Finale- Another Light

--

The insane rampage of the Titans continues unchecked-- there is no place to hide from their power. The world has been consumed, devoured by the flame and the power of god that the Titans symbolize. There is no place to hide. They are sky, earth and sea. There is the underground, but...

I stare down at the manhole at my feet. A deep sigh seems to emanate from beneath it, as if some foul thing was stirring in the manmade caverns and exhaling its blasphemies into the world. I need to run, need to get away, but my legs will not move. The ground crumbles beneath me, and I land in the darkness of the underground.

There it was in the shadows. Staring at me as it always did, laughing and crying as it always has, cursing the world since ancient times. Too late I screamed and tried to get away, but there was no escape.

--

I jerked from the nightmare, thrashing and screaming. Banging my feet against the table and the typewriter, I tried to get away from the monster in my dream. The clang of the typewriter brought me back to reality, and my tremors subsided. I was stretched out on the couch, with no recollection of coming inside and lying down.

Dee...

There was nothing else left for me here. My head a little clearer from what little sleep I'd gained, I realized how cold and wet it was outside. I left the couch and headed down the hall, to the closet. It was nearly empty-- my heavy black wool coat was missing, Dee's tailored dress coat was gone, the red cloak...

Only a few musty gray housecoats occupied the closet. I hesitated to take one, what little sense of fashion I had left holding me back. I didn't exactly want to be seen going around in a butlers uniform, but the chill from the early morning rain had already settled in. It would be foolish not to wear something warmer.

Coffee would be good right now, I thought, digging out a cigarette and lighting up. Pushing aside the housecoats, I saw a long-forgotten brown trencher. Mostly likely an absentminded guest had left it behind, back when we actually entertained anyone.

It fit well enough, so I went back for my typewriter and then left.

--

Part of me expected to find Angel waiting at the apartment, but I wasn't surprised when I stepped into an empty room. She was gone, just as the nightingale was gone, as the negotiator was gone, as the reporter was gone. None of them existed within this city anymore. All that was remained in the void was a dead man and a memory.

I set the typewriter down-- carefully this time-- next to the mask on my desk. It stared up at me, mocking in its silent ethereal laughter. I stared back into the lone glass eye, daring to ask the questions that fear had forbidden me to speak.

The words from the letter came back to me, clear as if the mask was reading them aloud. It was obvious now. Everything that had transpired, all led carefully to one conclusion. Death had been a ruse, a disguise. The author was still alive, somewhere underground-- the prophet was still searching, continuing his quest for the truth.

Maybe he had found it, maybe he could tell me.

I picked up the mask and stuffed it into my pocket. Then I left the apartment, knowing that like my house, I would never set foot in there again.

There was only one thing left to do. Grandfather would know the answers.

--

It was late in the morning now. The mechanical sun bathed the streets of the city in an eerie and beautiful light. It was tempting to close my eyes as I walked along, and to pretend that the light was real. To imagine that deliverance would come from the clockwork motions of Paradigm. To wait.

I understood waiting now. People wait because of delusional concepts such as courage. Courage, the idea that action is in spite of fear rather than because of it, that fear is something to be faced down and defeated. That is a mistake; fear is the true reason for all human triumphs. Science was born of fear of the unknown. So-called 'courageous' acts are born out of fear for the safety of others.

If you fight fear, you find yourself severed from you own primal motivations, unable to take action.

I was tired of waiting, tired of fighting fear, and I was tired of the nightmares… I wanted to find the reasons, the truth behind the city.

Der Junge, der alles wissen möchte

The city burns, a blaze of ignorance.

Der Junge, der nichts weiß

I walked over to the manhole and lifted it again. The rungs of the ladder awaited me. Another descent to darkness, a journey I'd taken so many times before. Would this end in like all the others? No wiser or better, just older and more tired?

Wenn du groß bist, verstehst du, sagt die Mutter

As the people wait apathetically, the titans come. Destroying us with ease because we had stopped fearing, had dared to presume ourselves Gods of knowledge.

Der Junge, der alles sofort wissen möchte

I began my way down the ladder, no longer afraid of the darkness. On the other side of the shadows would be another light, a light of truth, a blaze of hope in this city of fallacy.

Tief im Schwarzwald, der Großvater, der alles weiß

I'm on fire; I can feel the flames licking my skin. The smoke is all around me, suffocating me, embers falling like snow. The ground beneath me rumbles menacingly.

Um den Großvater zu suchen, tief im Schwarzwald

I entered into the darkness, the light of the city fading behind me. The terminal, the tracks and the derelict trams, the ghosts of ages past lie ahead. The ground beneath me rumbles, and a deep sigh emanates from the walls, like foul blasphemies from a dark and vile god.

But I wasn't afraid this time, even as the world of the underground seems to darken around me. The faint light from the false sky that had filtered down into this shadowed world disappeared from it forever. Even the ground beneath me had faded away, disappearing into the dark.

I stretched my arms out, testing the limits of my newfound prison of shadows. In the distance, I could almost see lights, arranged in a specific pattern. Before I might've seen them as a mere coincidence... but I realized now what they really were.

Aber er Kann den Großvater nicht finden,

The ground beneath me collapses, and I fall into the den of the titan, the darkest deity. Its smile is twisted and inhuman as it looks at me with weeping eyes. It was a disgusting thing, a creature of loathing and hate, a dark spot in the world.

Der Junge, Immer weiter, immer weiter sucht er, als...

"I want to know now. I'll give anything, just for the knowledge, just for the truth. Grandfather, I know you're alive. Please, tell me."

But the only sound to be heard was the echo of my own voice, twisting slowly into condescending chortle of a long dead man.

--

The clock ticks, the hourglass turns, the pendulum swings, and time passes. Hours like minutes, days like hours. Time for this city is running out, the sands running down. The people hovel together in their ignorance, mesmerized by the ticking whirring mechanisms of Paradigm.

The wait is almost over, and time is running out. During the interim between the beginning and the end I shall not be known as Negotiator or Reporter. For the time being, you may call me Schwarzwald.