Dwindle

I woke up and was immediately on my feet. Ollie stood with me. A look in my eyes startled him. Pulsing anger moved me. It drove me to breathe for it. It was the best drug I had ever taken – empowering, inundating.

  “Where is she?” I asked dangerously.

  “Where is who?”

  “WHERE IS SHE, DAMMIT?” I screamed. “WHERE THE HELL IS SHE!”

  “What are you –?”

  I thrust my gun out and shoved it to his face.

  “FADE!”

  He hesitated, surprised at my wrath.

  “Outside!”

  Before he could finish, I was out my own door. There was mass carnage everywhere. Blood and guts littered the dirt floor, and the smell of it hung in the air foully. The area was still. The only thing that moved was a lone figure at the top of the courtyard near the gate. She was chained there, a girl, nothing more. I ran up to her and ripped the ties from the ground. I then picked her up and shoved her down the hill. She cried out loudly and in surprise. I hated so much that she was alive.

  Ollie stood to the side. He knew. Suddenly, he knew everything that I felt and wanted to do.

  “Hey,” he reasoned plaintively, “just think for a second, kid, come on just – come on now just – THINK!”

  “Hey,” I whispered down to her.

  My fists were clenched not to finish it too fast. I couldn’t breathe with the knowledge of what I was about to do.

  “Hey, Fade!”

  I kicked her.

  “Look at me, Fade!”

  “Where’s Chess?” Fade asked me loudly.

  “Don’t you DARE SAY HIS NAME!” I shrieked, kicking her harder.

  She yelped, and I hated her more than I’d ever hated anything – more than Rhyme, more than the Undeath.

  I picked her up and punched her in the face. I took such pleasure from the noises she made, so I punched her again. And again. Until I breathed with it, until it was my only purpose. I began to drown in it, and soon I realized that I would do anything just to cause her pain. My inside feelings were finally on my outsides. She was my pain. And I liked it.

  “Chess…” she said over and over again, breathlessly. “Where is Chess?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about him,” I finally said breathlessly. “Not anymore. Didn’t you hear what happened to him? Or were you too deafened by the screams of the innocents you slaughtered to hear the news?”

  I picked her up as if she weighed nothing to me. I was surprised when she didn’t. My hands moved as if they had always moved to hurt and kill and the effort behind them was instinctive – like I was born to cause pain.

  Ollie was behind me, pacing beside us.

  “Hey, just stop!”

  I shoved her forcefully against the wall to the tower, my hand strangling her easily, ignoring the pain in my legs from my injuries and the scream from the muscles in my injured shoulder to stop.

  “Go away, Ollie!” I shouted.

  “No!” he pleaded. “I know how this feels! Please! Stop! It won’t help!”

  “I DON’T CARE!” I screamed, and Fade became my focus again.

  “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve killed someone, Fade?”

  “I don’t know,” she said back mockingly. “Maybe an hour or two.”

  “What can I say?” I asked venomously. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

  She struggled, and I laughed.

  “Afraid, hm?” I asked her, reveling in it. “Everyone else is. Why not you?”

  “I am not afraid of you!”

  “You’re all afraid of me!” I corrected.

  I stared around. Nobody emerged.

  “Do you hear that, Fade?”

  I paused purposefully.

  “That’s the sound of a handful of cowards who don’t give a shit about you or me. They’ll look out for themselves. That’s their problem, you know.”

  “Don’t talk to me about selflessness!” Fade screamed beneath my strong hands. “You’re the most selfish bitch I know!”

  “What happened to the little poor, wide-eyed girl we all used to know, huh?” I asked bitterly. “You used to worship us. Worship me. You kissed the ground I walked on. And for what? What happened?”

  Fade spat at me in response, and I screamed, throwing her behind me. I withdrew my knife from my boot, the presence I always had, and I sliced her arm. The feel of her flesh parting for me to draw blood was disturbingly enticing. I wanted her to suffer. She cried out at the action, bleeding, and I slashed again. It was satisfying, but I was irrational. It was not enough.

  I plunged the knife into her torso, near her lower abdomen, rushing her. She fell instinctively into me, eyes wide, in too much pain that even screams could not express that agony.

  And I laughed.

  “I…hate you,” she whispered slowly.

  “What happened, huh?”

  Fade didn’t answer. I slapped her across the face to get her attention, but her pain blinded her. I began to slap her this way and that, irrational, fury feeding my muscles instead of air.

  “WHY DID YOU OPEN THE GATE?” I raged.

  She didn’t answer.

  “You don’t even have an answer, do you, you pathetic excuse for a human?”

  “I hate you!”

  “You vile, absolute disgusting, horrible, ugly, stupid immature son-of-a-bitch!”

  Ollie sounded desperate, as if he were receiving my words.

  “Please –!”

  “Shut up, Ollie. I don’t care what you think. Not anymore.”

  I assumed he was disturbed at how like him I was – how my words had been his words when he was a murderer. He tried over and over again to stop me, never daring to approach. I was glad. I would have murdered him too if he tried to stop me. And that connection made sparks in the back of my head.

  I was committing a murder.

  “I hate you,” she breathed again.

  I punched her so hard that she fell, and my knuckles throbbed. I found Ollie’s pistol in my hands. How many times it had come in handy, I didn’t know, but it was so pleasant as she winced away from its barrel.

  “Afraid of justice, huh? Afraid of the consequences? What did you think was going to happen? We’d all be happy you’d done it?”

  She began to whimper.

  “Why did you have to do it, hm? What did you gain? Tell me, Fade. Come on…”

  My calmness was terrifying to her, unpredictable like Rhyme was. But it wasn’t satisfying enough.

  “TELL ME WHY YOU DID IT!”

  I fired past her head when she didn’t answer.

  “NOW!” I shrieked.

  “Because you had Chess! He loved you!” Fade spat the words out in desperation.

  I continued to advance. Tears ran down her face as she crawled desperately away.

  “You dared to keep on living after what you did, after you killed Skate, after you killed his mother, and you came back like nothing has happened! Like everything was okay!”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  I was actually surprised. If she was blind to my pain, she was born without eyes.

  “And you stole my happiness!” she continued desperately. “And you were using him…Chess…weren’t you, Myth? You kept him guessing, didn’t you?”

  I saw she was suffering. I saw that her stab wound was bleeding heavily. It began to show through to her outer clothes. I took ecstasy from the fact.

  But I had to ask.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You couldn’t love Chess. It wasn’t in you. It wasn’t your place to love him – you loved Foot! Foot was your thing – he was your toy. Do you think people don’t know what you do outside the wall? Do you think we can’t figure it out, you whore? We’re defenseless – not stupid!”

  “How DARE you!” I shrieked. “If you think that ANYTHING happened between that man and myself then you are far stupider than you look!”

  “Don’t deny it! You loved them both!”


  I opened my mouth but faltered. Some part of me told me not to address this, that to do so was a desecration of both of their memories. So I closed my mouth again.

  She laughed bitterly.

  “You can’t have it all, Myth!”

  And suddenly, she was screaming.

  “And now you won’t ever have it all! I’ve made sure of that!”

  A tear fell out of the corner of my eye. Chess was dead. The words reverberated.

  “Did you mean to do that, Fade?” I whispered. “Hm? To kill him too, you slimy little bitch?”

  I shot past her head. Fade winced.

  “TELL ME!”

  “I didn’t want to kill him!” she sobbed, almost to herself. “I wanted to kill YOU!”

  “Yeah?” I shouted. “I’M INVINCIBLE! HAVEN’T YOU FIGURED THAT OUT YET!?”

  And the small, civilized part of me that held on heard the bitterness, tried to reign in my fury, but it was too late, all too late.

  “NOW CHESS IS DEAD!”

  I punched her again with my gun and threw her behind me. There was blood on my hands.

  “AND NEITHER OF US WILL EVER, EVER, EVER SEE HIM AGAIN! EVER!”

  Tears flowed through me.

  The little voice in the back of my head was suddenly Ollie’s voice.

  “Please, Fisher, think for just a second. Try to think. Clear your head. Fight this!”

  “SHUT UP, OLLIE!”

  I fired the gun past Fade’s face as a warning to them all.

  “I didn’t mean it…I didn’t mean to…”

  “Aw…”

  I lifted her chin.

  “You didn’t mean it. That’s adorable. Little girl with a broken heart just wanted to get me out of the way. You know, there were a thousand other ways to do it, right? Burning me. Drowning me. Poisoning me. Gassing me. Trapping me. Stabbing me. Shooting me. And yet you chose to destroy everything just to get at me. And in the process you killed the last few people in this world who ever loved me.”

  “If I attacked you head-on, you would have killed me,” Fade whispered. “No, it had to be public. Had to be like this. Had to be.”

  I repeated what she said dumbly. Part of me made the connection that she too had lost her sanity, but the irrational part of me didn’t care.

  “What a fucking coward you are…” I whispered. “Did you really think that killing me would have made Chess love you?”

  “I don’t care what you say,” she snapped. “At least you can’t kill me.”

  “And why ever not?”

  “I know you hate killing things,” she snapped with a sneer.

  “I hate a lot of things, Fade. You’re just one of them.”

  “But you won’t kill me…” she said breathlessly.

  “I bring my enemies to justice, Fade,” I spat. “I bring those who deserve to die to their knees! And you, my silly little bread basket, deserve to die.”

  “What gives you the right?” she asked, now in a panic.

  “I don’t have one,” I said, realizing it. “It is a curse, stupid, little Fade!”

  I shoved her hard against another wall, my hand on her neck again. I was growing into a shout.

  “It is not a blessing to be bestowed the honor of doing away with the only people in the world who love you! I lost what I loved already, Fade! I wanted to love Chess! He wanted to love me! We planned a life together!” I couldn’t breathe. “I did love him! I always loved him!”

  Even if I didn’t always know it, it was instantly true. Sobs of regret blinded me. I felt unimaginable hurt at my ignorance. I felt like I’d wasted so much time on things that no longer made sense to me.

  “I HAVE NOTHING!” I sobbed. “And you still take from me! I wanted to help Chess! To protect him! And then you KILLED HIM! BOTH OF THEM…” I thought of Foot’s laugh. It was so goofy and annoying then. It brought me rage. “YOU KILLED FOOT! CHESS AND FOOT WERE MINE!”

  “Yeah? Chess failed to mention that when he was on top of me!”

  I faltered a little, knowing what she meant.

  “What?”

  “I had Chess already, Myth!”

  I saw that it was true. I knew that it was true. I felt betrayed by the words, and suddenly Chess’ words made sense.

  I’ve done a bad thing…

  And I’d pushed him on her. On Fade. On that little, conniving, psychopathic murderer.

  “It doesn’t matter if he’s dead or alive!” Fade yelled. “I already got what I wanted – I just wanted you not to have what you wanted! HE WOULDN’T LOVE ME – EVEN WHEN HE WAS WITH ME! HE SAID – HE SAID YOU TOLD HIM TO BE WITH ME BUT THAT – HE STILL LOVED YOU!”

  “THEN WHY DID YOU OPEN THE GATE!” I screamed, throwing her.

  “BECAUSE YOU WERE ALIVE, AND I KNEW THAT AS LONG AS YOU WERE ALIVE SOMEONE WE ALL LOVE IS GOING TO DIE! THAT’S THE WAY YOU WORK! YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL AND STUNNING AND POWERFUL AND NOBODY CAN RESIST YOU! AND THEY FOLLOW YOU UNTO DEATH, AND HAND CANNOT AFFORD IT! IT COULD NOT! SO I DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT!”

  Her words were brimming with jealousy.

  “I HAD SKATE, AND YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME. WE WERE TO BE MARRIED! DID YOU KNOW THAT? AND SOMETHING INSIDE OF ME SNAPPED WHEN YOU MURDERED HIM! AND I KNEW, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED, I WOULD AVENGE SKATE’S DEATH! I WOULD MURDER YOU, NO MATTER WHAT IT TOOK! WEASEL MY WAY INTO YOUR HEART LIKE A WORM AND SOW THE SEEDS OF LOSS AND PAIN LIKE YOU’VE NEVER FAILED TO REAP IN ME! AND SO I GOT CHESS DRUNK, AND I WENT ONTO HIM, AND HE SHARED MY BED! AND I THOUGHT OF YOU, OF HOW MUCH BETRAYAL YOU WOULD FEEL, AND I LAUGHED AT THE THOUGHT OF YOUR PAIN!”

  “What about last night?”

  “LAST NIGHT WAS ABOUT FINALITY, MYTH! REVENGE! RHYME HEARD YOU TELLING OF THE UNDEAD, AND HE KNEW – HE KNEW – THAT WE HAD TO BRING THEM HERE, LET THEM IN, MAKE SURE YOU DIED WITH THE AWFUL POISON THEY CARRIED!”

  I hated her everywhere, just as much as I suddenly saw that she hated me. And I realized that while my rage existed, she could not be alive. If I was alive, she needed to die. Our existence was suddenly incompatible. My rage blinded me into a passion of fury and malice both beyond description and beyond reason. I was inconsolable, a monster of twisted will and hate to explode from the dark depths of my soul.

  I stared down at what I was about to dispose of. She deserved to die for what she had done to me.

  “Fine…” I spat the word.

  I was beside my knife, and I bent to pick it up. I threw it at her.

  “What the fuck is this?” she snapped at me breathlessly.

  She picked up the knife tentatively, obviously confused.

  “Get up and fight me,” I demanded.

  “Who do you think you are?” Fade asked, putting up a front that I saw through easily.

  She was terrified to fight me one-on-one.

  “I am not you,” I said slowly. “And that’s all that matters. Now, get up and fight me. I’ll give you a chance to fight for your life. If you win, I die, and we both walk away satisfied.”

  “I won’t,” she said childishly, and she threw the knife at my feet.

  I cocked Ollie’s pistol and stood parallel to her, ready and waiting to fire if she refused.

  “I said – stand.”

  “Kiss my –”

  I punched her hard. She fell, but again she threw the knife beyond me confidently. Her words were so insane to me, so evil, as she whispered,

  “I won’t fight you, Myth.”

  I laughed then.

  “Fine…but I gave you the chance.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Fade said, shrugging.

  “Doesn’t matter what you think. Ready to die?”

  She had the gall to laugh.

  I scowled and thrust my pistol to her forehead where she was kneeling. It felt good there – like it belonged there. Her eyes looked to it. She was surprised and, for the first time, truly afraid. I was satisfied. It felt so dark, but it was a drug. I knew there would be no turning back. I wouldn’t be able to ignore that
monster after I felt how easy it was to end someone’s life on purpose.

  “I hate you,” she whispered again, trying with all her might to convey it through her eyes to mine.

  “I don’t care,” I whispered, standing fully.

  And I didn’t. About anything.

  “I just want you to die.”

  I fired the gun with a loud, deafening ring, and suddenly her head wasn’t there anymore. Blood immediately began to spill from her lifeless eyes, the eyes that I hated. It pooled around her body as a cancer, and I turned away from that body in disgust.

  I thrust the gun from me, staring, watching her bleed. It was so terribly easy. And guiltless. So, so, so easy. Before I blacked out, before I fell into a stupor that kept me asleep for hours beyond what I had ever slept, I knew that I had done a very bad thing, and, for the first time in my life, I just honestly couldn’t care.