Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.
*****
Chapter Ten: Orphan
Prelude: Sorrow
DIAMOND
Sorrow's gate was held by crumbling stone pillars and adorned with statues whose features had been worn away by millennia of wind and rain. Only the hollows of their eyes and the impressions of their mouths remained on their withered faces, giving them an expression of perpetual horror.
"I suppose I can't change your mind, can I?" Arbitrus asked beside me.
"Nope," I answered.
"If you don't come back, Julia will kill me."
"Yup."
Arbitrus sighed, pulled out his pipe, and sat on the steps. Behind us, the astral plane changed from a land made of candy, to a world of metal and concrete, where odd machines raced down perpendicular roads, and a female statue held a torch aloft in a crowded harbor. I turned my gaze from the impossibility, and touched the gate. It creaked open, I stepped inside, and it creaked shut behind me with a foreboding click of the lock.
Sorrow's realm was a graveyard. The barren exposed soil was wet with the rain that fell perpetually from the grey skies, and splattered on headstones, mausoleums and monuments, all decayed to ruin. The markers on the tombs were worn to illegible imprints, the statues were all as featureless as the ones outside, and the doors of the crypts were all ajar.
"Hello, Untethered One." It was a sonorous voice, almost sweet, but tinged with a sigh of hopelessness. She was an elf, though it was impossible to tell what race she was. Her flesh was pale blue, her hair was silver, and though her complexion spoke of youth, her haggard eyes spoke of ancient world-weariness. Her sclera were navy, matching the color of irises that bore no pupils, but were rimmed with white. She was pretty, I guessed, but though she was naked, I found no attraction to her.
"Hi!" I said cheerily, extending my hand. "You must be Sorrow!"
"I am," Sorrow said, shaking my hand weakly. Her palm was cold and clammy, her fingers were limp, and she offered me a melancholy smile that was somehow sadder than her frown. I didn't want to be rude, so I gritted through the exchange with a smile, counting down the seconds until it would be polite to break off. As if she read my mind, Sorrow hurriedly withdrew her hand, averted her eyes, and shrugged her shoulders insecurely.
"I am sorry," Sorrow said, wrapping her arms around herself. "I know my company is unpleasant, and my touch, even more so. Forgive me, Untethered One."
"No, no..." I trailed off, avoiding her gaze, "...it was fine." I stared at my hand, wondering why everything had suddenly dimmed.
"You have come to ask me about the most ancient one," Sorrow said, leaning against the stone wall that surrounded her vast realm.
"You know about her?" I asked. I supposed the revelation should have excited me, but it only slightly elevated my spirits.
"I do," Sorrow said, sliding down the wall until she sat on the wet soil, hugging her knees, "but if I tell you what I know, then you will leave me, and I will be alone again."
"Yeah," I responded, sitting next to her. What was the point anyway? Even if I did find out about Corruption, nothing would change. The world would still be poop, people would still be poop, the future would always be darker, and the past would always be brighter. Alas, the past was dead and gone, and all the good times were dead and gone with it. I slumped against the wall, and kicked at the damp earth. "I guess I'll just sit here. It's not like it matters."
"Misery loves its company," Sorrow sighed listlessly, and produced a belt and pouch. She unbuttoned the pouch to reveal a syringe, and I held out my arm for her to tie the belt. She cinched me, I pumped my fist, she pushed the needle into my vein, and depressed the plunger. The heroin was cold, and its chill raced up my spine and pooled tearful euphoria into my skull. I exhaled numbly, and felt my head rest against the stones. From my periphery, I saw Sorrow shoot-up, and fall into the same apathetic languidness. She rested on my shoulder, and her touch wasn't as repulsive as it had been before. In fact, it was quite pleasant. She was an oasis of warmth in the cold rain, and when I turned to look at her, I saw her big blue eyes looking back at me; shy, hopeful, and yearning. She was beautiful, the only beauty in this colorless world, the only thing worth breathing for in this perpetual darkness. I cupped her cheek, and Sorrow smiled, and its melancholy sweetness set a fire in my heart; not a passionate inferno, but a steady pilot light, one flicker from going out. I kissed her, and she kissed me, and our wet bodies moved together in the soil, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, lips to lips. We found the heat of each other, and moaned with slow breaths that fogged the air as we shifted beneath the weeping sky.
"Sometimes, I write poetry here," Sorrow said as we walked beneath a derelict bridge, its outline barely visible in the fog. Five skeletons hung from its supports, rattling in the constant wind.
"Who were they?" I asked, my fingers linked with the Sentient's.
"My melds," Sorrow sighed. "None of them wanted me, but they called for me nonetheless."
"They're better off this way," I mused.
"I think so," Sorrow nodded. "We all are."
We walked hand-in-hand through burrows and hovels, where gravestones stood at odd angles, their surfaces so calcified that they were barely discernable from the rocks. There were no plants in Sorrow's realm, not even dead ones. Much like Wrath's kingdom, Sorrow's was a sterile, lifeless place. Even the skeletons that hung from the bridge looked like they'd never born flesh.
"This is my center," Sorrow said, gesturing to a mausoleum that sat upon a hilltop. The soil gave way to bare rock all around the structure, exposing its crumbling foundation.
"Will you go in with me?" I asked her.
"I might as well," Sorrow shrugged. "It's not like I have anything better to do."
We walked into the stone building, the miserable twilight turning to deathly blackness. There were pedestals lit by slotted windows, much like in Wrath's center, but at the very end, was a door. I walked to the end of the hall and grabbed the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge. I guessed it would only open for one person. I sighed, and examined the pedestal closest to the door: Sorrow's oldest memory. Upon it, was a poem.
Once I slumbered beneath a sky of gold, atop hills of diamonds sparkling and bold, where love was a wallet you could not fold, and my soul was the first thing that I sold.
I read the next poem.
