YP – B1: Finale – Chapter 38

236 Days Until Relapse and The Uncertain End

Zeydar sat looking at himself in the mirror. He had recently cut his hair shorter than he’d had it before and with the trim he could see Tyler in his face, something he’d never particularly noticed before. However there were the sunken cheeks, the listless eyes, the pale complexion despite the sun he did get. He looked pasty, dead, and that didn’t bother him. As it was how he felt most days. 

Dead.

The eyes of the dead were open: glazed, unseeing and forever open. The bodies were crumpled over each other thrown together in an attempt of protection. And then there was the smell that Zeydar wanted nothing but to forget. The eyes and the smell. The screams of those as the explosions and the rumbles rang. The collapse of the Tower started where he was, but as the CloudCity came crumbling down no one had a chance. So he wanted fire. He wanted fire to make it easier. The smoke to fill the Tower and to put everyone to sleep so that they would not suffer. He wanted it all to be over all to quickly. 

The power had seeped off his body. He wanted to hurt those who had hurt him. Those who had beat him, held him, and forced this state to him.

Perhaps — Zeydar touched the mirror waking himself from the trance — that was why Zeydar remembered it all so vividly. It was the only time in his life that he ever felt anything so fully. So clearly. So vividly. 

And then the memories wouldn’t leave. They held him and screamed at him for their vengeance. 

Sweet Dreams. He needed Sweet Dreams then and there. He needed to escape then. He could not hold on. Jumping to his feet from the mirror he ran to his wardrobe and pulled it open. He shuffled through his things to pull out the box and to open it to find the trinkets that he had saved from Arcadia as well as the smaller box that always held the drugs. He pulled it open to find nothing.

What?

He calculated it in his head. He didn’t run out. He remembered having enough left over. He should have had enough for a few more dreams at least. He didn’t have time to think of where it went before the memories were screaming at him and he was racing to his phone to try to contact his dealer. His hands and body shook as the tears welled in his eyes. Baby cries. Children calling for their parents. The sounds of how he killed so many people.

He was only able to get the message through before the shaking had grown too much.

He tried to talk to himself, to tell himself that it was all a dream. That it was all in the past and that he couldn’t think of it anymore. He tried to convince himself and as he gripped himself to try to stabilize, he found it impossible to do. 

“Zeydar.” Majorie’s voice came from behind him. Her hand touched his back and he collapsed hearing as the world around him broke. There was the sound of bending metal, of shattering glass, of splintering wood. She placed a cup of hot tea in his hands and immediately he drank it. It would not be enough, not enough to escape, but it would be enough to dull everything. He did not stop until he finished the cup and then tossed the glass away folding himself to his knees waiting and not wanting to see. 

“Did you take it?” Zeydar breathed out biting back his tongue and the magic that wanted to break free. The pain was lessening and everything was dulling. 

“Did I take what?”

“You know what!” Zeydar sat up to glare at her. “It was mine.”

“Zeydar.”

“This is an addiction that you created. You and the damn Superiors. You can’t take me off of it. I can’t relive it! Not again!”

“Zeydar.” But what if she really didn’t know what he was talking about. Had he finished it off? He wasn’t sure anymore. He had been upping his dosages. His phone buzzed. Pulling it to him with the little magic he had control over, he didn’t care if she saw him using Staffless – Wordless casting. The message from his dealer told him that he had messaged him before a day ago. It wasn’t something he remembered, and their meeting was scheduled for in fifteen minutes. 

It was then that Zeydar saw the state of his room. The glass of his windows was shattered. Everything wood was broken or at least cracked. The metal of the room was bent in a one eighty. Nothing was workable, fixable perhaps, but it would not work until it was fixed. His eyes went to Majorie who peered upon him as if he were a child.

“I didn’t mean to.” He did not want to see that look from her.

“I know.” Her tone told him, she thought him a child.

“I didn’t.”

“I know.” Her voice was stern. “This is why you need control.”

She was going to take his graduation away from him again. “Please. Please. I have control. I do.”

She did not believe him.

“Please. You can’t take it from me. I’ve worked for it.”

“Being a Superior means you take care of all Magicians. You can’t be a lose canon.”

“It’s my birthright!”

“And it always will be.”

“Please!” He begged her but her eyes said she would not give it to him. “Please. I will prove it. Please.”

“You—“

“If I had never been placed on this, I would have never destroyed the Tower. And as much as you want to pretend I didn’t, I did. And I will do it again, if you don’t let me have this. For what other reason is there for me to exist?” The threat seemed to hold some weight to it. “Please.”

“I will report it and the Superiors will decide.” She approached the door. “I will have someone clean this up.”

And then she left him with his phone and the disaster he had created.

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