TW: Vague-ish suicidal ideation of the “i should have died/what’s the point in being alive?” variety.
Word Count: 1604
From the depths of nothingness, something whispered, Wake.
Tyr awoke surrounded by pale mist, within the confines of a glass coffin.
He floated first in that place devoid of dreams between sleep and wakefulness, where reality was but a distant memory. He stared unseeing through mist and glass, to the shadows beyond, as sensation slowly returned to him. A single finger twitched, then a foot followed suit. A hand shifted over the cool, hard surface that served as his bed. A leg rose, but it could not bend as well as it should have; the knee struck the top of his dwelling with a splintering crack.
Pain, sharp and sudden, drew a hiss from behind Tyr’s teeth. He blinked through the confused haze that shrouded his mind and forced himself to still.
Then, a flood of memories — the creak of an old door; quiet muttering from all that remained of the Council; Uncle’s grim face, and the harsh tone of his voice as he barked his orders. Tyr remembered a hand around his arm, the grip so tight he knew it would bruise. He remembered the struggle that followed, the cold flair of his own magic. Then there was a cloth over his face and a sweet smell, followed by descending darkness.
Tyr inhaled. The resulting breath disturbed the cool mist around him, which swirled in fragile tendrils before settling again, enveloping him in a thin cloud. Beyond it, the glass canopy hung, cracked in spots, but still whole. Tyr brought his hands up against the glass, testing its weight, its durability. He tapped his fingers against it. When he earned no response, Tyr struck it harder with the flat of his palm.
The fine cracks spread like threads of a spider’s web.
If anyone heard him, they did not come to assist him.
He imaged them just beyond the glass, lurking in the shadows, scrambling about in their rush to repair whatever drew him from his slumber. He thought he might like to see the disappointment flare in Uncle’s eyes, watch fury draw his lips into a snarl.
Tyr would not be forced into this prison a second time.
He struck the glass again, then a third time, and a fourth, watching the cracks grow longer, until finally, with a loud smash, his fist broke through. Shards of glass tore open the skin of his arm, but Tyr grit his teeth against the pain. He shattered enough of the coffin to make space for him to rise, then gingerly climbed out. The pale mist wafted through the room and slowly disappeared.
The coffin had been placed upon a large stone pedestal. Tyr climbed down and took stock of his surroundings, but saw no sign of Uncle or the Council. The room he’d been confined to was nothing more than rubble. Parts of the ceiling had caved in. One wall had come down, allowing access to the adjacent chamber. Somewhere beneath the debris, Tyr heard the clank and whir of some sort of machinery, but it soon sputtered and died. Then there was only dreadful silence.
Briefly, he thought it a shame that none of the wreckage had crushed his coffin. It would have been a pleasant death, lost in sleep — sudden, with none of the pain or anticipation of an execution.
Tyr sensed no movement within the darkness. Cautiously, he crept over the rubble and felt along the walls for an exit. He found a door half on its hinges, which gave way with a single shove from his shoulder, crashing to the floor with a bang.
Like the room, the hall beyond was steeped in shadow. Tyr made slow progress, hampered here and there by pieces of stone, splintered wood, and broken glass. He knew by the subtle familiarity of his surroundings that he was in the castle. The Council would have kept him close — to keep him safe, they’d tell themselves; to keep Ymir safe from his wickedness, or to prevent others from interfering.
He expected to be intercepted at any moment. Uncle would come around the corner, or one of the other Council members would jump at him from the shadows, drag him back to the room with the coffin. Or, upon realizing that they could not force him into stasis again, perhaps they’d finally put him out of his misery. A pair of hands around his throat would do it, or a vicious strike to the head. They could snap his neck, or run him through with a sword. Perhaps they’d throw him from the highest tower, let the hard, cold ground catch him, twist his body and shatter his bones.
Tyr tripped over a wooden beam but caught himself before he could fall. He found a set of stairs, judged them to be stable enough, and began to climb. No one came for him. No one shouted his name. No one growled orders. No hands reached for him from the shadows. The castle seemed empty, nothing but a derelict shell of its former glory.
Something must have happened. Perhaps the bloodshed had become so severe, the rest of the Council was forced to flee and leave him behind. An attack would explain the damage, the wealth of debris.
It did not explain why Tyr himself remained unharmed.
Another hall, this one lined with shattered windows. More stairs, these ones littered with just as much rubble. Tyr got his bearings and walked the familiar path to the stableyard. If the others had truly gone, now was his chance. He would take a horse and flee.
And then do what?
The question weighed on his mind as Tyr made his way through the darkness. There was nowhere to run, not unless he could make it off world, but they’d lost that capability… —how long had it been now? It could have been days, weeks, months. To him, it felt as if no time at all had passed between the moment he was apprehended and his awakening. Even so, he couldn’t imagine their circumstances would have changed for the better, with the castle in its current state.
Tyr stepped out into the stableyard. An overcast sky of thick gray clouds made it impossible to determine time of day. Early morning perhaps, or dusk. A cool rain fell, muddying the cobblestones, many of which had been split into pieces or otherwise disturbed. The stables themselves were in poor repair. Pieces of the roof were missing. A few walls had caved in.
All of the horses were gone.
Tyr came to a stop, struck by the eeriness of the empty stables more than by the deserted castle. Certainly there was a logical explanation for it, wasn’t there? If the Council fled, they would have taken the horses. Any that were left behind would have been stolen, sold off or used for meat by a starving populace.
It made sense, and yet…
Something about the silence and the desolation nagged at him.
Tyr continued on foot, through the stableyard, out to the paths leading away from the castle. Vegetation was limited, little more than wilting weeds and barren trees, shrunken and gnarled. At the perimeter, the castle gates laid rusted and useless upon the ground, a heap of mangled iron half covered by stone from the crumbling perimeter wall.
He found the city beyond in a similar state — streets of muddied, broken cobbles; houses damaged beyond recognition, devoid of any sign of life.
Empty.
Dark.
Decaying.
“Where is everyone?” he whispered, throat dry from disuse.
Gone, said something that was nothing and everything, like a sigh on the breeze, or a feeble pulse of life beneath the impoverished terrain. Gone.
Tyr laughed. It bubbled up his chest and burst out of his throat, all disbelief and dark humor.
They were gone. All of them. Uncle. The Council. Their dying King. All the people screaming obscenities through the castle gates. Everyone who would have liked to see him dead, who wanted to make him a sacrifice to a dying world — they’d all vanished. Starved, or sickened, or killed in another useless war.
Now, Tyr was all that remained.
He hoped they died in agony. He hoped it wasn’t sudden. He hoped they had time to reflect upon their pitiful existence. Perhaps they felt remorse. Perhaps they understood, finally, in the end, all the horror and pain they’d inflicted on one another.
All for nothing.
Ymir was just a dead rock in space, orbiting a planet known for destruction and death.
It was no more or less than they deserved.
Eventually, his laughter ceased. Tyr dropped to his knees on the rough cobblestones, palms pressed into the muck. Warmth slid down his arm from stinging wounds. Tyr looked, and watched drops of his own blood fall — a soft plip plip to join the rain against the ground.
He was alone.
“You should’ve let me die,” he said to nothing and no one.
No, came a low response — not quite a voice, nor an instinct, but some power that dwelled within.
Ymir itself, perhaps, struggling to live.
No, it said again. Then, Go.
“Where?” Tyr wondered aloud. “Everything’s gone.”
Go.
Something called to him, far off in the distance. Through the clouds, past the rings of Saturn, beyond familiar moons. A single guiding light among so much darkness.
Tyr closed his eyes and let it take him.
A part of him hoped it was death.
After all, what use was there in living?
