In one swift motion, the blade of a halberd cut the shadow's head from its body and sent it flying. The head landed at my feet, splattering black, oily shadow blood all over me. I swallowed and tore my gaze away from the creature's lolling tongue and rolled-back eyes. Ahead of me, Vale blinked as clarity returned to her once blank face.
Between her and me stood Blackburne, looking as noble and immaculate as his statue as his cape billowed around him. A trail of shadow corpses melted behind him. The scarred hollow didn't bother extending a clawed hand to Vale. Instead, he pulled an old rag from beneath his cloak and used it to clean his blade. "Alright there, Vale?" he asked, not looking away from the lux he polished. "It's not like you freeze like that."
I bit my lip. I had frozen too. After all the times Vale came to my aid, why hadn't I been able to do the same for her? I hurried to her side and helped her up.
"It was so weird..." she muttered under her breath, as if talking to herself. "Everything just...went black for a moment."
All three of us looked past the severed head that dissolved into a puddle in the street with a gurgle. The dust cleared. The rest of the shadows had been slain. Hollows that lay motionless in the streets were evaporating, crumbling away like ashes in the wind. Silence weighed heavily on an already oppressive atmosphere.
What had I done?
How did I end up here, in a city full of rising ashes, fighting off monsters? What would the former Skye Rhee, too shy to even raise a hand in class, had thought of that?
Reynard raced up to the scarred king. He appeared fully healed from his battle with the prince, and he narrowed both his eyes as he addressed Blackburne. "Sire!" he cried. "The shadows had torn their way through the wall about a block down!"
Blackburne raised his chin. "Have repairs been made yet?"
"Yes, sir! We've repaired what we can, but we've run out of material."
Blackburne nodded. "Good. Gather the team, and we'll head out to scavenge for more."
The other hollow looked doubtful as he stroked his fingers through the graying goatee on his chin. "Do you really think we'll be able to find enough scraps? It's been slimmer and slimmer pickings out there as of late...Should we increase the scavenging radius around the city-?"
"No," Blackburne barked, making the other hollow jump. "You know the law. No one wanders off too far in the Dark. It's too dangerous. There's nothing out there but shadows. I know that for a fact. We will remain within the border."
Reynard bowed his head and hurried away like a rat returning to its gutter. Meanwhile, a crowd of other hollows gathered around their king. I watched in sick fascination as they reached for him to grasp at his cape like beggars, uttering words of praise and awe, like he was some kind of god. Their king, meanwhile, paid them all no mind as he finished cleaning his blade. He kept his black eyes averted as he left Vale and me, pulling his cloak free and stepping over his praisers and decaying hollows alike, casting none of them a second glance.
I clenched my fists at the sight. I stomped after him. "What about the hollows who died?" I yelled.
Blackburne paused and looked over his shoulder at me with hooded eyes. "What about them?" There was no hint of malice in his voice, only cold indifference.
I was struck dumb. Another body withered into dust between the two of us. The ashen flakes of what had formerly been a human soul rose to the black sky, where they disappeared. "They...died," I said. "People died. Don't you have a service for them? Or a memorial?"
Or at least some shred of respect?
Blackburne stared me down. Surrounded by the dust of our fallen comrades, he said, "What do you propose we do? They've all evaporated already." He waved a dismissive hand to clear the air of ashes as if they were some nuisance. Luxlight gleamed from his gauntlet.
Around us, other ghosts nodded and murmured amongst themselves, repeating his words like they were mantras.
I shot a glare at After's king. A muscle in the scarred hollow's white-streaked face twitched; the only crack in his emotionless exterior.
A hand found my shoulder. "Skye..." Vale hissed beside me, her tone urgent-a warning. But in my mind, I saw that little girl who was now an orphan. Now alone.
I took another step toward Blackburne and swept a hand over the muttering crowd. "Well, then what about the hollows that survived? The ones who lost loved ones-"
"They'll learn to go without," said the king of After. "As we all do. We've all lost people before, even me. Even you, I'm certain." His fist tightened around his weapon. "Best we can do for the dead is to keep on living. Too many hollows in one place attract shadows. These attacks will happen. It's not like we don't have the numbers to spare."
"Numbers to spare," I repeated under my breath. "We're not talking about numbers here; we're talking about people! Human beings!"
The ghosts watching us shrank back at my mention of human beings, and before I could even raise an arm to defend myself, Blackburne slashed his halberd at me. I fell to the dirt, stunned, while a coldness seeped from my cheek, just under my eye. I touched a fingertip to my wound. Blackburne's shadow fell over me, blocking out the luxlight from above.
"Do you feel that?" he whispered. His eyes narrowed at the healing skin of my face. "No. You don't. You don't feel pain. You don't feel anything because you are not a human being. None of us are. Not anymore." His eyes bored into mine. They were like a predator's; cold. Soulless. I had to look away from his marred face. Quickly, my bravado during the battle with the shadows faded like the rising ashes.
"Understand that our numbers will keep growing, so long as people on Earth keep dying," the scarred hollow continued. "Any hollow killed by a shadow is replaced by ten more naïve and wide-eyed newcomers, just like you in due time-dreamers that still think themselves human."
"Sinner..." hissed the hollows surrounding us. The king held up a palm to them to keep them at bay.
My skin healed completely beneath my fingers. I pulled my hand away from my eye to observe the city. The buzz of hushed conversations filled my ears. Hollows treaded like zombies where their deceased kin had previously lain.
Not human.
None of us were.
Everything that had ended up in this realm was a copy, even the woven bracelet I thumbed on my wrist. It wasn't made from the same fabric I'd worn on Earth. And so, perhaps, was I-just a copy of the person who used to be Skye Rhee.
But at that moment I still felt like meek, little Skye from Earth. Especially now. I also felt caged. The throngs of heartless people around me were the bars of my cell.
"What if you build another city?" I asked. "Somewhere out in the Dark. Outside the wall..."
The joints of his gauntlet clinked sharply as Blackburne's grip tightened around the shaft of his halberd. Jaw clenched, he spun away from me. "In time, you'll see that everything I do is to keep this city standing. But until then, I don't waste my time with anchored souls and their ideas," he said, walking away from me. "It's only a matter of time before you return to what's calling you in the Light." He paused to cast me one last, emotionless glance. "Before you get incinerated. I only hope you don't take anyone else with you when you do."
Both Webb and Vale had me cornered back on the rooftop beneath the painted pylon. That fierceness had returned to Vale's eyes as she stood tall over me. "You need to stop challenging Blackburne if you know what's good for you!" she warned.
Beside her, Webb shook his head like a disappointed parent. "You're gonna get thrown into the Pit, Skye!"
I unburied my face from my scarf. I'd heard that word before. It was used as a threat the first time, too. "The Pit?"
Vale sighed. Having no need for breath, I knew her sigh was purely for dramatic effect. "The Pit is where disobedient souls are imprisoned. It's a big-arse hole that the echelon tosses you down. Then they leave you there. Forever."
I shuddered at that thought. Being stuck in an eternal prison would be so much worse than death at the claws of ravenous monsters. I met Vale's distant gaze. "You and him have a history together, don't you?" I said. "You and Blackburne."
Vale shook her head with the weakest of smiles. "You caught me. Once upon a time, a friend and I used to run with his echelon in our early days. It was like Webb said, we all lived like royalty in his palace." Her face fell. "I've seen many souls thrown down into the Pit, too. No. That life wasn't for me, especially after Chri-" A pause. "After I lost someone. After that, I went off on my own."
"And then she found me," Webb interjected with a grin. "And we've been partners in crime ever since!"
It was hard to imagine Vale as one of the king's bullies. While Webb and Vale snickered and elbowed each other, I scowled to myself as I watched the hollows in the street below. From up here, I had to squint to see Orville in front of his shop with that little girl clinging to him. Orville had been around since the Civil War, and countless other hollows were even older than that. So if Blackburne was the first ghost, then how long had he been here? What had Earth been like when he left it?
What must it be like to be dead for far longer than you'd been alive? At what point did the afterlife become...just life? And your brief time alive became nothing but a distant memory? Just something to reflect on every once in a millennium in a hey-remember-that-one-time? kind of way.
I shook my head to purge Blackburne's cruel, scarred face from my mind. Webb's and Vale's postures had relaxed, but they still side-eyed me as the space between spoken words lengthened. Finally, I broke the silence with yet another question. "Since you know him so well, do you know how Blackburne got those scars? They don't look like normal burn scars."
"Dunno," was Vale's answer. The former echelon ghost started gathering up spray cans as she spoke, in search of specific colors. "I don't think anyone knows that. That's the one secret Blackburne keeps to himself."
She set up her supplies next to one of the few sections of wall space not covered by a mural, and set to work, filling the rooftop with the sound of rattling cans and hissing paint. A dreamy haze of luscious pinks and pale oranges soon concealed every blemish on the formerly barren canvas.
Webb and I reclined against the legs of the pylon, watching a misty morning scene unfold. My vision blurred, and my mind kept wandering. I touched a finger to my cheek where Blackburne had slashed me. My skin was as smooth and unmarked as it had ever been, with no trace of a scar. "But hollows heal, right?" I said over the hiss of paint. "And when they show up here, they're all intact. Orville said he was taken out by a freaking cannonball, and yet he lumbers around all in one great big piece. Blackburne's scars look like burn scars, but I haven't seen any ghost that burned to death covered in horrible-"
The spraying stopped.
Webb kicked me in the shin. It didn't hurt, of course, but I got his message loud and clear.
We both slowly turned to our friend; the ghost who'd perished in flames.
Vale's eyes were wide as she stared back. The whites of them glistened as what I assumed were horrific memories of her final moments flashed in her mind.
I slapped a hand over my stupid mouth, and cursed myself out in my head. "Oh. Vale. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
For a moment, the Vale I had witnessed during the breach returned, vulnerable and soft. Then one corner of her mouth drew up ever so slightly. "Don't worry," she said, rummaging through her art supplies. She shook a new can then returned to her mural with a stencil in hand and added clouds in the sky, going back and forth with short, quick puffs. "It's fine."
Webb mouth went askew at her nonchalance and an unspoken history passed between them. Her eyes briefly met mine, and she handed another can to me, inviting me to join her.
"I'll go, uh...be someplace else," Webb muttered before shuffling off to perch on the far edge of the roof where he let his legs dangle.
Still feeling like a scolded child, I sidled alongside Vale. I had absolutely no idea how she could conjure an entire landscape with a few simple sweeps of color.
"I've been here a while, Skye," the other hollow said to me. The silhouettes of trees grew along the horizon line. She used a worn brush to guide their scraggly branches upward before the paint dried. "Even then, I don't have all the answers you're asking for. And you ask a lot of questions." A chuckle. "But there is one thing I do know." Her warm, brown eyes searched mine. "You came back for me," she said.
It wasn't a question. Nor an accusation. Just a fact.
"Y-yeah?"
"Why? I can take care of myself."
She certainly gave off that impression. My very existence was a testament to her badassery. But I bit my lip, remembering her slumped in the alleyway with the jaws of a shadow inches away from ripping out her throat. "I mean, you say that..." I breathed. "But it was like you were in a trance or something back there. What the heck happened to you?"
Another sigh. Another shrug. She ran fingers splattered with sunset hues through her braids for a moment before grabbing a new color. She sprayed white on her fingertips, then flicked tiny specks across the sky, creating stars. "Again, more questions and more answers I don't have," said the other hollow. "Something like that has never happened before. That shadow and I locked eyes and...I don't remember. Everything turned black. I'm glad you came back for me, but..." She lowered her spent can, staring at her mural like it was a window. Her color-stained hand brushed mine. Again, that electric sensation passed between us. "Promise me you won't do it again."
"I-" Words escaped me. That wasn't a promise I was prepared to make. Vale searched me, waiting for my response. I withered under her intense gaze and had to look away.
Thoughts of Dominic and the life I'd left behind and couldn't quite let go of clawed their way through my mind. Some part of me still hoped I'd wake up in bed, back home. Then the weight of whatever sorrow that ailed me would lift with the revelation that any struggle in life would pale in comparison to the perils I'd envisioned in the dreamscape of After. "Wake up," I whispered to myself.
Vale scoffed. "What was that?"
I let out a weak laugh at myself, still holding my can close. "I keep thinking that all this is all a crazy dream. I keep expecting myself to wake up in my apartment on Earth at any moment."
Vale pursed her lips. "No. This place is no dream."
I rolled my eyes. "A nightmare, then."
"It's not that, either."
"Alright," I huffed. "So, as someone who's lived in After for so long, what is this place?"
"It's like..." she began. Then she frowned at her dreamscape. She selected another can. Black, this time. "It's like the dark in between dreams when you're asleep. It's just nothing."
She sprayed over her scene, snuffing out her setting sun and plunging her world into midnight.
My heart broke to see her light disappear.
"But that's the thing about sleeping; either you start dreaming or you wake up. So, what's next for us?" I stared into the cityscape below. "Are we ever going to wake up?"
Vale offered me a half-smile. "What's next for us, indeed, Skye?" she repeated.
After a moment of hesitation, our bodies gravitated toward each other, the space between us shrinking. I shut my eyes.
This whole time, I'd been waiting for my memories to resurface so I could piece together who I used to be. But...was I even that same person anymore? Had the old Skye truly died with her body, and something new had arisen from the sand in the Dark? It was like I was underwater and grasping onto a rope-a lifeline-desperately clinging to the past. The rope was rising, lifting me to the surface. I was so close to air. I could feel it. And yet, the temptation to let the rope slip through my fingers and sink into the Dark gnawed at me.
Should I let everything go like Webb had done and become someone new here in After? Could I even do that?
Someone else's blue eyes watched me from the back of my mind. An invisible tether, my anchor, yanked at my ribs.
Skye Rhee returned from the dead inside me and wrapped the stupid, fearless imposter that had risen from the sand in her place in an embrace, tight enough to smother her.
The spray can I choked popped, launching the cap off in a red explosion.
Vale and I pulled away from each other, gasping at her ruined nightscape.
"Oh, shit! I'm so sorry, Vale!"
But, to my surprise, the other girl was smiling. She picked a wide brush,and reshaped the ugly red splatter into a winding aurora across the sky accompanied by little crimson stars.
She stood and admired her finished mural. "Huh. You know what?" she said. "I rather think I like that."
I didn't understand art.
There was a faraway groan as across the city, the gate opened. I spied Blackburne, followed by his cronies, riding back into After on horseback with all sorts of goods in tow.
My throat tightened. I couldn't believe the scarred hollow far below me. There couldn't be nothing beyond the wall. There had to be a reason we were here, hunted by shadows with no future to look forward to. There had to be something else.
And there had to be a way to escape it all and return to Dominic.
A flutter of black wings startled me as a crow flew past our tower. It disappeared over the crest of the wall, returning to its master in the desert.
Vale was right. After wasn't a dream. After was our prison, and Blackburne was our warden. I curled my lip in distaste.
"Oy. Skye. Wake up."
I jumped when Vale passed me a paint brush. She pointed at the mural where she'd added her VS signature to the corner. "You have to sign it."
I had to laugh at how messy my signature looked alongside hers.
There was a clatter behind us as Webb returned, slipping over a can. "Good time for scavenging, gang!" he announced after finding his footing. "Thanks to the breach, there's a huge demand for scrap metal right now!"
Vale wiped her hands clean with an old rag. "I'll get my bike ready."
I cast one last glance at the mural, then turned back to my friends. "I'll come, too." This time, I didn't ask permission.
Vale said nothing. She only crossed her arms at me.
"I promise I won't run into the Light," I huffed.
She raised her brows higher.
I rolled my eyes. "Or get eaten by shadows."
"Skye'll be fine, Vale! She totally kicked a shadow's ass during the breach!" Webb shouted, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "Let's get rich!"
I thought I was going to die and wither away when Vale shook her head. "Never in a million years would I ever let an anchored ghost become a scavenger." Then she cracked a playful grin. "Not without a weapon."
She adjusted the machete strapped to her hip and threw on her cloak. Webb brandished his sword proudly.
I grinned in return. A faint trace of excitement filled the cavity inside me at the prospect of wielding a cool-ass blade.
I still felt caged like an animal, and like any captive animal, I was on the verge of snapping. Somehow, there had to be a way to return to Earth for good.
And I was going to find it.
I was going to break free from the Dark.
Loving, Hating, Hoping, Taking
I've been digging through the dirt that was left behind
I've been dredging through the mud for it
There's nothing that's alive or dead inside
In you or in this
Is this where the dreamer ends?
Dark where the light had been
Lost at the war within
Something wicked this way comes
Something wicked this way comes