Page 170 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I did this.

Wendy kisses his forehead. “Azaire Wendigo,” she whispers. “I do love you.” Then she sobs. “May we meet again.”

She walks to me and lays a hand on my shoulder. I can never tell her that I’m responsible for this.

I kneel over Azaire’s body and lay his beanie on his chest. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. Suddenly, I falter on my knees. I’m falling on myself and hugging Azaire’s dead body.

I’m crying.

“I’m so sorry, brother.”

If only I listened.

“I’m so, irrevocably, sorry,” I sob.

I can’t get up, even as Azaire’s body rapidly loses its heat. His blood isn’t pumping, his heart not beating. I’m never going to speak to him again.

He’s dead.

That can’t be. He was just here. A moment ago, we spoke. “Azaire?” I can’t stop myself. “Azaire, talk to me.”

He can’t be dead. He can’t be gone. This is not real.

Wendy hugs me. I feel her sobs as she must feel mine. “Come on,” she whispers in my ear and pulls me up. The blood of Azaire coats us both.

But it coats me in an entirely different way.

I killed him.

She holds me while we walk a few feet from Azaire. Letting me go, she holds her arms out as if the air around them is weighted.

The world begins to tremble.

Perhaps it is a dream.

The grass grows around Azaire’s body slowly, covering him entirely. From the grass, the trunk of a tree sprouts, growing into the sky and sprouting gray flowers.

That’s it, then?

A person doesn’t leave like this, doesn’t cease like this. He’s still out there, somewhere, he has to be.

But that’s not how it works.

I wrap my arms around Wendy’s shoulders. She gasps, then she turns to me, hugs me back, and we cry.

That’s how we spend the entire night. Crying in the silence and watching the sprouts of Azaire’s tree blow in the wind.

* * *

The vacancy is the only thing I feel, even as the kappa’s snake of a tongue bites further into the flesh of my arm. Its blank, dark face is looking at me, despite me not being able to make out its eyes.

I’ve killed two of its friends, comrades, other pieces of its soul for all I care.

I’m not a monster, they tried to kill me first. I don’t seek bloodshed. It seeks me. Even if I ventured into the mastick, shouting for the creatures to come and cutting my own self to lure them with the scent of my blood.

It’s not like I have any control anyway. My choices become my fate? My ass. If I even had control over my choices, even if I could say no to Lusia and Labyrinth, do I have the choice of my will?

Where’s my freedom? My visions force my hand as much as fear of Lusia and Labyrinth do.

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