This is the tale of Blake and Rose, I thought. Was it coincidence that the images I’d drawn of Rose seemed thicker, the lines stronger? Had I been leaning harder on the Hyena, or had the work earlier blunted the very tip of the shattered blade, allowing for a broader, clearer groove into the floor?
Or was it representative of something else?
My light was disappearing.
Ur lashed out, reaching, but Ur didn’t pass over the line.
This tale of Blake and Rose is my creation, I thought. I turned my attention to the brightest patch of floor. If I worked here next, then by the time I was finished, the light might have shifted to give me room to work elsewhere. I was already plotting the greater work. When I ran out of years, I could move onto pivotal scenes. If I reached a wall… My eye fell on a patch of graffiti, barely visible in the dim light that seeped through the windows.
The binding on the outside… it only dawned on me now. It was a creation of a sort too. Not just words hidden in graffiti, but the graffiti itself.
Nine year old Blake. Playing with Paige and Molly. Rose’s version of that image wouldn’t have that.
Ten year old Blake. Torn away from his cousins.
I had a clear path available to me. I was containing myself within this diagram that Ur couldn’t pass, but I could extend it. So long as I was careful, I could stay largely within the diagram, continuing to expand it.
I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t need to go to the bathroom. My heart didn’t beat.
I’m a false man, I thought. A vestige, maybe, a boogeyman.
I could do this for days, I thought.
I hated the idea of waiting, of taking hours or even days to do this, but I could cover this floor in images.
Where would Ur go then? Into the walls? Retreat beneath the factory?
Ur stirred, moving around the periphery of the room, while my eyes were focused on the images I was etching into the floor. My attention was divided several ways.
I almost missed it.
In one moment, Ur was there, writhing, making phantom images, distracting, and I was drawing the head of a twelve year old Blake over a test paper scrawled with doodles, marked with a big fat ‘F’ in the middle.
In the next moment, Ur was gone.
The factory empty, the way utterly clear.
Deceptively clear.
It was if Ur was communicating with me. Negotiating, maybe, or tempting. Aren’t your hands tired? Aren’t your hands hurting from this tedious, awkward work? Don’t you want to go back to Jacob’s Bell and help your friends?
Leave this crude binding unfinished, and you can go.
Go, I imagined Ur saying, so I can catch you by surprise, snatch you up and devour you once and for all.
I kept scratching. Thirteen year old Blake and his first crush.
If I couldn’t remember her face, was that because the event wasn’t real, or was it just faulty memory at work?
The quiet was eerie.
The light moved as I worked. I took a minute to adjust the mirrors, and gave my hands a rest.
No wind, no slithering, scraping, grinding or any of that, not even my own breathing or heartbeat.
Utter, complete quiet.
Then a sound. A sudden crack.
Rocks fell from above. Pebbles, landing and skittering across the images I’d just drawn.
Larger pebbles.
I had to be careful, looking up. Up was dark, and very little light from the windows reached the ceiling. The ceiling was that same utter darkness that had swallowed up the light from the blade.
But as the light from the windows had shifted, a section of ceiling above me had illuminated.
Binding diagrams, as I understood it, extended all the way up and all the way down.
Ur couldn’t loom above me anymore, not with the diagram here.
Ur could, however, work in the abstract.
The demon was devouring the roof. It was like something from a cartoon, but Ur was cutting a broad circle, further around than my own, and when the demon finished, the roof would fall.
Right on top of me.
On top of my diagram of created art.
Stay put, get crushed.
Run, get caught.
Hyena in one hand, handle and arm wrapped in my sweatshirt, a large piece of glass in my other hand, I ran. Broken glass scraped underfoot as I scrambled for the nearest window, hoping I could somehow run faster than Ur could raise an obstacle or seize me.
I needed to make this bluff into something I could take advantage of. To seize on the fact that he was pretending not to stand in my way, and catch him by surprise.
I couldn’t. Demon’s flesh extended from pockets of darkness. An ‘x’ of limbs, barring my way. They smoked and crumbled in the light, but a barrier was a barrier all the same.
Ur reached for me, and he succeeded in catching me: teeth clutched my injured hand. This time, I knew how to use the Hyena. A stab, extending the blade so it faced the nearest available window as I finished cutting, the light bouncing back to catch the knobby, ulcer-ridden head that had extended from darkness. Cut and light together, so the light could make the cutting easier and the cutting wouldn’t be undone by easy replacement of flesh.
It let go. I kicked it, using that same action to push myself further in the direction I wanted to go.
More tendrils and limbs. Not big ones this time – a multitude of smaller ones.
I wasn’t going to make it. The light wasn’t enough.
I thought of the lost god that had suppressed Ur. I wasn’t naive enough to think he could somehow reach me here. Just a random god of light that a tribe had once worshiped, preserved only by word of mouth, perhaps, until the tribe or the myth had passed from human memory.
I roared, not in fear, or in worship.
The demon ate existence. It was opposed by creation and light.
I roared only to generate noise. To create that noise.
The effect wasn’t tangible, but if Ur put more demon’s flesh in my way before I reached the window, I couldn’t tell with my eyes screwed shut.
I felt him tear at me, scrape and clutch, and I only screamed louder, struggling to hold the Hyena at the right angle, so the light would help forge the way.
If I’d stopped making forward progress as limbs clutched me and tried to drag me back, I couldn’t tell.
“I am the Thorburn bogeyman!” I screamed, the words raw. “I am made of stick and bone and birds and spirit and false memories!”
Something tore at my eyelid. I twisted my head back, screaming my anger to Ur and his factory and to the world.
“I beat you! In this I’ve beat you! You can swallow me up, but those scratches will stay! People can learn how to stop you! It’ll be easier!”
Something caught me around the throat.
“Tear down the roof to hide it and you’ll let the sun in! Tear out the floor and people won’t come inside! I’ve won! I’ve won!”
My words felt like they had power.
“I’ve won, Ur!”
My fingertip brushed glass.
With a final surge of strength, I heaved myself forward and through.
When I opened my eyes, snow had settled in my one eye socket. With the act of opening the eye, I felt snow touch the eyeball itself, drifting free to trace a line over my cheekbone.
I blinked a few times, clearing my vision in my one good eye.
The snow was wet and cold, and I used it to wipe my face clean, wary of the broken glass. I was bleeding from wounds the demon had inflicted, and the snow served to dilute it. The blood was too dark, too thick. Almost congealed.