Hangman Chapter 31

Chapter 31-

Peet, being a tourism town, was also home to a livelier night life than most other communities in the sleepy countryside. Dion had overheard a young man and his friends discussing this on the journey by ferry, and his curiosity was piqued.

By the time he reached downtown, it was dusk, and gas lamps began to alight down the streets. Visitors and locals bustled about, their destination in mind but not their purpose. There was a different air to Dion, as he worked opposite them; his purpose known, but without a location.

“Excuse me?”

A shy voice beckoned him suddenly. He had been standing at a corner, looking down every street for the most active spots.

Dion looked over and saw a young woman, about his age, looking at him curiously. Her blonde hair tumbled in waves down her back, her eyes were a piercing shade of blue.

“Huh?” he replied dismissively, though his eyes were now more highly focused.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be a bother, but,” her voice was apprehensive. “I don’t have any friends with me, would you mind coming with me to a spot? I just… I don’t want to go alone…”

Dion stared at her for a moment, wordlessly, before actually facing his body to her and smiling.

“Of course, I’m not up to anything.”

His smile was, to a casual observer, perfectly normal. This was a veneer, because for Dion Eumenides, smiling was effortless. A real smile was one that required effort, because happiness runs counter to the evils of the world, a rebellion against the tragedy of life. Dion smiled so easily not because he was truly happy, but because he was completely removed from that struggle, he had no concept of how hard it was to smile; Dion wasn’t just living in the tragedy of life, he was tragedy.

He put his arm around her and they proceeded to a “spot,” a kind of fancy pub that functioned as a meeting place, a bar, and an entertainment venue. This particular establishment was dimly lit, save for the mood lighting of several spherical candle-light setups. It was not so noisy that they couldn’t hear each other, but loud enough to shroud their conversation.

The young man purchased two cheap drinks and began his patient wait.

“So…?” she asked in a cutesy voice, gently scratching the counter of the table.

A disinterested, “Yeah?” was his only reply.

“You haven’t even asked me my name!” she giggled.

“Should I have?”

The girl only laughed more, thinking he was playing ‘hard to get.’

“Okay,” she suddenly straightened up. “How about I start with your name?”

“Me?” he asked, bringing his hand to his jaw to cradle it. “Is it that important to you?”

“Of course!” she smiled, her voice sarcastically upset.

He smiled charmingly, it was going as expected.

“I’m Dion.”

“Dion?”

“Mhm.”

“Do you have a last name?” she giggled again; it was getting on his nerves, but he didn’t show it and decided to just let it go.

“Eumenides.”

“Oh wow, that’s a mouthful,” she said coyly.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Dion’s expression didn’t change from a relaxed, cool demeanor.

She blushed and let out an embarrassed chuckle.

“W-well, my name’s Capri,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Capri Sol.”

“Are you visiting here?” he asked casually as their drinks arrived.

“Nope,” Capri replied, taking a sip of her drink. “I was born here, I’ve lived here my whole life pretty much.”

“Oh, is that so?” Dion feigned interest.

“And what’s this?” she pointed to a small, X-shaped tattoo beneath his right eye.

“This thing?” he rubbed his thumb under the tattoo. “Haven’t you heard of the Carver’s Society?”

“Carver’s?” she repeated confusedly. “No?”

“Well,” he looked about smugly, raising his eyebrows and smirking. “It’s a little society of expert hobbyists…”

“Hobbyists?”

“Yeah, I can’t tell you much more, ya’ see, it’s kind of a secret.”

“With that under your eye?” she didn’t believe him.

“Trust me,” he leaned in. “We don’t let anything out.” His gaze was so compelling that she found herself believing him.

As Dion got ever so closer to Capri, only a few inches more, he suddenly took notice of her earrings, two green squares with small pearls hanging from them.

“Hey, your earrings,” he noted. “Where’d you get those?” His demeanor had changed subtly, his charm and smile were replaced by a cold intensity, his eyes affixed to the pieces of jewelry.

“These?” she put a finger to one of them. “They were a gift from my mother.”

“Do you look like her?” His eyes, despite his youth, now looked sunken in and stressed.

“I- I guess I do, I was told that a lot as a kid…” she stammered a bit, unnerved by the shift in his energy.

Dion stared acutely at her earrings and, as quickly as he’d become strange, leaned back and returned to his usual, lax expression.

He was calm now, he’d made up his mind.

“I only ask,” he smiled and laughed. “Because my mother wore the same earrings.”

He’d really like to abuse this girl.

Capri smiled back and looked to the side, as if she could see her ears.

“That’s funny…” She’d thought she knew where the night was going, and it was an awkward social move to bring up a similarity to his own mother.

“Say, do you want to get out of here?” he proposed, quickly finishing off his drink.

“Sure,” she agreed, only a hint of apprehension was stuck in her mind from the conversation.

Dion sat up and stretched his arms out, cracking his knuckles.

“Is it too much trouble to go to your place?” he requested. “I’m staying at an inn and they don’t allow guests.”

“No problem,” she assured him, picking up her purse as she joined him.

As the couple headed for the exit, a stranger called from near the doorway.

“Hey, Capri!”

She stopped dead in her tracks. The two of them looked to the man who had shouted her name; a tall, dark-haired man with wide shoulders and a square jawline. He strolled over to them, accompanied by three of his friends, among whom he was clearly the leader.

“Smitt!” she responded shakily. “I- I thought I told you not to-”

“You’re trying to bounce back after- how long? Two weeks? You’re a harlot!” He accused her with a terribly aggressive tone in his voice.

“It’s not like that, Smitt,” she begged. “I’m just meeting somebody, he’s just a friend!”

“You think I’ll buy that?” Smitt asked incredulously. “I should have never let you out of my sight!”

“Hey,” Dion thought. “This might just turn into some fun…”

“Excuse me, Smitt? Is that your name?” he stepped forward so that there was nothing between them.

Dion was a few inches shorter than the 6’1 giant, but didn’t feel threatened when he had to look up to meet his eyes.

“Who the hell are you?” he fired back angrily.

Dion was tired of people asking for his name.

“I don’t care about your little spat with her, either you’re going to leave us alone, or…” His head drifted to the side.

“Or what?” Smitt challenged him.

“Your ribs might just get broken,” Dion didn’t even smile as he spoke, he just stared at the taller man with a raging intent.

Unbeknownst to Smitt, the fiery-haired young man had already passively activated his ability.

“You-!!”

Smitt took a swing at him, but Dion easily stepped out of the way. The missed attack only further infuriated him, and he growled as he took one more. Again, Dion dodged it effortlessly, and took a step back.

“Say, you look pretty tough,” Dion pointed to one of Smitt’s cohorts. “You wanna get in on this too?”

The goonish-looking man rushed him, only for Dion to step away before grabbing his arm and judo-throwing him onto the ground. Smitt’s friend jumped to his feet just in time for an employee to run up.

“Hey, hey!” he shouted. “Let’s break it up-!”

He had no more time for words, as the recently recovered young man delivered a punch across the employee’s face. The worker responded in kind, dealing him a blow to the cheek.

Within moments, more and more people, customers and workers alike, were roped into the unfolding brawl. Lots of glasses were shattered, drinks spilled across the floor, and furniture snapped as it was flung over the room.

Dion found himself ducking punches, kicks, and thrown objects by the second. He spun around out of the way of an oncoming fist, returning it with a deftly thrown punch of his own. It satisfied him deeply to watch his target crumple over after receiving a blow to the head.

“I can feel it ramping up- we’re all starting to lose our minds!” he thought gleefully.

His knee flew into another man’s hip, sending him tumbling to the floor.

“Oh,” he noted, hearing the crack from his victim’s body. “That definitely shattered a hip…”

Eventually, amidst the chaos, Dion noticed that something was missing.

“Capri! That girl…”

He leapt outside through the smashed front window and peered up and down the street, where several people were running about, trying to find help. Dion spotted a light post in front of the establishment and quickly scaled it, using an enhanced strength to kick off, landing on the roof of the building. He knelt down as if a gargoyle, and scanned the surrounding streets for any sign of her.

“Ah!”

Down an alleyway, a man was dragging the blonde girl by the waist. Dion was on the prowl, leaping over the rooftops to close the distance. He knew that leaving the bar would eventually allow the fight to settle down, but he figured that with the police likely on the way, it would be best not to incriminate himself.

Within minutes, he’d located Capri and her captor, who was pulling her, kicking and screaming, towards the back-end of a seedy-looking building. There was a single door on the alley-side, which, by his guess, led down to a basement. Dion perched atop the roof of the adjacent building and observed for a moment.

“This bastard…” It was none other than Smitt who was manhandling the girl. “I’m really not in the mood to deal with his jilted lover schtick!!”

With these words in mind, Dion tipped over the roof’s edge, kicking off against the bottom of the precipice like a swimmer off of a pool’s wall.

He fell nearly thirty feet, pouncing on Smitt’s position. By the time the belligerent ex-boyfriend looked up, Dion’s foot was already flying towards his head. It connected with a thunderous crash, and his grip on Capri was released, letting her fall to the ground, away from the two men.

“I’m not finished yet, boy!” Dion was certain he’d rendered Smitt unconscious with his first strike, likely causing some lasting head-trauma in the process, but he wasn’t done; he’d made a promise.

In an unreal display of agility, Dion seemingly leapt again while still in midair, like he was kicking off from the space at his feet. He traveled gracefully in an arc over Smitt, while the taller man was falling to the ground. Dion flipped head-over-heels in the air as he descended, and the moment he was about level with Smitt’s body, his left leg swung out and delivered an obliterating blow to the man’s midsection.

Smitt’s trajectory was completely reversed by this switch-up from Dion, and he eventually landed face-first directly before a cowering Capri.

Dion’s boots touched the ground. His initial posture was hunched over, arms down and bent slightly which, along with his face being draped in shadow, gave him the appearance of a hulking beast. He straightened his back up and tilted his head to the night sky, allowing moonlight to reveal the right side of his face, and the ‘X’ tattoo which she’d so brazenly pointed out. A tattoo he was hesitant to say he’d received in prison.

For a few moments, the two of them looked at each other with a strange passion. He had just saved her from a truly terrifying experience, but had done so in the most brutal way imaginable. Smitt was out cold, with likely brain damage and several shattered ribs to boot, but this display of strength on his part was fascinating to a girl like her, who rarely witnessed anything very out-of-the-ordinary.

In this moment, Dion Eumenides revealed a piece of his real self, and it was enrapturing.

“Hey,” he spoke coolly and without any excitement. “We were going to go to your place?”

Yes, in this moment, he had won. His conquest was assured.

“Of course.” Her response was short, small, and full of awe.

He took a few steps to her side, and held out his hand. She grabbed it with her own, which were very soft, and helped herself up off the ground. Dion wrapped his arm around her waist and held her close to himself. It was a hold that wasn’t forceful, but confident. He had no worries about his grasp on her.

He’d already made up his mind. She had upset him and invigorated him at the same time, and he reaffirmed his promise to himself.

He dearly wanted to use up and abuse this girl, even if he was only able to do it for just one night. She wouldn’t realize what was happening to her, how he really felt, but she wouldn’t care; they never did.

Dion Eumenides was the tragedy.

---

“You’re a spirit?!”

Gallow almost spat his tea out over the white tablecloth.

“Ms Janna!” Melty scolded. “We aren’t supposed to reveal important things like that over tea time!”

Janna blushed and quickly apologized.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” she sputtered out. “I was just really excited to tell everyone!”

Melty found that she couldn’t be upset at the girl, and internally noted that this emotion might be called ‘empathy’ by humans. She sighed, and began to explain herself.

“At one time, I observed this Earth from the abstract plane,” she recalled. “But I grew impatient with that perspective.”

“Impatient?” Bleech questioned.

She looked into her tea and continued.

“It’s difficult to describe the experience of astral being, but I suppose that’s the point, wasn’t it?” Melty looked off with a puzzled expression, touching a finger to her chin.

“Anyway!” she interrupted herself. “That was really the point, you see, because it’s impossible to understand what being alive is like from that viewpoint.”

The rest of the table stared at her curiously.

“I don’t have any intention of forsaking my power as an abstract being,” she clarified. “I don’t even know if such a thing is possible. However, I would really like to, um, ‘wrap my head around’ what humans are like.” Air quotes and a nervous smile accompanied the colloquialism.

“I took physical form at the base of this mountain, and with me, this cabin appeared as well,” she explained. “Most people shouldn’t be able to see spirits, but when we appear with solid forms, the process of manifesting can do all sorts of funny things to the space and time around us.”

Sonsee sat up, still waking up from her brief rest.

“Do you mean that this place is a Garden?”

Melty looked surprised. “Did you happen to know a blue, watery-looking woman, er, spirit?” she asked.

“I did!” Janna offered excitedly. “She was the spirit of the Garden of Armony!”

The elder woman laughed in response.

“Is that what she called herself?” she chuckled.

“What?” Janna asked cautiously. “What was her name?”

“Well, whenever I convened with her,” Melty elaborated. “I knew her as Roe-zed Demmali.”

Sonsee’s eyes widened as she heard this.

“Demmali?” she began slowly. “You mean that her name was Demmali?”

“Yes, why?” Melty tilted her head sideways.

“Demmali…” Sonsee’s voice nearly cracked. “Is ‘afterlife’ in Atamape…” Soft tears began to form in her eyes.

“Sonsee?” Janna asked, concerned. “Are you okay?”

Sonsee had a small, quiet smile that persisted as she wiped away her tears.

“I’m fine- I’m fine,” she managed to get out. “It’s probably not a good idea to get like this right after a recovery,” she laughed, and her smile grew into a grin. Gallow, Janna, and Bleech were put at ease when they saw that she was not, in fact, upset. If her people’s word for the afterlife had come from that spirit she couldn’t see…

“Pardon me, ma’am,” Sonsee continued. “But… what is the afterlife like? I mean, what happens when we die?”

“When people die?” Melty repeated, as if she wasn’t sure what the question meant.

“Yes, it’s just-” Sonsee took a moment to articulate herself. “My people had a legend, that when we died, we’d go to a world without suffering, to be with each other forever. Is that true?”

Melty paused and thought for several moments.

Her face became stony and serious as she contemplated, mulling over what she should tell this young woman; how much could she disclose? For what seemed like minutes, they stared at each other, wordlessly.

…

……

………

“I don’t really know!”

“What?!” Sonsee yelled, incredulously. Gallow really did spit his tea out this time, unable to control his laughter.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” she pushed further. “What were you thinking about that whole time?”

“I was trying to think if I knew anything,” Melty explained innocently. “It turns out I didn’t…”

Confusion bogged down Sonsee’s brain with hundreds of questions.

“Okay,” she began. “How are you this abstract spirit and not know things? Aren’t beings like you all-knowing?”

“Not really,” Melty replied. “The abstract plane isn’t quite like the physical one, but it can be traveled, and there are lots of different scapes and beings all about, shaping and manipulating it with their presence.” She took a long sip of her tea, letting out a pleased “ah” as she drank it, and then continued.

“Once you encounter something in the abstract world, it’s very likely that you’ll understand it immediately, but it would be a mistake to think that every being has traveled all throughout its infinity, as well as to think that every being is equally powerful.”

“You mean, for how interested you were in mankind, you never bothered to see what happens when we die?”

Melty looked at her like she’d asked a bizarre question.

“No?” she responded, unsure. “I’m more interested in what you live like, why do you think we’re having tea time?”

Gallow spoke up at this.

“Melty?” he interjected as politely as he could. “Tea time is more of a Hope thing.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“They do this, er, ‘across the pond,’ right?” he struggled to break it to her, but she didn’t seem to understand.

“As in, across the ocean, on another continent,” he clarified. “The country, Great Hopeland, they’re big fans of tea, but we don’t drink it much here in Andeidra.”

“You…” she asked slowly. “You don’t do tea time?” her voice was almost hurt.

Gallow suddenly felt a twang of guilt in his heart, like he’d spoiled her fun. Odd as it was, this millennia-old astral being was drawing the same kind of pity as a child discovering that a holiday myth wasn’t real.

“It’s not like I don’t enjoy your tea-” he disclaimed. “I’m just saying that if you were to meet someone from Andeidra, they might find it a little strange that you’re doing a custom from another culture.”

“Well, what do Andeidrans drink, then?” she posed innocently. Melty enjoyed the process of coming to understand new things, and she eagerly wished to adjust her practices.

“Most of the adults I knew drink some kind of liquor,” Gallow explained, as if he didn’t include himself as an adult.

“What kind of liquor?”

“Well-”

“Actually,” she interrupted. “I think I’ll stick to tea, I remember I tried a liquor one time, and it tasted awful. How do you people drink that stuff?”

“I don’t really drink anything but water,” Gallow said, holding his hands up. “I mean, they never let us have anything but water in the military before we were at least corporal rank, and by that time I wasn’t interested.”

“You never drank?” Bleech suddenly asked.

“Drinking in the military is a social activity,” Gallow offered. “And I… well, I didn’t make any friends.” He sounded almost sheepish about the experience.

“Why not?” Janna wondered aloud.

“Eh,” he tried to respond casually. “I came in as a troublemaker from bootcamp, and I never really wanted to be there in the first place.”

For some time, they sat around the table and made conversation. By the time night fell, all of them were tired, save for Melty, who didn’t experience tiredness or sleep. The woman of the mountain showed them to two separate guest rooms, one for Gallow and Bleech, the other for Sonsee and Janna.

The rooms were not impressively large, but each of them had two beds and a dresser, as well as a window to the outside. Gallow made himself comfortable, removing his boots and fixing up the sheets.

A sound from the other end of the room caught his attention. Bleech was shuffling around in his bag and pulled a small object out. Gallow didn’t look directly at him, but did so out of the corner of his eye, and saw that it was his small locket. The discreet clicking sound accompanied Bleech opening it to look at the paper moon inside.

The boy was turned away from him as he sat on his bed, but Gallow was able to tell from his posture that he was hunched over, examining it for some time. The little paper craft wasn’t really what interested him, as it may have interested Melty, it was here it took his thoughts. Small, otherwise meaningless objects like that could be portals for the mind to return to memories. Gallow reflected on this himself, his own thoughts drifting to his mother and home, his own lack of anything to remember them by.

When he was forced into the military, he left behind any and all possessions or keepsakes from his old life; the only memories he had were the ones he held onto desperately in his mind.

With a thoughtful kind of melancholy, Gallow ran his thumb over the sigil on the back of his right hand. In a strange way, new memories were burned into him through this symbol, in a way he’d never considered before. When he looked at it for long enough, his thoughts couldn’t help but be guided to his companions.

---

Sonsee rubbed her shoulders to ease the tension out of them, and finally laid down in bed, happy to get some rest after the tumultuous day. She rolled over to turn out the lamp on the nightstand, but stopped herself. Janna had retrieved a textbook from her suitcase and was diligently studying.

“Janna?”

The girl looked over, laying the book flat on her lap.

“Did you take any clothes with you?” Sonsee’s question was sincere, but almost came off like a joke for the absurdity of needing to ask that.

“Mhm,” Janna affirmed. “I had to leave a lot of my books on the train, but I made sure to pack this one in there.” She held it up for Sonsee to see the cover.

“The Hilltop Academy Medical Practitioner’s Guide to Treatment and Care,” she read out. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She didn’t smile, but felt a kind, warm feeling from seeing the girl pursue her goals so enthusiastically.

“Isn’t that what this whole journey is about?” she wondered. “This sweet girl?”

Despite her body’s tiredness, Sonsee couldn’t seem to slow her mind down from thinking, particularly about what Melty had said concerning the afterlife and Demmali. She knew that while in the Garden at Sigrit, she’d felt a great sensation of calm and peace in her heart. Were those the spirits of her people comforting her? Or was it just her mind convincing itself of that? If there really was a spirit like Melty in that place, who must have had some connection to the Atamape, what did she need to do to contact her? Was Demmali dead and gone with the Garden?

Sonsee awoke in the middle of the night, in pitch black, but wide awake. These thoughts were tearing away at her mind, she needed to get answers, and, if she was lucky, solutions.

She slowly rose from her bed, taking great care not to creal the floorboards too loudly, inching her way to the door. Her palm reached out to touch the handle; it was cool to the touch, but the contact sent a wave of pins and needles through her hand. Sonsee turned it, opening the door quietly.

She froze.

The space outside the door was not the open living area it had been during the day. It more closely resembled a long hallway, from what she could make out in the darkness. Sonsee looked back into the bedroom to the window, where nothing was visible from inside. It was as if the cabin was floating in space, an impenetrable void. As she stood silent in fear, something flicked past the glass of the window from the outside.

“What in the-” her mind raced. “That looked like… a… hand?”

Her pulse quickened as adrenaline began to run through her body. Sonsee caught hold of herself and took a long breath.

“I need to go forward, to find Melty.”

She planted her foot on the floor and turned back around, staring off into the hall. Clenching her fist to redirect her fear, she marched out into the blackness.

It wasn’t a particularly long hallway, but the act of crossing it was made more arduous by the sheer incomprehensibility of the world around her. How much couldn’t she see in this darkness?

Sonsee came to what she understood was a wall, and looked around for a turn. Down in one direction, around yet another corner, a faint green glow pulsated from somewhere far off. She turned and followed the light, eventually rounding the corner to see a vast open space of yet more darkness, however the edges of this space were able to be seen by the illumination. At the center of the glow was none other than Melty Green, floating effortlessly in the air, her arms and legs relaxed, her eyes closed and hands clasped at her waist.

The young woman approached her, prompting her eyes to open. Mustering up the courage to speak, Sonsee made her request.

“Melty, I want you to teach me spirit sight, like you did with Janna.”

The woman of the mountain extended a soft smile to her, unclasping her hands.

“Of course, but you know what you need to learn before that’s possible, don’t you?”

Sonsee looked her directly in the eyes and without hesitation responded.

“I’ll learn whatever I need to, just please, teach it to me.”

“Ms Sonsee-array,” Melty announced. “The experience has already begun.”

“The… experience?” Sonsee repeated nervously.

“Yes, we’re already under the effect of my Dominion, [SIAMESE DREAM]...”