and then blinks.
Zachary reaches out and touches softest fur. He can feel each breath beneath his hand, the thunder of a massive heartbeat, and then the creature blinks again and turns away, allowing the torchlight to catch the length of its long ears and the fluff of its tail before it disappears.
Zachary stares into the darkness after the giant white rabbit.
Did this all begin with a book?
Or is it older than that? Is everything that brought him here now much, much older?
He tries to pinpoint the moments, tries to sort out their meanings.
There are no meanings. Not anymore.
The voice is like a whisper made of wind.
“What?” Zachary asks aloud.
“What?” his echo answers him over and over and over.
You are too late. It is foolish to continue.
Zachary reaches back and pulls the sword from its scabbard, holding it out against the darkness.
You are already dead, you know.
Zachary pauses and listens though he does not want to.
You took a walk too early in the morning and collapsed from fatigue and stress and then hypothermia followed but your body has been buried in snow. No one will find you until spring melts it away. There is so much snow. Your friends think you are missing when in truth you are beneath their feet.
“That’s not true,” Zachary says. He does not sound as certain as he would like to.
You’re right, it isn’t. You have no friends. And all of this is a fabrication. Your brain’s feeble attempt to preserve itself. Telling itself a story with love and adventure and mystery. All of those things you wanted in your life that you were too busy playing your games and reading your books to go out and find. Your wasted life is ending, that is why you are here.
“Shut up,” Zachary says to the darkness. He intended to shout it but his words are weak, not even strong enough to echo.
You know this is true. You believe it because it is more believable than this nonsense. You are pretending. You have imagined these people and these places. You tell yourself a fairy tale because you are too afraid of the truth.
The torchlight is fading. Cold like snow creeps over his skin.
Let go. You will never find your way out. There is no way out. You are at the end now. Game over.
Zachary forces himself to keep walking. He can no longer see where the path goes. He concentrates on one step and then another. He shivers.
Give up. Giving up is easier. Giving up will be warmer.
The torch goes out.
You don’t have to be afraid of dying because you are already dead.
Zachary tries to move forward but he cannot see.
You are dead. You perished. There is no extra life. You had your chance. You played your game. You lost.
Zachary falls to his knees. He had thought he had a sword, why would he have a sword? That’s so stupid.
It is stupid. It’s nonsense. It is time you stopped fantasizing about swords and time travel and men who don’t lie to you and owl royalty and the Starless Sea. None of those things exist. You made them up. All of this is in your head. You can stop walking. There is nowhere to go. You’re tired of walking.
He is tired of walking. Tired of trying. He doesn’t even know what he wants, what it is that he’s looking for.
You don’t know what you want. You never did and you never will. It is over and done with. You have reached the end.
There is a hand on Zachary’s arm. He thinks there is a hand on his arm. Maybe.
“Don’t listen,” a different voice says near his ear. He doesn’t recognize the voice or its accent. Maybe British or Irish or Scottish or something. He is bad at accent identification like he is bad at everything else. “It lies,” this voice continues. “Don’t listen.”
Zachary doesn’t know which voice to believe even though British-Irish-Scottish accents tend to sound official and important and the other voice didn’t have an accent but maybe there aren’t any voices at all maybe he should rest awhile. He tries to lie down but someone pulls at his arm.
“We cannot stay here,” one of the voices insists. The British one.
You imagined help for yourself, you are so desperate to believe. That’s pathetic.
The hand releases his arm. There was never a hand there, there was nothing.
A light flares, a sudden brightness sweeping over the space. For a second there is a tunnel and a path and