I’m a fighter. I’ve got the long hair and the lore of the Youthful Woman, and the weapon belt of an assassin. Three swords I know nothing about, and a bow I keep trying on. They’re flimsy, until they’re not. I gotta be euphoric to use it, nirvanic. Only then, the big one’s got rubies, and it’s strong, sharp, unbeatable. I was born in July, it feels like me.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, post-apocalyptic clean-up. The children die and the adults fight to see who keeps on living, and that’s just in the deli, not in the ring.
Once upon a time, there were Titans, tyrants, who ran the world dead with their desires, towering monsters with faces like dough and malevolent eyes, grabby hands and heavy, sandaled feet, and we built monuments to them. Monoliths that stretched to the stars, out of rubble and rock and stardust, red and orange of the land and clay and burning sun, and they cared not for our hard efforts, our toiling spoils, for we are disposable and our lifetimes lasted in their seconds. They climbed and wagered and frolicked in our work, destroying their own self-designated memorials. Until one Man tricked a Titan, outbet, conniving. And it all came tumbling down, with a promise.
Once upon a time, there was a regular life. Snow storms and huddled families and peach cobblers and missed flights.
Now there is nothing, but I can see everything that was. Could’ve been and could be. And I can see who’ll win in the End, if I dare to look.
And I feel as part of everything, as one, just matter, slipping through other matter with intent. I go where I want, when I want. I am air and dust and water and nothing, nothing can touch me now.
There is an Odin man, who’s fought like me and felt like me and loved like me before. We are a line of fighters. His skin tells stories like postage stamps, but I can’t read them, can’t even see them, without his help. Yet, he says, and gives me his glasses.
They’re movies, faint and static. I can smell them, like death and egg and cake. Like lightning. But everything smells like death, so maybe these are tainted. They give me hope. They’re supposed to.
There are three of us. Me, the Woman; the Family Man; and the Scythe. The Family Man is insane with grief and elated at the idea of losing it. The Scythe is made of steel. Cold and grey and hard. I don’t worry about the Family Man, I pity him. He’s soft and will go quick. And does.
He enters the Black Room. When he finds his way out, before even traversing its tunnels, I kill him. He smiles the whole time.
Then the Scythe enters, and I follow. It has something I need. Something it took from me. A ring. A July ruby. Blood stone. And if it wins, if it takes this blood stone and gives it up to the Black Room, we become like it. Empty. Hard. Meaningless. The world, dead. The Titans’ promise come to full. I’ve got a new once upon a time to fight for.
The Black Room is reached through folds like waves of absent sound, thick, rubber tar, silencing the outside realms. There are no outside realms. There is just us. Threads of Existence, fighting itself for control.
The Scythe slashes through with abandon until it reaches the room, cutting the ripples, cutting me. No matter how hard I try, I can’t find the euphoria to wield my sword, I can’t find my hope. I swing it clumsy, flimsy, I lash out with wimpy dagger. It’s on the tip of my blade, I can feel it, I know it’s there, waiting for me, expecting me. But I come too late.
The Scythe strikes my back. I don’t know it, at first. It’s like being hit, pushed, shoved over the precipice of life and into the depths of death. I don’t even feel pain. So I don’t know it, at first.
But then I’m sitting. In a theater, empty but for the Family Man. Watching on the silver screen as the Scythe fights the Black Room and my body bleeds out.
I have a choice here. It’s not a good one, but there is a choice. I am more than Existence, it never planned for a sum. (Or maybe it did.)
It’s a curse. A victory, always in the making. Time is never wrong, it just comes at surprising moments.
Luckily for the world, I’m a martyr.
When I emerge, into the red land turn green, dying sun awake, I have a story on my skin. It moves, and smells like death and egg and cake.
Vanhattan 
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