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Evbo has been running for a long time. It's the only freedom he has ever known, the only taste of it granted to him, potentially even what he does best: Forging his own paths out of nothingness.
When he runs, when he jumps, it is like there is nothing else to this world but Evbo, weightless, and the cool air whistling past him; so Evbo can't stop running, or everything will catch up to him, and he can't stop jumping, or he will die.
That's all he can remember, at the end of the world. I have to keep jumping, or I won't make it.
But the wooden pathway in front of him leads to nothing; an endless abyss of cool-toned blue sky, stretching ever upwards.
And behind him remains only the single file line of wood, a bridge to nowhere at all – to go back would be to surrender, to lose; Evbo, faced with an impossible choice, falters. Stands still. Thinks, If I don't keep running I'll–
Evbo flexes his fingers, balances his weight on his toes first, then his heels.
It's either jump, and give up everything he has already gained for the flimsy promise of truth , or turn back, and never know.
Evbo has been running for a long time. From the bottom of civilization to the very top, has grasped every opportunity offered with shaking hands; there had never been time to do anything but look forward.
It has been hard to get where he is today. Harder than Evbo had ever expected, dreaming his dream of freedom – harder than it ever should've been. And what would giving it up for some nebulous ‘truth’ be but foolish, but useless?
But, here's the thing about Evbo: He has always been ambitious, had entered the world craving something forever out of reach, and had refused his fate; had refused to die insignificant.
If there is more – then there is no choice to make. Evbo has to know, has to grasp the reality within his own two hands; all to quell that itch under his skin, shaking his bones.
Evbo has to know.
And Evbo has clawed his way up from nothingness, has fallen into depths more vicious than this, accepting his death – maybe falling will feel like a homecoming more than anything.
So, to Evbo there is only ever the way forward, the surety of his need to keep running. And so, he jumps.
Idly, Evbo jumps in between two patches of grass, keeps his eyes trained on the sky. It is a nice sort of the day, clear blue skies and sunshine, oddly perfect.
He's bored, wants to keep moving – there's that itch in his bones, like all he can do is jump or he'll fall apart.
It is an odd feeling, so familiar and yet misplaced, like Evbo is forgetting something, like there's something terrible important he's supposed to be doing, someplace else.
Evbo thinks, Wasn't I just– , but then the thought slides out of his head, meaningless.
Only the weightlessness of open air can cure that feeling, that odd melancholy: So Evbo keeps jumping, keeps thinking, If I don't do this I'll die, which feels oddly right. Even though it isn't. Even though it can't be.
(Sometimes, Evbo dreams of rows and rows of blocks in open air, a grid of impossible jumps. Sometimes he dreams–)
“Can you stop already? You're driving me crazy with that, seriously.” Seawatt grumbles. He's lounging in the grass a few feet away, arm thrown over his eyes. “Why do you insist on doing that anyway? That–”
He moves his hand through the air in a vague motion.
“– whole thing you do, with the jumping.”
Evbo sticks his tongue out at him. “Like you would get it, idiot.”
Seawatt heaves out a great sigh, like he's thinking This is so beneath me it's crazy , and sits up.
“Yeah, yeah, jape all you want. I'm not the one acting like a dumbass right now. So like, talk about whatever stupid shit is bothering you or stop acting like a crazy person, please .”
Evbo fumbles his landing, stares at Seawatt incredulously. In the shade of the oak tree beside him, he looks half made of shadows himself, fading into the darkness.
They don't usually do this – talk about serious things. Now that Seawatt has offered, Evbo wonders why. Seawatt is his best friend, his only friend – struck by the realization that he doesn't really know anything about him at all, Evbo falters, confused.
Wasn't there–, Evbo thinks, but the thought slips away from him, slinking back into the shadows.
Seawatt's eyes are deep, honey-brown in the sunlight smeared across his face.
He looks so serious , Evbo thinks. He doesn't usually look that serious.
The realization that Evbo doesn't know why stings.
“Why do you care so much about what I'm doing, anyway?” Evbo deflects, carefully joking.
Seawatt levels him with a hard look.
Evbo stops, considers him for a long moment. There are no words to describe the horror of his dreams, the endless waste of jumps and nothingness, the hunger gnawing inside of him and the desolate darkness of a cell buried somewhere never meant to be found. The itch in his fingers every time he stops moving. That creeping feeling like he's forgetting something.
Instead, he says, “I keep dreaming of falling.”
Seawatt's gaze shifts from him to the sky. He looks almost surreal, like a painter's recreation of a person, undefinable beyond the broad strokes of his figure, the glimmering gold in his hair and along his body.
When his eyes find Evbo again, they are a mess of color, like chalk left in the rain.
“Hey Evbo,” he says, blank-faced and pale, “You must already know this isn't real, right?”
And Evbo slips off the block and falls.
Evbo gasps awake.
It is a dark, starless night, and he had dreamt of falling.
The wooden pathway remains a constant in his dreams, always posing the same question: Did you do the right thing? And Evbo has never stopped running, has always been reaching for the future – now, entangled in a plan to destroy all he had ever lived for, he can't stop, mustn't, lest it all catches up to him. The wooden pathway. The question.
Even in his dreams Evbo always ends up falling. Maybe there was never anywhere else for him to go at all.
(Standing above the void, staring down into the uncertainty of it, Evbo had been so sure of his own immortality; now, fallen into another cage, he aches.)
Beside him Seawatt has curled up next to the nearly extinguished fire, an almost indistinguishable shape in the odd light of the last glowing embers.
Evbo scoffs. First watch, yeah right.
He shifts to rouse Seawatt, and pauses with his hand outstretched.
Something strikes him about Seawatt's face, an odd ache in his chest at the sight of it – Evbo wants to catalog it, store it away. Wants to know , more than anything.
Seawatt's face is not softened by sleep, remains drawn tight with some unknown emotion – Evbo traces the crease in his brow, the twist of his mouth, finds himself absurdly wishing to know what they mean, and wonders.
There's a severity to Seawatt in this place, an ache Evbo can't place – like he feels it too, the bars of their cage closing in, or the fact that they don't have much time, not without food. Evbo is not used to hunger anymore. He wonders, bitterly, if Seawatt has ever known it before.
Teaming up with the man that had plotted to kill him not weeks before still feels absurd; a death sentence waiting to happen, hanging over Evbo's head. He keeps turning around, waiting for the knife in his back.
But it hasn't come, might never; Seawatt is weaker, somehow, and Evbo won't give him the chance.
The outside world is hostile enough; a wasteland, messy with torn up jumps and abandoned houses, a place forgotten and erased; Evbo keeps stumbling over his steps, staring, keeps being reminded he knows nothing at all.
And yet here is Seawatt, sleeping beside him; the severity of his pinched brows the only constant in a world so determined to keep knocking Evbo off his feet.
It is a cold, starless night. With the fire dying, Evbo is freezing. Somewhere in his mind, his dream prowls still, on the verge of spilling over. Evbo had dreamt of falling. Evbo had dreamt–
Seawatt shifts in his sleep.
Evbo considers the tightness in his face, in the long lines of his body; the sand streaked through his hair and the smudged khol underneath his eyes, thinks, He must be dreaming too , and wonders.
His feet take him to the walkway outside their room. Staring out into the endlessness, it is hard to not be scared; to not feel as though this might be death already, an unnoticed, creeping demise – a dream of falling. Evbo peers over the ledge, keeps thinking, I wonder–
In his dream, Evbo had fallen. Plummeted forever through an endless nothingness, circled by sun and moon, always dreading the impact, always sort of hoping for it.
Evbo has fallen many times now, has willingly thrown himself downwards with a bucket in hand or slipped; had fallen, had always been caught.
What will happen, he wonders, to someone who falls with nothing there to catch them?
Unwilling, his eyes find Seawatt’s form.
He looks oddly small from the distance, curled up and chasing the last warmth of the fire, child-like and vulnerable. Evbo has to keep reminding himself that Seawatt wanted to kill him, might still want to, and that he doesn't like him at all.
Whatever that might still be worth, with Evbo sleeping right next to him, trusting him to keep watch.
With his eyes fixed, Evbo can see the exact moment Seawatt wakes up: The way he stiffens, then relaxes, pretends to sleep still – and then, at the realization of Evbo's eyes on him, stretches languidly like a cat.
“Why'd you let the fire die?” He asks blearily.
“Why'd– Why'd I let the fire die?!” Evbo splutters, “ You were supposed to be keeping watch!”
“I don't see why that matters? You're clearly awake, and the fire is dead.” Seawatt yawns. His hair is sticking up a little, unruly.
Evbo, bizarrely, kind of wants to punch him.
Seawatt gives him a long, searching glance. His eyes are dark, made even deeper by the twilight, set in his face like two brilliant gemstones; he seems to read the nightmare straight out of Evbo's face. His mouth twists.
“Right, come on, lay back down. I'll even get the fire started again since it seems you can't even do that, princess.”
Evbo steps away from the ledge. He feels oddly grateful.
Evbo presses his hands against Seawatt’s body, against every place vulnerable, keeps thinking Please, please , like a prayer to some god he doesn't believe in, please don't take him from me, please .
And he is not worthy of prayer, not worthy of anything anymore, reduced to a begging fool, once again brought to his knees – but there is nothing else Evbo can think to do, nothing.
His whole life he has been running; now, his legs itch with the need for it, aching to outpace this, the agony of it all: A situation that can't be run away from.
There is so much blood – it pools in the hollow of Seawatt’s stomach, stains the ridges of Evbo’s hands, his sleeves; it smells like death, like copper and salt, like destiny.
Seawatt is already corpse-pale, a watercolor painting smudged into greyscale, so terribly small on the precipice of his own demise.
“Don't–” Evbo chokes, has to wipe at his eyes. “Don't die, you can't die, you can't …”
Seawatt says, “You must understand that this had to happen, right? There is no other way for this to go.”
Seawatt's teeth are stained red by blood. It drips from his tongue like a promise.
And Evbo knows, has known forever, has conjured scenes of Seawatt's death often enough to drive himself insane, somehow had always failed to imagine the blood on his own hands. Here is that horrible prophecy realized: Seawatt was doomed from the start. Evbo had imagined his death, had imagined all the ways to save him, and holds his broken body now regardless.
Evbo sobs. “I don't understand, I don't– I didn't mean to–”
Seawatt laughs. His entire body shakes with it, unnatural and wrong.
“Oh, sure you didn't. Do you even care what I want? What I meant to do?”
“Of course!” Evbo says, “Of course I care about… about what you want! You're my–”
“I'm your friend? Am I your friend, Evbo?”
Evbo nods shakily. It is an empty admission, now that Seawatt is dying.
Smiling sardonically, Seawatt asks, “Then why did you kill me?”
Evbo shakes his head, scrambling backwards. Still, the memory remains: His sword through Seawatt's stomach, his hands pushing it deeper, his laughter at the blood, made senseless by violence.
Once, Seawatt had said, You'll need me if you ever want to go back. Now, Evbo thinks he's wrong – he doesn't need to use him, doesn't need to discard him after he's done. He needs Seawatt to live, more desperately than anything, keeps thinking, I'll give up anything, just please–
Ranking down would mean nothing, being a noob forever couldn't equal the agony of having Seawatt die here; cold and forgotten, unimportant – so antithetical to his brilliance, to the gold in his eyes and his dreams of greatness.
Evbo hates him. Evbo hates him for dying, for not being angry, for being his friend. Evbo hates him because he doesn't hate him at all.
Seawatt raises his hand, pushes Evbo's bangs out of his eyes. “Don't worry too much about it. Like I said, this had to happen: You're the hero, and I'm the villain, so you have to kill me. There are worse ways to go than being killed by a friend , right?”
Evbo squeezes his eyes shut. “I don't– You can't die, you–”
Seawatt laughs again; that sardonic, airy laugh of his. “Oh, Evbo. Wake up already.”
And then Evbo is falling.
Evbo's feet hurt.
It feels like all he is doing these days is running: Running from people and running to reach a goal more nebulous by the day, and then in the end, running back to Seawatt.
Evbo always comes back, always sort of hates himself for it, like he should be running as far away as possible every time he steps outside the house. But every night he dreams, and the dreams show him visions of Seawatt, a memory always half-forgotten by morning, and they draw him back.
It is odd still, trying to reconcile the two versions of the man in his brain; waking up every morning to a friend becoming a stranger. Maybe it is the mystery drawing him back in. But Evbo is sick of pretending; sick of dreaming of worlds that never were, waking up to Seawatt and falling asleep to have him haunt his dreams, too.
It was never the mystery. Maybe it was nothing monumental at all, except the light making Seawatt's eyes seems achingly soft, the sound of his laughter buried somewhere in Evbo's brain, integral.
Seawatt had said, sneering like he despised the fact he was speaking at all, Those memories are fake.
But Evbo doesn't– doesn't know, really.
And now his feet hurt. The forgotten layer is a brutal place, a death trap: Evbo has jumped into the void and fought people who did not have to die, who did not deserve it, all for his own gain; all for Seawatt, in the end, who wants to destroy it all.
Evbo feels like he's losing something every time he does what Seawatt asks, and still does it. Doesn't dare think about it too much. As long as he keeps moving, it won't catch up to him, the horror of what he's done, what he's still doing.
To think would be to acknowledge his stupidity, wanting to save a man that despises him, that wants the world to end just so he can feel whole again.
And yet here is Evbo at the center of his plan, defying death daily.
And Seawatt? Napping , apparently.
Evbo wants to– punch him, maybe.
“ Why , exactly, are you doing this?” He demands, once Seawatt has sat up.
Seawatt just smiles, yawning. “Hm, what? You take so long to get those things, y'know? I get tired.”
Evbo feels cracked, like a discarded piece of a broken glass, sharp and hurtful. Seawatt is trying to rile him up, he knows, but it's been a hard day, a hard week – possibly just a hard forever , and Evbo wants– He wants–
In the dreams, the memories, Seawatt is cruel, maybe, but he's still Evbo's friend. Here, he can't even be bothered to pretend.
“Just don't , okay? Don't.” Evbo says, voice brittle.
“Rough day, champion ? Things not going your way?”
Evbo squeezes his eyes shut. He feels itchy.
“Why are you doing this to– to me ?!”
Seawatt laughs, somewhat hysterically. “Don't be melodramatic! I'm not doing anything ‘to you’. The entire world doesn't revolve around you. ”
Evbo looks at him, at the long lines of his body, his dark eyes, thinks, But it does, it does, and that is the whole, horrible, unspeakable truth of it – the entire world does revolve around him, has since he had decided to defy destiny, since he had refused to die.
“Is this even real?” Evbo asks.
Seawatt doesn't say anything. His eyes are like smudged paint, an undefinable color, all dream-like. Evbo wants to reach out and touch him, make sure he's really there, so that he won't fade to a bloody mirage again.
But before he can do anything, Seawatt says, “You know what's funny? I don't even know.”
And then Evbo is falling.
Sitting on a ledge overlooking the ocean, Evbo says, “I keep dreaming of falling.”
“I know,” Seawatt replies, and then hesitantly, “I'm– sorry.”
Around them, there is nothing; a shifting mass of crystals and forests and beaches, of worlds impossible and beautiful. Evbo thinks of running, of jumping, of being so sure he could never die, of the cage now trapping him; a dream, always a dream, and Seawatt sat next to him, silent. Another kind of prisoner.
How do you fight something that doesn't exist?
“Easy,” Seawatt says, “You just have to stop being scared of falling.”
Evbo doesn't think he's scared, remembers leaping into nothingness carelessly – he had always been running, had always been looking forward, never scared. He had never been much of anything.
“You don't think you're scared, but you are. I know you are, because I know you .” A small smile curls his lips upwards. “We're friends , right?”
Right, Evbo thinks, right, whatever that means, between the two of them. Maybe nothing. Maybe sitting at the end of the world, watching it all pass by – hours of conversations that never happened, of time spent together.
Maybe trying to find good in the person trying to kill him, trying to carve salvation out of bloody nothingness – to take all his wrongs and decide to forgive them after all, like it is that simple. Maybe it could be.
Evbo wants to say, I don't hate you , but doesn't; feels oddly small with the words trapped in his chest, burrowing into his heart.
Maybe Seawatt already knows. Evbo hopes he does; throughout dreams and memories and endless things inbetween, Evbo has never hated him – even if it was all fake. Even if Seawatt maybe kind of wanted him to.
Evbo looks at him, one last time. He knows what's coming, oddly, feels it in his chest; a deep, unmistakable ache. Maybe he is ready to wake up.
Seawatt's eyes are that indescribable whirl of color again, his form blurry and bending, halfway to translucent. Evbo thinks, I have never hated you. He closes his eyes.
“Come save me now, okay?” Seawatt asks.
And then he pushes Evbo off the edge.
Seawatt has a mole on the right side of his neck.
Evbo discovers it sitting next to him on the roof of the sandstone house, staring into the nothingness. Moments before, Evbo had woken up with a scream dying on his lips, grasping at a memory not quite there; had felt the odd vertigo of a long fall.
The mole hadn't been there in any of the memories, in any of the dreams.
Looking at him, Evbo finds the words I'm sorry sitting heavy behind his teeth, stuck in his throat; finds himself oddly melancholy, staring at the only survivor of an apocalypse long forgotten.
Evbo wants to say, I'm sorry . Instead, he says nothing at all.
It is often silent between them. Evbo still reeling from his dreams turned memories, still not without hope for salvation, and Seawatt, regarding with heavy eyes the remains of his life, his people, filled with grief beyond fulfillment and aching for a past that cannot be returned to.
There is nothing left to say. It has all been said already, in places that never were – memories that never existed.
Yet Evbo's eyes keep finding Seawatt in the odd twilight – he keeps marveling over the fact that he is here, breathing; as human as any of them. There is a mole on his neck, and he is alive.
His eyes finding the horizon again, Evbo thinks, It really is a miracle , imagining the sheer terror of it: The people that must've lived here – must've died here. Wiped out in a war that should've never been.
And despite it all, Seawatt lives.
He keeps thinking it, He's alive, he's alive, like a mantra he can't place the origin of, a reminder he has never before needed, still so amazed by it.
In his dreams, Seawatt had been laughing, dying, a dizzying whirl of lives and experiences; not real, never real, but nonetheless visceral.
Now, faced with the reality of it: The sandstone house, the wasteland around it, Seawatt alive, Evbo feels– something. Something.
“Why do you do it?” Evbo asks, spurred on by that odd feeling in his chest, threatening to burst.
Seawatt tilts his head, considering. “I don't think I'm doing anything. It's just not good for you to be around me for so long.”
He laughs, humourless, a choked thing – and Evbo keeps looking at his face, expecting the undefinable quality of a dream and finding nothing but reality, unpleasant and harsh; keeps wondering, thinking, Even in my dreams, he was never this serious.
There is something to be said about walls, about the careful jokes of someone stood so close to a fall they might never return from; both Evbo and Seawatt trapped within their narrative, their choices.
“It's not your fault.” Evbo says carefully. “And– I'm not gonna leave.”
He doesn't say I'll save you, whatever it takes – swallows the words back down and hopes Seawatt will understand regardless. Maybe, some day, he will.
Seawatt's eyes widen. Evbo pretends not to see as he blinks harshly against the tears.
“Who said anything about it being my fault?” He asks, voice still heavy with something undefinable, “Maybe it's your fault, ever think about that?”
Evbo smiles. The stone underneath his fingers is gritty, real and tangible, and if he were to reach out, Seawatt would be too – alive, warm, breathing, not a fake conjured in dreams and false memories; a person, however flawed he may be.
“Yeah, yeah. Which one of us is the evil mastermind again?”
And as Seawatt replies, Evbo thinks: Maybe this isn't so bad.
Because Evbo has been running his entire life, from the destiny of remaining at the bottom and his fear of insignificance, from layer to layer of civilization – straight to his doom, to the end of the world, all in fear of his thoughts catching up to him.
But maybe, he could stay here, just for a little while. It wouldn't be too bad, with Seawatt by his side.
Maybe it would even be sort of nice.