Fort Geranium

Third Chapter: True Ending

[Mariana von Ulysses's Point of View]

The icy hand moved me, moved the barriers between worlds for me. Once the darkness had gotten a complete hold of me, various colors poured in, mixed and meshed into a violent kaleidoscope of technicolored frenzy. At first it was random and not unlike contemporary art but I soon found purpose in those slithering colors. Like a puzzle they moved into place, creating and forming into solid objects and the world around me took form. ‘The world is initializing…’ I thought to myself.

Aegis did say he didn’t have the ability to change the past,’ thus the only explanation for all of this was that it was simply a recreation of the events that took place. Well, that didn’t really bother me since the entire purpose to redoing this was just for my satisfaction. Things like being killed by your boyfriend who was secretly a serial killer wasn’t something I would’ve prepared for on a daily basis so I was helpless back then. However, now that I knew the full story I had a chance to clear out this dissatisfaction welling up within me. ‘This is just to help me move on,’ like a hallucinogenic consultation therapy.

I suppose this wouldn’t be the healthiest of ways of doing things but it was my way of doing it- points on integrity.

Snapping out from my daze, I noticed that the world before me started to resemble the one I always knew. With each passing second landmarks became clearer, the shapes of people became recognizable and the familiar sound of the metropolitan city rushed past me. It was muffled at first but as the scene focused more and more the sounds also became identifiable.

“Ah, this place is…” before me was the movie theatre that my boyfriend and I last visited. It wasn’t particularly a busy or large theatre, just a small one at the edge of town. Now I think about it, it was a little odd for him to have called me all the way out here. “So this is where it all began?” I sighed.

“Darling! Sorry for the wait, there was just a bit of traffic.” My body instinctively tensed up at that unmistakable voice. It may have been strange but I was still very much in love with the tune of how it sounded though I’d be lying if I said the same for the one who owned it. Luring me into a false sense of security with that tranquil voice he wrapped his arms around me from behind in a loving manner. What a joke right?

I had to expend a bit of effort to hold it in but there was an unbelievable urge to just smash his face across with my purse. Points for patience!

‘He’ll be killing me in a few hours,’ I reminded myself to refocus on my objectives. “Hi honey! No, I didn’t wait all that long.” I giggled back at him innocently like I always used to. Now that I knew his true intentions, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a layer of artificiality between us.

Even though he ended up killing me, he confessed that he truly loved me. This time the liar was me; I didn’t love him like I used to, but for the time being I decided to play along. Three years I had spent with him, recalling those residual feelings I acted the way I normally would and smiled back without reservation.

I turned around to greet the man that would be my killer. His caramel colored hair melted with the setting of the evening sun, crystal clear blue eyes pierced through me and the compact proportions of his face gave him simultaneously a cute and mature aura. It really was a shame that such a nice looking fellow was so disgusting on the inside.

“Then shall we?” He offered me his arm to cling onto. Without hesitation I grabbed on with a smile as we walked into the theatre.

I was a little anxious about this whole thing, 'it's going to be fine,' I told myself but was it really? My opponent was a seasoned serial killer who I haven't even heard of reported on the news. My heart raced once more and being so close to him he noticed as he gave me a quick glance.

"Are you that excited for the movie?" he smiled.

'Just go with it,' I told myself as I awkwardly nodded back. "Oh, let me just use the restroom before the movie starts," I told him, taking advantage of the fact he thought I was eagerly anticipating I quickly left his sights to put my counter plan into motion.

Though I call it that, it wasn't anything fancy. 'If I were him...' I wondered about how his plan would go down and a single thought flashed into my mind. 'Well, realistically it probably wasn't some convoluted plot to begin with', if I were him I'd probably have spiked my drink with sleeping pills and be done with it.

Thus I quickly headed to the drink stands and bought a small coke. Now if I recalled correctly, our seat should be E11. Thankfully this theatre was almost empty that I was able leave the coke lying around. Hopefully I could swap it out with the contaminated drink later. With that set I quickly head back to my boyfriend's location.

"Sorry for taking so long," I crawled out with a refreshed smile. He shook his head suggesting that it was fine, 'is he enjoying this?' he probably considered that this was supposed to be his magnum opus- my corpse that is. "Then, shall we?" I was led into the theatre but as expected stopped half way.

"Oh, I forgot to get snacks. Why don't you head in first and wait for me?" he casually brought up as I suspected he would.

"Sure, then I'll be waiting."

I entered the shroud of darkness that was the battlegrounds for our game of murder.

***

"Here you go darling," my boyfriend says as he offers me the spiked drink. I gracefully accepted it as I thanked him. Taking advantage of the darkness I swapped out the cups to the one I had secretly prepared beforehand. Slurping it up audibly to convince him I've taken the drugged drink he smiles as he takes his eyes off me. 'That worked, right?"

About halfway through the movie I felt his hands rubbing against my legs. 'Was he checking for my reaction?' with the pretense of acting naughty if I was awake he was testing me.

I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. He moved his hands over my mouth to measure my breathing and even lightly touched my eyes to check for REM sleep. 'Just how much of a creep is he?!' at first he didn't seem all that convinced but eventually gave in, perhaps due to impatience or to the perfect acting talents I never knew I had.

"Darling...?" he lightly shook me but I didn't respond. He hummed curiously before buying into my act. Carefully picking me up, he exited the theatre and drove me back home... if only the story ended there.

***

Being carried to our apartment in a princess bridal position was admittedly nice but also rather embarrassing. Even with my eyes closed I instinctively knew the familiar layouts of our home and the images of our neighbors popped into my head, ‘they’d be giggling at us from afar…’ However, this was the moment of truth and I still needed to maintain my acting. Thus bottling all my emotions deep inside I continued to act unconscious.

He stopped.

We were just before the door to our room. Placing me down gently against the walls I heard the jangling of keys in my boyfriend’s pocket as he attempted to pull them out. It would be too late once we entered the house to move, I had to ‘regain consciousness’ while we were still in public.

“Mmm… huh?” acting as though I’ve suddenly woken up I let out a yawn and stretched my arms. “Where…?” In a daze I surveyed my surrounding area; without mistake this was the front of our apartment.

“D- darling? You’re awake…” he sounded surprised, good that meant that he hadn’t planned this much. “You fell asleep at the theatre so I brought you home. You must’ve been tired with managing the shop. I’ll get you something to drink so why don’t you get more sleep?” composing himself once more he tried to reenact his plan.

“Huh? Ah, yeah sure. That sounds good, I think I’ve been working too much lately,” I nodded as I pretended to agree. Using my own keys I slotted them through the hole, and with a final ‘kch’ the doors opened. This was the stage that would be the start and end to everything; a mixture of anxiety and excitement filled me as I walked through the arch. “Sorry honey, but could you also get me some aspirin?” I nonchalantly asked.

“Uh, yeah sure,” he follows after me and disappears into the kitchen. I enter the living room and carefully leaned against the backrest an elegantly carved wooden chair. My heart seemed like it would jump straight out of my chest at this rate, ‘calm down me, I have the upper hand in this situation,’ I took a few deep breaths. The reason I had him bring aspirin was so both his hands would be occupied with the tablets and the glass of water. By making him do this his center of gravity and balance would be mostly focused into his hands, leaving him vulnerable to outside attacks.

Slowly I felt my heart synchronizing with the carefully approaching steps. I took a deep breath and prepared myself as his figure entered the frame.

“Hey, Darling I got you the-?!” as soon as he entered my field of vision I picked up the wooden chair and smashed him across the face with it. With a surge of adrenaline rushing to my head it almost seemed like time was playing back in slow motion. The chair broke apart instantly with a loud crash, pieces of splinter mixed with blood scattering all about the place and with a final distinct thud his body fell to the floor. At that instant I heard a very unique cracking sound, at first I didn’t know what this was but I soon understand and I repulsed back in horror. ‘The sound of breaking bones,’ I grimaced but swallowed my guilt and continued on. “Guh…” he struggled to gasp for air and tried to crawl forward with his limp arm.

I coldly stared down at him. Even now I was unable to forget the sensation of that serrated knife carving against my body like a canvas. I shuddered as that icy thin line ran across my legs… overwhelmed my thoughts but instead of giving into the trauma I used it to drive me forward with this bloodied revenge. “Sorry honey, I can see that you’re in a lot of pain and confusion, but don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.” I echo into his ears the words he spoke into mine.

“W- what… ugh…” he struggles to speak as he coughs blood. Blood everywhere; blood trickling down from his forehead, his eyes and ears, with all that pain he tries to look back to me for answers.

“Ah? The reason I’m doing all of this? Well it’s mostly because Aegis gave me the opportunity to do so.” Pain and confusion, those were the words of the day. That was fine because I wasn’t doing this for his benefit, obviously, I was doing it all for my own satisfaction. He gurgles at me something but of course I couldn’t make out the contents through all of that blood and spit. “Oh, who’s Aegis? He’s the protector of souls or something, I think that’s his internet handle. Anyway, honey, you remember that time we went golfing?”

I randomly changed topics as I briefly left the room in a dramatically slow manner. A few seconds later I came back holding a 9-iron in my hands. “So I’ve been practicing my swings a bit and I think I’ve improved. Why don’t you give me your opinions?” I asked as I whack him across the legs with the golf club, I heard a brutal cracking noises but I ignored it as best as I could. At some point he couldn’t even scream anymore, well even if he did it would’ve been meaningless since all of this wasn’t really happening.

I continued to beat on him for a good while until he was just a bloodied mess. After a while I simply got bored but the thing that I was bored of was him. There was a strangely liberating pleasure I got from doing all of this, I mean sure this may seem a ‘little’ psychotic but who was I to say that I wasn’t? Being killed by your lover and then being sent into some fantasy world, I guess I was going crazy, but that’s fine because everything was really great right now!

I shrugged with a confident smirk, bits of blood running down the corner of my mouth.

“Hey, if I’m crazy, so be it. Anyway honey, with all that blood loss and destroyed innards I’d say you have about… 5 minutes(?) to seek medical attention so you should get on that. Well, I’m not a medical professional so what would I know, right?” I mocking laughed.

I dropped the golf club and turned my back on him.

As I walked away, not once did I turn back to see what kind of expression he made, if he could even make one. I frowned, I thought I could smile right about now but the liberating rush I felt came crumbling down on itself. A profound sense of emptiness now rotting away at what remained inside, ‘revenge is sweet only during the moment,’ I told myself in mockery.

I slid open the glass doors to the veranda and climbed on top of the railings.

I took a deep breath as the air from the height rushed past me. I was ‘free’.

I spun around and faced my boyfriend for the last time before giving him the middle finger. “You feel that?! That’s actual ‘pain’! That’s what death should really feel like; your version of murder was a pathetic imitation!” Those were my last words to him as I leaned back and dropped off from the 19th floor of my apartment.

As I fell I saw the world breaking apart before me, ‘the simulation is now ending,’ was all I thought as I closed my eyes.

***

“Welcome back! Did you have fun?” Opening my eyes I was met with the now familiar blue ghost person.

“Aegis… well, thanks for that. It’s like a load has been taken off my shoulders and that I can finally move on.” I smiled gently back at him. For this invaluable experience, despite it being fake, I was grateful that he allowed me the chance. I stood back up from the dirt floor and dusted my clothes off. I didn’t really know what came next but usually after death there were only a few paths it could’ve gone down. “So, what happens now?”

Aegis jumped back onto the large stone tomb he had been using as a chair. He giggled at me as though he was about to reveal the punch line for a joke. “Terra: the world fantasy realized!”