CHAPTER 18

  Nail’s shadow endeavored to explain the Text. No, the Speech. Why did the world have to be so confusing? Nail’s shadow shook its head.

  "Well soooooorry!” screamed Ran, "that your dumb rokkism takes a genius to understand. You’d thinik someone almighty could scribble out something that doesn't need footnotes longer than it is!”

  Nail’s shadow’s crumbled into sand and was blown over by the wind. Then it was Nod or Pilgrim or whatever sitting at a table. Pilgrim’s mouth moved in a silent smile.

  "Stop smiling like you’re different! The thing that made the sun uses language? That’s what you want me to think? Clumsy, uh, er, inefficient! That's it! Clumsy, inefficient language!?”

  Pilgrim leaned back, hands behind his head, still talking, still smiling.

  "That’s different. Yes, it is! Cause I’m here to explain it! What? Bullshit! I know myself! I know that much!”

  Pilgrim scowled, and Ran was suddenly afraid. He wants to kill me! Pilgrim stood, bared his teeth and flashed, yeah, you heard me, flashed and Ran closed his eyes, and when he finally gathered courage to open them. . .

  Rina. The quiet Sebi he’d only just met, pushing gently at the floor with a broom. When Ran could take no more silence, he cried, "Do you have anything to say?” Rina’s mouth moved. "’Not yet? I feel like I shouldn’t be able to understand you without you talking.”

  Rina turned away from him, and her body, her legs, lengthened. Obsidian hair was red, it splashed onto her shoulders like a sunset waterfall.

  Nameless, the taunt came, always unctuous, somehow magnified. He felt his skin tainted as it curled like snakes around him. Nameless as the world.

  "No." And Ran was ashamed of how he begged it through tears and tears to let him be. To go to anyone else in the world, yes even them, if it would only let him alone.

  Even in dream you are alone.

  "I don’t know you.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  He looked down and saw he stood upon a white star. Around him grew a new crop of stars, all humming, vibrating, alive he saw for the first time. The exquisite Lobra Field. "Ah, man. More star-stuff.” Still, he felt good. Really very good. Why?

  He listened. Heard nothing. Why? He heard nothing. Wait. No, it was true! Nothing! The enemy was gone!

  Behind, someone coughed. Ran turned, had to bend his neck back all the way to stare up into the eyes of a fifteen foot tall giant. It’s skin moved, boiled in great pops like fresh lava, but its eyes were small, and so black Ran could barely discern them. It studied him.

  Eyes! Ran trembled. They’ll suck me in. All light and everything and I'll never get out! Sweat balls rolled the length of his face to drip off his chin.

  From far off, slow and steady like a great beating heart, came rumbles through his bones and blood and he thought of storms and fire and whispers.

  "Oops,” the lava-giant nodded, his small eyes closed. "I’ve been told my eyes frighten you. Sorry.”

  "No...problem?”

  "I was staring, ad that's rude, but the little yammerer is annoying.”

  Ran flushed. "Dude.”

  "Not you. This aggravating complainer of yours. Does it ever quiet? How do you stand the squeal?”

  "Complainer?” Ran looked behind him and saw nothing but withered words. Words? Just barely, over spaces filled with skyfull joy, if he concentrated, Ran could hear and nasal, wimpy. . . "Do. . .Are you talking about the voice?”

  The giant rubbed its temple. "I can't take it. I'll kill it for you."

  Suddenly, like lightening, Ran's back hurt. As if the Sea of Seas sat on him "Silence? K-Kill it? Why?”

  "Don't you loathe it? I saw that much.”

  The weight became doubled. "Sure, but--”

  "Don't you want to be free?”

  "I. . .I mean. . .” He would be broken in two, snapped like a twig. The giant's words, its threats, were doing this. Run! Escape! Hide! Really Alone!

  "Friend, be still,” the giant rumbled and then held out a hand pointed in a finger-gun, cocked back its thumb, "it will die.”

  Ran squealed as his knees buckled, "It’s me! Rokk its on me! I can’t just get rid of it! You’re killling me! You don’t get it! Don’t, please! It’s just the way I am! Just, just put the finger down, dude!”

  But now Ran stood in Central, the Liberty Canton before him, the Glory to his left, Mystery to his right. The fear that came wasn’t as with the giant. That fear was proper.

  Sheets of metal, shards of glass, thousands of tumbling bones shaking into one another.

  Ran covered his ears, still heard, shut his eyes, still saw. Men and women and little kids crying out for vengeance, help, to be left alone, friendship, mercy, for autonomy. . .for slavery.

  Someone forced his hands away from his ears and he opened his eyes. Pym, no, Tirezaya. "Liar.”

  The wind threw him up, into the air, high, between the buildings, and looking down at the twin cities, Wordheal and First, and the valley between.

  The wind forced its way into his nostrils, into his lungs.

  "Tooooooooooooooooomb," the sky boomed.

  The ground shrieked, Ran fell, and oh boy did he scream.

  Somewhere, far away now, the bright giant said, "Lad, you have issues.”

  Ran sat up in his bed, howling.

  "Dude,” Tek said from the bunk below. "Holy crap."