Irreversible
"...Huff, huff, huff, huff."
Her entire head throbbed with a relentless ache. Her ears burned as if they had swollen shut. She could not bring herself to loosen her grip on the staff—no matter how clearly she knew she had to leave this place.
She had taken three lives with her own hands. And she had done it by abandoning them to the agony of being eaten alive by zombies, by forcing them to commit the unspeakable act of devouring their own comrades. She had never endured that suffering herself. Yet she knew, with absolute certainty, that it was never right—and that it was the kind of torment that made a person beg for death. She had seen it with her own two eyes.
The infected who realized what they had done, who never made it to the hospital in time, all wailed in agony and pleaded to be killed—or else lost their minds entirely and became zombies for good.
Blood soaked everything. She had kept her distance from them, so at least none of it had touched her.
"...Evan. I have to get back to Evan..."
She was exhausted. She wanted to stop. She had never imagined that taking lives could be this draining. She had believed she could do anything for Evan.
They had screamed, smashed their heads against the ground, begged, cursed, damned her, despaired, given up—and then their breath had stopped.
She still hated it.
Dying in convulsions on an operating table, waiting calmly for death once you had accepted its approach, or dying in despair after hope had been stripped away and you finally understood that salvation would never come—no. Dying while thrashing in such overwhelming agony that you begged for death itself... there was clearly a vast difference.
And she had given them that kind of death with her own hands.
Dear God.
"...What... what have I done?"
She pulled the staff free. The droplets of blood staining the ground had never looked so ghastly. There was a terrible gulf between struggling to save someone only to watch them die before your eyes, and deliberately abandoning them, treating them, wounding them—all because you wanted them dead.
A gulf wide enough for Evan to hate her to death.
No matter that she had done it to bring him back—she had defiled life itself. She had shoved them into the abyss and driven an experience so nightmarish that simply living through it would scar them forever deep into their minds. With her own hands. It had become an indelible fact.
Until now she had only ever been the one who was persecuted. Now she was a murderer who had stained her hands with blood for Evan’s sake.
And that feeling was—
With a wet slap, one of the corpses rose. What had spilled from its split skull covered the floor. Then it smiled at her—with a mouth of vivid, horrifying red. Where the elf’s eyes should have been, empty sockets now glowed with violet light.
"...What I... did?"
Sizzle. The sound of blood burning reached her ears. At the same time, violet flames began to kindle upon the corpse that had risen.
The flames greedily devoured everything before her eyes—every drop of blood spilled on the ground, every scrap of torn flesh. That vast fire, which reduced the sight that had been driving her mad to ash, vanished in an instant just like every violet light she had ever seen. And in the place where the bodies had lain, it left behind a translucent, slightly elongated jewel filled with deep purple.
It rested so gently upon the now-clean earth that she could only stare at it, lost.
The corpses were gone, yet the voice remained. Now she heard Him speaking from the softly resonating jewel. The metal of the staff she still gripped tightly began to part. The gold ornamentation, stretched taut, soon emptied the pattern that had been there and formed a round hollow. The jewel slowly rose from its place and drifted toward the staff in her hand.
The bent tip of the staff slowly began to accept the jewel into the space prepared for it. Holding the suddenly heavy shaft, she lost her grip at what happened next and nearly dropped it. The brown wooden handle began to darken to black. It looked as if it were rotting—yet it was not. Dark violet light mixed into it, and the trembling wood swiftly sprouted a single branch that coiled around the ornamentation.
The staff she had dropped did not fall. It simply floated in the air, then drifted gently to her side. Yet she could not bring herself to take it. She was afraid of the suffering she would see in others from now on. She could not even imagine the expression Evan would wear if he ever learned she had done these things—so she only stood there, hands trembling.
But at the voice that came next she swallowed her tears and had no choice but to take hold of the staff once more.
The dead do not return. No amount of regret changes anything. She was already a murderer. She was already a woman who had tortured and killed three souls. Therefore she had to reclaim at least Evan. No matter what else she would have to witness from now on—she had to see it. She had to see Evan return to her side alive. She had to reclaim, even once more, that voice of his that would hold her, kiss her, tell her he loved her—that shy face of his that would accept the love she offered as if it were too much, that would flush with gratitude in every moment.
...Even if countless people died before her eyes. Even if dozens of bloodstains stained her hands. Even if hundreds of screams rose to the heavens. There was no changing it now.
"No."
She wiped away her tears, gripped the staff fiercely, and turned her head to face the jewel.
"Because it is to bring him back."
There was no going back. No matter how much she resented and hated this choice, the reason she had to move forward was clear. She was here to reclaim her happiness—to reclaim the reason she had to keep living. In the first place, it was this world that had driven her this far that was at fault. Remembering those who had killed innocent Evan and stolen her happiness from her, she slowly began to walk.
There was still work left to do if she was to bring Evan back.
The front lines were always filled with the wounded and the dead. There were priests who moved them, examined them, sorted them, and decided their fates. Those with light wounds received treatment on the spot and returned to battle once more. Those with deep or serious injuries were sent to the hospital. If their hometown was near, they were tightly wrapped in cloth soaked with holy water; if far, they were cremated and their ashes sealed in urns to be loaded onto wagons.
And she was driving one of those wagons—with one more corpse loaded aboard.
She had torn open the back of the driver’s leg with the blade of her staff. Then she had deliberately split the wound, twisted it, and crushed it. Even now the memory of that sight made her stomach turn. The curses that had spilled from his mouth had become pleas for mercy. The relief he had felt when the wound seemed to be healing had been dyed with despair. The hope that he might see his family and friends once more had twisted into the despair that dying right then might at least bring some ease—until all he wanted was for the light to go out. She had been forced to endure that sight.
All so she could seize the bodies of soldiers who should have found rest.
Beside the narrow path was a small clearing. She slowly signaled the horse pulling the wagon to reduce its speed. Once the wagon had come to a complete stop, she tried to ignore the voice ringing inside her head and hurriedly pushed through the undergrowth, crouching over a hollow in the earth.
The jolt of the wagon and the metallic stench of blood and rotting flesh she had forced herself to ignore finally—
"Hhk—ugh—"
—pushed her past her limit. There was nothing in her stomach. There never could have been. How could anything remain when every thought of what she had done kept killing her appetite? Still, hot, acrid liquid kept climbing her throat and stinging her nose. At the searing sensation in her throat she opened the canteen she had taken from a soldier beforehand and poured water down her gullet. Only when her clothes were damp and the burning in her throat had dulled a little could she slowly cool her head.
"Do I... look sane to you?"
She might already have gone mad. She had done this four times already and still had no intention of stopping. And now she had driven this wagon all the way here to do something even worse.
She was doing this for Evan. But Evan would never like this. If he ever heard that hundreds had died because of him, he would surely... resent her. Yet it was this world that was wrong. She still clearly remembered the eyes that had forgotten all his devotion and labor and sent him only envy and jealousy. Those who had looked down on him as a short-lived race had ultimately killed him. Every time she recalled it, she found the courage to continue. ...Because what he had suffered had been that unjust.
Following the voice, she hoisted the corpses onto her back one by one and laid them carefully on the ground. Every time their cold skin pressed against her through her clothes, she forced herself to ignore the goosebumps rising along her throat. Every time guilt crawled up her legs, she thought of Evan. That was how she kept suppressing her emotions, over and over.
How many times had she repeated it? Only after confirming that every one of them lay with their heads pointed the same way did she walk in the direction their faces turned.
She had already heard the full explanation. She would pour the power she served into their bodies, and that would make them irreversible. She was doing something Evan would hate—desecrating the rest of the dead. For Evan.
She drove the staff hard into the earth, then poured energy into her hands and fed white light shot through with violet into the jewel. The light that had once induced hallucinations warped the moment it touched the staff’s gem and began to radiate an eerie hue. Though it was clearly purple, it seemed to ripple with black. Just as one could sense malice from the belongings of the corrupted, just as one knew that a bloodstained, wave-shaped spike had been used to tear wounds even more horribly open—one could tell that this color itself was evil.
And before she could even feel fear or regret for what she had done—
"Ugh-eh—uuuuaaaaargh—"
The soulless bodies began to thrash with indescribable howls. Bones tore through skin. Muscles stretched like threads and began to weave the growing bones together. They became blades, spikes, massive bludgeons. Yellow eyes sprouted by the handful across bodies and weapons and began to blink. And three of the corpses gathered into one, becoming a giant with three tentacles growing where a face should have been. Its arms and legs were long and stretched, covered in blood.
The lurching creature raised itself on tentacles and arms, then stood upon the earth in a bizarre posture—long arms planted on the ground, legs bent almost forward—as if it might spring at any moment if not for its massive torso. And though it had no mouth, it spoke.
The tentacles writhed, spitting words in crude, twisted tones. Though it had no eyes, no nose, no mouth, it looked straight down at her. Roughly twice her height, it shook its tentacles, gazed up at the sky, and roared. The creature that seemed almost joyful, and the monstrous beings behind it that raised their various weapons and flocked toward the giant, made her truly feel that there was no turning back.
"Uh... uhhk, uhhhhh..."
I’m sorry, Evan. But if I don’t do even this... I can’t live. A world without you is this cruel. I’ve nearly had my body taken by men I never loved, over and over. They insulted you—already dead—right in front of me. You who protected me. You who were stronger, sturdier, kinder than anyone, Evan.
I had to stain my hands with blood and torture people. I made them scream. I made them hurt so badly they wanted to die. Because I wanted to see you just once more.
It’s almost time, Evan. Today, for your sake, I’ll walk with the monsters. If you’re watching me... close your eyes, just for today.