ask the others what they think.”
“What a kind soul I have raised,” Alina sighed, “Got get them, then.”
Raime took the verbal cue to leave the apartment. They savored slowly closing the door behind them. The expectations they had before crossing it earlier hadn’t been met. Alina had been the one waiting for a reckoning. Like the perfect balance of their body, the shift in perspective felt freeing for an instant. Time had passed and the hall felt warmer. Raime went, without thinking too much, down one floor and climbed down another step into the small courtyard of the complex. It wasn’t much, a humble square nook with the middle of the floor space made of strong glass overlooking a neighboring street. They sat on a pillar that’d been cut into a makeshift seating spot and looked up to the sky.
The Sun had set, now resting in the limbo of probabilities, and the stars were bright. Even in this secluded pit of the Hull, the colors and noises blanketed them. They looked around, between severed balconies and lit up windows, wondering where Prys had fallen from. Where had they stood before it happened? Raime felt a hint of remorse again, knowing Tenor had stopped coming here. Life could go on, they could go back to Yama for food, maybe avoid the Caldera for a while. Keep diligently staying out of everyones way. But what then? They would have to look the Sun in the eye tomorrow, not much they could ignore anymore.
Raime looked down at their hands, instinctively clasped into each other in a comforting embrace. They focused on the feeling of their own skin brushing against itself, they could still perceive the friction, taste the bile in their mouth, their empty stomach. A monster, an anomaly or something else. There had to be a reason, or at least someone who knew something. The Cors or the Doctor were intimidating and unknown entities, Raime didn’t blame floor 3 for not trusting them, they felt grateful, if anything, but the two of them held keys. They had amassed an amount of information that noone else cared to keep anymore, Raime knew that much. Aside from City Hall, or Universalis, or even the Knight. Maybe they had more options than they thought, yet all of them could be swept away in their wake, as they did in the underbelly. Would it be so different from the uncertainty of living under the Sun?
They could run around chasing some truth that might not exist. A gallery of lights hanging from the roofs above them flickered one after the other. They could hear the voices inside the buildings around them, all focused on their own problems. Their other neighbors would be part of the noise as well, maybe still in their apartments. Were they also awaiting judgement? Avril at least was out there, somewhere. Who knew what she was thinking, knowing as much as them still. Raime sat alone contemplating if Alina had a point, if they had a right to pass through them, forfeiting their lives so Raime might learn something about themselves. It all felt so fickle. Raime didn’t entertain the idea for long, instead they kept moving.
Once on the streets, it was hard to avoid anyone. In the dark of night, in the upper stratum, everyone rejoiced in their own company. The Hull was self contained enough that those born here could never leave its walls and never want for anything. But Raime had wanted, they had stepped outside looking for something. All of the books they had brought to their own apartment still sat unopened. Reading alone didn’t inspire the same emotion as having stories be recounted by Avril and her mother. One had become busy faster than they’d realized, the other pretended they stopped existing. She hadn’t seemed sorry, even if her tirade felt self-aware. Raime hadn’t realized a part of them still held onto that part of their life, unconsciously hoping that one day they’d all go back to how it was before. It didn’t feel sad, none of this felt sad. It was strange, scary, like overlooking a dizzying view. It was that thought which motivated them to head for the top of the wall.
Once you’d climbed up, the myriad of steps and streets, ridden the Pride once or twice, you didn’t need to come back again. The views didn’t change, they stuck in Raime’s mind like photos. They had visited a gallery in Versal once, all the city’s photographs had made a joint effort to show off their best shots. It was pretty, most were very abstract in their choices, desperately trying to find a way to differentiate themselves. But what Raime ended remembering the most had been the glass roof of the gallery, not tinted like those in the Glassway. It was simple, arched in a triangle. It couldn’t be a proper window to the stars, the gallery was too close to the center of the city and the sky was left foggy from the abundance of lights. But it complemented the space, it sheltered the photos and Raime. They were then shooed away for entering during closed hours, but this was already common for them.
The streets were loud with life, music and screaming that grew stronger as they climbed higher and higher. A crowd was forming in the direction of the Pride’s dock at the nord corner of the Hull, the lift was big but people still needed to take turns to not overload it. Raime suspected most that decided to board it in its busiest hours wouldn’t have minded falling with it. Raime could easily avoid the crowds by slithering between the biggest streets and throughout what seemed like impasses. The Hull had no dead end, every path had an exit and Raime managed to stay away from the flow of people even as the sounds of the night permeated the air.
“You’re a monster.” Couldn’t she have picked a nicer word? Alina hadn’t hesitated on its pronunciation, spelled out every syllabus with intent. Maybe not to hurt but it felt the same, after closing her door Raime had given up on trying to cushion her attitude towards them. They entered a flat building, laid against the wall itself and climbed up the steps. A group of four crossed their path, well inebriated and eager to keep their night alive. Raime smiled weakly and gave ample space to let them through. They all loudly gave thanks and promptly went on their way. Their voices echoed through the small stairwell as the space between the group and Raime grew. They could only avoid others so much. Their thoughts wandered back to the elevator, feeling a bit ashamed by the display they forced their neighbors from floor 3 to witness. Raime didn’t feel like a monster, but did the ones in the stories even feel like such? Thinking of moon dragons having a moment of introspection about their own nature amused them.
They had reached the roof of the building, a nice breeze welcomed their final climb. These last steps towards the apex were no friend to those afflicted by vertigo, but neither was the destination. From the thin stairway, at the highest point of the upper stratum, the Hull didn’t look that big. The Pride diligently transported its passengers from the sud to the nord corner, where an excited crowd would be patiently waiting their turn. The dim multi colored lights used in the Hull let way for the stars to illuminate the sky, sparkles above and below lit their way.
The stairs led to a small platform protected by flimsy railings, sitting at the top of the Starboard wall. The wind was mean and the temperature offered no respite, but Avril’s suit was warmer than what Raime was used to wearing. Nobody even cared to go up there, there wasn’t even a bench and the view outside of the Starboard wall offered nothing. Leaning on the railing, they looked down to take in the landscape of the outskirts of Last Kunlun. A sea of gray calcified trees, plains of dried grass and lifeless hills. The darkness of the night made it impossible to see at the edge of the horizon but Raime knew there was nothing more to see. At the edges of the city, Raime had noticed that most people barred their windows. Outside of the Hull, Last Kunlun didn’t raise any wall, it was the personal duty of every one of its citizen to ignore the dreadful reality of what the rest of the world looked like outside of Volantis’s embrace.
One photo from the gallery they had visited caught their eye, illuminated by a blue streak of light. It was of a small sprout, carefully taken care of in the Minnow Gardens, with the endless decrepit horizon spanning behind it. The Glassway’s now deep purple lights gave a strange look to the composition. Clashing with the barren wasteland, you could see humidity and thin branches well defined on the young plant. Raime couldn’t decide if the contrast shown was meant to be hopeful or cynical. They had thought of bringing Avril with them to have another opinion. They never did, the gallery shifted its purpose and the name of the artist was washed away with it. They had to come to a conclusion on their own.
Raime had to choose. Standing over such a vast emptiness, the lights of the city burning their back, they looked below in the dark. Many had jumped here, the bottom of the wall already welcomed its shares of bodies on the Larboard side, Raime was too high up to see but this side was bound to have more. Cleaners wouldn’t be taking care of those. It would be quiet, there was some dignity to it. What about the monster? Would it find sustenance in the bodies down below to let them live? It would be a long walk alongside the Hull’s wall to find Yama or the Caldera from there. They would be found by someone else then, in a volatile state and…
They shouldn’t leave anything to chance and head deeper into the woods instead. Deeper and deeper until their legs collapse or the air gets taken from their lungs, far enough from the reach of Volantis. There would be bodies still, there was dignity to be found under the shade of trees as well. Raime could understand, they understood, deciding to go and making no trouble for anyone, finding their own place to rest. Was this what Soot was thinking then? They could understand.
Raime’s eyes flicked as a sudden spark appeared in the distance, flickering in the darkness. The small, bright glimmer desperately shone away the dark to pierce the horizon, slowly shaping the landscape around it. They had slept the whole day and night after all. From the pinnacle of the city’s heights, Raime witnessed the sunrise. No place higher in the universe, the Knight had their quarters somewhere else and would only see the Sun a few minutes later. For this fleeting moment, it was only the both of them. Raime had always shied away from it, never meeting it straight on, even as they went out more during the day. It had been a game, pretending it doesn’t exist. The Sun’s inexplicable existence was part of their reality, the fragile nature of it had never sunk in. Now, when its feeble glint was barely piercing through to Raime, they couldn’t look away. Slowly, so slowly it pushed inexorably towards the sky.
Once again, the Sun rose. Its unyielding light had been the one to serve a decree. There would be one more day ahead of them. For the next hours until night fell, they would have to come to terms with it. What will you say? Where will you go? What will you choose? Its shimmering white eye asked the questions without restraint. It was up to them now, as all of Last Kunlun stood beneath them. Raime gripped the railing tight, taking a massive inspiration. The wind crashing against the Hull’s wall billowed up to the platform, rattling the railing as if inviting them downward.
Raime didn’t falter. They could understand, they understood but they didn’t feel that way. They wanted to live, they wanted to see more, to see it all, to never stop seeing, not taking anything away. Going and going and leaving their path unturned. Even if they ended up sick on the bathroom floor, even if their head would be blown open, even if the stories would stop and they’d end up alone. The monster wanted to live.