"After all, I don't belong here, now do I?" Kanrel said, holding a tight, sad smile on his lips, "Everything that I have ever loved still exists above. Is it not normal for any man to aspire to return whence they came from?"
Kanrel stood proudly, a lonesome man on a stage, delivering his monologue to the darkness—and to Gor, seated somewhere within it, a lone figure in a faceless audience.
"There still remains the sky that I long to see—the warmth of the sun and the memory of it," Kanrel spoke, and as he did, he slowly became one with the darkness, the stage covered by ink, soon a canvas from where a fading voice pronounced: "Even when the feeling of it has begun to dwindle, and fade…"
Static, and then it began to rain...
Gor's eyes burst open, and he found himself panting, lying on a bed, with an unfamiliar ceiling above him. His world spun a little, a disorientating world where nothing stood still. It was as if he were drunk. He could see someone, but wasn't sure who, and that someone called for him, with a voice instilled with worry: "Gor? Is everything alright?"
It took a while, but soon Gor could focus his gaze on this person and connect the voice to the face that he now saw so clearly. Y'Kraun, it was his friend.
Gor shook his head, making sure that what he saw was true, and not just another strange dream. With great effort, he managed to sit up on the bed. They were in Kanrel's room. The journals Gor had read were still on the floor.
"I'm not sure," he managed to mutter. His tongue felt heavy. He felt sick—weak.
Y'Kraun got up from his side and soon brought a tray that he placed on Gor's lap. "Eat," he commanded, offering a spoon to him.
Gor looked down, and on the tray there was a simple meal. A bowl containing stew and a cup with water. With shaking hands, he accepted the spoon, and greedily, he scooped a spoonful of mushroom stew. When had he last had anything to eat? He wondered, shoveling the food in between long sips from his cup.
It took a few minutes, and soon enough, both the bowl and the cup were empty. And all this time, Y'Kraun sat beside him, looking at him somewhat awkwardly; a question he wanted to ask so clearly etched on his face.
Gently, Gor placed the spoon down and wiped his lips on the sleeve of his robes. At last, he raised his gaze from the tray and met Y'Kraun, "What is it that you want to ask?" he said, his voice was no longer sluggish; instead, it was even and had regained some of the authority he had once so easily projected, back when he still served the Grand Library.
Y'Kraun moved his gaze from Gor to the books on the floor. He crouched down and picked one of them up. Browsing through the pages upon pages of symbols he couldn't read, he said, "Can we really say that we knew him? Even if we've both known him for longer than a decade?"
Gor only looked at him. He imagined the sticky rain that had wet both Kanrel and Y'Kraun. Too warm, it had been. Gor swallowed, not wanting to ask about it, fearing that it might remain a scar unhealed, easily reopened.
"He certainly had his secrets," Gor managed to mutter, "But in a way, he never tried to hide them away; they were all here, in shelves we could easily access, although in a language not understood by most."
Y'Kraun nodded and managed a wry smile, "And maybe, we could've just asked, and he would've shared with us those secrets. The things that he struggled with." A shadow came to his face, "Long ago, when we first arrived in the City of Last Light, I was made to be his guide. My job was to look after him, to observe him, and to report anything out of the ordinary to the Council."
"We weren't friends, per se, not quite yet. Even though we perhaps leaned on each other to survive." Y'Kraun frowned, "It was so difficult for him, I could see it…"
"One time, I remember, I hadn't heard from him for almost a week."
"So I forced myself into his apartment, fearing the worst, and hoping that he just found himself immersed in his writings... but I found him on his floor."
"Alone and broken. As skinny as ever, his face pale and his gaze pointed at the wall. He did not move. He just breathed and lay there." Y'Kraun lifted his eyes from the pages of the book he browsed through, meeting Gor's eyes, and asked: "Have you ever seen a man who might as well be dead?"
"Have you ever seen a man so empty that no tears can they produce?"
"Have you ever seen a man so lonely?" Y'Kraun asked through gritted teeth.
Gor swallowed and shook his head. He hadn't. Even when he had lived through difficulties, and met people who had it worse than him, he couldn't remember seeing a face of someone who was ready to give in, ready to lie down and just... die.
He wanted to say something, but found no words. He wanted to share his plans, but found no courage to pronounce them. Instead, he just stared at Y'Kraun, his friend.
And within Y'Kraun's eyes, he found a sadness similar to his own. This loss they had both experienced, but there was also something else. Something so very brave. An edge of clarity which Y'Kraun shared with him: "I think I know why you've started going through his notes. And I wish that I could do the same. So read for me, Gor, help me understand our mutual friend, maybe from his own words we might find a form of peace."
Gor hesitated, but managed to nod. Still, their gazes were locked. Still, Y'Kraun held on to the book in his hands. Still, Gor had to be fair; he had to be brave. He ought not to make the same mistakes that Kanrel had made.
"What if he is still alive?" he said, blurting out a simple question that could have lasting consequences.
Y'Kraun's hairless brows twitched, "Then I could curse him to his face, and demand he beg for forgiveness."
Gor chuckled, "Sure, but if he were alive, somewhere there, somewhere past the Veil or deep within it... Should we not do something about it?"
Y'Kraun didn't answer for a moment. He seemed hesitant, even when, within his eyes, a sparkle of what could be useless faith flashed. "Of course we should... To save him, I would do almost anything," he suddenly looked away, "Just not abandon my family."
Gor nodded, "I know, and I wouldn't ask you to, nor would Kanrel, certainly not him... Which is exactly why I should do it." Y'Kraun couldn't just leave behind the life he had worked so hard to build. U'Ran'Ui, his wife, and their children, L'enu'n and L'ek'ral, deserved better, and so did Y'Kraun.
"Let me figure it all out. Let me read through all of his texts; perhaps within them, I find not only his anguish, but also his hope. Perhaps among his journals, there will be some of the truths he learned at the Sanctuary; perhaps within this room, I can find a way to save his life... or at least retrieve his body."
Gor's gaze was intense and blue. A calm ocean ready for discovery. Those eyes. Y'Kraun could not argue against them. He couldn't argue against Gor's wishes, for he agreed. He was only bitter that it wouldn't be him. He couldn't leave the life that he had built here.
A selfish voice within him surely would've wanted to say 'no,' to deny Gor's wistful thinking as nothing more than a way of deluding himself away from the pain that he felt. As well as to keep him here, for he was his friend as well. And Y'Kraun didn't want to lose another, when they seemed so rare nowadays.
Even then, he could only nod and give his agreement. He would allow Gor to waste away, possibly months of time on a thing that might never come into fruition, that might never resolve the pain of losing someone.
A smile spread onto Gor's lips, and he got up from the bed. "Move along, old friend, there is at least a decade of personal history that I simply must indulge myself in," he said, while reaching his hand for yet another journal to read through.
- - -
Gor could not stop reading. Gor could only read, eat, and sleep. Often, he would just read at the expense of all the other needs that he had. For in this moment, one need was above all others. Reading gave him clarity, it gave him purpose, it gave him things to latch on to. It gave him thoughts that he had to mull over. It gave observations that he would soon present to Y'Kraun... but only if he found something more promising than... well... this.
To take note of so many things, especially memories—most of them mundane in the grand scheme of things, though some sad, some traumatic—what was the point of it?
Why would anyone bother? Why had Kanrel?
As he kept reading, the days went by. As he went from waves of curiosity into tides of shock, which would force any man to wonder the point of it all. Not just the writing of things, but existence itself.
Was it just the lens through which Kanrel saw the world that made his writings so... hopeless, even nihilistic at times? A life seen in a manner that could be described as having just two perspectives, lacking the normal ability to exercise and experience a more varied life with many more emotions than just one.
You couldn't say that it lacked emotion in his writings. In fact, they were drenched with it. Markings of it could be seen even in the most rational or logical portions of the text. Emotions themselves were rationalized, not as lived experiences, but as memories of have had feelings from decades ago.
Only the juvenile experience of things like love, happiness, and excitement existed as points of memory that Kanrel could access and try to relate to. And all emotions that other people experienced that he could not, he tried to see them and rationally relate to them through this memory from so long ago.
Yet doing so only caused more pain. More regret and guilt. More of everything else except the feeling itself. And so, even in aforementioned moments of rational lucidity, a shadow of emotions could be read between the lines. It was just not what one could call positive, for there was only a sterile, pessimistic view of things. Extraordinary suffering that forced itself to be ever-present, ever-there. Something Kanrel could never run away from, that he would never be able to see past or through.
Something he wasn't able to fight and then survive.
Yet, it gives clarity. Clearly not to Kanrel, but now, to Gor. For what he saw within the journals was this: "As you continue to live, it should become more apparent, day after day, year after year, that it isn't love that connects us; it isn't what connects life; it isn't something we all experience.
What connects us is pain. Without it, we do not exist. Without it, all is just a dream."
Yet such perceived clarity is something one wishes he could ignore. For aren't we all deserving of love? Surely, Kanrel had experienced it. Other people had given him their love. But it never was something he could himself feel; this experience.
Instead, he had just regret. He had just grief. He had just a prison from where there is no escape. Well... there is one. Or was.
Had Kanrel decided to take this... escape?
Was this... a waste of time? Was he even alive? Or just... dead? Gone. Someone to be forgotten, never seen again, never retrieved. Someone lost; someone who was dead, long ago.
Should he just stop reading, should he stop believing in the possibility of... something unlikely, and then accept that which was the most likely conclusion to Kanrel's existence? Escape.
But each time such thoughts came and went, Gor could only grit his teeth and read on. For it seems that often or not, in grief, we find purpose. It can give us clarity we would not otherwise see. We begin to understand what really matters to us, and why.
And purpose... oh, purpose can be so very powerful, for it can give us meaning. And oh, it can be a remedy that saves your life when you can find it. And when one is devoid of it, one might become like a living, walking corpse. Like Kanrel at the end of his... time. But beware, that one's purpose isn't just obsession masquerading as meaning.
But be it purpose, meaning, or obsession pretending to be such, what else was there to do? What else could he do? One can't just... move on? Can he? Would it not be irresponsible to just give up, even if finding anything past grief-drenched reflection was unlikely?
Gor looked at the journal in his hands and let his fingers run through the page, as if it were as fragile as old parchment.
"This ink... it will fade, perhaps a thousand years from now. But for as long as it does not, does the person who has written it truly die?"
"What even is death if a memory remains? Is there death, if memory exists?"
Such thoughts, yet muttered words escaped his lips: "Even when the feeling of it has begun to dwindle, and fade…"
Within, Gor could hear the monologues echoing through the pages and time. Would Kanrel fade into ink, a life now lived awaiting his audience... just another collection of books, forgotten deep within the archives of the Grand Library, or perhaps the Sanctuary.
He turned to the next page, ready to indulge in another section of a man's life, but now, through parched lips, he forced himself to say: "... yet, the voice remains."
There weren't that many left of Kanrel's first few years, after all. Gor had finally reached the ones about Kanrel's time in the Cave, and soon, the Sanctuary would follow...
- - -
It is a difficult thing for any man to not only deal with his own grief, but also witness the grief of others...
Y'Kraun sat on the steps to their little shop that had been closed for a while now. Only he and Gor frequented the place now, but only Y'Kraun stepped outside.
Gor, too, now lived in his room, surrounded by his journals, half-starved, guided only by Kanrel's ghost.
It was almost ironic, if it weren't so sad. If it weren't so tragic, not the things that Gor now found himself doing, but the fact that Y'Kraun had to sit it out. To witness as yet another friend balances his existence at the edge of darkness, on a fine line that might not even lead anywhere.
Perhaps, it was better to fall together. At least it might alleviate guilt; it might lead to absolution from all grief. Not just his, but Gor's.
Y'Kraun shook his head. Just a momentary relapse of all reason, surely. A husband and a father should never think of such things. Never. For him to do anything so thoughtless would make him as great a criminal as a murderer who has killed another father, leaving behind another grieving wife and their children.
But even then, he had to do something. And for now, that something was just this. Sit around near their shop, and bring Gor the food and drink he needs to sustain himself, even if this was something that was practically killing the only friend that remained here for him. And he would not do just this. It would not be right.
Y'Kraun got up from the stairs and entered the building through the doors that would lead to the apartments. One step at a time, he climbed them, all the way to his own home. All the while, he could hear him. He could sense Kanrel. He could imagine him here.
This stairwell was where his friend would play with his children. He could hear L'enu'n's laughter from years ago, when Kanrel and she would run down the stairs, and even ride down the railing, because Kanrel had done something as childish as that when he had been her age. And he had played the same game later with L'ek'ral, and because of this, his bright giggle was ever-present as he climbed these steps.
An almost bitter smile crossed Y'Kraun's lips. At least, to L'enu'n, it had been... easier to explain things. That Kanrel would no longer visit them. That he...
Y'Kraun swallowed.
"Where is Uncle Kanrel?" He came to a sudden halt, now standing in front of the door to his own home. That question. How do you explain death to someone so young? It isn't something that you really understand at a young age.
"He was claimed by the Veil," is what Y'Kraun had tried to explain, wearing a mask that would not be preached by tears. It is difficult for a man to cry in front of his own children. Why exactly, Y'Kraun didn't know.
L'ek'ral's brows had furrowed as he pondered what he had heard, clearly not understanding what it meant, only knowing that the Veil was something scary; something no one should ever go close to.
Even then, the boy had asked: "When will Uncle Kanrel be back?"
It is difficult to cry so openly. Yet his mask broke, and tears forced themselves out. But Y'Kraun did not wail. He only let the tears run down his cheeks, onto the ground. He did not even try to look away from his son, or hide away this thing that was so difficult to show. Instead, he replied: "Those who go there, never return."
Perhaps crying before your children is difficult, but to see your own son look at you, with first confusion, then horror, that breaks into sudden tears and uncontrollable wailing. Does it not break a man?
With shaking hands, Y'Kraun had accepted L'ek'ral into his hands, while his son, his brave son, with such sadness in his eyes, used his little hands to wipe away his father's tears.
"Dad?" he suddenly heard from behind him. Y'Kraun must have seemed fully startled as he turned around to face his daughter, L'enu'n, who stared at him with worry in her eyes.
"Why are you just standing there, and... staring?" she said, and glanced at the door, knowing very well that it was theirs.
Y'Kraun swallowed and managed to feign a slight smile. What a foolish expression to force on his face, he knew that all too well. Even then, he wanted to seem far braver than he actually was, at least to his family.
"I was just thinking... that we should play someday, go out on an adventure, just you, me, your brother, and your mother," he managed a lie that deep within was a yearnful wish. Something that he might've needed more than L'enu'n, even more than L'ek'ral.
His daughter replied with the brightest of smiles, "Only if Mom makes the snacks," she had the audacity to make such a demand. Wasn't his father's cooking good enough for her?
A genuine smile replaced the lie, and Y'Kraun patted his daughter's head, "Tomorrow, I promise…" he grinned, "But today, I'll be making us dinner."
L'ek'ral's smile instantly turned into a frown as she pushed past her dad, "I just don't understand it," she muttered, "didn't you work in a restaurant, just like mom?"
"Yes. Yes, I did."
"Then why are you so bad at cooking, and Mom is so much better?" she said, opening the door.
Y'Kraun chuckled, "You just don't understand my art," he said, closing the door behind them.