midnight gospel . jupiter, day four

[pogue]

He holds himself together as Lucia finally falls to the sand.

Her cannon shreds the sky as it booms above them, parting the clouds and echoing across the blue expanse, rattling him from the outside in and inside out. Stoic, silent, stabbed in pride and heart he looks towards Artemis as the veil and the silence threaten to dissipate between them both, blade still buried in Lucia's chest and chain rattling softly- not from the wind, but from his own adrenaline-fueled heartbeat.

He's not ready for another fight between the two of them, even though he's white-knuckling the chain and staring her down something fierce, feral, rabid, blood dribbling from his own wounds in a mirror of hers. Breath caught in lungs then carving its way into his throat, waiting for the other shoe to drop and the other blade to strike.

He doesn't know if it's luck or stupidity that she gathers her things, a mix of anger and fear on her face, and rushes off in the other direction. He doesn't know if it's luck or stupidity that he does not follow her- that he can't bring himself to do it.

He holds himself together, piece by shredded piece, until her shadow finally slips beyond the surface and into nothing.

Then, he curls over and vomits the empty innards of his own stomach out into the sand, a disgusting mix of black and red coating the surface of the sand he drowns in. His insides ache as he hurls, claw and fang coated in acid scratching up the inside of his throat in between glances at Lucia's corpse, delusion and reality melding together in the chaos that is a boy turned killer. A small part of him, nestled in nightmare and fear believes that she is playing possum with him, that the way her fingertips still rest on the hilt of her glaive means she's going to wait until his shadow meets her form, that the steel is going to make its way into his own heart.

Fear of her joining him once more. Fear of him joining her, too.

Broken, beaten, battered and bruised- he finally rights himself when there's nothing but a void in place of his own stomach, acid and vomit staining his uniform. There are tears that streak down his cheeks, arc from flesh to chin before joining the vomit on the ground. There's something vile that curls around his shoulders, voice in back of his head rushing forward with a solemn reminder, dragging him from ruthless killer back to his own reflection.

Failure, cowering in fear at your own actions.

Failure, turning on worn heel and running from his actions.

Failure, letting the ghost of a girl he hardly knew come with him.

Lucia still clings to his memories as he arrives at the towering expanse of rising and falling shadows, red bleeding into black as the landscape shifts into something else entirely. Void walking, the cycle he's been riding slowing to a crawl and then a halt as he finally comes to a rest. He slicks the sweat from his brow, crawls his way from the vehicle and rises to stand on shaking legs, looking into the distance and feeling it stare back through him.

A shadow of a boy bleeds into the rising sun, torching himself and what's left of his soul into oblivion.