(Inspired by The Summer Hikaru Died)
“You’re not Anaxa, are you?”
A breeze passes over the whispering foliage of the Grove, distilling the question among the quivering leaves.
It’s not a question, really. You know you’re right.
Beside you, Anaxa hesitates. He turns his head toward you, right eye narrowing. The red circle of his pupil glows with an unnatural light. His stare is arresting, and beyond the silent calculating lies something… not quite shocked, but intrigued. Like an unexpected variable has suddenly appeared in front of him.
He tilts his head. “How did you know?”
Images flash in your mind. Images you tried to—can’t—forget. Of running, running, running to the ritual site in the darkness, lungs burning, head spinning, feet pounding until—
(The body, sprawled in the centre of the array. Hair strewn across the ground around its head. Like a ragdoll, you had thought. Blood trickling from the mouth. Lips frozen in an almost-smile. Eye glassed over, and skin so white it’s grey. You don’t dare touch it and yet—you have to—reaching out your hand, it’s—
(Cold. Unmistakeable, undeniable, irrevocable.)
Your eyes fall to your hands. “I just got this feeling. You look exactly like him, but… you’re different, somehow. If you aren’t him,” you say, turning to him, “then what are you?”
The thing which is Anaxa stares at you. For a few seconds nothing happens. Then half of his face… melts. Slides away like ink. From behind his eyepatch emerges a twisting mass of something, pulsing and contracting like a living thing, composed of swirling patterns and shapes which shimmer like oil in water: mesmerising coils of turquoise, indigo, crimson. The writhing mass stretches outwards, winding through the air towards you. You freeze, pulse spiking with the realisation that it’s going to–
The creature (is that what it is? A creature?) halts a few millimetres from your face. There it lingers, swirling, undulating, folding dimension and light into itself and back out again. Staring at it makes your head swim. This thing is not—of this world. (Your vision lapses.) Not meant to be comprehended by the likes of you.
“You were not supposed to find out,” he says calmly. His—its—voice distorts as he speaks, phasing out of sync and then back together like a viscous liquid congealing back together after being run through with a knife.
Your mouth is dry. Forcing down the lump in your throat, staring into the eye shining in the midst of the living void, you whisper, “What will you do?” Does it plan to kill you? Suck out your soul?
The thing regards you for a moment. Its swirling tendrils hover above your skin, tips wavering lightly as if caressing the air. Its silence is devoid of malevolence. Instead, you feel it unpicking you with its incomprehensible mode of perception, dissecting you, even—you shudder as one of the tendrils just barely ghosts over your cheek—tasting you, with the same curiosity and intent of a scientist peering through a microscope at a new discovery.
Strangely enough, with half of his face warped into a swarming, psychedelic splatter, it feels the most like Anaxa since this thing took up his body. Something in your chest gives a heavy throb. Because this isn’t him. He is dead. However much it might act, or look, or speak or stare like him, you know it isn’t, because you saw…
The mass draws back, receding slowly as if it’s being sucked back into his eyepatch. The last few wisps flail and vanish behind the dark cloth. It concludes, in Anaxa’s voice, “I will not harm you.”
Stars swim behind your eyes. Your heartbeat flutters in your chest, which is so tight it might burst. Short, sharp gasps of air are all you can pull down your constricted throat. “Why?” you stammer out, barely audible.
The question seems to puzzle him. Plainly, he replies, “I don’t want to.”
You exhale a breath. “Oh.”
The world tilts around you. Your head drops forward. You don’t fall. A hand on your shoulder keeps you upright as the grass beneath your feet turns into the waves of a green ocean. It feels like a human hand. You force yourself to glance over at him. He looks normal; as normal as Anaxa ever looked. His gaze is firm, not unkind. Not his. Its. Why do you have to keep reminding yourself of that distinction?
“You may pretend I am him, if you find it easier.”
Pretend it’s him? You almost want to laugh. It’s unthinkable. Anaxa is gone. You saw him. You can’t ever forget that fact. And yet…
Having this thing here, wearing his face, speaking in his voice—this thing, which is so utterly alien to everything you have ever known—having it here is almost like having him here, for all of its fundamental discrepancies. And having something almost like him here is infinitely better than not having him at all.
Before going ahead with the experiment, Anaxa had told you that there was nothing to worry about. He had it all worked out; you would see him once it was over. Part of you is furious with him for making you a promise he didn’t keep. How dare he leave like that? How dare he lie to you?
Staring at the thing that is (not?) Anaxa, it strikes you for the first time: maybe he didn’t lie to you. You are seeing him now, aren’t you? A close enough approximation, at the very least. (At the most. His insides are gods know what, and his mind has been hijacked by some bizarre entity you can’t begin to fathom.) If you simply… let him be what he now is… maybe he doesn’t have to be gone. And if he doesn’t have to be gone, you don’t have to be alone.
Even you have to admit he left you that much.
