Chapter Eighty (????)
I looked at the offered paper crane, and stared at the hands that were offering it. "You should keep it for yourself," I said gently. The kid looked expectantly up at me, a small smile on his face. He shook his head, and pushed the paper crane forward once more. I accepted it, my fingers clutching the scraps of paper that turned to ashes within mere seconds. "Told you so," I said to the kid, who didn't seem inclined to take it as a bad thing. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, trotted off to a nearby table, and began to fold another paper with careful, delicate and yet quickly precise motions.
I watched his back work dutifully, his blob of white hair shining something fierce. "Such a hard worker, uh," I muttered. A chuckle escaped my lips.
My vision blurred, soot and ash filling my vision the next as fire and flames, mixed with the crumbling of a building burst into a cacophony of images. My blood boiled, my tongue tasted like ash. I felt the cold ground wet and slick with blood mix with the thundering of cannons, the agony of the dead and the deaths of so many.
You can't escape us.
I made a mistake once.
I made a mistake more than once.
Eating things that shouldn't be eaten. Fighting monsters that shouldn't be fought. Acquiring powers that shouldn't be acquired. I had paid the price in the end. I had folded my hand, too heavy to bear. I had accepted my loss, and the game was over. The Dragon had won, all hail the Dragon. I had lost, and died, and was now a prisoner of my own nightmares.
This was perhaps Bolas' way of amusing himself. My eyes watched the fires spread, the screams dying as rumbling engines echoed overhead. Airplanes dotted the skies, bombs falling down like raindrops one after the other.
"There's a survivor!" someone yelled.
Bolas was quite the crafty bastard. Perhaps a whole world torn by war would be the final nail in the coffin of my hopes. I couldn't feel any mana within me. The hunger was gone, and so was...
So was...
Wait.
No.
I clutched my stomach, my muscles aching as I stood to sit up with shaky limbs. Tendrils of thought lashed out, my Mana burning as I snarled like a wounded beast, glancing right and left. Whoever had dropped me here couldn't have gone far. I could still pursue them. They had taken it. They had taken Dominaria. I had to get it back. I had to, or they might not be able to withstand its might.
My head blared with pain, a thundering painful hammer was smashing against my skull, my brain, and was trying its best to make my whole life a horrible hell. I fell down on my knees on the rubble of the broken building, bombs exploding nearby, drowning out all sounds.
A pair of calloused hands grabbed hold of me, dragging me away from the ruins of the building. Up above, the bombers kept bombing.
My eyes closed, and opened once more. Amidst the flashes of light, I found myself squished like a sardine together with others, dozens of others, inside a cramped thing that was perhaps an old bunker of sorts.
I closed my eyes. People screamed, and clutched one another. People cried. Each bomb that fell could be their last, the fear they felt for their lives, the smell of urine, the sweat and the cries when the ground trembled, all mixed together. This was humanity.
Such a funny thing, to think that humans believed themselves the top dogs until faced with the inevitability of a bombing run. Everyone fears, everyone cries, everyone shakes and whimpers when death is just behind the corner. Oh, how do we shake when mortal and weak.
How indeed.
I was shaking together with them.
Dominaria wasn't mine any longer. Someone else had it. Someone else was keeping the Rifts closed, or perhaps had they dared to pry them open? If so, then everything was lost, but I would survive as long as the Planes kept working. If instead it was still to open, if the Rifts were yet to be unleashed, then after their opening who knew what might happen? I couldn't help it. I shuddered together with the other humans, but I didn't cry.
Crying never solved anything.
Once the bombings were done, I stepped outside. The sky was grey, the weather humid and cold, but I was wearing simple enough clothes. A scarf, a jacket of dirty leather, gloves that had seen better days, and a pair of leather shoes that creaked when I walked on them. My trousers had a couple of holes in them, but were still functional.
I couldn't feel the Hive. I couldn't feel the incessant, chittering thoughts of the Hive.
I felt alone.
This was solitude, and I despised it.
Where were they? Where were my talons, my claws, my eyes and ears? Where were they all?
No. No. I... "There's someone still alive here!" someone yelled, and my body moved. I moved and lunged, grabbing chunks of brick and masonry and pulling them away. A large piece of iron was responsible for the protection of a young boy beneath the remains of the house, and as my hands were joined in lifting the beam by others, we pulled the kid free.
People, humans, weaklings, they exchanged small cheers. Did they not see? Did they not understand? They had saved a child, but the family laid beneath the rubble. An orphan thrust into a system that didn't care would be all that remained of him. He'd be lost, sadness and grief, only the guilt of having survived would remain as a forlorn memory, a depression that would eat at him.
The guilt of the survivor would never leave him.
Soldiers were in charge of giving food to the people, and long lines formed.
I wasn't hungry. I simply sat on a broken piece of rock, and stared at them. I didn't near. I didn't care. This was...Dominaria was gone. These people didn't know what it meant, didn't care. This place, the tongue—this was London, and the bombs were falling. This was London, the war was raging, and the bombs were falling.
A man in a trench-coat sat down by my side, offering me a plate. "You not hungry?"
"No," I replied, my eyes glancing at the figure, and then away from it. "You saved me?"
"I did not," the War Doctor spoke. "One thing I have realized after countless centuries is that only you have the power to save yourself from the demons within you."
"Why did you bring me here?" I asked.
"I believe in second chances," the War Doctor spoke gruffly. "I did a lot of things I regret, and hid behind four simple words, four simple, and yet damning words. I had no choice. Excuses. Those were nothing but excuses. I always had a choice. I acted in the name of peace and sanity, but not in the name of who I was."
"I could always just stand up and leave," I pointed out. "Given enough time, I would be able to return to my plane."
The War Doctor nodded, "Nothing would change. Well, no, I would no longer rescue you. I believe in second chances, not in third ones." He took a spoonful of whatever grub he had taken from the soldiers, and chewed on it thoughtfully before grimacing. "It tastes horrible." He then thrust the other one in my hands. "Have a taste of it."
I raised an eyebrow, and since I was without a spoon, I took a sip with both of my hands reclining the bowl back. I licked my lips after a long sip. "It's warm. It doesn't taste bad." I glanced at the rows of people still in line, at a few dirty, grime-covered faces of the weak, the deprived, those who had perhaps lost it all, and I stood up. "I'm not really hungry though," I walked towards an elderly gran a bit to the bottom of the line. She wouldn't be getting her supper. I knew it because I could see the timeline advance, and she was the first elderly lady after the last to be served, so she had to go first.
There were other people behind her, hungry, tired, some wounded, others frail. Many wouldn't survive the end of the week. Some would simply stay down on the cold floor, and wait for death to lurch its way over them.
I returned to the War Doctor a bowl less, and a thank you in my chest.
"I could snap my fingers, make it so it never happened," I whispered.
"I could do so too," the War Doctor acknowledged my words. "There is no convenience of fixed points in time to stop either of us."
"Some of the people below the rubble will die today, I could fish them out," I continued.
"You could do that, yes," the War Doctor said. "Save everyone. Everywhere."
"It would be meaningless," I pointed out. "For infinite numbers I save..."
"Did you make a difference for that old lady?" the War Doctor asked curtly, "Did you make a difference for those you saved? You should not worry about those you are powerless to save."
"But I am a Planeswalker," I clenched my fists tightly, "I have the power to do everything."
"Yes," the War Doctor said with a slow nod. "You are also human. You are also hurt. I didn't realize at first, you hid it well. When you are hurt, though, there is one thing you should seek out—"
"A Doctor?" I quipped, my hands clasped together.
"You aren't hurt physically," the War Doctor grumbled. "We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
I took a deep breath, and then closed my eyes.
"Can I..." I whispered, but didn't finish the sentence.
A strong arm encircled my shoulder, and an awkward hug ensued. The man's beard was raspy and I felt it against my forehead, and in that moment, I trembled for the first, and perhaps, hopefully, the last time.
"You are the Tyrant no more," the War Doctor whispered. "Find yourself another name."
He stood up, and to the sound of his Tardis, he turned around a corner and disappeared in it, headed for only he knew which end of the multiverse.
I took a deep breath, and then stood up in turn.
I was the Tyrant. Now, it was time I became something else.
"Maybe..." I turned thoughtful. "I could be..." I hummed. "I'm just a fool." I didn't need any nickname, or high-sounding title.
I was Shade.
It was all that mattered.
