Hangman Chapter 9

Chapter 9-

Warren Roseraid.

The name sent spikes of sorrow through Gallow’s heart.

“Who is he to you?” the Spirit questioned.

Gallow was slow to respond. He opened his mouth, but by the time he built enough strength to speak, his words were careful, calculated.

“If we’re up here… then this must be…” he paused for a moment before continuing. “Warren lived in an orphanage, here in Pettma,” he started. “My dad was... killed in action in the Andeidra-Demeena War; my mom did social work at this orphanage, so I spent a lot of time here when I wasn’t at school.” He stopped once more, pensive in his wording.

Time seemed to melt into the sunset; the warm orange tones suddenly dominated the sky, and the two boys sat side-by-side on the roof’s edge.

“Hey, Warren?” the little Gallow said.

“Yeah?”

“What do you wanna do when you grow up?”

“Uh…” Warren’s eyes drifted off into the skyline, his voice trailing off lazily.

“Even as a kid, Warren was special,” Gallow explained. The distance behind them folded into darkness, the Spirit turned around to see the memories in his mind take shape. Framed behind the two was a new scene, pressed against the rooftop. From where they stood, the atrium of the orphanage was constructed, the front door, painted an apple green; the floor checkered with black-and-white octagonal patterns. On the left side, a black-painted iron staircase rose to the higher floors. A coat rack and umbrella bucket were placed together next to the entrance.

The front door opened, light streamed in and the small Gallow entered with his mother. She was a spacey-looking woman with tired eyes, streaks of gray slashed her long brunette hair, and she wore a light pink dress spotted with white polka dots.

“Elaine?” his mother called out. Upon receiving no response, she walked over to a door built into the side of the staircase and knocked, repeating her call. A woman older than her opened up and greeted her, welcoming her back.

“I remember, my mom had volunteered a few times before, and figured she wouldn’t have to pay for a nanny if she brought me along.”

From out of the older woman’s office, a little boy walked out.

“Oh, well, he can play with Warren here, it’s much better for him than helping me do papers,” The elderly Elaine said with a withered, sing-song voice. Warren stepped over the threshold, dressed in an ill-fitting white shirt and tweed pants, dirty and stained.

“My mom always made sure I dressed good- she got some nice checks from the government, she always said it would make people respect me more- if I wore nice clothes. But Warren was bizarre, he was a poor orphan without any new clothes to speak of. By all accounts, I should have looked down on him, he had nothing to his name. But somehow, from the moment I laid eyes on him, I could feel his presence. It was like the presence of an adult, when you know you can’t do anything bad, but he was calm- and really cool.”

Gallow sheepishly stepped out and extended his hand.

“N-nice to meet you, I’m Ajax, Ajax Clarke.”

The Spirit looked at Gallow with a kind curiosity, he openly winced at the words of his younger self, as if he had forgotten this detail of the past.

“Maybe I should tell you,” he began, begrudgingly. “But Gallow isn’t my birth name. I used to be known as Ajax Clarke.” His nonchalant attitude was a little surprising to her, as if he was focused on matters much larger than his name.

Suddenly, the memory trailed away, and various scenes of childhood flashed by, the two of them always together. It was undeniable that Warren was not intriguing from the outset; he had piercingly blue eyes; his hair was blond, though the tips of his hair turned to a charred black color, as if his light follicles were burnt at the end. When he was left at the orphanage doorstep he was an infant, and his unusual hair color was as mysterious as his true parentage.

Gallow turned back to the rooftop, and again the scrapbook faded away into darkness. Now all of his focus was directed back to the two of them sitting on the roof, legs dangling over the edge.

“Oh, I know!” Warren said excitedly, having thought of his answer.

“Yeah?”

“Well, Sister Elaine always tells us that we need to pray each day before we go to sleep…”

“Uh huh?”

“I don’t really like doing that all that much, but we need to so the devil doesn’t take us, that’s what she says.”

Warren paused for a second to articulate his thoughts.

“So, I figure that I could just make it so that we don’t have to worry about him, right?”

Gallow’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t get it,” he said bluntly.

Warren thought for another moment about how best to get across what he wanted to do when he grew up, giving a low “hmmm…” before his eyes perked up in realization.

“I’m going to go to Hell and kill the Devil!”

Gallow’s eyes widened; a statement like that was unexpected to say the least.

“I remember his face when he said that, it must have been the first time he ever articulated it.”

The Spirit turned her gaze from the memory to Gallow, who was only staring ahead, deep in thought.

“I don’t think,” he began, “that he knew what that would mean.”

A gust of wind picked up, leaves flew by as the skyline was swept away and replaced by the oppressive darkness. For a seemingly unending distance was nothing but black beyond the edge of the roof.

Years bled by the two ethereal onlookers, seasons passed from one to another, the two boys grew up. The bricks and mortar of the rooftop fell away and was replaced by the concrete ground of an alleyway. Gallow turned his attention down the alley, to where his younger self and Warren were approaching from the streetside.

“This should be…” Gallow thought aloud. With a sudden defeat in his voice, he whimpered, “yes…”

The memories seemed to slow down as he reminisced on this time and place. “I remember one of these two buildings- I think it’s that one,” he said, pointing at one of the multi-storied structures that enclosed the alley. “That was a seedy hotel, and the other one,” pointing again to the other building, “that was a bar. I remember one time, when we were both fifteen, Warren tried to get in there and started a fight with the bouncer. He broke his nose and had to tell Sister Elaine that he walked into a pole blindfolded.” A small chuckle escaped his lips, but the Spirit could sense a regret in his chortle, a feeling that, despite being humorous, the memory held some bitter significance for him.

“That was the first time I ever saw him do something that got me worried,” he began pensively. “That was a few weeks before this day; I remember seeing we were in this part of town, and I got a little worried. For a moment, I saw the bar and I got a little relieved- maybe he was just going to get in a fight again; I mean, not like I wanted my best friend to get hurt, but at least I could anticipate it.”

Gallow turned his attention back to the memory, which began to reenact at a normal speed once more. The worry on his face was evident, this was clearly an unpleasant experience.

The young Gallow and Warren continued their approach, Gallow’s face painted with concern, his eyes darting about.

“So… who are we meeting here?” he asked, cautiously.

“Just a friend,” Warren replied.

About fifteen feet down the alley, a boy who was a few years older than both of them was leaned against the wall, dressed in a long overcoat and a bowler hat. They made eye-contact, and Warren slowed down to approach him.

“Hey, I’m Warren, you’re Jemin?” he opened.

The older boy looked the two of them up and down, slowly piecing together an impression of each through their expression and body language.

“Yeah, I’m him, are you looking to buy?” he proposed, after his analysis was done.

“When he said ‘buy,’ I had all these alarm bells go off in my head.”

The older boy opened up the long coat draped over his shoulders to reveal rows of pockets, each filled with individual bags of powders of varying hues.

“What’ll it be?”

“I could feel it, it was palpable, that this was a bad place to be. No matter what happened, this would be a disaster.”

Warren raised a finger to point out a bag.

“That one’ll be good.”

Jemin peered at his selection, nestled in the folds of his coat, and promptly stated “That’s 80 for an ounce.”

“Hey!” a shout echoed from down the alleyway.

“Disaster.”

All three of the boys’ heads snapped to the direction of the shout. From the other end of the alley, the one closer to them, two policemen stood in dark blue uniforms, buttoned down the center with inexpensive silver fasteners.

“Get out,” Warren commanded to his two peers. Gallow stood perfectly still, frozen by a wave of shock. He had never had any run-ins with law enforcement, and his mind was inundated with dreadful simulations of what this confrontation would entail.

The dealer sprinted off in the opposite direction, Warren followed suit. However, after only a few paces, he stopped and turned back to look at Gallow, frozen in fear.

“Come on!” Warren called; the patrolmen would catch up to them any moment, but Gallow’s body couldn’t move. He slowly turned his head to face his best friend.

“I-I-” he choked.

The alleyway was sweeped by a darkness which, upon passing, revealed to the two observers a jail cell where the young Gallow and Warren sat.

“This was the scariest moment of my life, I can still recall how hard the floor was, all concrete.”

The four grey cement walls seemed to loom above the teenagers, the evening sky was visible outside a high barred window; they sat on either side of it opposite the steel barred door. Gallow’s face was one of panic, his eyes wide and frantic. Warren, on the other hand, sat cooly, contemplating the situation with an unperturbed expression.

Cautiously, Gallow’s face tilted to his friend’s direction.

“Why did we do this?”

Warren turned to him, his expression unchanging.

“And I’ll never forget what he said to me.”

“Do you know why, in the Holy texts, the saviour died in front of a salamander?”

Silence hung in the air.

“No.”

“Because in the ancient region they lived, the salamander was revered for its ability to regrow its tail. The verse reads ‘And he fell to the ground before a salamander, and his body was covered up by the Earth, and his spirit became endowed by the Earth as its new life.’”

“What do you mean?”

“The secret to true life lies after death. Just like the Saviour created the Heavens from the Hell, I will complete their mission.”

Warren got to his feet and turned to the window above them, pointing outwards toward the sunset. Rays of orange light cascaded down from Heaven.

“I will become a Salamander. I will defeat the Devil no matter what it takes.”

“Where… where did you come up with this?” Gallow asked quiveringly.

Warren lowered his hand, his hair glimmered in the sunset, his calm eyes pierced through Gallow’s being.

“These thoughts fell down from Heaven, and I picked them up.”

Silence again filled the room, like a vacuum of existence, utterly unreal. Slowly, Gallow again opened his mouth.

“So why are we here?”

Warren’s eyes cast downward with a sudden pitiable inflection.

“Because I’m going to go to Hell. This is a minor setback for a minor step.” His voice was suddenly cold and hard, unlike the previously ethereal tone his words emanated before.

“The law only exists for people who are too weak to free themselves from the chains of the World. This place was built to strangle repentance out of people like that. I’m not looking for forgiveness.”

He paused for a moment.

“Will you go with me there? To the place I’m going?”

With as much suddenness as before, his voice was marked with a tender sadness.

“I-” Gallow choked. “I don’t think I can.”

His words hung in the air, resonating in both their minds silently. Warren turned his head downward and away to stare off at the ground.

“Shame,” he said. “This world is lonesome enough.”