Langel knew two things: first, the war was not done (for the sun was still there); second, his tongue was in his mouth (he could feel it).

That couldn’t be right.

He had lost both of those things nearly a year ago.

Yet, it was merely a morbid flashback; it meant he was dying. His body was merely conjuring kind memories to allow him to starve to death in peace.

But for now, the sun warmed his paled skin and wind lazily danced around him.

The paladin’s eyes blazed as the sun sank below, his fingers digging into the damp earth. The grass slipped against his fingers but he only grabbed it harder. He was sitting on a mound of softened ground and little blue flowers—the flowers were the first to die when the sky went dark. It had been two years since he had seen the sun. Langel had missed it at first, but now it just burned his eyes.

To think that the world was unaware that this was the last sunset for, well, a very long, unpleasant while. He gave a humorless chuckle. The dark wasn’t all that bad for the first few months—Saints, it finally shut up those roosters that hollered him awake every morning.

And to think that his tongue was in his mouth. Like, entirely within his mouth—not in some jar or in some mangey king’s infinite storage room, but literally inside of him.

A couple years back, or, well, into the future, some SaintBringers had cleaved, cut, chopped his tongue right out, right at the base.

“The Saints demand silence,” they had voiced to him.

He had vomited blood for days and yet the Saints did not return the Sun. They’re finicky, those Saints.

He clicked his tongue; a resonating sound came out to grace the hill that he sat upon. How quaint.

The Saints took it to teach the world a lesson.

He clicked it again.

“That’ll teach you,” they had bellowed.

The sun sizzled in the distance; he clicked his tongue.

“That’ll teach you not to mess with immortal affairs.”

And just like that, they carried the sun away.

The plants went first. Crops withered away with unrest and without hope. The animals went next, one by one, environments suffocated and choked until they became graveyards, and then a mere memory.

The last thing he remembered was growing weary, his stomach clawing wildly for some sort of matter to sate its desire.

His food storage had run out weeks ago. Now he survived off water and water alone. The earth was rotting without the sun. Or, would rot without the sun. It seemed he was in his past—maybe he should go warn the nearby town, ramble to them like a madman.

He must’ve passed early today, surrounded by blankets of death and despair, starved to death like millions of others.

So this is what is at the end.

A memory of the last good day. A memory of the last thing worth remembering.

The sun sank.

I do not fear you. Yet, I know I should. Blood covers your face from ear to chin, some half-smile of a man too far gone. Blood always covers your face. I know it won’t come off. I’ve seen you try your best at it, too, but blood remembers. I think you’ve grown the like the smell of it, the feel of it as it splashes onto you. You used to hate it, you know. I stand upon the peak of a battlefield, surrounded by your fallen men. You use the word “our,” but I know better than to confuse the two. I am your echo, only heard when you finally shut up, which isn’t often, mind you. You’ll never guess how many of your men died today; not because of inaccuracy, you have the estimate just fine, but because I know you don’t care. I’ll know, though. I always know how many have died in your name. And now that I sit here, the moonlit night towering well above, dutifully cleaning off your dirtied sword in my room, which you’ve long forgotten, I realize how far I have fallen. We—Saints how I hate the word “we”—grew up as one, both capable with a sword and even more capable with words. You said one day we’d make the world kneel. Yet, somewhere along the way, we settled into a dynamic of not a partnership, but one where you were the cause, and I, merely the effect. I’m not sure when I realized; one day I woke up and witnessed how the world laid in wait for you, and you alone. I see now that I will not be remembered as your equal, but as an estranged companion lost to time. I wipe the hardened blood off the icy metal. You are sound asleep, or perhaps alongside an esteemed general of yours. I run a finger alongside the blade, watching as a line of blood blossoms beneath its breath. You’d be so easy to kill, yet even then, I would only be remembered as your killer. I wonder: Is it better to be remembered for someone else or forgotten entirely? Outside, footsteps tap upon the stone floor. I know it’s you before you enter; you walk in the most peculiar manner, like a man both afraid of making a sound and equally afraid of being silent. “Alister,” you pause, “you hurt yourself?” You stare at the blood pooling on my finger. You know I’m careful with weapons. I’ve never nicked myself on accident, you know that as well as I do. “Must be tired,” I shrugged. I grab the sword by its hilt, unsure what to do. You look at me, unafraid. You don’t expect a thing. You don’t fear me. You should fear me. Yet, I don’t do it. I hand you back your weapon. We talk for a bit in the way we always had, and that’s the end of it. You go back to your room and I remain in mine. I should’ve done it. Should’ve plunged your sword into your chest just as you did your enemies. I tell myself I will next time. I won’t. I never will. I know I won’t, but it’s comforting to think I can. Maybe I don’t need to be remembered. It’s not like I’ll be around to know.

The headlights went out with an electrical hum and a flicker; then, there was nothing at all. “We’re done for!” I joked, looking towards my friend in the darkness. She stopped the car. The blue glow from the dashboard illuminated the edges of her face, but darkness blanketed us from all sides. This part of town was a coffin. It was a normal neighborhood, but always silent and dark come dusk. No cars creeped around and no streetlights flickered on, something to do with bad electricity. “I don’t remember how to get out of here,” she gradually admitted. I could barely hear her over the music she was blasting. I offered up a shrug, although I doubted she could see it. Directions were something engrained in me since I was born, just as it is for most kids who grow in small towns; at this point, I could very well do it blind. “Go slow; I’ll tell you when to take a right.” I never realized just how dark it got come midnight here. The clouds must’ve been acting up because there was so little light coming from above that there was no way to tell where the horizon ended and the sky began. “Now?” she asked, hopeful. “No, another hundred feet,” I mused, “Call it my hillbilly intuition.” Another hundred feet passed, and I gave a little mumble. Ahead would be that weird church that people always whispered urban legends about, and alas, it’s outline appeared; a small white, glowing sign stood at its front, casting an odd glow onto its rotting surface. The sign was the type that was planted outside of schools and fast food places, so it looked wildly out of place besides the building, if I could even call it that. “See?” I laughed, “Smallest church in all of Indiana, right there to behold!” The building creaked and moaned as I mentioned its name in that way old buildings tend to do at—I checked the time on my phone, only to see it had died. I must’ve forgotten to charge it. I glanced at the time that the car showed, only to see eight-thirteen. We had left around nine; I never noticed how off it was. I gave a shrug; it was probably around midnight. Now that I looked closer, I saw that the sign was talking about meeting times. I gave a half-hearted laugh, “It’s stupid to hold youth group at nine.” She chuckled, a bit relaxed by the sign’s glow, “I went to youth group for six years and never learned a thing, you know.” I gave a huff. “Continue straight for a bit, take a right, and then a left. We’ll be back home before your dad even notices we’re gone.” We drove on and she turned the music up once again, only for it to start going in and out, imbedded with thick pops and crackles like a cheap vinyl, until it whirred out entirely. The silence grew as intense as the darkness around us. “Dude,” I sighed, “I told you this place was a radio deadzone.” The blue glow lit up her tired eyes. “I’m playing a CD. Car’s just acting up.” I shook my head and looked out into the blackness. I couldn’t help but turn back to the glowing dashboard and begin talking to fill the quiet. “You, uh, turn right now.” Once we passed the corner, she hit the breaks and sent us both flying, seatbelts catching us in all their intended glory— “Maya, What the f—“ I went silent as I saw what laid ahead of us. “Is that,” I began, trailing off into the deafening silence. A white glow illuminated the rickety church; the sign announced meeting times for tomorrow’s youth group. “There’s more than one?” she breathed out. I only gave a small hum. That must’ve been it. Two churches make for a religious small town. That was it, alright. “Just keep on going straight,” I forced out. We continued in a pained silence and I eventually told her to go right. The car rolled to a halt. It was there again. The same sign cast its glow, frantically announcing a youth group meeting for ten. “Must’ve given you bad directions,” I choked out. “Let’s go left, this time.” After a while, we passed the church again; this time, we didn’t stop. We didn’t say anything at all; all I knew was that this youth group meeting was for eleven, not ten, and definitely not nine. My friends frantic breathing joined my racing pulse; we must’ve tried acid or something. I had never even wanted to try acid—did someone spike something I ate? “Left?” she asked; I could hear her swallowing, now. I hummed. It appeared again. My lungs felt heavy and I found myself on the verge of vomiting, swallowing endlessly to keep my food down. I leaned in close to read the time of the next youth group meeting when— Neither of us spoke as a silhouette moved in front of the glow. Long, boney fingers reached out gingerly towards the blocky black letters, peeling them away, one by one. It was the last thing I saw before the car was roaring on the pavement, racing away. We stopped the car after heading straight into darkness, having passed one, then two more churches. I hadn’t looked to see what stood at the signs, but I heard its careful footsteps and hushed, deep exhales. The car now sat painfully close to the church, but another was waiting for us, that I was sure. “We lock the car, turn it off, and wait until morning,” I whispered. My friend gave a quivering breath, and with a final glance, she pulled out her car keys, plunging us into absolute darkness.

As the hazy light filtered through the trees, all I could think about was how stupidly humid it was. The air had began to boil, turning sticky and suffocating, more akin to trying to move through syrup than anything enjoyable. Mosquitos hummed above the stilled water while shadows lurked inches beneath. Mudflats surrounded my boat; I was told some parts were a few feet deep, made pliant by the torrential rain of the night. The trees themselves were nothing I had ever seen before; here, they were crooked, bending jaggedly this way and that, more concerned with growing than growing towards the sky. My parents grew up in these lands; I had been born here, but moved away too young to remember anything more than punishing heat. I grew up half way across the world in a place of snow and opportunity, as my parents called it, where I went to a small school in a somehow smaller town. We knew everyone from one end to the other, both by name, face, and voice. It was nothing like here. As my parents said, it was nothing like home. I finally understood what they meant by that. Because I knew they always had so much more to say—how they felt transplanted into that Canadian village, neither accepted up front or as an afterthought, their hearts quietly yearning like uprooted snapdragons for the lands left behind—and how grateful they were for the opportunity. I couldn’t understand their love for this land, but I understood their quiet memory of it. These lands meant nothing to me but everything to them. And now, as the light filtered lazily through the trees, I bear witness to the way the trees grow harmoniously criss-cross, how the mudflats are alive with croaking frogs and stilt-legged birds, how the mosquitos’ humming almost forms a heartbeat, and how the air was warmed so greatly by the sun, it almost felt like a kind-hearted hug. These lands were beautiful. And although not to me, these lands were home.