A Reality Cruel Beyond Measure
A rattling sound reaches me.
I cannot even tell whether I am sitting or lying down. What I know for certain is that something has me bound, and my body trembles in small, involuntary jolts. And that the snorting of beasts is drawing nearer—that much is unmistakable.
"...Ah—kh..."
My head feels as though it will split open. I lack even the strength to raise myself. My arms seem to have turned into that filthy slime—slick, yielding, utterly useless. I have seen so many patients complain of that sensation: limbs that only flop and refuse to hold a body upright. Exhaustion. Lethargy. Depression. The pain now hollowing me out cannot be reduced to such simple words. It is a nauseating wrongness that seems to turn my insides completely inside out. I never imagined it would come for me.
"Trying to get up?"
A rough hand. The hand that dares touch my body without the slightest permission is so revolting that I thrash and twist away at once.
"Let—let go of me, hngh?!"
I cannot even manage that much. What am I, then? A woman who failed to protect the one she loved and now cannot even keep hold of her own body. And yet, on a subject like that, I had sworn so easily that I would live beside him.
"Stop thrashing. Your body is badly damaged. For a while you won't even be able to walk without help."
The man who forces me upright is the one who contributed to my birth—my "father." And the woman watching is my "mother." I feel not a shred of affection or emotion toward either of them. Am I the strange one? Or is this world strange? From the gods down to my own kin and the humans—every last one of them. From head to toe, one through ten, this alien sensation as if a perfect wall has been raised between them and me.
"How is your body... Thea?"
"Don't pretend to care now."
Why they have appeared only now, why they approach me with such awkward concern—it is all so transparent. The very fact that they only bother to act as if they care after a god's command makes my stomach turn with pure disgust. I strike the hand holding me away and edge myself into a corner of the space.
The only one who stayed beside me when I needed someone was Evan. Only Evan...
Evan?
"Wait—Evan, where is Evan—"
"He's in the other compartment. We wrapped his body in cloth soaked with holy oil—Thea?!"
They separated him from me? What do they mean to do where my eyes cannot reach?
"Let go of this! Let go!"
"You have to wait until the carriage at least stops before you climb down—Lars, tell them to stop the carriage. Quickly!"
Clatter, rattle. The beasts' cries and the carriage's violent noise. Voices murmuring, the chaotic space around me—and I can do nothing properly. I cannot even cradle his already cold, departed body, cannot keep watch at his side, cannot even love him. Was I ever truly capable of making him happy?
"Evan! Evan!"
I leap down from the barely halted carriage and race to the compartment linked behind it. The moment I wrench the door open—
"Th-Thea? You shouldn't be on this side—"
"Out of the way. Take your hands off my husband's body!"
I shove the priest aside and force my way inside—only to find something more horrific than I could have imagined.
"You—what in the world are you all doing..."
Wrapping the body of the departed, wrapping it in cloth soaked with holy oil—that is important work. Yet they are doing it inside a lurching carriage, oil splattering every which way.
"We have to perform the rite the moment we arrive, so..."
Crack.
My hand moves before thought can catch it. Not content with stripping my husband's clothes without leave, the very priests who should guard a dead man's rest are doing this.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
"Explain it to me. Think about what you are doing right now—you who are supposed to protect the peace of the dead. I am his wife; even if I wrapped him myself it would barely be enough."
"Wife? You two never even formally—"
"Shut that mouth. Shut it.
To me he was everything, and we lived together for three years. I cut off my own ear because I loved that man. He was the only one who ever truly saw me, and he was my entire world—and now you stand in front of me, taking me away while doing this to the one I love. Say it with your own mouth. Tell me what you are doing."
The bandages are clumsily wound. Evan's wounds are still visible. Everything before my eyes is monstrous. Everything is a ruin. These people who hold the very office I once dreamed of have done this to my husband. Faced with it, I simply stand there. More precisely, I cannot move because I am still deciding how to repay this atrocity so that even a fraction of his bitterness might be eased—and how I am supposed to pray for his rest so that he can sleep in peace.
"Haa... We did our best, Thea. We barely have time to enter the sanctuary and perform the rite as it is, and yet you're making a scene like this—"
"The rite is what matters? To you?
Ha. Haha... The very idea that I once wanted to become like you was rotten from the start. This is the worst."
"If you're so dissatisfied, wrap him yourself."
Wrap him myself. Here, in this empty wasteland?
"If you meant to wrap him, why didn't you do it back at the house? Better that than this mess...!"
"As I said, there wasn't time—"
"No time? For long-lived ones like us?
Our kind, who used to sneer that short-lived races thrash about so hard in their brief span—now we claim we have no time?!"
The more words I exchange, the higher my rage climbs. What is the intent behind constantly thrusting reasons I cannot understand and situations I cannot accept into my face? Because I refused the priesthood? Because a long-lived one dared to live with a short-lived one? It cannot be because I refused to offer my body to that monster Tolfen. If that is the truth, then what am I—someone who worked so hard for such a god? And Evan, who died because of it...
If this happened because of me—no. It is because of me. Because I loved him without cutting everything away first, I... The one I should have killed long ago, the one I should have severed...
I... killed him?
"Then do as you like. Since we stopped you from wrapping him, you take responsibility."
"..."
"Hey, Thea? Haa... Seriously. Why in the world—"
"I understand. This exile, this thorn in your eyes, will do it herself. So all of you get out of the carriage that holds my husband. Right now."
The rattling starts again. Voices thick with complaint and weary irritation. One woman rubs her cheek and glares at me. Four others stare at me as if I am something strange.
...Am I the strange one? Truly? Is it wrong for me to grieve everything that has befallen the person I love?
Inside the carriage that lurches once more, I lift the cloth for a moment, then lower it again.
"They're driving even rougher than I thought..."
I unwind the ruined cloth and carefully wipe his body clean with dry fabric instead. Pale skin. A body soaked in oil. Fresh bruises I do not remember appear—vivid blue ones. Arms and legs. Even his face.
"...Ah. Aah?"
From the placement, he must have been thrown about against the floor of the carriage. The thought is so pitiful I can barely bear it. He had been a man who worked tirelessly at the front lines, earning respect through his healing—yet from the moment he came to my side he was reduced to this misery. Simply for loving me, his life was taken, and even in death he is denied peaceful rest. The man who only wanted to stay beside me has been handled with such cruelty. I cannot accept it.
"Evan, Evan... ah-hh, why—why to you, to me!! Why, why?! Why are they so desperate to do things like this—why!"
I clutch his slick body with desperate strength, holding the faintly luminous form steady so he will not fall inside the jolting carriage. At last the oil cask tips and soaks the floor in a grand mess; the cloth slips free and sprawls in every direction. Still I want him beside me that much. Even when oil fouls my bare feet into a complete disaster, even when the already chaotic interior grows more horrific, even when every muscle in my body screams as I try to shift his slightly heavy form into a position where he can lean against me—I cannot stop. I am the only one who can protect him now.
...He gave his life to protect me, and I, still living, cannot even properly guard his dead body. He always praised me with shining eyes. He always tried to bring me nothing but happiness. All I ever gave him was misery. Terrible pain and death. And dishonor. Must such suffering truly fall upon an innocent short-lived one? What reason is there for him to endure this humiliation? Why must he—the man who loved me, who wanted only to be with me—suffer this disgrace without ever having known happiness?
"It will be all right. It will be all right, Evan. Just... stay here, please..."
What is this "rite" they speak of? What are they preparing? A funeral? Or something else? Why are they taking me and him away? Why were they in such a hurry? Everything is a mass of questions; everything is blurred. Yet one fact grows cruelly clear: every misfortune that befell him happened because of me.
"I'm sorry, Evan. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."