Weaving - The Antisequence - 1

The bullet rips through your jaw, tearing flesh and shattering teeth. It feels fitting, this. You can’t recall the last time your head was above water. Mistake after mistake. A being of small means, forced to reach beyond them simply to make do. Like a fly trapped indoors, buzzing against window panes. A futile attempt to escape the life you had wriggled into. Thank the gods someone was finally able to squash you. There is no pain. In that strange fragment of a moment, the only physical sensation you note is the slight recoil of your stance. As if someone had given you a firm, one-fingered push where your bottom front teeth met your gums. Your posture sways, accounting for the impact. A final reflex after the bullet leaves the back of your neck, severing your spinal cord. A perfect kill shot. Almost admirable. The paralysis could even be seen as merciful, sparring you the agony of your detached body drowning in its own blood. To you, a mercy like this might seem lucky given your history. The Cosmos didn’t spare you from pain often. Unfortunately, you do not have the luxury of considering luck at this moment. You begin to die.

Your eyes lock on the pitch-dark alleyway where your anonymous killer stands, vision still glowing with the afterimage of a muzzle flash. The world blurs. Gravity steals you downwards, but instead of crumpling at your feet, the ground swallows you. Like how one might imagine walking through a mirror. On the other side, you rise to see the alleyway changed. Not only flipped, but its darkness shifts and writhes. The shade once cast by the adjacent building is no longer a shadow, but an enormous, lumbering being. It glides towards you, growing larger than a house. A broad, skeletal creature with a head like a three-eyed ox skull, the rest of its form hidden beneath a thick black cloak made from wispy feathers. In its seven-fingered hands, an enormous, wicked farmer’s scythe. You know who this is, everyone does. Its approach ends in a slow, graceful motion, readying to strike.

“I am sorry.” Death’s multi-voiced speech meets your ears like that of an old friend. Pained. Its words carry an unceremonious impression as if Death has omitted a piece of this sacred ritual. The reliving of one’s past. A thing better left unvisited. You consider this final kindness as the scythe passes through your form. At least it was quick. Death’s perfect blade slices through you like air, its tip catching something at your core and tearing it free. The sensation of your soul leaving its vessel is like taking off a heavy boot after a long day’s work. But there is something else, a second sensation. You are unsure if it’s some influence of this god or your own memory, but you recall a fragment of your sorry life. Not a memory in full, just a feeling. Warm embrace, cooking stew, and brewing yeast.

The world around you is blasted apart as if struck by some impossible sandstorm. Buildings disintegrate, and the ocean is blown away like dew on a windy morning. Unyielding destruction. Your body unravels into ribbons, barely clinging to your skewered soul fluttering in the great shockwave of death. The Coilwalker propels you into The Ethos, and the Mortal Coil takes hold of you once more. Its embrace comes somehow familiar. A welcome end to a long, hard life. The stars blur and the moons explode into a menagerie of strange colorful animals as you soar towards your next becoming. The last strands of what you were flutter behind you like the ribbon of a dancer. You almost forget them. As you burn the sky like a comet, the animals, suspended in nothing, hunt each other in radially symmetric patterns in consummate, bloody dance. Kaleidoscopic. The stars bleed into lines, connecting to form the peaks of bottomless mountains. The mortal threads that bind you release one by one until your final attachment is no greater than a hair’s width. 

Suddenly, the last piece of you goes taught. Your journey through the brilliant beyond suddenly stalls as if someone had grabbed that tiny thread and restrained you like a dog on a leash.

Then it begins to pull on you, backward. Relentless. You resist, but whatever wills your return is determined. As you recede, the Mortal Coil pulls opposite, making you the rope in some terrible tug-of-war. The Coil is ancient and immutable, but it is merely a force. A natural process, patient and not compelled by victory. As you are yanked from its grasp it leaves your soul scarred. Marring you with its awesome power. You hurtle back towards reality, pulled by a thread. With each passing moment, the lost threads and ribbons reattach themselves to you; they cling to your soul and pull on it. Like two dozen hands trying to drown you in deep water. Pulling you under. The threads weave and stitch themselves, enveloping you, becoming your flesh once more.

You awaken to find your body slumped against a wall in some unfamiliar, moonlit street. Your memories of the beyond grow thin like a dream at dawn. Your hand shoots towards your jaw. Its covered in blood and marked with a wide scar where your face had split. You are otherwise unharmed. Your tongue feels around a mouth of restored teeth. With the taste of blood in your mouth you look up to see Dairo standing above you, hand outstretched. Wisps of dark light curl between his fingers before vanishing.

“He brought me back? He never brings us back.” You think to yourself, not believing the site before you.

“Up.” Your merciless master commands.

“Wh- what happened? Where are the others?” You rise, scanning your surroundings for the other Dogs and possible threats.

“They died.”

“All of them?” Your hand raises to your forehead, dizzy. Dairo doesn’t respond, he just turns and begins walking down the alleyway, expecting you to follow. You take a hesitant step after him, then realize your face is uncovered. Your iron dog mask had fallen off in the chaos. The panic of losing it is only momentary as you spot it lying on the cobbles a few strides away. You stoop to pick it up, but Dairo stops you.

“Leave it.” He instructs coldly. You freeze, inches away from picking up the mask. After a pause, you right your posture. Then it strikes you. You died a slave and were returned by your master. Legally, you are free. A million possibilities stream through your muddled mind. Run, scream, sing, dance, cry, thank Diaro, or maybe even try to kill him. Your mind can’t seem to decide and locks itself in place. The sense of uncertainty consumes you. You have no idea what to do with your life. You have no life. You died a long, long time ago. This was no resurrection. At least not in any way that matters. Before you consciously decide anything, you take a step in Diaro’s direction. Then another. You follow your master all the way back to the canal, still obedient but no longer a slave. You don’t know what you are now.