2.4 Sinking

LIBRA

There are two men following my father.

At first, I thought they were both the same person due to their shady attire, but the more I saw them, the more I could distinguish them into two different people.

The first had a tendency to stand with more weight on one foot than the other, slightly slouched. Staring with disturbing intensity. Once, he caught me looking at him from a distance. He saluted me before disappearing. I don’t know what to make of it.

The second was slightly taller than the other. He stood straighter, had paler hair. If he ever saw me looking, he never let it show.

I looked up from my book to see my father coming out of his room, all dressed for an outing.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To an old friend’s birthday,” he replied.

“Can I come too?”

“Are you sure your mother won’t need you here to help with anything?” He tried to give me the stern father look, unfortunately it never worked too well for him.

“No, I think she’s glad I’m spending more time with you these days.”

He considered. I smiled at him expectantly.

“Alright then,” he said at last.

I grinned and went to retrieve my hat. As we headed down the street, nothing seemed to be out of place in our small, quiet neighborhood, but I could have sworn that out of the corner of my eye I saw a black robe whip out of sight.

 

LEO

It is exhausting, so exhausting, when your best isn’t good enough. When you’re getting further and further behind, and there is no way to catch up, but you try so damn hard because you’re that desperate.

Like struggling while sinking.

The conclusion was clear. I just didn’t want to admit it.

Over the days, I started to notice that Libra seemed to be spending more and more time near me. We ran into each other with increasing frequency at home. Whenever I left home, she volunteered to come with me. It would not have bothered me, but I had started to suspect something was going on.

In the morning, we (that is, Libra and I) briefly attended Sofia’s birthday party. Yes, the very Sofia Bjorgsen, who still lived in the Lighthouse with her sister and brother-in-law, having never married herself. It was a quiet party, with most of her friends too old or already dead to make it. As it petered out to an end, she turned to me and said ruefully, “Well that could have gone better, couldn’t it?”

Oh Sofia, where did our time go? I once thought that you and I would grow old together, but here we are, both of us apart and worn and grey.

“Let’s start heading back,” I said to Libra. I missed Yuki already.

 

It happened when I was heading up to the attic, where no one was allowed to follow. A sudden dizziness swept over me, and the next thing I knew was that the world bent in an impossible way and I was on the floor. My vision went dark.

A voice, seemingly from far away, said, “End of the line for you, alchemist.”

I was sinking into a void.

Sinking, as everything fell away around me and my thoughts ground down to a

—–

Merry Christmas everyone!