Much to my discomfort, this dream was new.
An unfamiliar place filled with unfamiliar faces, all of which summoned forth an unfamiliar nausea in my chest. I called out for Stigma in the belief that she was messing with my head again, yet I received no response. The show would roll on whether I wanted it to or not. My first assessment that the location was new was soon second guessed. I had simply forgotten about the finer details of it. I walked through hundreds of alleyways on a regular basis, but this one was special.
The tightly packed houses, the intrusive front steps cutting into the dirt, and the open park that lay on the other side – obscured through a thick cloud of fog. It was that alleyway. The one where I had cut down forty people without remorse. Or was it? Why was I thinking of this again if I weren't suffering some form of guilt? I didn't regret it. They were trying to kill me. It was only natural that I'd do what I did to defend myself.
To kill a man before you even hit your teens, had that hardened my heart to such an extent that I couldn't see this as a shameful loss of life? That man was worthless. Praying on children too young to understand what was happening, the worst kind of scum I could possibly imagine. But scum or not, to step over the line and stab him to death was not an easy decision. I was paralyzed, unsure of my own ability to protect his victim. But a sharp object is the ultimate equaliser. He never had a chance. He was so occupied with trying to pin the poor kid down and quieten him that he never saw me coming.
The fact that I could still remember it in such clear detail was what disturbed me, and had continued to disturb me in the years since. Even if he was an unredeemable man, a monster, there was no way that killing him had no impact on me or my mentality. I came from a modern world where things like this were well known. You could not kill without consequence. To turn such an act into routine would always have severe consequences.
I had always tried to avoid normalising the violence I participated in or witnessed. I stubbornly clung to the mindset of a man living in the twenty-first century. I told myself time and time again that I could still be better than everyone else. That game was not one that benefitted me. I'd already failed. It was that moment that changed everything, the way his skin gave way and the shiv sunk into his artery. The way that his blood squirted all over the wall in front of us stuck with me.
This was what it meant to do everything in my power. Playing by those rules would only serve to preserve some kind of happiness within my own mind, while everyone else would go wild with abandon and do whatever they pleased. He screamed and cried for help, his mouth filling with blood – but we were already gone. I was sure that the kid swiped his money on the way out, just to add insult to injury.
I took a step.
The path was troublesome. Some forty men crumpled into various positions of distress, arms outstretched, legs held up in the air like newly-dressed tree branches. I angrily shoved one of the limbs aside and continued on my way. I didn't know what awaited me on the other side of the fog, but I was compelled to move through this monument to my actions regardless. Their names and faces were a mystery, some appearing as nothing more than vague shapes and blurs that resembled real people.
The path only became more fraught as I went. The density of the bodies increased, as did the quantity of blood that stained the muddy ground below. I could feel it seeping through the gaps in my boots, soaking my socks through and sending a cold chill down my spine. A sensation I had experienced thousands of times while on the road, recontextualised with a new, grim twist. My own mind was weaponizing my memories and experiences against me. This was my pain response, the last warning signs of a man tumbling down a rabbit hole from which he could no longer escape. I was demanding of myself a simple thing; to feel guilty for my part in this.
I was starting to get angry at myself. Angry at the way that I was reacting. Angry at my anger. A self-perpetuating cycle that led me into a blind, flailing rage. I didn't consider the bodies that blocked my path. I lashed out at them, kicking and stomping, pulling and pushing, using all of my strength to remove their obstruction. Yet they persisted. Clawing, gnashing, trying to pull me down to the ground and drown me in their numbers. I started to recognise some of them. It wasn't just the people I had killed in Blackwake, but the others too. Lord Forester and Bell were the ones who caught my eye.
Sorry Bell – I just couldn't feel bad about killing you.
When I finally pushed my way through to the end of the alleyway, I found myself in an entirely new location. I blinked and suddenly everything had changed. Instead of a detailed recreation of Blackwake's streets, I looked out across what could only be described as a purple tinged hellscape. Wherever this was, the ground has been split asunder by some force of nature. Great spires of earth rose into the sky and disappeared from my sight. A few buildings were dotted across the plains, all of which had been destroyed in whole or part by the moving ground beneath. The grass below my feet had perished and the trees withered into nothing more than dry husks.
A wolf howled in the distance.
I didn't know where to go next. I walked down the far side of the hill and onto what used to be a wide dirt road. There was a farmhouse by the side of the road. The stone and wood frame had been warped beyond structural integrity, a pile of collapsed stones where one wall used to stand. Next to it was an upturned cart. A pair of rotting horse bodies were at the fore. As I rounded the side and looked into the back, I noticed several more deceased people who were seemingly riding in it before whatever calamity this was befell them.
It was looking at that destroyed home that I finally realised where this was supposed to be. The thatched roof and wooden shutters were the type of thing you'd only see in Pascen. The rock and stone that had been ripped from the ground also bore a characteristic slate colouration. In fact, I had walked down this road months earlier during my visit.
I kept walking, intent on finding where the end of this dream lay. But no matter how far I travelled, the horizon continued to stretch on endlessly in all directions. It was Pascen, but not the one I knew. I could have been walking in circles the entire time, passing by the same scenery without catching on to the game being played. There were a lot of bodies, all of them gathered around destroyed carts. This was my interpretation of Pascen as it was when everyone evacuated.
Benadora's words rested heavily against my memory. We'd caused this. We had accidentally destroyed an entire city, killing thousands of people in the process. Even if that wasn't my intent – I still bore some responsibility. I understood that, but the survivor in me demanded that I keep going. To keel over and submit myself to an appropriate punishment would be to waste my own efforts. I fell down onto my knees and rolled over onto my back – staring into that scared sky above.
The eerie silence was broken by a new voice, "So this is where you've been, Master." Stigma peered down at me with a tilted head and a neutral expression.
I frowned, "Did you come here to make fun of me?"
Stigma looked at the twisted landscape that I had concocted and smiled, "No. I'd rather compliment you for this… interesting artwork. I noticed that something was going on, but I suppose it's just a nightmare."
"Just? I'm probably sweating a gallon of water onto my bedsheets right now," I cawed. Stigma's appearance was a welcome break. I was starting to become lucid again thanks to her.
"Nightmares are normal," Stigma contested, "Even I'm capable of remembering that I had some of my own. You've had several since we started this partnership, not that you appear to remember a majority of them."
I climbed back up to my feet and tried to calm myself, "What? Have you been spying on me in my sleep?"
"No. This one was particularly violent. Your brain has been unusually active – so I decided to err on the side of caution and check on you."
I immediately discarded her reasoning. Stigma really didn't care about what happened to me, at least not as anything more than a convenient vessel to do what she pleased. "Is my mind trying to make itself feel guilty about all of this?" I asked. I didn't expect an answer from Stigma, but I was seeing a new, introspective side from her for once.
"It's strange how we wage war against ourselves. I did not recall what that felt like until recently."
"Recall?"
Stigma sat down next to me and curled up her legs, "I've had a lot to think about. Which wasn't always the case. Before I met you the only thing on my mind was malice. Malice towards the people who used me, malice towards those who entrapped me, and malice towards you for defying my expectations. Even though what I wanted was for you to carry me forth into freedom; I found myself wishing for your failure regardless."
I was sensing a 'but' to this explanation, "And then?"
"I told you that retrieving my 'siblings' would return my memories - but it is more complicated than that. We are made from memories. Our emotions and decisions are all guided by them, it wasn't until you returned them to me that I understood what really happened. They stripped me of everything that I was. My sadness, my joy, my passion. They took all of those feelings and split them into pieces, and with them went my memories. The last item you consumed – that contained my sadness."
Those siblings of hers weren't siblings at all. They were constituent pieces of the same being. Where that left the terrible family of the last emperor was a mystery. Perhaps they were simply executed and done away with. But what had Stigma done to earn this particular punishment? To go so far and wield such dark magic, confining a living soul into physical objects and scattering them to the five seas; it defied logic.
I picked at my nails and sighed, "Does that mean you'll stop being such a bitch if I keep going with this?"
Stigma looked offended by my factual statement, "When have I ever acted so uncouth?"
I looked at her in disbelief, "The very first thing you tried to do when we met was sleep with me."
Stigma crossed her arms and looked away, "Okay. Maybe I did – but that was because this sword contains my passion. Now that I'm more complete, other approaches to these problems seem more reasonable."
"And a few weeks ago, you froze my body in place and threatened me."
"I thought that was the best way to communicate! All of the other rogues you deal with threaten to stab you all the time."
"Yeah, but none of them are stupid enough to actually try it."
"I… I see…" Stigma muttered, internalising that nugget of information for later. That reminded me of Cali.
"Listen Stigma. Trust has to be earned. I'm only going through with this for my own sake. As shitty as this world is, I don't plan on dying before I reach my fifties again."
"Very well, Master. I apologise for my recent behaviour. I was left in a very strange frame of mind as new pieces were added back to me."
"Alright. Let's see if we can keep this circus running smoothly for a while."
With that said – we both remained seated at the crest of the hill as a low rumble blanketed the area. There really wasn't much to see, unless you were infatuated with the sight of rocks and dead bodies. Despite my will to leave, we were still stuck here in this lucid nightmare. Stigma offered a solution, "If I may, I do believe it's about time for you to wake up."
"Uh. Can you do that?"
Stigma closed her eyes and held up her left hand, her fingers slowly closing in on each other until…
I jolted awake under my bed covers. My immediate reaction was to reach up and slap a hand over the strong pinching sensation gripping my forearm. Despite the feeling coming from my nerves, there was nothing actually pulling on my skin. The pain faded away. A heavy downpour of rain rattled the window. Just what I needed.
Miserable weather for a miserable man.