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“I got your note and came as quickly as I could, Emperor Belos.”
Belos did not so much as glance in Hunter’s direction as he swept across the dim study. His open robes fluttered against the floor like a phantom behind him. “Did anyone see you come here?” He asked sharply.
“No, sir, everyone is busy with preparations for the Day of Unity tomorrow. Is something wrong?”
Finally, Belos glanced his way. The Emperor’s mask lay elsewhere, providing the picture of Hunter’s uncle more than the Emperor. He even smiled slightly, thin lips drawn wide. Deep below, Hunter felt himself relax slightly.
“Oh, quite the opposite, actually—I needed to speak with you about something before it all begins.” Vaguely, Belos motioned his hand to the room. He swept for his cluttered desk. “Have a seat. Lock the door behind you.”
The only places to sit in Belos’ room were at the vanity or on his bed. Hunter eyed the familiar furniture a moment, before settling for the vanity and accompanying stool. The lock clicked softly with the beat of his heart. He removed his mask and let it join Belos’ on the vanity. His own reflection watched him uneasily.
“Do you remember the stories I used to tell you, to lull you to sleep,” Belos suddenly said from across the shadowy room, “tales of the Human Realm?”
“Of course I do.” Hunter wouldn’t say it, not out loud, but he treasured those memories more than anything else. He vividly remembered feeling so small and secure while curled into his uncle’s side, peering over time-worn pages sprawled by neat handwriting. “I learned to read off your scrolls detailing them.”
Belos nodded fondly. He returned from across the room
“What if I told you that we could go there?”
Hunter’s eyes leapt up to Belos’ face. His mouth fell open. “Your portal— uncle, did you finish it?”
“Isn’t it spectacular? There will only be enough power to go over once, but it is possible. After all these years, travel between our dimensions is finally within my grasp.”
Hunter’s expression slipped. His brows knitted. “But— you would never come back? What about the Day of Unity, sir?”
“Ah, you’re sharp. Nothing gets past you.”
Hunter swelled slightly at that. Any amount of praise, no matter how slight, always made him feel light.
“The worthy shall inherit a utopia, glorious and free of wild magic, which will mark the end of our life’s work.”
Belos trailed around the stool. He traced his finger across Hunter’s back before pausing behind him. He placed his palms heavy on Hunter’s shoulders. His long, familiar fingers curled over his collarbone. “Peace will reign and all creatures on the Isles shall be united as one.” Hunter mouthed the words along with Belos. He heard the spiel thousands of times, at least. “The sick and lame shall be healed. Unimaginable goodness and power will be bestowed upon the worthy—those who submitted their lives to the Titan, as He declared.”
“The sick will be healed,” Hunter agreed. He tipped his head back. “So that means... The Titan will cure your curse on the Day of Unity. Is it... Worth missing?”
“My curse runs deep.” Belos replied. He squeezed Hunter’s shoulders. “The wild witch who placed it upon me had hatred so foul and dark in her that I fear even the Titan may not be strong enough to reverse it.”
At the idea, Hunter’s heart tightened. He held his breath and mentally muttered a prayer for forgiveness.
“However, I believe that a cure lies in the Human Realm, nestled in a force far beyond our comprehension. This may be the only chance I have left to cure myself. And...” Belos paused. He chuckled sadly as he slid out from behind Hunter. “No, it is selfish. I want you to stay here for the Day of Unity. You’ve worked so hard for our noble cause. How could I ever ask such a thing of you?”
“Ask what of me?” Hunter sat on the edge of his seat, inching ever closer to Belos and his words.
Belos shook his head. He palmed his temple.
“You mean the world to me, Hunter. You are my everything, the only good and true thing I’ve ever had. There is no one else I would rather have at my side in any realm other than you.”
Hunter’s heart skipped a beat. “You want me to...”
“It always has been my greatest fantasy to show you that glorious world and experience it with you. But to do that... You would need to leave everything here behind. Your entire life would be upturned if I asked you to follow me.”
“I would never leave your side, not for anyone or anything, uncle.” Hunter said. The words almost exploded out of him. “I don’t care. I’ll come with you.”
“Surely you don’t mean that?”
“It wouldn’t be a utopia without you.”
“Oh, Hunter... What did I ever do to deserve you?” Belos cupped his cheeks. His thumbs stroked the soft and scarred skin there. He leaned in, so slow and easy, and pressed a kiss to Hunter’s forehead. “If you are to come with me, there are still a few... Let’s say, ‘loose ends’ left to tie, but they will seem inconsequential compared to the feat we are soon to perform.”
“What kind of loose ends?”
The wrinkles in the corners of Belos’ eyes deepened with his smile. His palms fell from Hunter’s face, instead he cupped his hand. He patted the back gently.
“Oh, this and that. Namely, we will have to make some minor adjustments to your appearance. You will have to fit in seamlessly with the other humans, after all. If they saw you for what you really are, a witch from another realm, who is to say what may happen?”
Hunter swallowed. His ears twitched as coldness crept through him.
“A lynching, a burning... Drowned, beaten, locked away, experimented upon...” Belos shook his head gravely. “Humans do not inherently take kindly to witches, therefore we must protect you at all costs, starting with the things that give you most away. Namely your ears and...”
Belos gently turned Hunter’s hand over. He swept his fingers, pushing up Hunter’s sleeve, exposing his forearm.
“...Your sigil.”
“But, sir, my sigil—”
“Represents your loyalty to me, I understand that. Right now I am asking you to show your loyalty to me in a different way, with an act of utter and complete devotion—proof that you want to come with me as badly as I want you to. However, if it is too much to ask—”
“It isn’t.” Hunter replied immediately. His jugular veins tensed. “You want me to... Cut it out?”
Belos smiled and chuckled; suddenly Hunter felt like a child again who had asked Belos to check under his bed for monsters.
“The sigil goes well beyond your skin, my boy. It is carved into your flesh, blood, even your bones—it has become a part of you, down to your very soul. So if you want to remove the sigil, you’ll need to go much, much deeper than simply the flesh surrounding it. Do you understand what I am telling you?”
A shudder took Hunter under his clothes. His eyes trailed to the inside of his forearm. The sigil there gleamed against his pale, scarred skin. He had it for so long that Hunter now regarded it as a natural part of his body, like a freckle or a blemish. But he remembered how badly it burned when Belos pressed the scalding branding gauntlet to his skin.
Hunter swallowed. He clenched his fist, nodded slowly.
“I understand, sir.”
Belos mirrored his nod. An almost childlike gleam of excitement washed over his expression, so different from the usual stoicism Belos gave.
Hunter’s hand slid out of Belos’ and fell in his lap as Belos peeled away from him. Once again, in that same sweep of crisp white fabric, Belos skated across the floor.
“I hope that you will forgive me... It’s all so rushed, with the Day of Unity upon us and everyone so busy... Obviously, this has to be kept between the two of us.”
“Of course.”
Belos pulled a plain cloth from over his workbench. From where he was sitting, Hunter couldn’t see what had been revealed, until Belos turned, brandishing a tray of sterile, mean-looking instruments. A cold sweat dotted the back of Hunter’s neck and knees.
“The Healing Coven won’t be called, naturally. How could we explain you trying to remove your sigil before the Day of Unity? It would be considered treason to anyone else, and I would be forced to act accordingly. However, I managed to procure these.”
He slid the tray onto the vanity, nudging aside their masks. Belos selected a small, scythe-like blade and held it out.
“You’ll take this first to carve the flesh. Careful, it is sharp.”
Dumbly, Hunter accepted the hooked blade. Its sharpened edge gleamed in the low light. Though incredibly light, the weight of it in his hand seemed to be enormous in his unsteady left hand.
“Once you’ve separated the skin and muscles, you will take this—” Hunter followed Belos’ motioning hand to an equally angry, small-toothed handsaw on the tray. “—and sever the bone. It will be difficult but not impossible. And I assure you that I will do everything in my power to help you, so long as you prove yourself to me.”
Almost as if possessed by another force, Hunter lifted the blade and slotted it to his forearm.
“I will tend your wound to the best that I can, and then once we are in the Human realm we will take proper care of it. I can build you a prosthetic so life-like that it will be as if you never lost it at all. I promise you, Hunter, just as soon as you complete this one task for me.”
Hunter exhaled shakily. His lungs were suddenly very small and tight inside his chest. The familiar sensation of panic secretly weaved its way through his nerves. His ears twitched. His knuckles, tucked in a clenched fist, ached. He vividly felt every heartbeat that pumped blood through his veins below the cool, sharpened steel.
“Any time, now.” Belos commented casually. “The longer you wait, the more difficult it will become.”
Hunter stared at his scarred skin. His eyes traced every imperfection he never realized he had—except for his sigil, which he had studied the design and skin surrounding it so thoroughly that he could draw it from memory alone. The sigil meant everything to him—it defined Hunter, beyond blood, a mask, or a few words. Yes, he was Belos’ nephew and the Emperor’s Golden Guard, but with the sigil so painstakingly applied he was much more than that. He was an extension of Belos beyond any physical association. He belonged to Belos. His entire being was pledged to Belos, a bond contracted by that very sigil carved into his flesh. And now he had been asked to...
Sweat drops crawled down Hunter’s temple. His diaphragm pinched. His breath came as a series of tight little whistles.
“I can’t.” He finally uttered. “I can’t. I— I can’t. I—”
Belos’ cool hand enveloped his own, solid and reassuring. Hunter’s eyes turned away from his arm and instead to his uncle’s expression.
“I cannot do this for you.” Belos whispered. He took up all the air in the atmosphere surrounding them, which somehow made it easier and more difficult for Hunter to breathe. His eyes seemed almost sad; his lips pulled into a slight, concerned frown. “I have done so much in the past for you, but this is something that you must do on your own. I need to see the lengths of your commitment to me.” Subtle, so subtle, Belos squeezed Hunter’s hand; his skin yielded, and the blade dug in. Hunter grimaced at the sting, yet he couldn’t draw his eyes away from Belos’ face.
“I know that you’ve got the strength and determination to do it. I know that you love me as much as I love you. All you have to do is remove whatever blockage you’ve got in your mind and...”
Belos squeezed Hunter’s hand tighter. Hunter clung to every word his uncle said like a lifeline, blue eyes boring into his own. Thin trickles of blood snaked their way down Hunter’s skin, carving paths like a river through dry earth.
“...Do it.”
With his heart racing and Belos’ words in his mind, Hunter nodded once. He clamped his lip between his teeth and wrenched his hand underneath Belos’.
He pulled the blade through his skin and muscles in one swift yank. Hot, slippery blood gushed across himself and Belos, staining their clothes. His sinewy muscles parted with effort, even though the blade had been meticulously sharpened. Pain ripped through Hunter’s existence, followed by a flood of panic and adrenaline. He almost dropped the blade. He had never cut himself so deeply before. The blade scraped against his raw bone.
“Good. Good.” Belos muttered harshly. “Follow through. Quickly.”
Sharp tears burned Hunter’s eyes. He desperately tried to blink them away as he readjusted the quaking knife around the other half of his forearm. His fingers shivered and shook over the slick handle and the next swipe came more clumsily; this time, the blade cut semi-diagonally through his twitching wet muscle, not nearly deep enough to touch bone. His tears could no longer be contained. They fell freely down Hunter’s hot, flushed cheeks.
“One more and you’ve got it.” Belos encouraged urgently. He squeezed Hunter’s hand. “Hurry, now, before you bleed out. You’ve still got the bone.”
Hunter gave a horrible, ragged sob. He gagged on his pain and tears and snot. He balled his hand into a fist, which caused blood to spurt and splash over Belos’ already sodden clothes. He swiped the blade again in a final arc around the appendage, finally enough to sever the meat of his forearm from the rest of him.
He dropped the blade with stiff fingers. It clattered at their feet. In the same second, Belos produced an angry thin bone-saw, fit with a series of small, jagged teeth, and placed it into Hunter’s awaiting palm.
He made a beastly noise as he lined the saw up with his barely-exposed bone. Blood and viscera oozed from the circular wound wrapped around his arm. In an attempt to be helpful, perhaps, Belos pulled Hunter’s skin down by his wrist; Hunter cried out as his flesh sloughed downwards, thus exposing his stained, raw bone enough that he could slot the saw against it.
He couldn’t see Belos’ eyes or hear his voice aloud but he felt it all upon him: words of encouragement or perhaps another grim reminder that his time was finite, which Hunter did not need to be told. He felt it with every heartbeat, a shivery feeling that crept across his clammy skin and washed the colour from his face. His vision blurred and his mind grew hazy, even with the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Coldness crept from his extremities inwards; he thought briefly that he may have collapsed, if not for Belos holding him up.
Hunter forced the saw through with every ounce of strength he had. The jagged teeth gnawed his bone. Shard-like splinters and marrow gushed out. The sound that came was akin to nails on a wet chalkboard. He felt it rush down his spine almost worse than the excruciating pain. But he couldn’t slow, he couldn’t stop—Hunter thrust the saw forward and back again and again, even as the pain blinded him and the grinding noise of his body yielding to the blade made him want to dig inside his ears and tear everything out.
Belos pulled on his arm to keep it taut. Hunter screamed in an eruption of primal pain and utter desperation. Belos allowed it. He clutched the creaking appendage and encouraged it further away from Hunter’s body as he severed the ties one swift, grinding stroke at a time—
The saw cleared his bone. Hunter almost lost his balance and pitched over as suddenly the part of him being held up by Belos was no longer connected to his person. He stumbled, barely caught his balance. A fiery throbbing ache chewed his severed arm all the way up to his elbow. The wound leaked bits of bone and clumps of spongy marrow.
Eyes wide with almost disbelief, Hunter clenched his fist—completely disconnected and limp within Belos’ own hand, it did not respond.
“You did well, Hunter. I am so proud of you.”
Belos’ words touched Hunter’s ears like angel bells, yet he couldn’t fully make sense of it. Through his rushing mind and swimming vision, the only thing Hunter could truly see was red as Belos’ scepter appeared in his hand and hummed to life. Magic glow seeped over the both of them; the blood pooled at their feet and staining their clothes disappeared as everything became one uniform shade.
The hot magic tip touched Hunter’s raw, bleeding wound. Hunter screamed and almost collapsed as the searing heat cauterized him. The smell of scorched flesh overwhelmed that of iron, sweat, and tears.
Belos stayed relentless. He followed Hunter’s squirming body and kept his scepter flush to the wound. He muttered something that Hunter couldn’t hear—he had no way of telling whether Belos’ tone was tender or sharp over the mechanical hum and sizzle of flesh.
Perhaps an eternity later, the magic faded and Belos pulled his staff back, however the pain remained, sharp and hot and throbbing and all-encompassing.
Hunter’s blurry vision blinked, smeared by red. His body swiveled in space. Vertigo and nausea fought and disoriented him. His jaw creaked from the intense pressure of his grit teeth.
“The most difficult part for you is over with now,” Belos spoke softly from beside him. He squeezed Hunter’s shoulder.
Blinking away sweat and swelled tears, Hunter finally recognized that Belos had turned his stool around; now he lay facing the vanity mirror, a disturbing half-complete, blood-and-sweat drenched effigy of his former self. His stomach lurched at the sight of his cauterized wound and cognitive dissonance slammed him. He hardly recognized the damage he did to himself. Had he really taken off his sigil? Was this how far he was willing to go for the man he loved? How many pounds of flesh would he be willing to carve?
Hunter made a strangled noise to himself, from the deep pit of his being.
He was willing to go so much further. He would give Belos every ounce if he could.
“You’ve proven your unyielding devotion to me. Now all that’s left...” His hand swept up the nape of Hunter’s neck and circled his ear. “...Is to dress you up for the human realm.”
“Yes, sir.” Hunter whispered, voice shaky. He fought to stay upright in his stool; blood loss consumed him and left him feeling cold, exhausted, and achy all over. His wound throbbed in a constant painful drum. But there was little time to waste—the Day of Unity was practically upon them.
“Obviously this procedure is too delicate to expect you to do yourself. However, it is my utmost pleasure to do it for you.”
In the vanity mirror across from him, Hunter watched as Belos produced a gleaming pair of shears. He tested them twice beside Hunter’s ear; the blades slid together with a sleek, crisp noise.
Hunter twitched, his body sluggish and delayed, before he steeled himself mentally. The world felt fuzzy around the edges, like he were about to fall sleep. After everything else he endured... How bad could this compare?
Belos pinched the tip of Hunter’s ear between his thumb and pointer finger. Hunter grimaced vaguely. Belos pulled the cartilage tight and Hunter worked to keep his head steady. The shears whispered as they opened and gently bit his skin that Belos slotted between its blades.
“Take a breath.” Belos advised gently.
Hunter did.
At the exact same moment, the shears snipped shut over the shell of Hunter’s ear.
Sudden, sharp stinging pain made Hunter reel. Blood spilled down the nape of his neck, slicked his hair and the collar of his already destroyed shirt. A pathetic, hurt noise escaped him as he fell forward; the memory of his right hand shot out to grab his wounded ear. After a brief disoriented falter, Hunter’s intact arm shot out instead. Blood coated his quivering fingers as he blinked fresh, hot tears out of his eyes.
Almost mockingly gentle, Belos carded his fingers through Hunter’s hair.
“I know,” he cooed. He stroked Hunter’s hair, slick now by sweat and blood. “It is uncomfortable, but you’ve already come so far.”
“No more, please.”
“Nonsense. This is the price you must pay for salvation with me. I thought that was what you wanted, after all—an eternity, just you and I.”
Belos’ hand enveloped Hunter’s. He squeezed his tacky fingers.
Hunter choked on his hiccupping, uninhibited sobs. He shook his head, yet the words fell out of his mouth and broke like a crystal glass.
“Yes. I do. I do I do I do.”
Belos nodded. His grip dug in and pried Hunter’s fingers away from his mutilated ear.
“Then keep your head high. A little pain is nothing compared to the glory you will inherit.”
Stiff, and with Belos’ aid, Hunter unfurled his bloody fingers. Almost immediately Belos pressed a cloth into his palm.
“Put pressure on it. You can’t afford to lose much more blood, I imagine.”
His other ear received the same treatment as the first. This time, Hunter failed to keep himself steady; already weak and dizzy, when the shears sailed through the unresisting cartilage and more precious blood spilled over his skin, a wave of nausea rose in his stomach and made his mind light. His consciousness blinked. Vaguely, he stayed aware of the bloody shears landing in his lap and Belos’ hands on his shoulders. He heard Belos’ voice distantly, more like a whisper from across the room than anything else.
Head swimming and body cold, Hunter slumped in his chair. The world moved around him though it made no sense.
“We’re almost finished.” Belos hummed. “You’ve done incredible today, Hunter. You are a very good boy, indeed.”
Hunter’s mouth moved. He wasn’t sure if any words actually formed and left him.
He imagined Belos’ hands on his person, or perhaps they really were there. His eyes refused to adjust. The world came to him as a blurry mass, like soap disrupting the oily surface over a body of water.
One of Belos’ hands held the bloody remains of his ear while the other somehow pinched him over and over again. Hunter blinked. His whole body throbbed, uncomfortably hot. Sweat cut itchy streaks down his back and chest through the tacky dried blood coating him. His clothes had partially dried stiff against his skin. He flexed his fingers to test if they responded. His left hand worked remarkably; his right ached though it shouldn’t, as it laid discarded some feet away on the floor. An eternity later, Hunter’s vision fully returned to him; he made out his own reflection in the mirror, with Belos looming over his shoulder. His hand moved back and forth with the pinching sensation. Hunter then recognized that Belos worked his marred flesh skillfully with a needle and medical thread.
Hunter blinked crusted tears out of his swollen eyes. Belos set the suture down on a tray along with his other bloody instruments and gently, so gently, turned Hunter’s head to one side. He clicked his tongue and nodded as he examined his work. Hunter’s breath hitched in awe—confusion?—as he gazed upon his opposite ear in the mirror.
Smeared by blood and heavy black sutures, Hunter now sported perfectly round ears. Human ears. The stuff of myths and urban legends, fairytales and nightmares, always whispered about but never real— except now it had become painfully real. For all intents and purposes, Hunter was a human now.
A strange feeling of pride bled in with the pain and the aches. It all swelled and ballooned inside his chest.
Then just as quickly, Hunter’s mind reached a bursting climatic point and shot blank.
Dizzy, weightless, Hunter slumped forward. Belos’ hands caught him before his forehead could collide with the vanity countertop.
“Ap-up-up. No time to rest yet. We’ve much to do before tomorrow.”
Belos urged Hunter back upright, then up onto his stumbling feet. Hunter leaned fully on his uncle for balance, dazed and muttering nonsense. He felt trapped somewhere between living and dead, not quite one or the other. He found it terribly confusing.
“Come along. We can sleep when we are dead, my dear boy.”
.
.
.
The moon crested the sun, dipping the world languidly into an early-evening darkness. Magic flared and sparked in the atmosphere. Sigils carved deep into demonic flesh glowed. The entire world seemed to hold its breath.
Then, all around them, witches dropped to their knees. Screams of agony tore through the sky.
The draining spell went off without a hitch. Below their feet, the earth rumbled as raw magic filtered into sophisticated tubes and channels, all guided directly into the portal door Belos dedicated his entire life to creating. Life as Hunter knew it had come to an end.
Yet standing beside his tall proud uncle, his body throbbing and chills washing over his skin, Hunter could make almost no sense of anything. Cold, clammy sweat made his clothes stick to his body like a second skin. He sniffled. His joints were on fire, and his spine screamed with achy pain to match the horrible melody sang around them. Sepsis ran rampant through his internal workings. Yellow-greenish pus leaked down from his swollen, cauliflower-like ears hidden below his cloak, and oozed down the sides of his neck in a sickening crawl.
Belos’ hand laid across Hunter’s shoulder. He practically felt his entire body bow under the slight weight. A weak, involuntary moan trailed from him. Right now, he would have killed for the cold, clinical care he occasionally received from the Healing Coven.
But there was no longer a Healing Coven. There were no covens at all.
There was only him and Belos.
Belos turned away from the carnage surrounding them. Hunter followed dumbly behind him. They sunk into the guts of the castle, soft footfalls over the stairwell that Hunter was sure he had walked millions of times. For some reason, the only thing he could focus on aside from the stiff aches cradling his muscles was the dip worn into each stone step below him. Corroded from decades of boots, just like his, walking down the same twisting staircase.
This might be the last time another glorious living creature walked these halls.
Snot inched down his upper lip, yet Hunter couldn’t muster the energy to lift his hand and wipe it away. He sniffled. The ghost of his right fingers ached as though held in a painful clenched fist. He wish he could relax them. The raw wound, burnt cracked skin lovingly wrapped by cloth dipped in a stinging salve, throbbed. He almost wished that Belos hadn’t cauterized it. Perhaps bleeding out would be better than the consistent, drumming throb that came with every heartbeat and the awful, awful burning.
His calf muscles spasmed. He lost his footing over the next step. It took too long for his brain to register what was happening and Hunter lost his balance. He pitched sideways. His shoulder struck the wall and legs got jumbled below him. Pain and misery swelled hotter inside him.
Belos stopped and quickly turned back. His hands landed on Hunter to steady and help him along. Every place he touched made his tender skin ache.
“Careful, love, careful.” Belos whispered, or perhaps he screamed it, Hunter couldn’t tell; his swollen ears hardly registered anything aside from a feverous throb. “We can’t have you falling and breaking your neck now. Could you imagine?”
Belos laughed and Hunter lost the battle against his tear ducts; sweat and tears mingled on his flushed cheeks. He sobbed softly (or at least Hunter figured he was quiet) out of a necessary learned habit; Belos hated the sound of crying. He said it grated his ears.
In his workshop, comfortingly familiar yet eerily unrecognizable now, Belos cast aside his mask and his cloak. Unceremoniously, he allowed them both to pool on the floor.
All around Hunter the room seemed to pulse and throb. Distilled magic converted into white-hot energy surged through the pipes twisting across the wall, floor to ceiling. The portal hummed violently, like an army of angry firebees, and spilled exceptionally bright light from its frame across the stone steps leading up to it.
Hunter squinted at it, amazed. He panted with breath—perhaps his lungs would try and escape under his shoulder blades. His knees buckled. His head bobbed.
Belos came in and ate up his peripheral. Immediately, a distant sense of calm washed over Hunter. He clung vaguely to his uncle, who unclasped his cloak and then removed his mask in one short, smooth practiced motion. Hunter whined as the small warmth provided by the articles fled and cool castle air cradled him instead.
He felt how pathetic he was right now and he didn’t care. He wanted his uncle; he wanted comfort from the one thing he loved most in the world.
And Belos provided it. With a smile, he shrugged off his blue coat, brandished it, and laid it over Hunter. Blissful residual warmth radiated from the fabric. Through his running, stuffy nose, Hunter vaguely managed to sense the heady smell of Belos’ body. Or perhaps he imagined it. Either way, it cradled him.
“There. Don’t you look handsome?”
Hunter’s shoulders slouched under the added weight of the jacket poured over him. Stiff and disoriented, Hunter vaguely reached up to hold the article in place. His palm left a greasy sweat stain on the lapel.
Belos led them forward. The only thing keeping Hunter upright, it felt, was Belos’ arm looped securely across his shoulders. His skin ached, even through his clothes, where Belos touched him. His legs wobbled. Each step took every ounce of precious energy left in Hunter’s exhausted body. He wanted nothing more than to lie down and rest. He wondered if Belos may allow it once they crossed the portal.
His swimming mind became a dream-like slideshow of how he thought the human realm might be, cobbled together from the years of stories and fairytales Belos recited for him. Green grass. Blue sky. Quiet, peaceful nights. Quenching cool streams and chilly oceans.
Hunter almost laughed. It felt so impossible, all of it. But his mind drifted still as he pictured himself curled up on cool dewy grass, his uncle at his side, holding him as they watched the clouds roll by.
“Did you hear me?”
Hunter hadn’t realized Belos spoke at all. With his ears so swollen, everything sounded muffled. He strained to turn his head and focus on Belos’ face. He looked so different yet so familiar. In his state, he didn’t realize that Belos’ scar, one of his most defining features, had disappeared. A hard shuddering wave of chills and sweat rolled across Hunter’s skin and down the valley of his spine. His stomach twisted in a hard knot.
He shook his head.
Almost playfully, Belos rolled his eyes. He smiled.
“I said, I believe that new names for our new lives are in order, don’t you?”
Hunter nodded. He blinked more sweat from his eyes. He tried again to unclench his fist. The missing body part did not respond. The dancing, swirling colours and distorted images across the surface of the portal stung his eyes and made a web of pain throb across his brain, pressed to the inside of his skull.
“I believe I shall call myself ‘Philip’, and you... Hm, ‘Caleb’.”
How long had they been standing here before the open door? Had anything else ever existed, or would it ever again? All Hunter could seem to remember or focus on was the swirling, whirring portal. It frightened him. It comforted him. Soon everything would come to a complete end. Soon it would begin.
Belos spoke. No—not Belos. Belos was dead. He had been born and died and come back all in front of this horrible mishmash of colours and shapes and that incessant ache consuming Hunter’s body.
Except he wasn’t Hunter any longer, he was someone else. He was—
“All set, Caleb?” Belos Philip asked.
Brain throbbing, eyes dry and swollen, consumed by a fever that boiled him from the inside out, leaking pus and perhaps his own sanity, Hunter Caleb nodded.
Philip took Caleb’s shaking hand, greased by sweat, into his own palm. Then, together, they crossed through the glimmering portal.