Asmodeus stands silent above me, grip slackening around the hilt of his sword.
“Embrace it,” I whisper around the blood trickling down the back of my throat, as his moment of epiphany unfolds. I push myself to my feet, reaching out to lay my hand against his cheek. “You still have time.”
It is a luxury that I lack, myself. My body is rent, my resources tapped completely from the confrontation. I am still moving only to ensure that my message is not in vain. Lodging my free fist into the hole under my ribs, I stagger towards him, my eyes never leaving his. If I waver, I may lose him… and then all will be lost. He is the reason that I was sent here; he is the last bastion against Rory’s teachings of the sacred feminine, and he is the festering wound which must be amputated if it cannot be purged of infection. He must accept the Cycle’s lesson. If he does not…
It’s like an infection.
It festers unnoticed as your skin inflames
Only to suddenly be right there,
Spilling out of you and bubbling up from within,
Stinging and swelling,
Making your blood go hot and your hands turn cold.
I see a flash of her in his eyes.
“Tegan… You recognize what she is to you, don’t you?”
She’s like an infection.
She’s under your skin and inside your veins.
***
Rory looked at the angel of the Silent Hill, and she at him. Her hair was shorter now than last he’d seen her, shorn to her ears, but her eyes were the same: clear, piercing, purposeful. Her back was straight and stiff, her hands clasped before her, her chin level. There was no mark of sadness on her, and one might wonder if she was so unaffected, or if it were merely the way that she preferred to appear.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he told her at last.
She said nothing, the way her eyes turned downcast the only indication that she acknowledged his words.
“You know,” Rory began again, “There is an old story in Iwaku- nearly forgotten now- that says we are each only one half of ourselves. At conception, we are whole; but one half is born in this world and one half in the next, only to meet again at the end of a lifetime. This is the path given to us by our souls… to become complete again. This is why our lives feel empty or unfulfilled, why we struggle to fill the hole which we feel inside of us.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked him, putting her back to him and looking out at the cityscape. Her hands rested easily against the window ledge.
“Sometimes, the other half of the soul remains in this world, and is born as a second entity. Two bodies, two genders… one soul. We are drawn to this person because they complete us, in every sense. We call this concept… soul-mates. The lack of union between souls, between male and female, is vital to the Cycle. Without it…”
He smiled sadly. “Without it, the world would burn.”
***
“Iwaku cannot be healed… without the Goddess.” I’m gasping now, struggling against the slow rise of fluid inside of me. “The Cycle is imbalanced. The masculine… cannot reign over the feminine without consequence.”
My strength at last gives out, and I fall to my knees, slumping at Asmodeus’s feet. I let my eyelids fall shut, my palms flat to the wet earth, and murmur a prayer for him, for all of his companions… for the protagonists of this dying story. I pray that they all might find comfort in the union of their souls, before the final page comes. I pray that it will be enough. I do not pray for myself. It is strange- yet fitting- that Iwaku should be the stage of my final hour. After so many years… I have no part left to play.
I will never see my other half again.
When I hit the ground, I do not feel it. Behind me, forgotten in the grass, Soul Reaver shatters.
Tomorrow I offer my stricken greeting
The winds which bore me now so fleeting
I taste the blood my heart is beating
No, I won’t have that distant meeting
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