I looked out the window of the apartment as I walked down the hall, my blackened boots leaving trails of ash and blood, maybe that last one wasn’t from the boot, I couldn’t tell. Was I bleeding? Did I step in blood? Was it my blood, or someone else’s? Someone close?
Outside, I could hear the chirping of ravens as they picked at the dead who rested on the lower floors of this tower, residents before me or those I had met, the ground was drenched in them and smoke from a blaze that once roared as high as the sky but now was cold, and the city a hollow shell of what it once was. The life that was no longer took breath, there had been bright lights and fireworks when I had arrived in this place so long ago. It seemed like centuries now since the starlight had illuminated the sky with divine light. In its place, as I look out the filthy glass, I find a black sky stained by the traces of a red smoke that shot up so high then slowly descended, a ball shot from a tool, from a hand, in an attempt to call for aid and silence followed the call.
I had seen all there was in this city, from the depths of its pits where few saints dare to go to the tower, the tower that I now stand. In this place I came searching for…for…I couldn’t remember. Did I carve my way here or did I come here by invitation? Then why did it suddenly go dark? This place of second chances. This place to begin again. Now drowned in the cloud of sorrow and decay, this place has fallen. But why? What has caused the fall of this paradise? Maybe that’s why I came here, to this tower, in this place there was perhaps answers.
“Answers? No. That’s not what they are,” a voice hissed behind me, yet it was calm and familiar. I turned to see the spectral figure of a man, a ghost, whose appearance was lost to me. Every time I thought I knew the details changed, shifted, as if they were a constant flow of thought and ideas, a river that would not end. But there was one thing that I did know, that their piercing eyes dug deep, ignoring any unseen-armor I bore and went to my core. “These…these are truths. Yes, truths. You can change the name of what they are but it doesn’t change who they are.”
And with that he walked to the stairwell leading to the roof. I went to follow yet my eyes were drawn to a new figure that stood out on a terrace with a pool of clear water. Approaching them I found that they were shapeless. More of a lump of clay briefly defined by the shape of a man yet featureless all the same. But then I looked into the crystal reflection, the mirror pool, and I saw myself. How could that be? I was me, I saw myself in myself, but when I gazed at them I also saw myself. I also saw many selfs in that mirror, in that reflection, and I recoiled back.
The lump of clay chuckled, their voice echoing and deep as if their own material clumped up their throat. “Can’t stand what you see? Not what you envisioned? Not what you tell yourself? Look at this pool, veer longingly into its body, and reveal what your inner-voice will not. What I will not, heh heh.”
“Who are you? Why do you take on my appearance? Be you demon, angel, or just a madman?” I demanded of the clay.
The blank face looked up at me, and out of the corner of my eye looking into the water I saw that its many faces changed shape.
“What am I? I am what you choose for me to be. Will I wear a crown of thorns?” The clay’s image in the water shifted to match that of a battle-ready angel, one that my mind could perceive. “Or am I the demon whose tongue spits fire?” Again, they changed and I saw nothing but a shadow melting as it stood and whose words created flame. “Maybe perhaps the dragon of old tale, the final destiny for your blade?” And again they were different, the golden dragon of dread, whose black eyes seared like flames, and there on my hip was a green blade. “I’ve had many names, many lives, but all throughout them I was the same. Same frame, different picture. Tell me, why are you here? Was it to slay the Snake or Beast? To begin again? To find answers long buried away? Why we do the dance? Why we be? But don’t answer, I know all the excuses and pleas, I’ve been on your shoulders for a long time.”
I took one last look at the mirror and saw the gaping wound at my side, covered by a drenched bandage long overused. My face scarred and bloodied. Was all this my doing? I clutched the red cloth then walked away. There came a hiss of whispers almost that of knives yet they were indistinguishable. The roof. I had to make it to the roof. I would find my cure there, my solution; there lies the end. I dragged myself to follow the trail of the ghost up the steps.
And lo’, when I reached the top I did not find paradise but the empty sky, blackened with no stars, the only light emitting from the edge of the roof barely illuminating us wholly, and it was there that I saw the ghost. No, not that ghost, that figure was too familiar to me. Yet they couldn’t be here, they were gone from this place, from my mind, from all that there was here. They were leaning against the railing facing the city, to their left was an opening that led to somewhere, I supposed.
Approaching the opening, my vision narrowed immensely and my will faltered for a moment–no, it drained the closer I got to the edge, the closer I got to looking down. Down at nothing, down at the emptiness, down towards the view from halfway down, the minute of rejection. I threw myself away from it. I found myself clinging to the railing, my heart beating like the rattle of a machine gun.
“Still can’t do it, eh? To make that choice.”
To my right, at the sound of those callous words echoing from the husk of the figure, the ghost perhaps taking another form, but this body held weight when I finally gazed upon it. I felt as if I was staring at myself, repulsive, dejected, lost, blinded, hopeful, introspective, wondering, pondering, questioning, afraid. “Imago Consideratio. To hell with you! To hell with–” I stumbled as The Drop drew me close but I pulled away.
“I’ll never tire of watching you stumble to spout your rhetoric. Your philosophy. The effort you always make to escape this rooftop, this scenario, this feeling of hopelessness, the determination, the end. But this isn’t the end of us, and I think you know that deep down,” Imago stepped away from the railing and stood behind me. “You know that we’ll keep doing this. You’re addicted to the thrill. The thought.”
“Don’t you chastise me! You’re always the spear that stops me from ending it. I bear the blade to slay this dragon of the cycle so it can end and you always send this upon me, upon us,” I countered.
“There’s the blaming, shedding responsibility for your actions. Did it occur to you that I only poked you? That I did so when you, of your own free will and acknowledgement, gave in and started all this over again. You always get to the cave, the laid, and at the first challenge you falter. Sometimes it’s the second or third, but regardless you don’t reach the end. I gave you all the tools you could need. I will give you all the tools but you squander their potential. You refuse because at your core you’re that dragon you so hate. To slay it is to slay yourself. Whether that be The Drop or any other method you choose.”
”There’s no escape,” I gasped thoughtlessly. “I’m trapped.”
”You’re only trapped if you choose to be. You can escape this or you can kill me and we do this all over.”
”I can do this. I can.” I dwell on the thought of shooting Imago where he stood. I almost reached for a weapon when he spoke again.
”Has it led you anywhere different? Roads change but the designation is the same.”
“Then how do we do this? Escape?” I asked of him.
Imago reached out his hand and tiny voices hissed, “Accept.”
“We can’t escape on our own. We need each other, we both know the information needed to break the cycle we’re trapped in. I can’t keep rejecting you. Rejecting the acceptance,” I spoke and looked back at the city’s ruins.
“It takes a strong man to deny what’s in front of him, but it takes a greater man to accept it.” Imago held out his hand again and without hesitation I took it.
