Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V
A side
Within minutes, the library was in flames. Scarlet took off a glove and used it to cover her nose and mouth.
“The profane theft of human life ends here,” Black boomed through a voice modulator. It was a gratuitous precaution: nobody was expected to survive this evening.
Scarlet, along with everyone else, rushed to the exit. Around them, books and their shelves caught fire. All the windows had bars, all the doors were locked. There was no visible way out.
“I will take your lives in exchange for all the innocent ones you claimed,” Black would put a stop to the Order. For what they did to Haruki. For what they did to everyone who loved him.
The library filled with smoke and screams. Black disappeared amidst the chaos, somehow, while the Order of the Raven went down in flames.
~
Later that evening, Dave unlocked the door to his apartment and flicked on the lights.
He still smelled like smoke.
Dave shrugged off the black cloak and pulled off the plague doctor’s mask.
I should’ve left all this on campus, Dave thought, putting both articles on the coffee table. He kicked off his shoes and collapsed on the couch, reaching for the nearest book. To the unsuspecting observer, it looked like a beat-up copy of The Great Gatsby. It was, in fact, the diary of his late ex-boyfriend. Thumbing through the pages, he whispered:
“This was all for you, Haruki. It was for Kai, for Kat, your parents—for everyone who’s lost someone because of the Order. Nobody will feel loss at the hands of those bastards again.”
Dave fell asleep with the diary on his chest.
epilogue
Dave awoke with a start. The plague doctor’s mask stared at him from the coffee table. It was somehow scarier, more alive in the daylight.
Dave threw the cloak on top of it, and rolled off the couch.
Sleeping on the couch didn’t do my back any favors, Dave thought. He hopped in the shower and thought about how to dispose of the infernal regalia in his living room. His mind then turned towards last night’s events.
I set fire to hundreds of people, he thought. It’s not that he felt guilty about what happened. Nor did he think he was likely to be caught. But people were sure to be talking about the great fire at the rival university’s library. He couldn’t jump every time someone mentioned it.
Aside from that, it was a typical Sunday: coffee and then, band practice. Dave put on his headphones, grabbed his keys, and headed out the door.
Once his feet hit the pavement, Dave played his favorite album by the White Stripes. After a few verses of the first track, he paused the song. Something wasn’t right. This was his comfort album. The music itself didn’t sound any different—he just felt different. In fact, he felt nothing at all. He may as well have been listening to a dial tone.
Dave shook his head and turned the music off. Weird, he thought. My brain’s probably still off from last night.
He stopped by Nation’s coffee for a cold brew.
“Hey Dave!” The barista, Eileen, was one of Reichenbach Falls’ first fans. “What can I get ya?”
“The usual,” Dave replied with a smile. “How’s your Sunday going, Eileen?”
“Livin the dream’” Eileen said, returning his smile. Eileen was a prototypical morning person, which is a perfect fit for a coffee shop on a college campus. “Oh, look—we put up the latest promo poster for The Falls” she said excitedly, pointing to a bulletin board on her left.
Dave looked at the poster. Even after his death, the band’s posters usually featured Haruki’s art. Lea, their drummer, digitized his archives and continuously used them for new material. The most striking drawings were those done after Haruki joined the Order.
The poster Dave looked at featured one of them. The design was a small girl on the back of a beautiful dragon, charging towards a fire-blast from a shadowy man’s hand. He remembered Haruki working on this design, and seeing drafts all over his kitchen table.
Whether it was before or after his death, Dave couldn’t look at Haruki’s art without feeling emotionally moved. But today, Dave felt nothing. It was like looking at a blank piece of paper.
“Is something wrong?” Eileen asked. For a moment, Dave forgot she was standing there. “Should I take it down?”
“No,” Dave replied quickly. “I’m just… still in grief. Sometimes seeing his art, even now, it…it’s hard”
Eileen nodded. “You guys had something really special. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Dave replied. “And thanks for the coffee—you’re doing a good thing, keeping us going,” he said with a small laugh. Dave took a sip of his coffee. Even though it was ice cold, it tasted like lukewarm tap water.
Things got weirder at practice. Dave’s rhythm was entirely off. The notes seemed like isolated pings, rather than melodies. He could hardly keep track of what song they were playing.
“Sorry guys,” he apologized. “I think I need to take five. I’ve been off all day,” before they could ask him any follow-up questions, Dave left Lea’s garage and began walking dow the street.
The rosebushes, the vibrant trees, the songbirds—Dave recognized their existence but not their beauty. It was like looking at patches of turf or hearing a car on the road. This was one of the most enchanting streets in the neighborhood, but its appeal was entirely gone.
Everything is a flat line. I feel like a flat line, Dave thought. It’s turning from color to a staticky black and white. Of course, the world was not really losing color. Dave just felt that way. Like the world turned into a perpetually temperate, cloudless, September afternoon.
Music, art, nature even coffee—I still notice everything, but nothing means anything anymore. I feel like I should be more upset about this, but I still FEEL nothing. I just want to sit on the ground and maybe—
“CAW!” the sharp call of a crow snapped Dave back to his monochrome reality.
“A crow,” Dave murmured. It squawked again and looked right at him. “Or are you, perhaps, a raven?” It was too on the nose to be a coincidence. He walked over to where it was perched, about twenty paces away.
Right as Dave reached the bird, it flew away. In its place was an index-card sized piece of cardstock. Dave picked it up. Of course, Dave thought, it has the Order’s seal. The card read:
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. Thunder again; words that proclaimed themselves true—truer somehow than truth itself…
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
… For in that sleep of death, what dreams?
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