#nov 16

The fabric is starting to look a bit frayed around the hole. The damp, and the wet, and the constant wear as days stretch into weeks into the unknowable amount of time born of too much of a life lived in a cave without a day/night cycle. A wet hell, a chilly nether. The humidity of breath, and sweat, and tears condensates on the walls, a sticky sort of moisture that refuses to be wiped off on one's trousers. It's miserable. He says you're going to take it all back. At least it won't be like this forever, but he refuses to let you mend, and he calls your concern pity, and that damn coat is looking worse as the days wear on. It reeks.

Of cigarettes, and the greasy scent of unwashed hair, and grime, - And would he just take it off long enough to let you fucking wash it, Wil?

The whole cave reeks. Of torch-smell, of coal, of damp stone, and somehow it couldn't be further from the scent of warm cobblestone and sun-washed earth and fresh summer grass. Even the potato farm, a one-note bit of starchy green in among everything else. Somehow it's almost worse, to be faintly reminded of the overworld up above, and to feel the lack of it. Oak leaves, and dandelions, and carrots, and birch, and every other scent that you'd taken for granted. You'd figured it'd always be there, surely. But you'll get it all back, and things were hard for awhile there, but the sun will still be shining; L'Manberg will be okay, your brother will be okay. It's going to be okay.

There's a great, terrible, devastating quiet after the bombs go off.

Somehow, it feels like it might be your fault. / You were supposed to mend the holes.

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Your name is Wilbur Soot; and it feels like Catharsis. Chekhov's gun finally fires, and in the crackle of fireworks as pained and uneasy allies turn against their own, L'Manberg goes off with a bang. You hadn't expected your father to turn up. But then: You hadn't expected to survive, either. So dear old dad runs you through with a sword you hand him, and you call it poetic justice. You kill your daughter, your firstborn, and so you turn to stare back up your bloodline and hang yourself on the family tree. It's a cheap trick, but then, this whole thing was flashy and obvious, anyway. You had wanted to be seen.

It was poetry, and it was as though the world bent to your whim as a hole was blown into the side of room, and sunlight hit your face once more. You were a character on a stage, and the sun your spotlight, and this was your Big Finish. You are Wilbur Soot; and you are Ozymandias; and you are king of kings, destroyer of your creation.

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The fluorescent lights flicker overhead. The train tracks rattle with a train that hasn't arrived. If it ever does. If it ever does, you believe it won't stop for you. Who would come to visit you, anyway?

Maybe Tommy. And you find some mirth on your lips at that. Rueful, and it falls, soon enough. He always would follow you. You'd tried to build walls to protect him; and what sort of a leader were you? It'd been an underhanded trick, but you'd been ousted all the same, and violence begot more violence.

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