Chapter 64 - Look

Iris

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Corryn paused, glancing upwards at the sky through the mottled shadows cast by the wizened, bitter-dry leaves of the trees above. Beyond them, the tiny specks of light seemed to shift and shrink and grow before his eyes, some made waxy and thick by passing smears of leftover cloud.
Stars.
Corryn scoffed quietly under his breath, wry grin twitching at his lips. He remembered an old illustration from a time he could no longer recollect, of tipped yellow shapes thick and fat across a dark blue sky. It was false, just as everything else from his past life was false. A lie, an illusion, a fading gray-stained memory in a senile old mind, a story played by lips, distorted beyond reality, beyond recognition or truth.
Nothing mattered now. Iris could choose to live, or he could choose to die. The world could groan and sigh and weep and end, and it would not matter.
Corryn no longer wanted to know his real name. He did not wish for company or reason or retribution. Nor, for that matter, for death.
He was fine with solitude, with the singular reason for living: nothing.
And, of course, to see things through.
He’d known, of course. He’d known all along, somewhere inside, that Iris was nothing but a dream, an illusory creature he could touch but never hold. He knew the boy never truly listened to him, never really saw him, always looking over his shoulder, peering through the tangled mess of hair and weak smiles and golden eyes, searching for a reflection.
And that was all right. Corryn had let him go, pulling himself away, closing his eyes and turning his gaze aside, knowing that if he could only see the gray and muddled world again, he’d be able to stand on his own. And he had.
But that didn’t stop him from sticking around.
Valkyre… the pure angel with his tainted blood, the archangel staggering up from the fall, with the violet eyes that pierced like jagged, steel-sharp ice, yet that softened to warmth and heat, burning up embers like a newborn fire kindling to life from the ashes and bitter dust of shattered glass and corroded steel and stone…
Valkyre was one to keep his eye on. Corryn had given up his duty and turned it over to the angel, but as to whether or not Valkyre would be able to live up to the task he was presented… Time would tell. Short, fleeting time. All the time in the world, in the next few hours. That was all that was left of the world, after all.
Corryn closed his eyes briefly, turning his head away from the sky above. Regardless, he still had things to accomplish. Corryn darted through the forest quickly, brittle leaves crackling as they were turned to dust beneath his heels and palms. He could taste the faint, dull metallic edge in the air, along with the scent of tepid blood.
Rheis had no aura, but that didn’t make him impossible to track. And with the way he moved now, in staggering, blundering steps, it was easy for Corryn to locate the dark-blooded twin.
He found Rheis slumped against the base of a brittle, stiff tree, head down, dark hair falling over his face, strands catching in the corners of his lips. His clothes were torn and uncared for, the pale skin beneath almost glowing in the darkness, bruised and graying. When the dark-blooded male looked up, his eyes were a flat black that showed no hint of recognition or realization. He was already dead.
Corryn grinned to himself, taking in the sorry sight. The faintest light of the stars glinted off the wires embedded in the skin, sharp and harsh like torn nails or scraped skin.
When he spoke, the words were monotone and bland, yet weak and tremulous, like a frightened child finding its voice.
“…reason.”
Corryn blinked, shifting forward slightly. Rheis turned his blank, black-eyed stare to the other, gazing at him yet seeing nothing.
“…What… reason…? reason…”
Corryn sat back on his haunches, wetting his lips. His fingers scratched at a small nick in his ankle, knuckles brushing against crusty and dry earth.
“None,” he replied, calmly.
Rheis blinked, twice. Slowly, his lips moved, voice dry and devoid of emotion. Yet his eyebrows drew in slightly, the corners of his mouth drawing down.
“…reason,” he repeated. “Reason for…”
Corryn sighed, pushing himself forward.
“There is no reason, you fool. No meaning. No purpose. …Of course…”
He paused, seeing the other shifting his body slowly, rising, pale hands tensing, mouth setting into a thin line, expression empty.
“Of course… you wouldn’t understand.”
For such of a broken being, Rheis moved fast in the dark, blending and pushing forth from the shadows like an extension of it, the visible parts of pale skin becoming a glowing blur. Corryn dodged the first blow, grabbing the other by the wrist and arm and slamming him down to the ground, pulling Rheis off-balance. The dark-blooded male twisted around, feet scrabbling for purchase, finding it in the dry and shriveling roots of a tree, pushing himself forward and against the other.
Corryn hissed in annoyance, jumping clear, ducking to the side of a tree as the other followed, pale hands lashing out, chipped fingernails catching a sliver of light, faint and dull like dusty plastic.
The next blow missed entirely, ripping up the brittle fibers of a tree trunk, leaving surprisingly heavy gashes in the stiff wood, splinters flying. Corryn darted low, aiming for the legs, swipes just barely missing as the other leapt up into the air, Corryn’s hands catching only at a frayed piece of clothing, ripping apart easily between his fingers.
He heard the rustle of leaves and small branches snapping, and grinned to himself.
The pain was nothing, pushed to the back of his mind easily, the wet sound somewhat like splitting cloth muffled in the air, stifled by the silence.
Then there was the sudden ‘hmmph,’ and a sound like a blunt blade biting into soft wood.
Corryn straightened himself slightly, though he remained in a half-crouch, one hand pressed flat to the ground in support. He willed the bones and joints to cooperate, withdrawing and pulling back slowly, folding in towards his body again. Rheis was brought down as well, though Corryn’s bone-like limb held not the strength to hold him steady, and so the dark-blood’s body fell with a heavy thump to the ground, stirring up dust that clung to the dark blood seeping from his split skin.
Corryn took a half-step closer, smiling, breathing in the clouded taste of death and leaking blood. He stared down at the limp body, at the pale bone that had run through Rheis’s lower torso, exiting mid-back. The dark-blooded male was gasping for breath, in slow and sudden intakes and exhales, eyes wide and vacant. His blood was slicked black in the darkness, like ink spilling over his pale skin and staining into the torn shreds of clothing.
Corryn cocked his head to one side, studying the other’s ragged breathing and twitching limbs, black hair loosening and falling over the expressionless face. After a while longer, he withdrew the limb, watching the other’s back arch as Rheis’s body inevitably clung to the bone, then finally succumbed to gravity and fell back with a dull thud to the ground.
Corryn closed his eyes, tilting his head back and letting the hair fall away from his face. He let the limbs around him slowly withdraw, folding over on into themselves until they slid back beneath his skin, vanishing. He didn’t… want to have to use them again. He didn’t want to be a monster, a something nameless nothing crawling around in the dark. He didn’t want the pain, or the broken skin, or the reminder of what his body was doing to itself, how the wounds were so slow to heal now and how the scabs never seemed to go away.
He opened his eyes to a clear night sky and silence, to his own familiar body, frail and yet tough, wiry yet fragile, like empty eggshells.
He heard a broken, quavering breath to his side, almost inaudible. Corryn lowered his gaze, then quickly stepped over to the body lying on the ground, crouching close, rocking on his heels, peering down into unseeing eyes and slightly parted lips through which a thin trickle of blood ran along the side of the dark-blood’s face, drawing a black line over the skin, bleeding into the edges of the embedded wires.
Corryn reached out a hand like a curious child, hesitant and slow, touching the cool and smooth skin, picking strands of hair away from Rheis’s eyes and mouth. His fingers left behind a silvery, quivering line of thread, glimmering in the faint light.
Rheis’s staggering breath turned into a weak hacking cough, mouth parting and closing, still forming the shapes to the same words, thoughtless.
“Hmn.”
He wasn’t sure what whim it was, but Corryn sighed and moved, sitting down behind the dark-blood’s head. When he touched the other’s head, he was surprised at how thin and light the hair was, at how tender the flesh was beneath the scalp, feeling the round shape of the head and the cool skin devoid of warmth. Slowly, carefully, with a tender touch he didn’t know he still had, Corryn pushed the other’s head up over his crossed legs, tilting back the face, brushing away the dark and unkempt hair.
“Look.” His voice was an unnatural breathy whisper, but he no longer cared.
Upside-down, he saw Rheis blink, black eyes widening then refocusing, emptily reflecting the faint splatter of stars as white dabs of smudged light on his black eyes.
Corryn didn’t expect the dark-blooded male to understand. He didn’t care. He wondered if Rheis could still feel the warmth emanating up from his ankles and palms and calves, if he could feel the lightness of the air more brushing against his skin than weighing down, if he could understand this one tiny detail to life and let go of his pointless search for meaning in a mental, digital world of fragments and wisps of consciousness.
Corryn tilted his head back as well and stared into the empty abyss of the sky, body relaxing, breaths slowing as he sat back and waited for the end.

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AN: Yeah, and update. ...I promised to do a chapter a week, and then I remembered that I'm going away to Canada soon for a week plus, and after that, I'm juggling between all these summer programs, so, uhh... I kinda actually realized that I have no time for anything soon. D:
Anyway, another chapter. I was bored so, yeah, I did one for Corryn. And because it's not fair to make Valkie-baby deal with everything, ne? ;D
I'm hoping my writing is still okay. It's a little rushed and it's hard for me to find time for all this, but~ hope it's still decent.
I'll try to fit in at least one or two more chapters before I leave on the 27th, 'kay?
Thanks everybody!!

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