Redemption

Friday #2

The place where we, the partner and I, promised our first meeting was empty.

The crisp moonlight consumed the streets and the stones around, and as its guidance, a single streak of light descended from its surface, focused but unclear, located the message for me.

A note was on the ground, gently folded. It was just an ordinary piece of paper, nothing special. The papers were clean and contained no signs of aqueous damages.

There was a primitive drawing of a face wearing a synthesized smile and two large eyes wide opened, staring at the phrase written next to it. It read: 'To sin is a devilish business; to justify sins is a human business.'

This was a message – the day was at its approach. I was running short on time. We were running short on time.

When the time comes... if I fail to make the call, my partner will do the job for me. I will be freed, and so will my friend.

But, Min... I still cannot make a decision. Did you truly deserve such an ending? Will freedom come to you too? Is this the freedom that you desired?

Will she suffer a horrible death, like her mother and her father had?

Is pain all she has to receive as a reward for her endeavors?

Every question became but a lingering illusion, pointlessly prolonging its moment of existence. The answers to follow were hollow promises, nothing more than simply meaningless words mumbled beyond one's sincere capabilities.

But it still was an answer. A clarified response, an indisputable resolution. Something I would always cherish and appreciate, something that I had not the chance to acquire in the primal past.

And, besides, I still had a promise to uphold.

***

And here I was — the Labyrinth.

Where the ends converge, and where they all come to a close.

Here, the scent was alive. A soul lively as it should be, insatiably consuming all from the atmosphere confined to the area.

I should have brought Beth with me for a quick adventure on our quest to complete the map. I should have given her a chance, but she could no longer make use of it. She would've been happy – she would've enjoyed the journey if her silence had ever ceased.

But I missed my own chance – the blight of my soul was the subtle arrogance I possessed. It told me and spoke to my heart, that I desired freedom more than anything else.

I hoped to be liberated, free, unbound, unrestrained, just like the way I released the girl from the imperceptible chains that doomed her fate.

My partner wished to mince her face into pieces and feast the earth with her juvenile blood. And my chance to taste the moment of emancipation would have been reduced to a single unforgettable dream out of a million others that ever appeared and vanished within the shorelines of East End. Nothing real – nothing practical.

But Beth never seemed more tragically naïve than the moment of our final farewell, both alive and dead.

What could have been the ending she truly deserved?

Was I wrong?

Freed from the burdens I bear. Freed from everything else that plagued my miserable soul and left me to suffer below the boundaries of limbo.

I thought I knew the answer, but without knowing the truth, freedom, my one flame and spark, would positively cease to be.

I thought that I knew the correct path to take when there was none in the first place. Beyond the scope of light, beyond the edge of dark, I was allowed to enjoy nothing but eternity itself until I grasped an unreachable answer from the basis of such obscurity. Amidst it, I chose to struggle and strive – I declared that whatever comes after did not matter. All I undeservingly wanted was a subtle warmth that illuminates certain improbable possibilities, shown to me through something as trifling as a genuine smile.