James

Brûlez ce monde…

"Burn this world…"

-"Ce Soir," by KYO

I smiled when the light didn't reach my eyes. Dressing was a dark blur as I prepared to set out for Westminster. No alarm clock meant no early wake-up, so I set out around eleven-thirty in the morning. The city streets were crawling with people talking amongst themselves, the way I liked it: less interference equaled less time to achieve my goal.

I had waited for the darkness for almost two weeks, compulsively checking the Internet for any sign that it was coming. The Apocalypse? No. Something even stranger and far more fascinating, because at the end of the world, there is no time to think.

I rode my bike slowly to the outskirts of town, trying not to run anyone over as they rushed toward City Hall. Had I been a long-term guest at the hotel, I would not have had to worry about food or water. As a temporary visitor, I felt it did not concern me.

After leaving my bike on someone's deserted lawn, I returned to town to check out everything that was happening. The cityfolk were in a state of panic, theories abound like mosquitoes. Rather amusing, actually.

At City Hall, I stood outside the doors for a few minutes, eavesdropping for any signs I could add to my list. My search would be difficult, I thought. I would need every ounce of information I could get to pinpoint and destroy whatever had stolen the light.

As I roamed the streets some more, I cut across an alleyway to get back to my bike. In the darkness, I ran into someone. Whoever it was jumped and gasped, then glared hard at me. I squinted at the person.

"Graham?" I said. I hadn't expected him to be in the city.

He turned away. "Yeah."

I raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing here?"

He looked at me as if I should know the answer. "I live here, James," he replied flatly.

"Bitter, bitter." I grinned, trying not to let him see how glad I was to see him. "Wanna know what's going on?"

Graham seemed to perk up then. "Do you know?"

I shrugged. "I'm going to find out." I grabbed his wrist and pulled him out of the alley, but he made me let go. "What's your problem?" he asked.

My smile disappeared and I rubbed my foot on the ground. "I've been looking for Zoë's killer," I admitted, somewhat ashamed. "Somewhere, I'm praying this is the answer."

"What?" he yelled. "What does this have to do with her death?"

I stared at him. He should know that my twin's death still affected me. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. "This isn't natural."

"No kidding."

"Come with me?"

"Where?"

"I'm not really sure. Somewhere close, I can feel it."

He hesitated for a moment. "How are we getting there?"

I smiled wickedly. "You'll see." I offered him my hand like in the old days, but he ignored it.

"It's almost noon," he said after a while.

"I haven't been hungry since last night." I took in the city around us with a bit of awe, wondering how Graham had managed to get a job there. "No one else has, either. Electricity, hunger, light. Whatever's doing this is fascinating, far beyond anything I've tracked before."

"'Tracked'?" He seemed skeptical as we reached the house where I had left my bike. I picked up another bike from the front yard and offered it to Graham, stuffing money in the front door of the house.

"There's your transportation." I picked up my bike.

"You can't do that, James," he said to me.

I rode around in the street, waiting. "I paid them twice what it's worth. I think they'll understand." I waved him to the street. "Now come on." I started pedaling away and he followed.

"You mentioned tracking before. What did you mean?"

"Just what you think I mean." We rode down a hill. "I track the supernatural, and I think this counts as supernatural." I dropped into silence, hoping he would say something to keep me from saying what I said next: "I lied to you before."

"About ghost hunting?"

I ignored the reply. "They found the guy who killed Zoë. A few years ago. The cold case crew figured it out. Remember that guy who used to live beside us?"

Graham nodded.

"Apparently, he kept her in his basement for a few days before killing her. They found blood everywhere." I swallowed. "They exhumed Zoë's body to reexamine her. He did such awful things to her. Tried him and convicted him. He got life."

"At least they found him."

"Yeah."

"Do you seriously have no idea where we're going?" He examined me, and I smiled.

"It's just over this hill."

"Westminster?" Graham said.

I nodded and looked at him. "Why? Got a problem with it?" We pedaled up another hill. "It's where my investigation told me to go. I've been waiting for this to happen for a few weeks."

"And you never told anyone?"

"Who would've believed me?" I asked, half laughing. "You don't even believe me and it's happened already."

"Do I have to believe you?" he returned. "It's probably something scientific." With him, there was always a rational explanation for everything, always.

Thinking, I stood up on my bike and coasted down the hill. "I bet it's not. You majored in history, right? You always said you wanted to."

He nodded.

"Are you familiar with the Finnish painting 'Haavoittunut enkeli' – 'The Wounded Angel'?"

"I haven't studied it extensively, but I think I know it. The one with the two boys and the angel?"

"Yeah." We rode through the outskirts of Westminster, even more empty than the last city had been. The town didn't look threatening to me quite yet. "I came across the painting on the Internet recently and it clicked in my head that this will not be explainable with science."

Graham seemed to shiver and I followed his gaze to the dark houses lining the street. I had to admit, passing empty houses was a frightening experience – never know when someone will jump out at you.

"They left a few days ago," I told Graham to calm his fears. "Electrical surges scared them off." His scientific reason. "It's how I knew to come here."

"What's gotten into you, James?" I knew he was thinking about how I would act as a teenager, always looking for logical explanations. We had switched places, so it seemed.

I shook my head and stared in front of us, stopping in an intersection. I rubbed my forehead and said, "Where to go, where to go?"

A flash caught my eye, a bolt of lightning in the distance that struck a roof. I swore and took off toward the house. When I reached it, I threw my bike down and managed not to trip as I leapt over it in my rush for the front door. Later on, I would notice the strange box-like shape of the house and pay attention to its gardening a bit more.

No one answered when I knocked on the door. "Must've fled with the rest," I said. I stepped back to try and see what was on the roof. When I couldn't, I told Graham to look on his side of the house while I looked on mine. We met in the back, and I saw no other way but to climb the trellis.

On the roof, I saw the creature. It was humanoid, probably would have been pretty under other circumstances. It wore a white gown trimmed with purple, and a purple blindfold over its eyes.

"James!" I had almost forgotten about Graham. "What's up there?"

"Come here," I said. "You'll want to see this." I offered him my hand as he climbed up after me. He seemed just as intrigued as I was. "Nothing I've tracked has been real," I said quietly.

"What is it?" Graham asked.

I shook my head. "Don't know." I moved closer to it.

"James," Graham hissed, ever worried. "James, what about the lightning?"

As I looked at him, lightning struck the creature again. I flung myself down on the roof and watched the creature throw its head back in a silent scream. Somehow, it struck me deep in my subconscious, recalling the pain I had felt after Zoë's death.

I moved toward it slowly and waved Graham over. I tilted the creature's face to mine.

"What are you doing?" he whispered.

"It's okay," I said to the creature. It breathed quickly, ragged sounds that came rapidly. "It knows we don't want to hurt it," I told Graham, unsure how I knew myself.

"What if we get struck by lightning?"

I glared at him. "Do you not understand the importance of this?" I stroked the creature's soft cheek. Beneath the blindfold, it was crying; I wiped a tear that managed to escape the fabric. "This creature is causing all this darkness. We help it, we help ourselves."

Graham hesitated. "How do we help it?"

I shrugged and shook my head. "I don't know. I'm trying to remember what I read about the painting."

"This has nothing to do with the painting," he said.

I ignored him again. "Period clothing, possibly before electricity. Maybe something like this happened before? The artist saw or heard about it, painted it.

"James!"

An idea suddenly hit me. "Fire."

"What?"

"Fire. We burn it."

"James, that's insane. We can't burn it – that's murder." Never stopped my neighbor from killing my sister.

The creature seemed to look at Graham, as if it was begging him to go along with the idea.

"There was a music video creating from that painting," I went on. "In the end, the angel was burned and its soul escaped." I paused. "The painter used symbols in his work. Maybe he used an angel to hide what it really was?"

Graham shivered. "I'm not going to let you – "

I cut him off. "Graham. You can leave if you want. Just help me get it to the street."

"Do it there so you won't burn down the house," he mused, then rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right."

We took the creature to the street, where it dropped to its knees once again. Graham found a gasoline jug in someone's yard and I unscrewed the cap.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Graham asked again. I could tell how nervous he was.

I nodded, then doused the creature with gasoline. When the jug was empty, I tossed it aside. Kneeling, I tried not to pass out with the fumes, but I had to tell the creature my message: "Say hi to Zoë for me."

Stepping away, I took my lighter from my pocket and lit a stray drop of gasoline. It lit faster than I expected, and I shook my hand as I jumped back. I watched the creature for a few moments, but had to turn away.

– – –

The row of houses stretched before Graham and I as we sat on the roof of the house and waited for the creature to burn. We couldn't face the street.

I thought of Zoë and the creature, meeting wherever they were, if they were even out there somewhere.

Graham slid closer to me and put an arm around my shoulders comfortingly. "You had to do it, James."

I looked at my fingers. "I'm not worried about that. 'The never-fading rain in your heart.' That's what the song says, the one that used the 'Haavoittunut enkeli'." I sighed. "Now that I've found something beyond the realm of this world, I don't know what to do. Look for Zoë? Pray for something else like this to happen?"

He rubbed my arm, warming me. "You'll find something to occupy yourself. You always do."

I smiled bitterly. "Twins are supposed to stick together, you know. We're supposed to be with each other even if we're separated."

"Do you still feel her?"

"I think so," I replied, nodding. "'Hearing voices of the never-fading calling.' Good song." I smiled again. "She's here, but I want to be able to see her again. It won't happen."

I looked out across the houses, wary of Graham's eyes on me. "How long do you want to stay here?" he asked.

"I don't know," I replied.

He moved closer. "I'll stay here with you."

Then, a bright flash shot across the sky and disappeared, the last living part of the creature disappearing into the noontime twilight.