Chapter Text
-ˋˏ ༻𖤓༺ ˎˊ-
In history that day, they had a test. It wasn’t supposed to be hard- just a test over what they’d been learning- but the second Shedletsky found out about it, his stomach fell to his knees. He knew too much and not enough about the topic- the cultural practices that surrounded the gods were as clear in his mind as the outline of a rock in a running river.
Spectre passed out the tests, and gave Shedletsky an award-winning smile for something he definitely regretted doing- the Necrobloxicon taunted him on the Spectre's desk. He hoped there wasn’t anything nefarious planned with it, but knew that his hopes would likely run dry.
“Good luck.” Spectre said ominously, like the tolling of church bells on the day of a funeral, and the test commenced.
The first question was about Telamon. Simple, easy, and quick to answer; “What was Telamon the god of?” He wrote, quickly, “Altitudes, flighted vertebrae, the sun, fire, war, and hunting.” He took a second to appreciate how much of an exhaustive list it was.
The second question was about Builderman. A little harder; “In the most popular version of the myth, what did Builderman do when Telamon died?” Not having been there, he wrote “mourned for centuries” and hoped it was sufficient. The statement aligned with what David had told him.
The third question was about Dussekar, and he was grateful to remember the answer; “What occurs when you stare into Dussekar’s eyes?” Easy. “Insanity.”
The test went on like this, and though he didn’t know some questions; who even did know why some Asian followers of Dussekar worshipped with the practice of giving gifts to some specific species of deer? He sure didn’t.
He took a breath when he saw the final question.
“Can gods die permanently?”
His hand trembled as he wrote down, “Yes.” He felt the answer more than he knew it; although maybe it was his humanity that spoke of the fear of death, and not the divinity he had once held. But he wasn’t going to risk it, and didn't want to question it.
At the end of the class period, Spectre collected their papers. He was one of the only teachers to use physical paper, and it annoyed almost everybody that took his class; it was less efficient than typing. He also avoided multiple-choice questions like the plague.
“Is everybody done?” He asked, and everybody in the class nodded. “Then the test is finished. Thank you for your cooperation.” The bell tolled.
He hurried out of that class like his life depended on it. Lunch was a relief, and he was lucky to have it; cold lemonade on a hot summer day, a warm shower after a swim in a cold lake; the feast after the hunt. At the table, he sat down next to David, who smiled at him and held his hand.
“You’ve gotta eat lunch.” David spoke up.
“I know; I was going to go get the chicken and funnel cake in the homestyle line.”
“Good.” David nodded approval. “Want me to…”
“I’ll do it myself. You don’t need to worry about me more just because we’re together, David. You can calm down.”
David nodded, but his eyes didn’t. His eyes spoke despair, fear, worry, not confidence like his forced smile and the nod of his head.
“I get it, though.” Shedletsky said, and it cleaned the negativity like hydrogen peroxide on a blood stain.
Despite the dry and gross nature of the chicken, it was the more appetizing part of the meal; the funnel cake meant just as little to him as a single grain of dirt in the forest.
“Weird.” He muttered under his breath, though it was mostly to convince himself that yes, that wasn’t normal; but he didn’t believe himself in the end. It wouldn’t have been normal a week and a half ago. But now wasn’t then.
He sat down and devoured the chicken; he pushed the funnel cake over to Matt, who pushed it over to Christina, who gladly ate it.
“Normally you love this.” She said, in between bites.
“Nothing but meat has sounded good lately.” He said plainly.
“You’re a carnivore now?”
He wasn’t surprised at the question, but he was surprised that Matt jumped in to answer. “He is still capable of eating plants; but they pale in comparison to what meat grants.”
“So what you’re saying is…”
“You are an omnivore; but with your physiology, plants are less, not more.”
He nodded and chugged the carton of milk. “Got it. So, what should I do about that? So I don’t have to, like, kill things.”
“I was going to suggest taking up the hunt; but I see you desire to be a runt?”
He glared at Matt. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Hm.”
He opened his chromebook and looked at what he had scheduled for tutorials. Math. Right. He sighed; it wasn’t the worst class he could possibly have for tutorials, at least; that would be history. However, it wasn’t ideal; it was just work. Like most people his age, work was on the list of things he hated.
It was less tolerable when there was so much of it.
He closed his chromebook and looked at David, then back at Christina; he was about to announce that they’d finally gotten together, just like she’d wanted, but she spoke before he could.
“I already know,” She smiled at him, “David told me. Now you’ve just got to kiss, and we can consider your life complete.”
“I have plenty of time to keep living, excuse me.” He feigned insult; she smiled and chuckled.
“Now that we’ve gotten that through, when’s the baby due?” Matt joked.
“We’re both men, Dussekar, we can’t have a child together.”
David laughed. “I feel like I’m missin’ somethin’ here.” He took a sip of water.
“Yesterday,” Shedletsky pointed at Matt, “He argued that if we were to have a kid, I’d be the one pregnant.”
Water squirted out of David’s nose. He choked for a few seconds before returning to the conversation like nothing happened, “I dunno, Matt; I was the god of creation, wasn’t I?”
Matt snorted, and the bell rung.
“Well, looks like I have to go to tutorials.” Shedletsky said remorsefully.
“Which class?” Christina asked.
“Math. Growing wings, it really tanks your grade, you know?” He joked; she rolled her eyes at him.
“Have fun, birdbrain.”
“Quack.”
She laughed, and he made his way back to the class.
If tutorials were anything, the best adjective he had to describe them was dull. That was especially true today; it was functionally a one-on-one lecture of things he’d missed, and it dragged on all of thirty minutes. Mrs. Doe still had to flit across the room, giving advice to the other students there, but she was spending most of her time tutoring him.
It wasn’t insulting so much as it was annoying.
When the bell signaled he was done with that, he moved on to his next class.
He paid as much attention in his physics class as he could muster, which, to be fair, wasn't a lot of attention. Jan was still looking at him like he'd sprouted wings, which, to be fair, he had. He rustled them to see the uncomfortable shift of her eyes away from him.
“As a reminder, John, why does the Earth have gravity?”
He hesitated for a second; they were taught at the beginning of the year, but he'd been distracted. People stared at him, and he didn't let it bother him.
“Because it spins?”
Mr. Doe sighed, but responded; “Close enough. The Earth has gravity due to the centrifugal force caused by rotation. This is also important for the gravity caused by the sun and every other…”
Shedletsky tuned out. The information was probably going to be on a test, and he was probably going to fail it; he ought to convince his parents to let him stay home on Thursday, just in case, because he didn’t want to be “that one guy that made the entire student body into collateral damage”. He could, if he wanted to, though he shouldn’t entertain the thought, he could take up the Illumina and carve through walls and let its radiance cut the-
It wasn’t a hunt if they weren’t prey. It was murder, war, and he would never be war given flesh. He would never be Telamon.
He didn’t bother, though, bringing his attention back to the discussion at hand. He knew how he was going to fight 1x1x1x1; preferably, the ‘fight’ would end without a single drop of blood spilled, his or theirs. He’d like that, like to resolve it painlessly.
A painless end to the most agonizing two weeks of his life; that would be the ideal.
The bell tolled with uncertainty, closing out the hour tentatively and without pride for its role, pride it did not deserve to have. He slung his bag over his shoulder in a similar manner; the contents inside jostled around as it nestled in between his wings.
He tried his best to pay attention in computer science, though the machinations would never fully reach him as the class wanted them to; it was intuitive in some areas and confusing in others, and he spun a pencil in between his hands as he listened to the lecture. He was careful not to break it; it could snap so easily, just like a horse’s leg.
He’d briefly spaced out when he was called upon by the teacher to answer a question.
“John, how do computer chips hold information?”
He was lucky to actually know the answer to that one; he said with ease, “Binary data is stored in a circuit.”
“And what is that circuit called?”
His eyes darted as he sorted through mental files of information; he locked his gaze onto his teacher and answered confidently; “memory card.”
“A memory cell.” His teacher corrected. “But good, that was close.”
Shedletsky smiled, and paid attention to the rest of class.
In video game design, he got started on his essay.
“Though they would initially appear so different it would be impossible to compare them, Stardew Valley and Ultrakill actually share a multitude of similarities to anybody that attempts to look at more than surface level mechanics.”
Beyond the first paragraph, he began to struggle drawing comparisons. Unless…
“Both games feature more retro-style graphics, with the main difference between them being that Ultrakill’s pixelation is less visible with such a fast-paced playstyle, whereas the slower nature of Stardew Valley makes any pixelation more obvious.”
He continued with this until the class period came to a close, and relief poured into his bones like water into the ocean; the air outside was polluted and rough, but it was fresh air nonetheless. With his bag zipped tight, he took off into the air.
A vulture soared over flat land, enjoying the rush of air and all the while hunting, or rather scavenging, preparing to dine on death and rot. She veered from her course to greet him in the air, grunting softly at him that she was honored to make his acquaintance and could help him locate quarry if he so pleased. A useless fact drifted to the front of his mind; vultures do not have functioning voice boxes. Interesting.
He should’ve brushed her off, but he felt guilty for leaving that other vulture in the morning and reluctantly veered off. She was the talkative sort, if birds without functioning syrinxes could talk, mentioning how excited she’d been to see him a few days ago, that she’d never anticipated this, that she was planning on showing him all of her usual spots, and that she’d definitely bring the news of his resurrection to her offspring when she had them come the blooming season.
She was sweet, almost overbearingly so, as she led him over to the small body of a dead squirrel. According to her, it was killed earlier that day by a hawk, and was still fresh; it didn’t smell like gut bacteria, yet. Its lifeless eyes were glassy and open in terror; a hole was buried into its side, carving through unprotected stomach to get at the offal; a small pool of dried blood sat around it and stained the grass.
He wasn’t squeamish, and felt no disgust looking at it, but he created unnatural revulsion at the prospect of eating. Shedletsky made himself recoil, forced steps back and a gentle shake of his head, and slowly said to her, “I need to be somewhere.”
It did look delicious, but he remembered the jutting bones of the deer, remembered the smell of the corpse, remembered the Illumina through the tree.
It was also already dead. It would go on to continue to decompose, because of bacteria or something. Nobody would see him. Nothing that wasn’t already going to happen would happen from this.
Had he been human, he would’ve felt guilt at the taste of blood in his mouth; had he been human, he would’ve crawled away in shame. After he’d had his fill, he realized absently that he was, instead of flying home, preening his wings. His parents must have been so worried.
Despite being very much unfinished, and despite how pausing made him bristle, he left. There was a storm on the horizon; he could see dark clouds approaching, and the wind had picked up, but it didn’t hinder him; it was a quick flight back. His mother had already gotten back, which was the first sign that he’d spent too long with that vulture.
“We were worried, John. Do we have to impose a curfew?” It was more of a threat than a question; she glared at him like a non-commissioned officer sizes up the newest addition to their squad.
“No.” If he’s unsuccessful with combatting 1x1x1x1, the only thing she’ll ever have to do again in relation to him is weep at a gravesite. If he’s successful… he knows he’ll be successful, but that she won’t have to give him a curfew when he is. He’ll be alright.
He has to think that.
She noticed something on his face and physically recoiled; she took steps back with her hands extended out in front of her, preparing for something.
“What?”
He reached up a hand and wiped at his mouth, where the dried blood of the squirrel sat. His feathers rose, and the shag carpeting underneath his talons was torn more than it had ever been; he scratched at the base of the floors.
“It’s not what you think-” But it was, wasn’t it? It was exactly what she thought it was. It was carnage, it was bloodstain, and despite her disgust and horror, it tasted good. He left for his room, watched her shake her head slowly, softly; watched her sit down on the couch to process the fact that her son was a monster, something she hadn’t come to terms with despite ample opportunities that week.
He opened up Discord listlessly. There was nothing addressed to him in the group chat, no work for him to complete; he felt guilty for still getting a (even meager) salary for doing absolutely nothing to help them. But Doombringer had something in their private chat.
Doombringer: Hey, sevenless?
He types his reply.
sonofsevenless: Yeah?
Doombringer: Can I come over to where you’re at?
sonofsevenless: why?
Doombringer: Just a quick thing on souls and 1x1x1x1, you know.
sonofsevenless: I’m not going to kill them, so you don’t even need to tell me.
Doombringer: Okay. Good luck. By the way, there’s some platforming sections that need balancing, so whenever you can playtest, we’d be happy to have the help.
sonofsevenless: I’m available now.
Doombringer: It’s rooms LostAngeles35 and DeadDallas2.
Shedletsky booted up the game and used developer controls to boot himself into Angeles35.
sonofsevenless: you want me to test with every character we’ve programmed, right?
Doombringer: Yep.
The first character he tested was, of course, the main character. Because of the existence of challenge runners, everything had to be tested without accounting for team mechanics, which made his job significantly more annoying. It had to be possible to complete with only Guest 1337.
After running through it a few times, he determined that it was quite easy.
sonofsevenless: Are we going for PoP level difficulty since this is one of the last sections in this area?
Doombringer: It shouldn’t be too hard, but it also shouldn’t be too easy.
sonofsevenless: Even with the enemies and just one character, it was easy.
Doombringer: And you’re sure this isn’t just because you’re cracked at the game?
sonofsevenless: I’m sure.
Doombringer: I’ll talk to stickmaster about it.
sonofsevenless: It was the platforming that was too easy, not the enemies. It had the right amount of enemies.
Doombringer: Got it.
Shedletsky checked the time and calmly turned off his laptop. He was a little hungry; nothing that dinner couldn’t fix, and nothing nearly as bad as when he’d been growing wings. He began to walk downstairs, but paused as he heard a conversation between his parents. They were quiet, but he heard them like an owl.
“He keeps saying that he’s Telamon’s reincarnation.” His mother mentioned. “Do you think… maybe that he could need professional help?”
“Therapists wouldn’t believe him.”
“I don’t believe him, not entirely. This could be some… magical disorder. Those exist, I’m sure; if mages exist.”
“He has plenty of evidence to back up the point.”
“Evidence doesn’t mean that he’s right. He’s probably…” She shuddered. “I don’t want to think about it. And that blood!”
“Do you think he’s…”
“He’s never had issues with hurting himself before!”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
Her eyes widened, and Shedletsky caught it in full resolution.
“No. He wouldn’t.”
“We don’t know that.”
She gripped at the fabric of her shirt, right in front of her heart. “... We should make dinner.”
His father paused, sighed; he looked at her and cupped her face in his hands. She reached up a hand and grabbed the side of his arm, leaning into the embrace. He watched this for a minute before his gaze turned into a glare, and through his frustration, he quietly retreated to his room.
He did keep it pretty dark, a fact which the Illumina was not hesitant to remind him of. It then began critiquing all of his design choices, ending by telling him that he had better taste in his last life.
“I also had all of the resources in the world, so maybe that’s why my room doesn’t look like the Parthenon.”
It told him, scathingly and harshly, much like a drill sergeant, that he knew Builderman’s reincarnation and could quite easily remedy that.
“It’s not necessary, Illumina. My room is fine as it is.”
It levitated a few inches before crashing back down, like a huff of anger; it made a snide comment about him being perfectly fine with catching his own food a few days ago, and that he was a coward now.
“I’m not a coward.”
If the Illumina could have made a non-committal shrug, it would’ve, and he knew it. He glared at it, and removed it from the windowsill; this initiated what constituted a screeching match, although really it was aggressive telepathy telling him how much of an asshole he was. The statement would’ve hurt, if it hadn’t been the Illumina that made it.
“You can have your sunning spot back when you start behaving.” Shedletsky reprimands. It retorts by calling him lame. “I get it. I was cooler when I made you.” Hotter, actually, it corrects. “Wow. My own creation, calling me a chud. What a world we live in.”
At least, it states, it didn’t kill him.
“Okay, not killing me is the least you can do. Now, I’m going to go ask about dinner, like I didn’t hear them talking.”
Talking, it laughed, about him being himself. It was amused at this, which offended him; but he shook his head and walked down as lackadaisically as he could. He failed, however, in his attempt to be nonchalant; his face was a heart on his sleeve. So when he took a short breath and readied a casual question, his mother was a deer in headlights.
“What’s for dinner?”
She sighed in relief. “We’re having cauliflower bhaji. The recipe from that one fusion website.”
“Right.” It sounded as appetizing as burnt tofu twice-cooked in a sheep’s stomach and served with watery gravy. “Sounds… great.”
“You should work on your homework.”
“Fine.” He had a multitude of things to say on the topic of how hellish completing his homework would be, but didn’t say any of them; she already thought he had a magical mental illness or something.
He slogged through his homework; by the time dinner was completed, he wasn’t even halfway through; he’d have to stay up that night. It was a good thing he still had a day before 1x1x1x1 arrived, unless… no, he had a day, he was sure of it. The meal was about as good as he’d expected, which was to say he had to force himself to finish it, because it just didn’t taste good, though he’d loved it a few weeks ago when they’d had it for the first time.
He put his plate into the dishwasher, finished his homework, brushed his teeth, ignored the Illumina's pleas to be put in the windowsill, and fell into dreamless, wine-dark sleep.
⤜⇾⫘⫘⚔⫘⫘⇽⤛
That night, it rained. It always did when they walked near. They were almost there, they knew it. One day more, less than a day even; they hoped to arrive in the night, when he’d be most vulnerable, and then they could quietly take divinity for themself. They had wandered aimlessly for millenia, millenia where their revenge was incomplete, and waited patiently.
Sixteen years ago, he had reincarnated. They’d felt it in their bones; a humming that reverberated through their entire being, that told them they could finally enact what they’d been planning for millenia. But there had only been a vague sense of direction up until around a week ago, when the very sky itself had shook, when the stumps of where their wings had been twitched. They’d begun running, as fast as they could.
Now their pace had been reduced to a brisk trot, the twin swords in their hands heavy and nearly weighing them to the ground; they would feel exhaustion if they could, but they could not; since that fateful day, the hatred simmering under their core had burst into bonfire.
Sixteen years ago, however, some of that became a shared burden. They could not decide if they hated his reincarnation for that, but they knew without a shadow of a doubt that they did hate him.
They spun the Venomshank in their hand, watching as the infinite poison that coated her dripped down the blade before crawling back up. It was the only sword they’d ever forged and ever would forge; not a replica of the Daemonshank, but a sister to him.
Thunder rolled across the sky. Birds scattered when they saw them. They leered at them, those savages that only ever spoke of one thing, these days; him. They hated the sound. But their name, they reassured themself, looking at their reflection in the blade of the Daemonshank, would be on their beaks soon enough. Less than a day, twenty-three hours…
They would’ve smiled if they had the muscles for it. Instead, they tugged at their thinning white hair. They ought to take better care of the one thing they had that spoke to their status as a living being, but they did not. Better to let it rot and fall off, like those useless wings had. Better to let themself embody those legends that called them a demon, a monster.
The real monster was the golden glowing god that called himself Telamon.
Nearby, they spotted a security camera. It was easy to dismantle; they threw the Daemonshank with precision, and he stopped it before it got a chance to capture them. In this modern era, they had to be more cautious than ever before. Before, their presence was a cause of alarm, a reason to make haste and abandon a town. Nowadays, they knew the opposite was likely true. Humans have become reckless, willing to strike at anything in their path. Humans have also become ignorant, turning blind eyes to the true divinity of the world.
Their boots thudded heavily against the ground as they continued walking. On the streets, there was a single lost child; they flattened themself against a wall and continued on, aiming not to be noticed, but still ending up with a little one at their feet. They were tall as the completed mythological Babel, and she was small as Wycheproof, but she did not cower. Instead, she looked up at them with watery eyes and pitifully spoke, like the mewl of a newborn kitten.
“My daddy told me to wait, but I-”
They let out a harsh scoff. “You will find no help with me, little one.”
“Please-”
“I’ve no heart to help.” They cut the side of the building with their sword, which carved through the bricks like a cleaver through bone. “All I have is rage. So leave, lest the Daemonshank taste your neck next.”
Predictably, the tears began flowing like the falls of Iguazú; she pleaded and whimpered, but they simply walked past. It was true, that they had not the love, had not the compassion to help her; they would have, in their youth, but the candle had long since burned to a stump. The rain made her tears impossible to notice, and they didn’t care to look at the way her eyes reddened.
The suburbs gave way to rolls of countryside, which would eventually again give way to suburbs. It was the cycle of things; death and rebirth, and death again.
They would bring Telamon to his final death, and they would claim his power.
1x1x1x1 laughed harshly, and pressed on.
-ˋˏ ༻𖤓༺ ˎˊ-
Shedletsky woke up well-rested. There had been no dreams that night, no memories to speak of, and it was a relief. But yet… he felt ill at ease. The motes of light that he’d become rapidly accustomed to seeing in his room were duller, faded; they reflected his own heart at him. The Illumina begged him to place it in the window, not out of spite.
It wanted to protect him, and it couldn’t do that if it was not at its best.
He set it down in the windowsill, giving a soft smile. “It’s alright. We still have a day.”
It rang with doubt.
He put on a shirt and quickly preened his wings. He wasn’t nearly thorough enough, but it would have to do. When his hand wrapped around the door’s handle, the Illumina transmitted a sense of panic, which wasn’t necessary; Shedletsky felt, irrationally, the same.
“I’ll be fine. This is all going to work out, got it?” He lied to it.
The Illumina told him that it wished it had a head to shake, because he was making a foolish decision. It was very firm on this, insisting that the best course of action would be staying at home, and that he was dooming himself by leaving to go to school.
“Sounds great. I’ll send in an absence notice reading ‘couldn’t come, my magic sword told me not to’. They’ll believe that, right?” Shedletsky joked, even if his heart wasn’t in it. “I have to go. Can’t get truancy charges in October, for crying out loud.”
He prepared some oatmeal, though his gut begged for real food, and groaned. He’d forgotten to put his chromebook on the charger. Well, he knew for a fact what Spectre would be yelling at him about that day. He could almost hear their voice.
‘John, I have made it abundantly clear that you must attend class with your chromebook fully charged. It’s an insult to our effort as teachers if you do not do the bare minimum required to pass your classes, do you understand me? An insult.’
Or something like that.
Shedletsky couldn’t care less.
Flying to school had become second nature; well, flying as a whole. He remembered, for a brief second, when he’d first tried it in this lifetime, and forgotten how to turn. It felt like ages ago, but really, it wasn’t that long. The wind was unusual that day, though. Normally the winds felt like a companion, but today…
Today they harshly butted against him, nearly throwing him off-balance in the sky. Anger was his first reaction, which he tried to calm by taking deep breaths, an activity which was made more difficult by the fact that he was currently hundreds of feet in the air. He tried to fly on, but the sky fought him on it, and a strange terror settled in his stomach.
He had to reach the ground. The thought consumed him; there was nothing else he had the choice to do; the sky was malevolent, whereas the day before he had coasted along; today, it resisted him entirely. His wings folded in on instinct, and he would’ve crashed into the grass had it not been for reflex; he swooped awkwardly before landing.
“What was that?!” He shouted, feathers ruffled; he looked up at the sky with a judgemental expression. “You don’t get to just do that!”
In response, thunder rumbled in the distance. He shook his head, grumbled, and began a ridiculously slow walk to school. For a moment, he debated trying to hitchhike, but he wasn’t interested by the idea of When he finally reached the building, his feet were sore, as were his legs, and he could swear there were rocks digging in his soles. To make a bad day worse, the first period had already passed by the time he made it.
He showed his ID badge to the camera and entered the attendance office, talons scraping at the floor.
“Do you need a tardy pass?” the person at the attendance office asked him, without looking up from her work.
“Yeah. I tried to fly here,” he said, irritated, “but the wind had too much turbulence, so I couldn’t, and I had to walk the rest of the way.” She laughed at that; she’d yet to see him, so it was actually amusing.
“ID number? That’s the worst excuse I’ve heard this year, you know.”
“Not an excuse, but 219026.”
She looked up to hand him the slip, and her jaw was so slack you’d think she was a radium girl.
“That wasn’t an excuse.”
“Told you so.” He said back, taking the pass. “Have a nice day. Don’t get killed tomorrow by the mythological demon that’s rapidly approaching.”
She didn’t laugh, because she didn’t have a reason to think he was kidding, that time. She stared at him, watching him leave, and sucked a breath through her teeth. He could hear the way her pace had kicked up, could see, when he whipped his head around to go check, the anxiety in her eyes.
“Have a nice day.” She said, with no emotion in her tone, but with eyes like frothing waters.
He sat down in his English class and waited for David to snap out of the stupor he’d walked in on. When it didn’t appear to be happening anytime soon, he reached out a hand and gently squeezed him. He woke up like a lightbulb turning on, looking around in confusion.
“Where am-” He sighed, and rubbed at his temples. “It’s kinda annoying, ya know? Not like I’m goin’a go into a career in this, but it’s like…”
“Yeah, I get it.” Shedletsky agreed. “Thinking about careers is…” He struggled for a word that expressed it all.
“I know, it’s weird. But what else are we supposed to do?”
“Ascend to godhood and have that as a career?”
“So what, my ma and pa can introduce me as ‘their son that became god’?” David joked.
Shedletsky put on a voice mimicking David’s mother. “Oh, our son! He ascended to godhood not too long ago. Sometimes he brings around fire dancers.”
“We both died and you’re still not going to let me live that one down?”
“Telamon stayed dead. I’m the bug patch.” Shedletsky joked, which elicited a laugh out of David.
“Probably for the best.” He said, but his face fell at that; he fidgeted with his hands awkwardly, spaced out for a second before going completely still. Shedletsky squeezed at his hand again, which failed to bring him out; a memory, then. All he could do was wait.
He would’ve paid attention to the lecture if he could have, but he found it hard to focus on.
The wind that day. 1x1x1x1. It was connected, it had to be; Telamon had been the god of the sky, and 1x1x1x1 was made of a part of him.
“Oh.” Shedletsky felt stupid for not realizing sooner. “Right.”
David didn’t “snap out of it” like Shedletsky had been expecting him to. He muttered under his breath, but his eyes and mind were still far away. He caught snippets, fragments of a conversation that he didn’t remember; even if he did, it was clear he hadn’t been talking to Telamon.
“I know, but if-”
His grumble was louder than his whispering.
“I’m aware of how reincarnation works, Dussekar.”
It was odd hearing David without his accent. Meanwhile, Seven looked over at him like he’d lost his mind. “What language is that?”
Shedletsky looked between David and Seven. “...English?”
“If that’s English, I’ll hack the government.” Seven glared daggers at Shedletsky. “Again.”
“It was English, dude.”
Seven cleared his throat, and, in an accent that made him sound like a blabbering child, mimicked David. “A’m amale oh mom leincalnachon molksh. Like that, that’s what he said.”
“... You just spoke really bad English?”
“Whatever.” Seven huffed, looking over at the empty seat where Noli should have been. “Noli would’ve confirmed it.” Though that last bit was an afterthought, and it resulted in downcast eyes and a sharp scowl.
The bell’s ringing was apparently enough for David to be brought back to the present, though for a few seconds he looked around with the most bewildered expression on his face before sighing, picking up his backpack, and leaving to go to his next class.
“See you later, Tela- John.” He corrected himself. “John.” He repeated for good measure. “I meant John.”
Shedletsky nodded. “I know.” The words had all the depth of a sheet of paper. His heart picked up pace; if anybody had asked him, he wouldn’t have been able to describe the combination of frustration, dread, and appreciation he felt at the moment.
While he walked through the halls, he was approached by Noob.
“How’s it going?” They asked.
“Not great, honestly.” He admitted. “Hopefully better soon, but…” He shuddered. “Long story short, I’m kind of screwed.”
“Oof. Good luck in Algebra today.”
“What’s happening in Algebra?”
“We have a quiz.”
Shedletsky groaned. “Seriously?”
“Dead serious. Sixer’s nervous too.”
“Tell them I said good luck.”
When he walked into Algebra, he noticed Mrs. Doe pacing in the front of the classroom and fidgeting with her wedding ring. The seat assignments she normally had up at that point weren’t there, and everybody was sitting with their friends; she looked at Shedletsky, but didn’t acknowledge his existence.
“Are you okay?” Shedletsky asked, but didn’t receive any more than a minute shake of the head. He sat down next to Matt, who nodded at him. “You know what’s up with her?”
Matt nodded slowly. “It’s true that I’m aware, but it’s not your truth to bear, so take a seat inside your chair; she’s had a fright, a permanent scare.”
“Permanent?”
“Even I loathe to know; but with my powers, it is privacy I must forgo.”
“Come on.”
Matt sighed. “It’s nothing to do with you, so can we bid this topic adieu?”
“No. Clearly this is important.” Shedletsky insisted. Matt, in response, furiously wrote on a piece of paper and passed it crumpled over to him.
‘Her husband has some of the early symptoms of dementia. That’s it, okay? Now stop asking, you’re acting like Telamon.’
“I’m not-”
Matt glared at him and pointed at Mrs. Doe, who was passing out tests with a shaky smile. The other people in the class looked at her nervously, then looked at Matt and Shedletsky, like at any second they were expecting her skin to turn ashen, or for wings and horns to sprout out of her head and back.
“You will have until the end of class to c-complete this test.” She sounded exhausted, stumbling over her words and running a hand through her frizzy hair.
Shedletsky looked over the test and got to work. By the time the bell rang, he was certain of two things; he had absolutely failed the entire test, and he would have to go to tutorials to make up his work. With those two things in mind, his reluctance to attend History was heightened; he’d be publicly humiliated by his teacher that he’d definitely not agreed to give The Necrobloxicon to.
Spectre grinned at him as he entered the class. “John.” His hand rested upon the cover of the book, and the slideshow presentation read “Bloxianity Presentations”. He looked from it to John and back. “Have you been working on your project, perchance?”
Shedletsky paled. “I…” When he sat down at his desk, he pulled open his computer and hastily put together a slideshow about Telamon. He turned it in, the classroom reminding him that it was, in fact, a day late, and twiddled his thumbs.
The rest of the class filed in with projects in hand. One person carried a shoddy, barely passable replica of the Illumina that gave Shedletsky an irritation similar how one would feel about a person putting a stupid hat and saying they “look just like you”. Suffice to say, he could have a much more convincing aide for his presentation.
He grinned slyly.
The presentations, he had to remind himself, were made by people who hadn’t personally lived through that day and age, and only had myths to go by. If he didn’t know that, he would probably have interrupted and corrected their “facts” about Builderman. When Spectre called his name, he took a breath, stepped to the front of the classroom, and summoned the Illumina.
The entire classroom gasped and gaped.
“This,” He began, completely ignoring his slides, “Is the sword known as the Illumina.”
“A replica,” an unfortunate soul in the back said, “right?”
“No. This is the Illumina, no fine print. I wouldn’t touch it if I were you, but you can try; it burns people. I keep telling it not to.”
People from the classroom whispered at each other.
“You’re probably wondering how I got it. The answer is simple; I summoned it from the British museum. So, Telamon. About him.” He cleared his throat. “He was the god of war, altitudes, and flighted vertebrae.”
“I thought it was birds.”
“Birds and bats, but not flightless birds; he actually hated ostriches with a passion.”
“You’re making that one up.”
“I guarantee you, I got my facts straight from him.”
The entire class came to a collective realization, and Spectre stepped in.
“That is more than enough, John. You may magic your sword back to your house and sit down.”
Shedletsky was smart enough to know that the only reason he wasn’t sent straight to the principal’s office for that was because Spectre was grateful for the Necrobloxicon. Ergo, he sent the Illumina back to his house, despite the angry ringing it screamed in response. His classmates nervously continued with their presentations, occasionally glancing at him as if he was the bogeyman; he sent letters of sharp smiles back to them.
When the lunch bell rang, the faint buzzing in the back of his mind from the Illumina spiked; it was as if a swarm of bees had suddenly invaded his mind. At last, words broke through the static, the first from the Illumina that sounded spoken in his head.
“COME HOME.”
All at once, the noise ceased, leaving his head feeling light as a feather. His hands had been clenched around his hair; he hadn’t noticed, but he removed them from that position.
“I’m going to get screwed by the police for truancy.” He muttered, running to the doors and flying off while the teacher that guarded them yelled at him to show his ID badge.
He remembered far too late the morning’s consequences for flight, as he fought through the winds, but if he was going to trust anything, it was that sword, and he was going to get there as soon as he could, no matter the cost. His back burned by the time he was there; his wings were like the body of an Olympic swimmer pushed to their absolute limit and collapsing in the pool.
His house was silent as he walked into it. The scratching of his feet on the ground, the only sound, reverberated throughout the place. He held his panting breath, waiting for a jumpscare that never came.
The Illumina was doing absolutely nothing inside of his room, just sitting in the windowsill.
“What was that for?” He shouted at it, and felt emotion like a flinch bouncing off of it.
He needed rest before the battle; a nap, to sleep. It demanded it of him. Even with that spell, it wouldn’t come close unless he was strong enough to take on 1x1x1x1. Unless he could fight better than he had in his prime.
“...”
His rage was sharper than its blade, but it was too late to take it back.
“I’m sorry.” He said honestly, to its surprise. “I shouldn’t have yelled; you’re right. But the-”
The truancy charges wouldn’t mean a thing if he was six feet under, it told him. They would be nothing other than another shovel for his grave, another mourner of what could have been.
Shedletsky nodded.
“I don’t have to be happy about this.” He told the Illumina, which agreed with him. “Mom and dad will be furious.” But he had to let them be furious, for the sake of the whole world. And if not the world, then his town; if not his town, then his life. Everybody would much rather him truant than dead.
And he still had to go to Homecoming with David.
It was hard to fall asleep; the knowledge of the fact that he had no choice but to weighed heavily on his mind, and his lack of exhaustion heightened the issue, but he managed to grapple it down into his subconscious.
He wasn’t lucky enough for it to be dreamless.
He was walking in a dark place. The void of it stretched out infinitely; his stomach had long since become leaden. He felt as if he’d been there before; it was a place made of deja vu and terror. Everything, he concluded, had been to the void.
Then, neon green light poured in, and he blinked his eyes to adjust.
He knew who that was, though their appearance was a hazy mirage here and in his memories, which were currently wiped away like footsteps in the sands.
“You.”
“Me.”
“I’ve been waiting for you.
“You have?”
“In just a few hours… It’ll be sweet, the taste of your blood.”
“You’re not going to taste it.”
“Wake up, and we’ll see about that, Telamon.”
Shedletsky woke up to his mother shaking him awake.
“You skipped school again?!” She shouted into his ear. “I thought you were better than this, John!”
He glanced over at the clock. Five thirty.
“Sorry. I just wanted to get rest before they arrive.” He explained; her face fell.
“Right.” She turned her head away from him, straightening her posture awkwardly, her jaw clenched in guilt. “Well, I’m about to make dinner, and you’re going to help me.” She said it with finality. “Because you haven’t been attending school.”
Shedletsky followed her wordlessly. The silence in the house was creeping; it was like a wolf onto a mouse; the stairs under his feet were creaking; it was like the dying of a louse. His sharp eyes scanned crevasses, but found nothing other than what had already been there weeks prior.
He took a deep breath. He was being paranoid, but perhaps the shag carpeting really did hide some twisted treachery that he ought to uncover. It was best not to dwell on such things.
Ingredients lay spread across the countertop like the hide of a flayed deer. Spaghetti, tomatoes yet to be chopped, still-fresh basil; all of which were entirely unappetizing, or would have been if it hadn’t been for the package of half-eaten ground beef that lay next to them, the only slightly tantalizing object on display.
The recipe sat in the center of it all, and Shedletsky glanced over; already he could tell they needed a large pot that hadn’t been set out yet. He rooted through the cupboards, his wings lifting as he fell, and found the one they liked to use for soups and the like; it was a deep, red ceramic pot, a gift from some old relative, and it had gorgeous monotone glazed illustrations on the sides. He’d never paid much mind to them, but now his attention was drawn closer to the patterns.
The first, and most noticeable thing, was the rising sun. The image was repeated, a sun over the sides, positioned in such a way where, if the pot were to spin fast enough, it would appear as if animated.
The second thing was what sat inside of that sun. It was a mere silhouette, but he would recognize the shape of six wings on a man’s body in his sleep; they were all at slightly different positions, so that they would flap and rise with the sun itself.
He set it on the stove and poured some seemingly reasonable amount of water into it with a cup. The recipe didn’t specify anything other than the crucial need to put salt in the water, to flavor the spaghetti; his mother gave him a judgemental look, but didn’t correct his choice.
A pound of pasta was an unreasonable amount of grain, in his humble opinion, but that was how much the recipe called for anyway. This recipe in particular always made leftovers; it was created to feed a family of four, and though they were only three, they made it work anyway.
His mother took the job of slicing up the tomatoes. Nothing had to be done for the basil; it was there as a garnish. The necessary spices- salt, pepper, oregano- permanently sat next to the stove, and were added to taste every time without fail. He already knew he’d be of no use on that department.
“Make the sauce. I’m going to go lay down.”
Of course she was tired as well; Shedletsky was surprised when he felt no irritation, only sympathy, at the statement. He’d never made the sauce before; this recipe was normally only made on weekends, when his father would help his mother and he’d be free to play League or COD on his own.
He was also surprised when the sauce didn’t turn into an absolute disaster. It looked half decent, which was to say an Italian would throw it at his face in generational rage due to the cultural appropriation of it, but it didn’t taste like the bottom of a raccoon's feet, just the top.
He spooned a “decent serving”, or altogether far too little, into bowls of the pasta and set them on the table. By this time, his father had arrived home from work and was sitting with his mother on the couch. Both heads perked up when he casually called “dinner.”
His father looked over it as an artist looks at their child’s scribbles; there is great potential there, but surely it will be years until it is reached. He took a hesitant bite, and only finished his bowl on principle; Shedletsky mentally told himself that his talents lay elsewhere.
John would’ve struggled to eat it regardless of who made it, but finished it for the raw calories alone. He would need them that midnight.
1x1x1x1 was coming.
He checked the time. Six forty five. He had less than a quarter of a day left; Shedletsky spared his parents a wordless glance, one with downturned eyes filled with preemptive mourning, and retreated to his room.
He treated the rest of the night as one treats a weekend. He opened his computer to his modded, emulated copy of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The only mod he’d added was one to make the Dark Beast Ganon fight actually hard, but it was a modded copy nonetheless. He hadn’t played in months; it wasn’t a game eSports had a scene for, and though he loved speedrunning, he’d given up on trying to beat any records after ragequitting five times.
Today, he opened a new save file. He wasn’t going to beat the three hour glitchless record, but he was going to finish the game.
The Great plateau was easy. He was out of it in forty-five minutes, and mentally laughed at how easy the enemies were at this stage of the game. He knew he didn’t have time for all of the Divine Beasts, so after making his way to Hyrule Castle (and a few treacherous run ins with some Stalker Guardians), he quickly made his way to do Riju’s storyline, the only one he considered worthwhile.
That alone took three hours, and he felt his eyes threatening to close. He jolted them back up, despite the Illumina whispering to him about getting some rest (which he’d already done) before 1x1x1x1 arrived.
But he’d have another dream, and what was the point in that, anymore?
In the end, by the time he got to the Dark Beast Ganon fight, he still had an hour left until midnight. When he beat the game, and the cutscene rolled, he took his hands off of the keyboard, opened the window, and stared outside at the lashing rain and wind. The light that reflected off of his feathers was dull and grey, and the Illumina’s glow was muted.
Save for the weather, it was quiet.
He checked the time. Eleven fifteen.
His heart pounded, and he swallowed and took a breath. The Illumina offered reassurances, platitudes that did anything but reassure him; he whispered, voice quivering uncharacteristically, to it.
“If I die, then that’s it.” He took another breath. “It’s final, this time.” He said with more authority. “And it might happen.”
The Illumina was silent.
“I need to make peace with that.”
He sat on his bed for the rest of the forty-five minutes.
He tapped his leg.
At fifteen minutes till midnight, he took a long, slow breath, and let it out so slowly he couldn’t even hear it. The wind rustled the leaves of trees outside.
At midnight, nothing changed, except for the wind rushing ever so slightly faster. He picked up the silent Illumina, dismantled the house alarm, and walked out the door.
The night was dark; no birds sang within it. Not even the hooting of an owl pierced through the winds. His feathers lay sleek on his wings. The Illumina offered no guidance, but it didn’t need to; his feet found the way on their own, as if the poles of the earth had shifted to magnetize him there.
The roads and streets had not a single car on them. Even this late at night, one could still normally hear the rushing of a car or two, but there was nothing, nor a person. The moon was hidden behind the dark clouds which were no longer pouring rain.
He walked across the empty street, past an unlit gas station and car washes with nobody inside, and saw his challenge waiting in the dead center of a floodplane. They did not turn their head to greet him; they didn’t acknowledge his presence at all.
Shedletsky skidded down the slope, mud worming into his talons, and began walking over. Still, they did not move to face him. He swallowed spit and held the Illumina out in both hands.
He was five feet away from them when they spoke.
“You’re here.” They laughed to themself. “Part of me never thought the day would come.”
His grip on the Illumina tightened.
”I had been a fool to hope your first death would be the last. I knew I was wrong when no godhood graced me at your corpse. What should be mine lives inside your human vessel.” They turned. “Who is the pathetic one now, Telamon? You’ve not even raised your sword against me.”
They waited for his response. They might’ve smiled, but it was impossible to tell due to the lack of skin on their face.
“I won’t let myself become Telamon.”
”Yet you hold that sword out in front of you.”
“I won’t kill you.” John Shedletsky said, pulling a note, the written down incantation, from his pocket. They chortled at that.
”A slip of paper is no weapon.”
They did not rush to attack him as he’d expected. Surprised, he looked up from the text and realized what had to be done first.
“... One-by-one-by-one-by-one, I challenge you to a sword fight,” they withdrew their swords, “on the heights.”
They ran at him, and he countered with the Illumina; sparks flashed off of the blades, who were both silent objects in their master’s hands. They forced his sword down, countering his grip on it, and sliced to the side.
Muscle memory came to him, and he flew a few feet into the air before the winds knocked him harshly into the ground. 1x1x1x1 just laughed as he sat there, air refusing his lungs, wheezing. Only when he finally got up did the fight resume.
They were strong, he had no doubt about that while exhaustion hit him from repetitive strikes and blows; they seemed not to tire, their strength unending like the fires of the sun.
He made the next move, a simple slash; they simply dodged back.
“You’re even weaker than I expected.”
They leapt at him before he had time to come up with a response; he dodged out of the way and quickly began shouting the words to the spell. He’d copied it in those runes, which leapt to his tongue like they had always settled there, and sounded like English to his ears.
“Cease moving, cease walking,” some inflection slipped into his voice, “but keep your mouth talking, until I call the end; stop fighting and biting but keep your wit lightning, perhaps until the void comes in.”
The clouds in the sky parted to reveal the light of the moon; the air around Shedletsky heated up by an invisible force, warping his perception of what was around him, as if he was staring through desert mirages; the wind went utterly silent, even though it still blew.
1x1x1x1’s swords were prepared to strike, but remained in midair.
“Where did you learn that?” They sounded more shocked than they were terrified; even then, the childlike anxiety at the presence of the dark was creeping up on them. “That curséd book is in Taiwan. I made certain of that.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“You have to pay the price.”
“I wasn’t the one that abused you.”
“You’re the one with his soul, and authority over war, skies, fire… You are him, except for a sliver of you that is original, and that amounts to-”
“To part of you.”
“To all I am.”
Shedletsky shook his head. “You’re more than Telamon’s hatred.”
“You have no right to say that.
“I don’t.”
1x1x1x1 stared at him for a while.
“You’re not going to fight?” They whispered, eyelight darting between Shedletsky and the Illumina. “You really aren’t Telamon.”
“Move.”
1x1x1x1’s swords came down harmlessly and stabbed into the grass.
“I will not kill you. But your name is as valuable as a salted field to me, make no mistake.” They ran at him again and lifted him by the collar of his shirt.
“Ack-”
“It’s an oddity that your eyes are as golden as his.” They spat.
“They-” He struggled for air; despite their skeletal frame, they were stronger than an entire army’s combined might. “Used to be blue.”
They dropped him in the damp dirt. “The color of the skies. It must have suited you…” They hesitated for his name.
“John.”
Pity laced their voice like alcohol in punch as they walked away. “John.”
He considered calling after them; for all his anxiety, all the anticipation, the moment had been… short. But he stayed quiet and let them leave, watching them disappear into the clear night. Just after he crossed the road, a car came rolling past. The lights on the gas station were on once again.
He slept well that night.
-ˋˏ ༻EPILOUGE༺ ˎˊ-
The next day was homecoming. David sat down next to him in English and asked, casually, if he wanted to go with him. He hadn’t hesitated to say yes, and though the party was loud and the pizza was the disgusting sort of greasy, he found himself enjoying the time.
People around him laughed and danced in dresses and suits and ties that would nevertheless be utterly ruined by the occasion. They joked and prodded about meaningless, stress free things; their lives were a beautiful simplicity, for a moment, and this wasn’t untrue for Shedletsky either.
It wasn’t a romance song, Too Sweet by Hosier. But they danced to it like it was, normal teenagers for an ephemeral second, as balloons were dropped over the crowd who were all living without paying attention to them. They were all living a moment, a scene, a paragraph in a book.
It was in that moment, when rubber floated down from on high, when the music was so loud you couldn’t hear the person next to you, when the lights were bright and sparkling off of a haphazardly placed disco ball, when David cupped Shedletsky’s cheeks in his calloused hands, pulled him closer, and they shared a kiss.
-ˋˏ ༻𖤓༺ ˎˊ-