blood red moon
~ a Shadow of Destiny fanfiction
“... small town witch come to mess me up again.”
~Sneaker Pimps, “Small Town Witch”
Chapter Five
How many times had he fallen through time, from that first breathless fright until now? Eike had lost count somewhere after the second trip through 1920, lost interest when he could close his eyes and see the street before him in an endless number of eras. Each of them had flickered to the same abrupt end, with the sight of pale hair, red eyes, she was trying to kill him and she had all the time in the world - every time, really.
He would see her, and all at once, he would be falling again - no sign of Homunculus through all of this, not after that very first leap. No hint of what the strange man had planned, no hope that this was ever going to end.
Eike hit the next era no different than most, in the usual unforgiving slam, thankfully first on his side rather than his stomach, his shoulder coming down hard against the side of a door before he dropped to the ground. It took him a few minutes to gather the strength to lift his head.
Candles were burning on both sides of the small chapel, with no sign of a prayer book or other text, no holders for psalm books in the pews. He’d gotten used to scanning his surroundings immediately for clues that would tell him where he was, no matter how short a time he usually spent in any era.
//Middle Ages, then. Why here... maybe... I don’t know...//
He was too exhausted to be analytical, almost gladly letting that part of his mind shut down.
//At least the blood seems to be stopping...//
The wound Dopple had given him was still bleeding here and there, in places where his rough treatment had reopened it, and the stiffly-drying jacket hurt where it brushed against his skin. Eike winced, slowly dragging himself off the floor to the nearest pew, slumping into it gratefully.
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He didn’t mean to fall asleep, though it was really more of a daze, restless thoughts now permanently fixed on listening for any strange, unknown sound, anything that meant he had been found. Eike just could not keep his eyes open, could not move, let alone run anymore. The loss of blood, not to mention how moving through time so unexpectedly seemed to turn him inside out, it was all taking a heavy toll on him.
//Worse than before... with the Digipad. It doesn’t seem to matter where I go, either... she’ll follow me anywhere, no matter who’s around. I don’t know what -//
Green eyes shot open as a hand very gently touched his neck - he hadn’t seen Dopple coming, hadn’t heard anything - and before he knew it Eike had lunged over the bench in front of him, somehow scrambling to his feet and to the aisle, waiting for an attack that didn’t come, watching her watch him...
He hated the abrupt drop, when he was pulled into the stream of time, but had grown accustomed to it, felt the panic rising as he continued to move back in the chapel and nothing happened. He was still in the Middle Ages, with the flickering candles and the simple altar and she was still walking toward him... Dopple, his own personal destroyer.
- and Eike reminded himself yet again, that this could very well be all Homunculus’s newest game, an amusement, a way the timeless passed time. The moment the pale man decided he was bored, or that it would be more amusing to see him suffer... the blonde had no weapons, no chance, no hope at all.
“Please don’t kill me. Please.” It was all he had left, desperate words coming out of their own accord though he figured it wouldn’t change much. “Whatever I did, I didn’t know... whatever he did to me, I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it.”
“Of course you did, even I know that.” The porcelain girl had only two moods, it seemed, puzzled and delighted. Currently, she wore the former, though it was no less threatening. “How..? I don’t understand how you don’t... know...”
“... God, does that make two of us.”
Eike barely breathed the words as he continued to step backward, keeping a careful, straight path toward the altar, brushing against the edges of the pews, mind racing - what would happen when he ran out of space, what would happen - oh god... A new, sickening pang of terror exploded in his chest, long after he thought he’d ran out of the sense or the energy to be frightened.
//... can’t die... don’t want to die.//
Eike gaped, as one of the pews behind them suddenly split apart, groaning sharply as the wood twisted into splinters. At first he thought it had fragmented, shattered - but it was nothing so mundane - the shards of wood hung in the air, almost floating - and the strangeness was spreading.
Fractals of light cut through the air as if it were made of ice, glittering here and there in lines of well-sharpened fury, jagged and shifting in seemingly random patterns, until they angled down sharply and shattered the blade in Dopple’s hand.
The pale girl yelped, pulling her hand away, but the fragments of the knife hovered where they were, just like the broken pew, a few pieces falling like leaves, many flickering out of existence before they ever hit the ground.
“He’s trying to undo this... he can’t pull you away, I’ve stopped that, and he can’t come here, so he’s trying to undo... but he cannot, when I am made of what he is not.”
“... what he is not?”
“Jinni... creature of fire, a common demon, trapped within the stone. I am not.”
Well, /that/ was some new information, although Eike doubted he’d live long enough for it to be of much use.
He was angry with himself, at how much he’d come already to fear her smile, the studious way she watched him, so carefully - she was going to /do/ something, and his insides twisted in helplessness. He wondered if he could rush her, if he might be able to get by her before she...
//... and then where? And how quickly, before she finds another weapon?//
“If I just /showed/ you, then this would all be so much easier.” Red eyes were cast towards her own clasped hands. Showed him? Showed him what?!
//... not good, Eike... not good at all.//
“So what are you then, if you’re not like him?” He tried to ignore the tight, high-pitched panic in his voice, still moving backward - //come on Homunculus, now would be a /perfect/ time to show up...// - “What are you?”
He winced, watching cracks shiver up under the stone beneath his feet, tiny gleaming lines - but the way they cut through the stone and wood was wrong. It was as if the benches, the floor, the very air all existed on a single, flat plane. Homunculus /was/ trying to reach him, then, and his struggle with this girl was pulling time to pieces.
“I’m the stone, the pure essence, given form, the power to manipulate time.”
He could see it now, as she lifted her hand, like threads of glass glimmering slightly between her fingers.
“Why are you so confused? You should know... you made me.” Her brow furrowed slightly, “but that comes later, so maybe you don’t know...”
“I made you? Wait... /I/ made you!?” Not just Homunculus, then? He had done it /again/, he would do it again, create this nightmare?
//... can’t sleep, dreaming in time and everything’s falling... it hurts, I can’t begin to make sense of it and as an abstract concept it will not let me sleep, I don’t know... I don’t...//
Eike winced, pressing his palm against his temple at the sudden, scratchy murmur that slid swiftly through his mind - cracks in his own hand now, glowing and gleaming and rendering him just another image in this flat and fractured world, and he turned his head away - don’t think about it, don’t think, don’t think just don’t think...
//So many years, so many years alone, it all came down to him, he did this to me, he did this to me and I had to make him suffer nothing else was left. He had to suffer, when there was nothing else left in the entire world.//
Eike knew he had to keep moving away from the girl, crimson eyes were still gazing down on him and Dopple was still very much a threat, but the thoughts assailing him /hurt/, a crippling pain that rendered every other sensation nonexistent, forcing him to his knees.
“What... what are you d-doing?”
“Memories. You need to see, and then you’ll understand, you’ll stop fighting me.”
Fragments, dim and blurry and flashing past in swift succession, and some of them /were/ his past, he could see old buildings, strange faces - but what terrified him was the constant undertone, snatches of thought, crackling mutters of fury and madness, him, he knew it was him, but it couldn’t have been before, nothing that was /before/ now...
“Memories of what will happen... you see why you need to die? You see that it will hurt him?”
//Future... memories?//
Homunculus, standing frozen and startled - the expression did not look right on him, as the djinn stared at him - but it was not him, could not be...
//Me. The future me.//
Grayed and haggard and skeletal, standing alone in a frozen room, the scent of ozone like silicon flowers hanging in the air, electronics softly humming... a plan, a dance of numbers that had taken him long days, hours melding into years, hundreds of years to set into action - not the girl, not the stone, not yet.
It had gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong, and he - useless, frail, human - he had heard time screaming, a million shifting futures vaporized, burned away like sunlight on undeveloped film.
The shock of it drove everything to silence - and then all his thoughts were screaming.
//What did I do... oh god what did I do?//
Or more accurately, what would he do?
Homunculus watching him, in that future, as he accepted the blade that plunged into his chest, longing for death and in love with the girl who granted it, the girl who was not a girl, the creature who wasn’t even a demon - and he loved her only because he had created her to be vengeance - she was pure destruction.
He was that warped, broken creature - billions, he had... he had killed...
... and he was at the bottom of the altar, staring up into the high, simple criss-crossing beams of the church, the edge of the gilt crucifix barely visible from where he lay - where he lay, with Dopple on top of him, her fingers digging into his throat like talons.
//NO!//
Eike could feel his fingers clawing the stone as she squeezed harder, useless, feeble motions - how could she be so strong? Darkness, around the edge of his vision, and he lost all control as he /felt/ the darkness draining life out of the world, the last of his strength swallowed up by despair. So familiar, the sliding, falling feeling, and he knew it wasn’t the world dimming, wasn’t life moving away from him but his own body shutting down.
//... can’t breathe, can’t... NO... can’t, it hurts... don’t want...//
Billions. Men and women and children, mothers and sons and fathers, Dana and Margarete and all of their ancestors, gone, more than one time, more than a thousand - how could he be responsible? How? It was a lie, it had to be a lie, he couldn’t have killed so many, he couldn’t have, it was a mistake, this was all some horrible mistake.
//... don’t... w-want to... die...//
Eike could barely see, vision dimmed by the lack of air, but his eyes still managed to widen as he caught the barest glimpse of movement from behind the pale girl - impossible, impossible!
Homunculus stood over the both of them, with one of the long, thin iron candle stands in his hands, swinging it down in a tremendous blow - no, he wasn’t that strong... there was no way...
The two figures vanished as he closed his eyes, felt the impact of the blow hit Dopple. The pain remained nearly the same, but the sudden coolness running down through his chest - air - startled him. Alive... still alive...
He was gone from that world well before he knew it, plunging once more into the void, lost in time, following threads that he had touched - would touch - did touch, and snap, and destroy -
//NO NO NO! It wasn’t me... it wasn’t me...//
Eike closed his eyes and prayed - no words, only fear.
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Only fear.
Only running, only that simple motion, out of breath. The air stabbed through his lungs, terribly painful against his badly bruised throat, strangling him almost worse than Dopple had. But he had landed on his feet this time - a running start - and Eike was afraid to slow even half a step, praying that he could just stay in the shadows and be safe, that she couldn’t, wouldn’t...
- wouldn’t find him wouldn’t bury him in those thoughts of death and pain so many didn’t make didn’t make sense /it made perfect sense/ -
It didn’t make sense that Homunculus had saved him... saved him, when the man couldn’t even hold a baby, to swing that candleholder like a warrior... didn’t make sense, /really/ didn’t make sense...
Homunculus a demon, a djinn... genie? Eike thought they granted wishes, but what the hell, maybe they granted nightmares too.
The blonde ran a hand through his hair, clutching at the roots until it hurt, swallowing nails of agony, though the pain did nothing to stop the unmoored tempest of his thoughts. Wide eyed, he stared trembling into the dark, he’d thought death was the worst possible end but now...
It still was, it /still/ was... but there were other futures, so many other things he needed to avoid - how, he didn’t know... didn’t know anything except that he /hurt/.
Universe after universe, a string of overloaded lights bursting, the silence of the dying, no time for screams - no right, no right to put himself first.
Eike paled, and remembered, though the memories made nothing clear.
//What did she show me, that... what did she /show/ me?//
Time, time like a mirror cracking, and an unbelievable horror, it could not have happened but it did, it did and countless lifetimes were swallowed up, broken and lost, mirror fathers and mothers and children - no right, no matter what his fear of death he had /no right/ to let that happen.
... to let it happen... to /make/ it happen.
The gray, shrieking wraith that clutched its own skeletal arms to itself, beneath a veil of filthy, pale hair - it was /him/. Writing formulas like bars to cage itself in, digging deeper into his own madness, cowering in corners with glazed, diseased eyes. Nothing more than a vessel for a revenge that would bring nothing, could do nothing when he had cheated death and defied time, fought against fate only to be left dancing alone, at the burnt-out end of eternity.
Eike was the monster, creating not only his own destruction but the death of Billions more. Billions upon billions, tearing cosmic tapestries into rags, when he had never had the right to even /think/... He had committed the most grievous, most unforgivable of sins, and if there was a hell, if there was an eternal punishment for those who deserved no mercy -
“No no no no NO!”
Eike pushed off from the wall, one hand against his aching throat, eyes closed so tightly he saw stars behind his eyes, trying not to imagine his hands as skeletal, not to see that face as his own... not him, not him not him, the universe couldn’t condemn him for things he hadn’t done, for things he didn’t know how to do...
//You’ll learn... you’ll learn how - so many years alone, the heart a shattered flask dripping acid, not alive, not anymore... and the cold... it’s always cold here.//
He knew it was true, those snarling, muttered thoughts were his thoughts and it was his future he was seeing - his future that he /knew/ - what had that psychotic creature done to him? What had she done?
Eike didn’t realize how far he had staggered, hadn’t even realized where he had landed until he was standing in the center of the Ruckgrat, staring at the soft glow of a car’s headlights on the creases of his pants.
It was amazing that more than one thought could be packed into a handful of moments, one or two breaths at the very most. First came the expected thought “No, not again,” the despair buoyed by something that might have even been relief - had he finally learned to welcome death? A dark, bleak humor followed on its heels - Homunculus wasn’t going to like this, keeping him alive for so long, only to lose him to a stupid, random accident.
//He should have known better... look at my track record.//
It was cold. He was getting tired of the cold, tired of losing his mind - and then the blaring horn and the screech of tires pushed their way back into Eike’s thoughts and he felt himself thrown up, heard the shatter of glass and his own soft grunt - pain, the pain came just a heartbeat after, as he was lifted up effortlessly over the top of the car, sliding down in a heap along the driver’s side door, wrist cracking as it hit the edge of the door handle...
More pain, and the horrible, wet sound of his breath in his ears... snow crunching as someone got out of the other side of the car, and voices, the door opening very carefully above him - amazing, the details that came in those last few moments.
... and each breath getting a little bit fainter, a little bit softer, and Eike fought to save the last one, hold his breath against the rush of oncoming darkness.
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Homunculus was losing strength faster than ever now, with no chance to take even one moment to rest, trying any trick he could think of to throw Dopple off the trail, at the same time continuing the work on his own realm, building up the defense that would soon be necessary to protect Eike... if he could /find/ Eike, that was.
He grimaced, body aching in unfamiliar and immensely irritating ways - switching the infants had been frustratingly tiresome, smashing Dopple with the iron bar had nearly undone him, although it had been immensely satisfying to see the surprise on her face as the blow landed.
//... but only to /lose/ him in the process?//
The threads sang with tension, worry, but could tell him nothing of the human’s presence, only that Dopple’s influence on time was much weaker than it had been, and Eike was nowhere to be found. The djinn had hurt her, damaged her physically, and thankfully it seemed that though she had been built with more physical strength, she was just about as sturdy. The Stone could only be reworked in so many ways, it seemed.
Still, it was all for nothing, his growing defenses - //A less self-righteous demon would have constructed at least the /foundations/ for defense long ago... you conceited ass// - the fight, all of it was useless if he couldn’t /find Eike/.
//I know you like mucking about in secluded corners, human, but this is /hardly/ the time!//
Nothing... no sign, and it wasn’t necessarily /bad/ unless Dopple somehow found him before the djinn could, or before Homunculus ran out of the strength to keep going.
//No, no.// Pale lids narrowed around the glinting ruby chips, the lineless face set in a determined frown. He had panicked when Eike had stepped in front of the car - //save you from getting strangled, and /this/ is how you repay me, Eike?// - panicked more than he knew he had to because he was still fixated on the /other/ Eike, remembering the way the man smiled at him as his life ran out, green eyes drowning in their own hatred as he grinned and bled and died.
It had gone past mere curiosity now, his connection to the human, past anything he could explain or had the time to explain. All Homunculus wanted to do now was find Eike, and find him alive.
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Eike was surprised to feel a hard surface beneath his back, as he hadn’t remembered hitting the ground.
//It should have hurt... it should have hurt a lot more.//
He realized he probably shouldn’t complain, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough to deal with at the moment. Weakly, he tried to lift his hand, touch his throat, as if just figuring out just where it was in relation to his shoulders might make it stop hurting so bad. He was breathing fire, shards of ice, coughing up gravel, eventually the pain enough to make him moan, even though that hurt too.
“... do?”
“... a moment... demon can’t be, but he’s trying to...”
The words were going badly in and out, Eike couldn’t seem to manage to open his eyes, even as the voices came closer.
“Is he really... Father?”
He recognized the voice, the edge of whininess that had always made him want to wince. A boy’s voice, just on the verge of manhood, almost embarrassingly bitter given a life so full of hope. Pain too, of course, but more remarkably hope - didn’t he realize he had a sister who loved him?
... and a father who had never meant to leave.
//... I know that voice. I know it...//
“Yes. He was. He was your father... long ago.”
Eike knew that voice, but on more than one level, not only the distinctly scratchy tone of the fortune teller, as if she were playing her own voice back on a gramophone, but another voice, more in his memory than what he heard...
//... hands, I remember her hands picking flowers, so strong, her hands...//
Eike tried to reach for her, but his fingers only met heavy air, a thick fog that slid instantly through his fingers. He tried again, clutching at a cold, distant emptiness, needing to tell her he was sorry, needing to tell her...
He choked, breathing in nothing, the hitch in his chest feeling as if it would stop his heart.
“I know, Eike. I know.”
A shudder, in the ground beneath him.
“... was that?”
“He cannot stay here, not without a place binding him. A tie to the physical, or it would destroy all of us. I hope I’ve given the demon enough time... I still cannot believe he is our only hope.”
Eike felt the ground start to vanish beneath the palms of his hands, the heels of his feet, melting away here and there like a light frost. The realm disappeared as the threads of time began to eat it away, dragging him back. A light touch lifted the blonde strands away from his face, and a kiss brushed his forehead, painfully familiar, a dream he had never meant to forget.
“I’m sorry...”
He would have forced the words out if they had cost him a thousand times the pain they did, and he only wished for a thousand more. One more chance to tell her he was sorry. To tell her he hadn’t wanted any of it, that Wagner couldn’t have wanted it... that he would have done anything for the power to make things right, that he grieved knowing this desperation, the longing to fix the broken dream was the most that would ever be.
“Be safe, my husband, be happy. Be safe, Eike, and live your life, wherever it takes you, whatever happens. Just live.”
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There was an ugly finality to the long, confusing fall, and not only because of the way he landed hard on the rising staircase, barely managing to keep his broken wrist from slamming against the stone.
//Helena... she... oh god, god this hurts... Helena, that was...//
Once again, he was reduced to just breathing deeply, trying to determine whether anything was broken /this/ time and why it was so amazingly difficult for him just to stay alive.
//Fated to die... fated to die... I couldn’t be fated to go to Bermuda, or have a really good sandwich, oh /no/...//
Wincing as he finally pushed himself up, Eike realized he lacked the strength and the coordination required to make it to his feet, resigned himself to half-crawling up the stairs, one-handed. It took him a few moments to realize he was even scrambling forward, and a few more to realize where he was. The shock made him freeze.
//Oh god, the tower. Eckert’s tower, no, not here. I don’t want to be here.//
The horror of it was somewhat blunted by pain and exhaustion, the thousand other horrors he had already been through in a gathering of hours. The cloudiness in his mind was almost a gift, he didn’t want to think, /really/ didn’t want to think. Blood rushed up, pounding painfully behind his eyes as he heard footsteps... footsteps behind him, whisper soft against the stone, drowned out by ragged breathing. Wounded breathing.
Dopple.
//Oh god... oh god oh god...// He knew it, chased like a fox through time and space and eternity and he was out of places to run or hide... there was nowhere left. Eike remembered how he had found Homunculus at the base of the tree, exhausted, and if he had truly appeared to help him at the church, the djinn’s powers must have been used up too.
He should just stop moving, pushing his aching body forward as if it would make any difference.
//Accept your fate.//
“I can’t.”
//Let go.//
“I won’t.” His fault, that impossible future in his clouded mind, /his fault/ and he couldn’t just die, too selfish, too stupid -
Eike reached the end, pushed against the door at the top of the stairs, but it refused to open -
- it was selfish to live as long as he had -
It wouldn’t open, and those footsteps were getting closer.
- and what right, what right did he think he had...? -
“I won’t give up!”
Eike nearly fell, as the door finally gave way beneath his shoulder. It was raining hard, he hadn’t heard it through the thick stone of the tower but now the shower was nearly smothering him, plastering his blonde hair against his face. He pushed it out of the way with his hand, staggering forward almost blindly, searching for a weapon, anything...
//The rope?//
It wouldn’t be a wonderful fall to the bottom from the end of the rope, nor easy with only one hand - lightning struck nearby, and he jumped, feet sliding just slightly on the slick stone, his uninjured hand trailing lightly against the stones along the outer edge of the tower.
No rope, he strained his eyes in the near-darkness of dusk, praying for lightning to illuminate the gleaming wall. A sharp flash brightened the sky like a tumbling lantern. Eike felt his heart sink, and turned around slowly, the sound of inevitability roaring in his ears as he heard the door creak, and slam shut behind him.
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Author’s Notes ~
1. Per capita, I think this chapter has the most wailing on a character I’ve ever done. Whee.