Do I wake or sleep?

A sharp scent disinfectant, of bleach. Too much of both, embosoming him in opulent fumes that caressed his eyelids, naturally drawing thoughts and focus on a place that was not here. Four walls. There are no windows, just blaring artificial light that made him squint. The walls were lined with trays and cupboards. He noted gleaming stainless-steel instruments, vials of liquids, the blinking dials of medical devices whose function he could not decipher. A clock ticking on one of the walls sounded loud in the silence. In the center of the room stood a single operation bed. The sheet covering it was clean, yet he could not shake the image of blood on the crisp white fabric. A room where fates were turned, for better or for worse.

He made up this room in his mind. If somebody knocked on the door that he just put here when he thought the word ‘knock’, he could just pretend he did not hear it. They come about every 20 seconds, or so. How long would one wait before they knocked again? How many times would they knock on a door to a room? Maybe, not as many times as one would knock on the front door of a house. Maybe, twice on the door of a house. The second time he would knock louder. On the door to a room, like this one, probably only three quiet knocks. After about 10 seconds he would turn and walk away.

Adal had placed his hand against the wall, his head hung down slightly while the water cascaded down his chiseled body. His muscles had finally relaxed under the heat, the weeklong strain melting off him, but it did not really matter because there was a numbness sitting somewhere the water could not reach. The shower was supposed to help wash it all away but did not. It did not leave him alone. He still stared with tension at the shower wall before him, from white to white to white to black and red, somewhere out of the corner of his eyes. The brute turned to look at it better and saw the broken, fragile form of Gomorrah's most treasured act.

What a damned place. Not that The Strip in its entirety was any better. A gathering of the worst fucking people in existence. If he could, if he had the power to do so and the means, he would level it all with fire. He was reminded of his hate momentarily at the sight, as clarity returned to his rabid mind and recognized the state Felix was in (wondering why he was there in the first place but quickly coming to the conclusion that he too had wanted to wash himself clean). Straightening his own back to take a better look at the escort (or whatever it was he did behind closed doors). Naked but not, holding onto clothes that were once. Briefly, Adal's eyes narrowed; he frowned. He did not read much in those dark eyes and was not looking for it at first. Caught by his posture and how it was nothing like how he was used to seeing him strut and leisure about. There was nothing of that cat-like elegance and poise. No. Through the water Adal was sure to see a sight all too familiar. Of ruin and hurt.

One that he was not the reason for, was his second realization. Which absolutely did not sit right with him. Because he was punishment and he was equity. Others acting to be tough or out of false righteousness when they knew nothing about it. Or paid for it, to make themselves feel larger than they were. Behind closed doors. How he hated those doors. How he hated all that gathered at this place, and outside of it. Calling it a city when it was no more than a sewer.

He turned off the water and reached up with a hand afterwards to brush the short strands of black hair back and out of his face. Approaching Felix, excess water still clung to his skin and ran it down in rivulets, following the shape of the ridges and dents of his muscle. A few droplets were brave and searched their way over the shallow grooves of his Apollo's belt, others got stuck in the black hair of the treasure trail starting just beneath the navel. Coming to a halt inches before Felix, he took the opportunity to eye him from up close. He was searching for anything visible that would tell him what had been done to him. Already did the familiar wine-smell reach out to him. Adal breathed in deeply to fill his nose with it.

“It aches.”

Fingerprints were all that remained of Clanden’s touch. Dark splotches along the contours of his figure, where the artist, and butcher, had carved a path to his ghost. His muscles remembered the pain of being rent, of being pried open at the trunk, with nothing to show for it then but a constant wiring up and jolting of limbs. How could he explain death and undeath to the living? How could he make Adal understand the agony of countless nerves dying and reigniting in a single instance? Looking down, Felix thought of his organs laid sprawled on the floor, wrung out by the handfuls until he'd seen and breathed his last. Only for him to be strung back into being, surrounded by the libations of his own wineblood.

“This thing…This ugly, tattered thing. Take it off of me.” He stumbled, kicking away the heels that dug into the soles of his feet.

“Please, I’m begging you…”

The revenant's hands refused to let go of his dress. No more than wet and browned over shreds, yet he clung to them as a priest would the idol of their worship. Like Cassandra of Troy at the foot of her goddess’ statue, ardently praying for revenge against the animals that wrought her shame. Yet he asked no such favors from the divine. What happened to him, had happened under the cold, clear eyes of heaven. Unscorned, unprevented, tacitly approved by the wellspring of life and all its bounties. As if it'd been nothing more than the firing of bones upon the godstone. His pleas for mercy, reduced to the fizzling of smoke that rises and, still, begets nothing. Alone with his shadow, Felix had learned both the fruitlessness of prayer and of man's good will.

The question arose anew once they stepped outside and the sky above them was free of concrete and stone, splaying itself wide and vast in its nakedness which was the only one that did not disgust him. Looking up at the moon who was looking down, he felt a stranger to her gaze. Forcefully taken from it and locked behind bars only to be nearly forgotten by the world outside and the life within the fortification of the enemy. What worse fate could have hit a man? To disappear from every eye and be dealt the cards of someone that no longer induced fear? That birthed fright? To no longer be seen with eyes that were full of the doom that they were facing. To be with them as they knew their last seconds were running out because he was there to cut the string and extinguish their flame between his fingers.

How many nights had he spent behind bars? In a coffin made of concrete. How many weeks? How many months, with his senses dulled and him locked within his own mind, which was not a healthy place to be locked up in? What does a dog eat when there is nothing left to eat but himself? Adal does not remember. He is ashamed to admit that he stopped counting. That he had reached a point where he had stopped to care.

He followed Felix in silence, caught in the spell of the glowing sphere who shone with cold stolen light, pulled along by instinct without looking down. Following the sound of his heels meeting the tiled courtyard floor, perhaps, that low and soothing clicking of boots and a lively stride so eager, that it nudged something inside of him to surface. Weak, like a newborn. A sense of calm. Even though sneaking out and feeding the doll wine was one of the few taboos even he was warned of.

The view of the moon was cut off by a man-made structure again and when he looked down darkness encompassed them. Shadow and shade, of which one would think the gomorrah was full of but only just so. Barely, with how dim the light was, it was still cast enough. Draping itself over everything and all in obscene red, with the shadows of all and everything worn as lingery. This dark out here was different. Like a wall he had walked through without realizing. It felt heavy on the limbs and tried to drag him down. Not knowing any better he followed the soothing whisper and sat down beside Felix.

Who was almost too eager to fill his cup and the brute did let him without thinking twice about it. Invitation or subconscious need to serve, still, even though they were not too far apart on the pyramid of hierarchies. Adal did not question it.

“Music’s the temporal ordering of sounds and silences that establish rhythms and harmonies.”

Cold, unfeeling, words wholly unbecoming of an artist. Yet there was an unmistakable sense of clarity to them, like the ticking of a metronome timing his breaths. In reality, Felix believed the stolid and technical minutiae of the arts to be as warm as flesh. There was no less feeling in the counting of beats-per-minute than in the thudding of one's heart. Life started in that same fashion, after all, in the thoughtless drumming up of blood and in the clanging of primitive synapses. “It’s in the birds trilling before the sunrise. In the wind and trees. In the breath and voice of every person you’ve met. The pattern of all living things. Whether by design or by happenstance, music is everywhere and in everything.”

His hands toyed with the bottle between his thighs, tearing at the label with red colored nails. “That being said, while I appreciate all kinds of music and musical experiences–” He frowned, strengthening the pout that was ever on his face. “The radio here’s starting to wear me out.”

It had all but driven him mad. He’d never so disliked a station and its host before. Pompous and false in every sense of the word. A wretch sat high upon his tower, observing the going ons of his domain and its people like specimens he’s kept in a glass case. An insufferable man, and with such little respect for music that he lazily puts the same couple of tapes in rotation. Why use the station at all then? Why have the families play it through their speakers? Was this a new form of torture?

“That's what I wanted to get at, actually.” A shy admission, accentuated by the subtle reddening of his cheeks. Felix tried never to complain about the conditions of his stay. A bed at Gomorrah was better than lying on the cold, hard ground anywhere else. But especially out in the Mojave. The people were desperate in the desert, splitting at the seams for an escape, no matter how brief or how grave the consequences. For them or himself. A dangerous game to play with an eager thing like Mischief around, always scheming for its next bit of fun…Though Felix paid for his current shelter on hard terms, it was better than suffering the revelries of his god each and every night.

Every few nights would do.

             „You mean, down here or up there?“ His head briefly tilted to the notion, looking at the windless sky and the shape of clouds that looked twisted and contorted. They still held their initial shape from when the wind still had been and looked frozen ever since. Mid-touched, half fleeing. Turn in two by things that had parted them and left like that. The sky itself, bare of anybody. A weeping mother to a codependency torn asunder by a jealous lover.

             „As with every calamity. People died quickly. Those who didn't were quick to be at each other's throat.“ The gaze of the witch focused on the road again,soon scanning the approaching of mostly-intact stone walls surrounding a once lively city. No one left to take up post. They would have to somehow get by the lowered iron gate.

             „A shame human instinct is such an ineffective reaction to dangerous situations. Prey will run fast. Predators may go on offensive. Some will fly, run up a tree, or dive into water. A young man may escalate the situation when he feels his ego is threatened. Others freeze up or make irrational decisions.“

For a moment Alexander turned to look at Dilnis.

             „You'd think fear is a dangerous thing.“

He looked away again.

Instead, he opted to hum in acknowledgement, and encouraged the witch to speak their mind. No doubt, Alexander had witnessed his people devolve in the midst of such a disaster. An animal might only bear so much, let alone the total destruction of their ecosystem- Forced to outpace an inevitable and fast approaching death.

He wondered, briefly, what it would feel like to outlive the viability of his own survival.

“Do you know another way inside?”

The city walls stood tall before the sorcerer, and in better condition than he’d first anticipated. He stared up at the battlements, whose dark and barren appearance further intensified the air.

         “ Billie,” he repeated, the single name strange in the mouth of one used to titles and status.

         “ I am familiar with our needs and deadlines,” he answered. “And not at all adverse to innovation when it comes to achieving our goals. Most importantly: I am faithful and loyal to our Queen’s righteous cause. ‘Tis in our best interest this work remains secret, of course. It must be carefully guarded from this point onward... You must be carefully guarded from this point onward.” He eyed the page before her, so unthinkably treated better than the Queen’s own missive. 

The sudden quirk of her brow, however, betrayed a kind of dull and tacit understanding.

“Ah, yes…”

The corners of her mouth twitched at the mention of her other projects, vastly overshadowed by the prospects of their new course. “It's just as well. I was going to begin my day with a different sketch, but our first draft comes to mind now…”

Out of the mists and bared before the sun’s brilliance. A fledgeling thought that should someday take flight. If only she nurtured it well enough, and imbued it with dreams of great devastation. She thought then of a fire that could never be quenched. A weapon that would scorch the earth for days. For longer, perhaps.

Forever…