Hangman Chapter 18

Chapter 18-

Gallow’s eyes opened slowly to the sight of an expansive blue sky and green foliage surrounding him in every direction.

“Is this,” he thought. “The Garden of Armony?” He sat up and remembered his wound. His mind reacted faster than his senses, and his hand bolted to his side to feel the space where the bullets had impacted him. As he would realize a split second later, there were no injuries in his body.

“Huh?” he thought, looking down at his still-bloodied shirt. He pulled it up to find that the bullet holes had been sealed up, leaving dark bruises that slowly shrunk in size. His body was wet.

“How did I get here? Did someone pull me into-”

“Ajax Clarke.”

Gallow whipped around to focus on the voice behind him. Perched on top of a rock by the shore, Warren Roseraid stared peacefully at him.

---

“Daso,” Sonsee pleaded. “I want to say- I want to tell you- that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did then!”

Dasodaha’s expression did not change.

“Why would you work with their military?” he questioned coldly.

“The only person I’ve ever helped was Captain Jepta,” she protested. “He isn’t like the people who slaughtered our people!”

Daso gritted his teeth. “He’s just a tool of their government!” he spat. “If he was asked to do it, he would! That’s the way they work! No matter how much you believe in him, he would just as easily kill you under orders!”

“That’s not true!” Sonsee exclaimed.

“How do you know that?” he replied. “When you look into his eyes, what do you see besides a vessel for someone else’s will?!”

“I don’t know that! But I know that I can’t just group him in with every officer in their army!” Sonsee was on the verge of tears.

“When you look into my eyes, what do you see?” he asked.

Sonsee hesitated. “I see my brother,” she offered softly.

“That’s a lie. The only thing that’s left is my hate.”

She cast her head downwards.

“People like you,” he continued. “Who only see what they want to see, you just ignore the truth that’s right in front of you. When I ask you what color the sky is, you don’t look up, you look into your heart.” He said the last word with disgust. “Warren has given me what no one else could give me, not you or anyone in that village. He gave me the chance to walk the path of truth!”

“Don’t you imply that they were foolish!” Sonsee did not look to him, but kept her eyes on the ground, her face grimacing in anger and turmoil. “I came here to find that Garden! To see where their Spirits rest!”

Daso became very quiet for a moment before speaking up again, and when he did, he spoke slowly.

“When the Atamape people die, it’s our custom to plant a stone for their life. The battlefields outside the village limits were dotted with stones from the warriors who gave their lives to protect us. Now, the ruins of that village are filled with stones, rising up out of the Earth.”

He slammed his foot forward and bared his teeth; Sonsee looked up into his eyes when he spoke this time.

“The one who planted each of those stones,” he shouted. “WAS ME!!”

Sonsee’s lip quivered.

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT I FEEL ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE!!”

---

Malvado’s soul slowly merged back into his body. His perception was fuzzy, a separation such as that one would be traumatic to anyone’s body without preparation. He sat up, the wound in his shoulder slowly seeping blood.

“It wasn’t a critical hit- good,” he noted.

He turned his attention to the sound of faint crying a few feet away. Janna was clutching Eli’s limp body, weeping.

“Girl,” he called, getting to his feet and approaching them. Janna looked up, tears streaming down her reddened face.

“There was a man who came here a few weeks ago,” he continued. “His name was Fiemmo. What happened to him?”

Janna slowly gulped to clear her throat. “Fi-Fiemmo?” she asked carefully.

“He had the ability to make flames out of the flowers he produced, where is he?”

“Why do you-?”

“Girl,” his voice was cold, as if he looked down on her like dirt. “Tell me what happened to him.”

“He was k-killed, by Gallow…” she answered.

Malvado’s fist clenched.

“Where was he buried?”

Janna felt like there was no other choice but to answer. “In a shallow grave… o-on the outskirts of town…”

“Take me there.”

“What?” she was taken aback by his request.

“Take me to where he was buried.”

Janna trembled.

---

“Warren!” Gallow had gotten to his feet, ready to fight.

“Ajax…”

“What are you doing here? What am I doing here?” he questioned.

Warren got off the rock and stood up. “I’ve come here to make you another offer.”

“What?!” Gallow exclaimed. “Whatever you want from me, I won’t give you!”

“Ajax,” Warren continued. “It doesn’t matter what you want, and that’s not me saying that.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Gallow shouted. “What happened to you, Warren? What happened?”

Warren looked out towards the water. In a semi-abstract place like the Garden, which served as a crosspoint of worlds, space can regularly shift according to the pressure put out by the presence of whoever enters it. With the Outlaw Rose there, the Spring now appeared like an ocean, expanding far into the distance.

“There’s a passage in the Holy Texts,” he began. “About when the Saviour was born; their soul walked along a pathway of marble tiles, adorned with roses.” He turned to look back towards Gallow, his hand now hovering before his rose-eye. “That’s the path that I can see with this eye.”

“I don’t understand- I don’t-”

“Ajax,” he cut him off. “When we were younger, I was visited by an angel each night in my sleep.” He was focused intently on Gallow’s face. “When I closed my eyes, I was walking on that path, but I could take a few steps at a time, and when I awoke I understood so much more about the world. It only took me a matter of time to understand the way this works.”

“You mean when you…” Gallow couldn’t finish his sentence.

“Everything I learned, it was exactly what the texts were trying to say! This world is divided into two lines, good and evil. Deep into the heart of the world- the true world, that’s where they lie, beyond a gateway like this one.”

Gallow hesitated before speaking. “So… you mean to use this to…” he gulped and his voice quivered.

Warren smiled. “To go to hell and kill the devil.” He laughed. “Those are pretty simple terms, but words can’t really describe what I was really trying to say back then.”

“What will ‘killing the devil’ or whatever do? Is it really worth all this misery?!” Gallow’s voice was filled with anger and confusion.

“You can’t see it, then?” Warren responded. “It doesn’t matter. When I say ‘the devil,’ I guess what I really mean is ‘the meaning of evil itself.’”

“How can you say that when you’ve done this?! How many people have you killed?!”

“I’m sorry you can’t see what I do,” Warren replied. “When I’ve defeated it, the things I’ve done will lose all meaning. That’s the weakness of such a subjective way of looking at things, isn’t it?”

Gallow didn’t understand what he was getting at.

“The only constant in this world is the truth, that’s the only path that will never fail; I’ll remove all meaning from this world.”

“If there is a meaning to evil,” Gallow argued. “Then it isn’t subjective- it’s just as true as what you’re talking about!”

Warren looked back out over the water. “That’s why I need to defeat it. We’ll all move closer to the truth.”

“You’re a dumbass!!” Gallow protested. “There’s no justification for what you did!! There has to be another way to find what you want!”

“Perhaps,” Warren replied. “But this was the only way that this would ever play out.”

“What do you mean?”

“That path I’m walking on,” he spoke in as matter-of-fact a way as anything else. “It’s as solid and set as fate.”

“No…” Gallow protested. “I don’t believe you…”

“Ajax, there’s no point in trying to argue the meaning of something, it doesn’t change what it really is.” He gazed deeply into his former friend. “I was always going to burn down the orphanage.”

Gallow looked at the ground, a dark expression befell his face. Without looking at Warren, he spoke again.

“My name isn’t Ajax anymore.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Warren was amused.

Gallow raised his eyes to meet the other young man’s. “Ajax was the name of a hero. I don’t deserve that name, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Warren turned his head to view Gallow with his one normal eye. “And…?”

“Before I was sent to the military, the suggested punishment was by hanging. When I deserted, I took the name Gallow…” he looked down and chuckled. “I guess I thought it was ironic… That’s what it means to me.”

He and Warren stared at each other for a moment before he continued.

“And I guess that’s why I can’t believe that you’re right…”

Warren sighed. “I was here to make you the same offer from that night, but I suppose there’s no swaying you, then.” His eyes lit up suddenly. “I should have expected this, though, it was always going to happen like this…”

He turned around and threw up his arms. “Oh well, looks like the next step is to destroy this place.”

“What?!” Gallow shouted.

Warren looked over his shoulder. “You heard me, this place may be a gateway to the Spirit World, but it seems that I have to break it down before I can go any deeper; the physical elements here are holding it back from the next level.”

“I won’t let you do that!” Gallow exclaimed.

“Really?” Warren asked, amused. “What reason would you have to protect this Garden? It won’t really hurt you for it to disappear.”

Gallow looked deeply into Warren.

“Janna loves to come here, away from the wasteland outside…

The peace this place brought Sonsee…

The healing it’s brought the people of this town…

The healing it brought me…”

“I know that,” he answered. “I guess it just means a lot to me.”

---

“There…” Janna pointed to a small grave, her dress was soaked with blood. A wooden carving of a curved salamander stuck out of the dirt.

Malvado examined the patch of Earth for a moment before getting to his knees over it.

“W-what is he trying to-?” Janna thought before he began to ravenously dig his hands into the ground.

It wouldn’t be until later reflecting on this that she realized the change that had occured in this man. It was hard to pin down, but his energy had completely shifted. She did not know his previous true nature, a man who shied away from true brutality, but it was perfectly understandable in his eyes. Now, those eyes were different, there was a new kind of focus in them.

From behind a large rock nearby, Bleech watched cautiously.

“Is that Fiemmo’s grave?” he pondered. He had never met the man, but every time his death was mentioned, he noticed that Malvado seemed to become upset. He wasn’t sure what their relationship was, but it obviously struck a deep chord in the man.

All the while, Malvado dug away ravenously at the grave, muttering quietly to himself.

“I won’t let you… I won’t let you… Be alone down there…”

---

“Daso, I don’t know what I can do to make you forgive me…” Sonsee was battered from the fight and desperately trying to persuade her brother to calmness.

“There is nothing you can do.”

She winced, not from a physical pain, but from the shock it sent through her heart.

“You were the older sister…” he continued. “You’re supposed to protect me, aren’t you? But you were scared then.” He spat his next words. “You’re still a scared little girl.”

Sonsee breathed deeply, holding back her tears.

“You’re right,” she replied. “There’s nothing I can do that will ever undo what happened.”

For a moment, Daso’s hard expression broke. It was only a flash, but she saw deep in his eyes something other than hatred.

“That’s it…” she thought. “That’s what I still know…”

“What do you want me to do about that? About your guilt?” he asked, his barrier rising up again.

“I don’t want you to do anything,” she replied. “But just please, consider how much you love me-”

This was the wrong thing to say.

“Love you?! Goddamn, you never learn!!” he shouted, he gritted his teeth again.

“[TOXICITY- AERIALS]!!”

“Aerials??” Sonsee didn’t have any time to react before the snake of Toxicity suddenly transformed into a swarm of insects, breaking free from the hold her spear had on it.

The creatures were robber flies, large insects that darted through the air and quickly covered her body. Their proboscises stabbed into her flesh, injecting a corrosive venom. Sonsee screamed in pain from the horrifying attack.

There was no question about it, this was the true kill move of Toxicity.

“But that means,” she could barely think through the pain. As she staggered back, she raised up her arm.

“[VANISHING POINT]!”

Her brother’s vision was darkened; all he could see was the face of his sister, crying out in pain. There was nothing in the world besides her tear-filled eyes. He suddenly felt himself being pulled towards her at an incredible speed. Despite there being only a few feet between them, it felt as though he was being dragged miles to her.

“The length of my heart…”

In a moment, he was standing right in front of her, her body still being ravaged by Aerials. He braced his body for the impending counterattack at this close distance, but it didn’t come. Instead, Sonsee wrapped her arms around him, blood spurted from her wounds and ran down him.

“Daso…” she offered. “I’m not going to win this by hating you…”

“W-what-...” he could offer no apt response.

“You could have used Aerials at any point to break Toxicity out of my hold…” she explained softly, even as her body screamed out in pain. “But you didn’t, because you wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?”

“Silence!” he protested.

“Deep in your eyes, you still want to love me, don’t you? Because the world’s not that easy...”

Daso trembled, in her arms. Suddenly, Aerials ceased biting into her flesh and lifted off of her, merging back into his body.

“Sonsee,” he began. “I don’t know if I can forgive you…” he hesitated. “But I think I want to.”

She smiled as her eyelids drooped.

“Thanks… brother…”

Her body collapsed and fell to the ground.