—London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down.
Sam could hear the song that Amelie always sang for him on the Beach when he was a boy. He looked around but there was no one and nothing to be found. It was just Sam. The bridge had fallen and now there was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t connect back to Amelie across the tar.
—That’s not true, Sam.
It was as if he could hear her. The wind picked up. This time it brought another voice with it.
—Do you still not get it? Or do you just not want to?
The tar was swelling upwards, forming the shape of a human being. Higgs.
“Amelie is an Extinction Entity,” Higgs began. “She may take the form of a woman, but she is connected to the realm of the dead. She connects all life to death. Heartman is right. All the past extinctions were caused by Extinction Entities like her. There’s no denying it. It’s the truth of this universe. This universe was created in an explosion. When stars explode their fragments produce new ones. The explosion of extinction gives way to new life. Listen here, Sam. We’re not just going extinct, we’re creating the next phase of existence.”
It was all word play. Higgs was manipulating the language to affirm his path of extinction and affirm his desire to destroy. Sam’s body burnt hot with anger. His clenched fists were trembling.
“That’s the cross that humanity has to bear.” Higgs pointed at the waystation and laughed. “It seems like there is someone working for Bridges with a sense of irony. I’ll connect with Amelie, stick her on that thing and finally put extinction into motion.”
“Higgs!” Sam shouted, rushing toward the belt of tar.
“Oh, still got some fighting spirit left in you, Sam? Then may the best man win,” Higgs sneered, holding up a finger. Tar was sticking to both of Sam’s legs. It seemed to be attempting to pull him down like it had a mind of its own. Before Sam knew it, the tar was already waist deep.
“Good luck, Sam,” Higgs called. “I’ll be waiting on the Beach.”
Higgs disappeared. The tar surged into a wave, attacking Sam from above.
Sam couldn’t see a thing. He couldn’t hear, either. He was trapped in a sticky black torrent and being washed toward the depths of the earth. He was falling forever toward its center—
Sam was lost in a dark hallway.
All he could hear was his own breathing, the sound of sticky footsteps, and the beating of his own heart. They echoed all around him. The sounds he made shook his eardrums and reverberated inside his head. Infinitely looping, it was starting to drive Sam mad. He was walking around inside the guts of some gigantic creature. Never getting digested and never getting shat back out. He was just wandering with no idea where the exit was. Then he noticed that Lou wasn’t with him. There was no Odradek on his shoulder. In fact, he wasn’t wearing anything at all. Sam was naked and trapped in a place he didn’t know.
He sank down to the floor and hung his head. He heard the sound of a heart. It was throbbing rhythmically without interruption. That’s when he realized that he was hearing the beating from outside. The heart that should have been in his chest dropped like a stone, and elsewhere the other heart moved.
Then it clicked. This had to be the inside of his own body. He was lost and aimlessly wandering in a maze of his own guts. Unable to be at peace with himself, he had become lost inside himself. Sam wondered if destroying himself would release him from this shell. Or would he just die together with it?
“You’re in the same state as the confused masses on this planet. They all believe that the world is here to accommodate them. It doesn’t matter that it’s all coincidental. It doesn’t matter that if it’s destroyed, they’ll die too. In their heads, they’re its kings and it’ll do what they tell it to do.”
Higgs’s voice echoed around the internal maze, snapping Sam back to reality.
Sam had been brought back by Higgs. A dissonant sound echoed softly. When Sam woke up, the world looked twisted. Sam instantly felt nauseous, like his stomach was full of rocks. Unable to bear it, Sam got on all fours and vomited. He threw up an inexplicable amount of jet-black liquid that looked like mud. A stench that contained whiffs of blood and rotting flesh pierced Sam’s nostrils. It felt like his body was rotting from the inside out.
Sam had no idea where he was. When he looked over his shoulder with as-of-yet unfocused eyes, all he could make out was the tar belt. Had he made it across?
“Welcome, Sam Bridges.”
EPISODE X – HIGGS
It was Higgs. He was hovering several inches above the tar.
Sam shouted his name and shot to his feet. Higgs responded with exaggerated surprise.
“Keep your voice down. You don’t want to scare the poor girl away, do you? You came all this way to see her, didn’t you? That’s why I did you a favor and brought you over that tar belt. How about a little gratitude and respect?” Higgs said theatrically as if amused by Sam’s loss for words, and pointing behind Sam with one hand. Sam turned around to find the silhouette of a city. It was Edge Knot City. It was his final stop. The place where he would find Amelie.
Higgs snapped his fingers. An upside-down rainbow appeared high in the skies above the city, which was subsequently drowned out by thick black clouds. There were several flashes of lightning followed by roars of thunder. Some of the lightning bolts reached all the way down into the city and exploded in dazzling flashes of light. The clouds began to rain timefall. In mere moments it turned into a torrential downfall, cloaking the city in a veil of rain.
“She’s in there. I can smell her. Of course, I wouldn’t’ve known for sure if it wasn’t for you and your wonderful network.”
Sam turned toward the voice, but there was no one there. Just a floating golden mask.
“Bless your heart,” Higgs whispered in Sam’s ear. Sam jumped away. Higgs’s face had been just inches away from his own and his cockiness had snapped Sam back to his senses. Sam looked back, but Higgs was no longer there. Just his golden mask floating in midair.
“Thank you kindly,” Higgs whispered, his words coming from the mask.
It was obvious Higgs was enjoying toying with Sam. Sam knew that he mustn’t take the bait, but he could no longer control his rising anger. He stretched out his arm in an attempt to grab the golden mask and the gas mask behind it. But all his hand managed to grab was thin air. Higgs had disappeared again. With nothing to grab onto, Sam lost his balance and fell forward. His palms hit the ground, but when he tried to lift his hands back up, he couldn’t move them. Tar was oozing from the rock below them. It covered the palms of Sam’s hands like an amorphous creature, coiled around his wrists and bound him in place.
Higgs was approaching again. As Sam looked up at Higgs from the ground, with his hands tied, he looked like a criminal begging for forgiveness. His face began to burn with disgrace and humiliation. Higgs squatted down and brought his own face close. He grabbed Sam by the hair and with his free hand removed his golden mask.
His true face didn’t look like the face of a destroyer. In fact, there was a delicateness to it. Like that of a philosopher. Or maybe it betrayed the truth-seeker in him that had eventually been caught up in this doctrine of extinction.
“Sam Bridges.” A snake-like tongue poked out from between his captivating red lips and licked Sam’s cheek. It was cold, like a kiss of the dead. But Sam’s face was getting hotter and hotter in anger.
“I’m not the only one wearing a mask,” Higgs said as his hand released Sam’s hair and, with a wave, his golden mask appeared.