Of Fading Seams

How much time does it take to kill a bad habit?

No idea. But surely, enough had passed for the girl to entirely murder one, by all means.

Silently, she made her way across the path ahead. Beyond her feet, she could not see anything but darkness. Once, the girl could not help but stretch her arms forward, desperately trying to grasp… anything, truly. It was purely instinctual and irrational, born from what she first believed to be her own failing eyes.

But she had never caught anything in her path. No matter how desperately she had tried.

At first, she had to force herself to lower both her arms and her guard. It had been a constant battle against her own sense of self-preservation.

Had it been?

She was unsure. The girl only had the vaguest recollection of it. Only the residual fear she felt in her stomach, and the fact that she was now plainly walking into the darkness confirmed it had ever happened.

The only thing that was certain to her memory was of walking forward. Sometimes she was running. Sometimes she was trudging. Sometimes she was even crawling.

But always forward. Forward into the darkness. And almost nothing more. Almost.

Sometimes, amongst the blackest canvas in front of her, she had perceived some entities that pierced its homogeneity. They were different. They appeared on the horizon, only to disappear sometimes as soon as within the blink of an eye.

A tree. A lamppost. A car. A patch of dirt. A….

A… person. A single silhouette that disappeared like a phantom as soon as the girl had spotted it.

The names always tried to desert her mind. With all the strength she could muster, the girl clung upon them, begging them not to leave. Beyond this unending void, these memories were the only thing that she had, even if the girl did not understand their meaning or purposes.

She realized she had unwittingly been staring down as she had lost herself in her mental struggle. Looking back up straight ahead, she saw something.

A tiny speck that broke the darkness.

Before she could even understand, her legs had already started running.

Quick! Before it vanished. The distance was incalculable. But the dot in her vision was undoubtedly growing bigger.

The girl did not even deign to blink, in fear the simple act of it would breathe into existence a vanishing curse. The ground below her feet was just as silent as always, no matter how hard her feet hammered it now. Silence had forever been this void’s prerogative.

Eventually, the entity began to take form.

A human form.

Under a lamppost, the shape was sitting, back pressed against the steel. In spite of the all-devouring darkness around it, the lamp casted down light unto the person.

The girl began to slow down on approach. Her eyes were burning, pleading with her to blink even just once. She refused to obey. Even through her patchy memories, she could feel it deep down to the marrow of her bones: this was the closest she had ever made it to an entity.

To another person.

Covered by a large jacket, the person’s head was hidden under an equally large hood. While the girl could not make out their face, she could see another sign that jumpstarted her heart just as fast as it had just calmed down: the man was completely still. And yet, while his body appeared to be lifeless, his right fist was clenched tightly on his chest.

Hesitating for a second, the girl froze up. She had already begun stretching her hand ahead. Why now? She could only contemplate her own trembling fingers.

“What now?”

The girl’s heart almost shot right out of her chest. The man was now looking at her, his facial details in clear sight under the light. Or, more importantly, his eyes. They eclipsed his entire appearance. While they shone a simple brown color, they revealed only one thing: fatigue. An overwhelming fatigue, as deep as an ocean and just as eager to sink anything below their still lifelessness.

“Another wanderer, are you?” He laughed. It was a deflated sound. “You got the look for it.”

He paused, looking intensely into the girl’s own eyes. He laughed a little more. This time a bit more genuinely. “No. Not quite. You still have a little life in you. More than me at least, for sure.” The man repositioned himself, crossing his legs and straightening his back. Never once did he not keep at least an eye on her.

The girl began to kneel as to sit down herself.

“Don’t!” He cut. “Just trust me. Don’t. As tempting as it may be. You’ll never want to get up if you do.” The man saw her startled expression. “I see. That makes sense. Not a single word has crawled out of your mouth yet. It’s fine, don’t try. You’ll just lose more of yourself.”

The girl could feel her spine tingle. What did he mean?

“You don’t understand anything, don’t you?” He asked gently. “You don’t remember much as well, do you? Or at least when you try, it slips from your mind?”

The girl shook her head.

“Yeah. I figured. I was just like you at some point. Well. The short version story is that the world you and I once lived in was torn apart from its seams. All that’s left is this shit.” He motioned lazily at the darkness. “Long version? Well, even you must have guessed it a bit by now. At least you must have gotten a feeling about it. Time? Space? Hunger and thirst? All in the dumpster.”

The girl’s interrogative look must have been quite visible.

“What happened?” The man answered honestly. “I don’t fucking know. Maybe we nuked ourselves out of existence. Maybe the world itself got tired of being a thing and decided not to be anymore. Or maybe God himself grew tired of our shit.” He chuckled. “Wouldn’t be surprised if it were any of the three. Either way. That horseshit hardly matters now. The world is gone, and the very fabric holding it together is as well. I don’t feel like wasting any more time trying to guess the answer that will never be given to a question I never wanted to be asked.”

He coughed.

“Or any more time for the matter. I spent too much of it and too much effort already trying to remember all of this. All that I managed to gather from my own endless wandering.”

The man lifted his fist and opened it. From it, a locket fell, attached by a chain that he held between his fingers. Heart-shaped and sporting a fading golden coat, the man’s longing look revealed the depth of its value.

“Used to be my… daughter’s.” He explained. A tinge of sorrow was audible by the way his voice cracked. “She was…eleven the last time I saw her. Now? Who even knows. She was so...much. To me.” He looked up above his hand at her. “Girl. Let me give you a tip. Keep moving. Never stop in place for too long, or you’ll fade away. That’s why I told you not to sit. If you keep moving, you should stay yourself.”

The man clenched the locket back into his hand.

“You’ll see some things. And forget them quickly. Hell, as soon as you leave, you’ll forget about me soon enough. But fight on. Fight to keep these memories. They are the only thing that still makes you human. It’s an unending cycle now. But if you hold unto yourself, and keep moving… Maybe you’ll get to see our world again.”

His head fell back against the lamppost.

“I could come with you.” It was as if he knew what she was thinking. “But chances are that we would just lose each other. And… I’m done.”

His form slumped.

“I’m done running. Done trying. Done forgetting and losing pieces of myself. This locket and the memories attached to it. They are starting to leave me. I don’t want to go on. I would rather disappear here and now than forget.

The girl, worried, lifted a hand in front of her. She thought for a second, before decisively grabbing his own hand. It must have been the first time she was not the one that was startled.

The man jolted for a second before looking down. He then lifted his face back to her. The fatigue in his eyes had simmered down for a moment, letting in a series of emotions.

First confusion. Then understanding. And finally, gratitude.

“Eh?” He laughed heartily. “I see. I see. Yeah. This isn’t so bad.”

The man looked deeply into her eyes. There was a hint of hesitation before he grew decisive at his turn.

“Girl. Can you do me a favor?” His tone was solemn. He lifted his right hand. “Can you keep this? For me? For her?” He let the locket drop from between his fingers. The girl presented her open palm in reciprocation. “I can’t carry this with me anymore. But can you? Can you carry her memory with you? If you make it out of here one day, maybe you could give it back to her?”

He was choking up. The words could hardly come out of his mouth anymore.

“I don’t want my little girl to be forgotten. Not entirely.”

The girl nodded.

It was as if a world’s worth of pressure had been taken off his shoulders. Immediately, the man fell back against the lamppost. Tears were sliding down his face.

“Thank you… For this. And for letting my last moments be with another person.” He managed to struggle out. “You should get going. I won’t be here for long now.”

The girl stood back up. But she stayed still. The man looked up.

“What now?” He snickered.

There was a moment of silence: the last moment between two lost souls.

“Thank you. And goodbye.”

The man’s eyes opened up wide. And harder than ever before, he began cackling maniacally.

“Really?! Only now you say something?!”

His joy illuminated the void. The girl closed her eyes for an instant to take in this emotion.

Until…

Silence. Opening back up her eyes, she was all alone.

She felt something weighing in her hand. Laced between her finger, a locket and its chain. It was heart-shaped and sporting a fading golden coat. She had just received it…

Just received it?

Confusion clouded her mind. Looking intently at the small trinket, she felt something foreign.

Pain. In the deepest region of her heart, she felt sorrow. Someone had entrusted it to her. That’s what she believed.

That’s what she chose to believe.

Tightening her grasp around it, the girl carefully pocketed the locket. Its shape poking her thigh was strange, yet comforting.

One step after another, the girl began her journey anew.

And ventured on, into the void, under a skyless sky, a pathless road. A void where time itself had stopped existing and space had collapsed on itself. Where the human condition was but a sleepless dream. An emptiness in which the only thing that even just evoked a semblance of value was the weight of the memories we desperately clung upon.

It would be a voyage into the abyss.

A long journey, but would it be an eternal one?