The God Who Stood Alone

He came awake slowly, blinking sleep from his too-heavy eyes and rubbing them with the back of one hand. The light in the room almost blinded him, filtering in from between the slates of a drawn-down window shade. Fire lanced through his body in streaks, like hurdlers' carrying burning brands through his veins and turning his blood to fire. His head pounded; a steady, pulsing rhythm which thundered in time with his heartbeat. It made it impossible to think. Impossible to remember what happened. He remembered sitting in the cafe, not drinking his coffee – and then blackness. He thought back, trying desperately to remember. As his eyes opened, the world came into view as a brilliant, disjointed coalition of washed-out colors, painted across his vision in streaks. There was no sound in the room, but every few seconds an electronic beeping filled the air. A single, piercing sound. Groaning slightly, the boy rolled over and looked away from the window.
“You're awake.” the voice said. It was soft, pleasant, but with a ringing kind of a authority that made the boy want to stand from the bed where he lay and give a salute. He made do with simply raising his eyes to take the figure in, blinking once in surprise.
She could be no older than sixteen or seventeen, with delicate facial features and a kind complexion. Her wide blue eyes stared at him from a black plastic chair beside the doorway. Above her head was a picture of a mountain climber with words at the bottom, but his head was spinning to much to make out what they were saying.
“What ... happened?” he groaned, his voice hoarse. It did not sound like his own, as if he was speaking through a strangers lips. “W-Where am I?
“You're in the Windiago Institution of Cancer Research” the girl replied evenly, without so much as blinking. Her voice was steady, without pause, spoken out of a mouth so breathtakingly beautiful it was almost unrealistic.
“And how old are you?” he asked, his voice too breathy in his own ears.
“I'm sixteen.” she replied evenly. “Why do you ask?”
“Bec-cause you ...” he paused to take a breath, “are the most beautiful girl .. I've ever seen...” he shut his eyes. The pillow underneath his head and neck was soft, so thick it felt like he might melt into it and disappear forever. At the sound of the young girl's laughter, he thought he might like to. The light was softer, now – less harsh in his eyes.
“I'd be more flattered if you weren't on enough drugs to take down a small elephant.” she laughed. “Now, what's your name?”
Opening his eyes once more, the young man took in his surroundings. He drank them in with every breath, memorized them with every blink. There was a window in the wall to his right, with a wooden table beneath it. On that table was a bouquet of flowers, white, with yellow middles – daffodils. The bed he lay on was covered in white sheets. There was a large monitor to his left, facing away toward the door – probably so that patients couldn't see their hear rate falling, he thought. Nobody wants to watch themselves die. That was where the beeping came from, he realized as it sounded through the room once more. He didn't know how the girl had put up with that for ... how long had she been there anyway, he wondered. He decided to ask.
“It's been about two hours ...” she glanced at the clock above the door. The time was three-thirty. “...Actually, two and a half. I've only been here about an hour, though. My brother's in the room across the way.” she pulled a thumb toward the door. “He would be here, but...”
And that is when it all came back to him, flooding into him and burying him under a whirlwind of images and sounds. He stared straight ahead, wide-eyed, as the memories came rushing back. The sound of steel screaming as it met steel, the feeling of flying, how he had thought the world was ending, the way the car had spun. The feeling of glass slicing into his skin as the windshield exploded, his arm raised barely in time to protect his face. The world spinning, and then slamming to a stop. Pitching forward, and then the world exploding into blackness as his head met his steering wheel with a crack.
“Your brother!” he breathing in shock, pushing himself up and grasping the white-painted metal handrail of the bed with his fingers. “Is he okay?”
“He's fine.” she brushed off his frantic desperation by the tone of her voice, “A couple stitches in his arm and a kiss on the forehead and he'll be good as new. So...” for the first time, she seemed to hesitate, “how much do you ... y'know ... remember?”
“Not much.” he admitted, going for a shrug. The action made him grimace in pain, and he tried to draw further into his pillows, the thick, soft whiteness cushioning his back.
“I'm sorry to hear.” the girl murmured. Strangely, her face looked almost relieved. “We've had your car towed to the auto-repair-whatever-place. You'll have to excuse my lack of car knowledge.”
“Repair shop.” he chuckled. “Thank-you for that. I'm glad to hear no one was hurt badly in the crash.”
“No one but you.”
“Well ... yeah.” he tried another shrug and succeeded this time. The girl in front of him crossed her legs, her white dress falling just past her knees. She wore a pair of small white shoes, almost slippers, and they caught his eye for some reason. There was a smattering of freckles across her high-set cheeks and the bridge of her nose. When she smiled, which she did often, her teeth seemed to glow out of her face and turn her from beautiful to breathtaking. He breathed out, feeling his lungs press back into his chest. Of all the people he could get in a car crash with, of course he had to hit this girl and her older brother. He would almost kill the most attractive girl in town.
“I'm going to check in on your brother.” he said slowly, digging his fingers more firmly into the handrail and pulling himself into a sitting position.
The action sent spears of fire down his back and arms, and he gritted his teeth tightly against the pain. It was terrible, almost mind-numbing, but not unbearable. Edging around the handrail, he swung his legs off of the bed. It was only when his feet were dangling out from beneath the white sheet, toes just barely brushing the laminated gray-and-white surface of the hospital flooring, that he became aware he seemed not to be wearing anything but boxers. A pleasant breeze blew through the window and across his exposed, slightly hunched, back. It kissed his arms with slight chills, and ran its hands across his broad shoulders.
“W-where are my ... clothes?” he asked, his voice catching before the final word, nearly silenced by a particularly sharp stab of agony.
“You're in pain.” the girl said, standing. As she stood, she ran both hands down the stomach of her dress to smooth it against her body. It was not a question, but a statement. He nodded anyway, then pried one hand from the bed railing and waved away her concern. Not that there seemed to be much concern behind those cool, serene blue eyes. They watched him like a particularly interesting experiment.
“It's nothing I can't deal with.” he promised. “I'd like to speak to your brother, to ... apologize, I think. Now, where are my clothes?”
He pushed himself to his feet. His head spun briefly, but, to his satisfaction, his legs held. It would have been no end of embarrassment if they had given out under him and sent him spilling onto the floor. Releasing the handrail, he took a shaky step toward the doorway.
“Benjamin, please sit down.” the girl by the door said, her voice quiet and pleading. He wondered, briefly, where she had learned his name. Dismissing the thought, he took another step. It felt like he was walking on stilts; disjointed, unnatural, but working, somehow.
“I'm fine.” he said, brushing away the girl's concern. “Look.”
“Benjamin,” she said, her voice more forceful this time, “sit down.”
“Honestly, there's no problem. I'm can make it-”
“Benjamin, sit down.” the words were strange. They hit him like a hammer blow, as though the weight of them could knock him to his knees. For a brief moment, he wavered, like a the final string played in a violin piece, the sound hanging suspended, as though undecided, in the air. And then the world turned to mist. It went gray, everything clouding over. He felt like there were hands all over his body, pushing and pulling at him. It was the strangest sensation; happening as if over many minutes, and yet in the blink of an eye. It felt like walking through a cloud; like hurtling through mist at a thousand miles an hour with hungry wolves snapping at his heels; like walking across water inside the misted spray of a waterfall, the sound roaring in his ears. There was an impact, and then there was gray, and then there was silence. And then ... he was sitting down.
He blinks once, startled, and turns his eyes on the girl at the door of the room. She seems to be further away, now - as though she had leaped back a few steps in the space of an instant. Her round, brilliant blue eyes stared at him as though seeing through his skin and into something beyond; a gaze that was both piercing and hazy all at once. He tried to speak, but ended up coughing violently into one hand. When the fit subsided, he lowered his hand back to the handrail, hearing the slightly aged white metal creak under the pressure of his fingers, and tried to speak once more.
“What was that?” he asked. The feeling was very much like waking up from a long sleep. He tried so desperately to remember what had happened before the mist had appeared, but he could not. He remembered waking up and speaking to the girl, and there was something, a nagging in the back of his mind; the way your brain wouldn't stop picking at itself to remember a dream you could remember nothing of.
“What was what?” the girl asked, all clear-voiced innocence. “Are you alright? I can get a doctor...” she trailed off, leaving both question and sentiment unfinished.
“No.” he waved away her offer quickly, raising one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
The girl wandered to the wall of the room, her step easy and graceful. Raising one hand, she traced the edge of the picture frame which hung there against the badly painted off-yellow walls. Just as the young man is about to lie back down, preparing himself to fall against the pillows, there is a knock at the door. Both girl and young man turn quickly, both pairs of eyes flashing to the doorway, and the young man's muscles going rigid under his light covering of blankets. As soon as he sees the figure, he knows that it is the mysterious 'brother'. That was the final thing he remembers: the young girl speaking of her brother, who was injured in some way, and then ... nothing. A wall of mist inside of his memories, stretching as far as he could run and impossibly high, too high to climb. Each time he tried to remember, to push his way through the misty wall, he ended up stumbling back out where he started.
“Am I interrupting?” the newcomer asked, his voice low and coarse; something just above a murmur.
“Of course not.” the girl said calmly, gesturing to the bed with one hand. “He's just woken up.”
The young man placed one hand against the spongy surface of the comforter and pushing himself back to his sitting position. His legs dangled off of the bed – which was, in truth, really more of a cot – and made him feel like a small child going for a check up. The newcomer could well have been a doctor, with his knee-length white coat and red heart stitched to the right side. But he wasn't. It was apparent at first glance that the two were siblings; mirror images of one another, like reflections viewed through slightly disturbed water. Replicas, yet completely different.
His face was made completely of straight lines, strange and somehow harsh-looking beside his sisters. His eyes were more narrowed, as though he spent long periods looking into the sun. He was taller, more fiercely handsome; more devastating. When he blinked, the world seemed to rock back on its heels. When his tongue parted his thin pink lips and ran across the bottom edge, all the air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. His blonde hair, a thick mass, was pushed back out of his eyes, not quite long enough to fall down his neck. It hung above his ears as though pulled that way.
“Benjamin Black.” he said slowly, walking from the doorway and offering out his hand. The boy sitting on the bed took it, and was surprised by how firm the other boy's grip was. His nails were perfectly cut, edged only the thinnest amount by white crescents – they were the nails of a rich boy, a piano player. But his grip was strong, almost unbelievably so, and Benjamin winced as the other boy released his hand and stepped back.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, his voice curt and professional.
“Better than I should be.” Benjamin answered truthfully, placing one hand on the back of his neck and bending it from side to side. He flinched as a nerve caught, sending a quick spark of agony racing down his spine. “You must be ...” he trailed off, realizing he had never asked the young girl's name, “... the brother.” he finished, slightly awkwardly.
The other boy tilted his head back and laughed, the sound echoing around the room. Biting off the sound, his lips curled in a grin which was both humored and sharp.
“I am indeed the brother.” he nodded slightly, the gesture of the chin and neck resembling that of a bow. “Roman Amadeus Devores, at your service.”
“You already seem to know who I am.” Benjamin replied, settling back against the back, tucking his elbows into the soft fabric. “How is that, by the way? Simply for curiosity sake.”
“We thought you were dead.” the other boy answered calmly, but the answers sent ripples of shock through Benjamin's mind. “At first, we were just identifying the body. You came up in our records. Apparently you had bronchitis a few years ago and you stopped by, or something.”
Benjamin chuckled, nodding once. “Yeah, that sucked.”
“So,” the other boy continued his explanation, “we had a face and blood sample on record. A few words to a nurse ... it wasn't really that hard to get a name. I'm sorry about what happened today.”
“It was partially my fault.” Benjamin brushed off the apology quickly, “I was going much faster than what I should have been, admittedly.”
“Save it for court.” Amadeus winked to take the bite out of his joke. After a moment of hesitation, he asked: “If you don't mind me asking ... where are you from?”
“Originally?” Benjamin replied. The other boy nodded. “Canada. My family owned a fishing store up in Montreal. I've been on the road since I was about 17, though.”
“So you're not staying anywhere at the moment?” Amadeus raised his eyebrows. By the door, the young girl shifted slightly against the wall.
“No.” Benjamin answered truthfully. “Not really. I drift a lot, place to place. Why do you ask?”
“No reason, yet.” Amadeus said calmly, reaching into the pocket of his coat. After a moment, he drew out a rectangle of black plastic. It wasn't until he pressed the power button and the slightly blue glow lit up his face that Benjamin realized it was a cellphone.
“Would you be able to answer a question for me?” the other boy asked, glancing quickly from the cellphone to Benjamin and back. “Just something I'm finding kind of strange.”
“Of course.” Benjamin answered politely, leaning onto his knees toward the other young man. The tone of his voice concerned him slightly; the way a lawyer sounds just before the delivery of evidence which would pull the jury completely to his side.
“This picture,” Amadeus held up his cellphone, facing it toward Benjamin. “Do you have any idea where I might have seen it before?”
Immediately, Benjamin realized that it was a picture of himself. Cloaked in his thick, brown tweed fall coat, with a broad-rimmed hat drawn low over his eyes. Those eyes, brown and striking, stared out from beneath the shadow of the rim and seemed to settle on himself. Leaves spread out under the lone figures feet, a kaleidoscopic array of brown and gold and yellow. The spines of the trees were twisted and bent, reaching their leaf-clad fingers toward the sky. The sky overhead was low-hanging and gray, thick with the promise of rain. But none of this is what caught the boy's eye. What really struck him was what his hand looked like. The knuckles were torn, the back of the hand deeply scarred and welling with blood. A single ruby drop hung in the air, frozen midway to the ground. The twist of his mouth spoke of pain, but it seemed to have nothing to do with his hand – it was deeper, more rooted inside of him. It was him, but it was not him.
Benjamin blinked, breathing out hard and settling back into his cot. As if, in this action, he could escape this horrifying version of himself.
“No,” he answered hoarsely, “I don't ... I've never ... where did you find this?”
“I created it.” the other boy said, without explanation. “It's not a picture, really. It's a painting.”
“Why?” Benjamin breathed, his voice echoing with disbelief. Nobody could paint like that. It paled Da'Vinvi and Picasso, making them look like cheap imitations of life. The boy who stared out of the cellphone, his eyes glowing in the sunlight – this was real.
“I painted this a month ago.” Amadeus said, shaking his head slightly. “I had never seen you before. I thought I might have based this off of a picture I saw and simply didn't remember...”
Benjamin shook his head roughly.
Suddenly, Amadeus whirled on his heel, the cellphone disappearing into the pocket of his white coat as it spun around his body. As he moved, the sleeve of the jacket shifted up around his wrist. Benjamin's breath caught in his throat. The boy's arm had been ripped open at the wrist, and the damage was evident even tightly pressed together by stitches as it was. The wound disappeared up into the arm of the white sleeve, and was hidden as it fell back to his hand. Walking quickly toward the door, Amadeus called back over his shoulder.
“Calypso, get Benjamin ready to go. We leave in half an hour. Benjamin, you're coming home with us.”
“Father!” the young girl called after him, and then sent an apologetic look at Benjamin from the corner of her eyes.
“I'll tell him.” Amadeus waved away the girl's objection as he whirled around the door frame and disappeared into the fluorescent, beige-lit hallway. “Not that the rich cunt will care!”
The young girl, Calypso, sighed. Then she turned to look at Benjamin. Her blue-eyed gaze was apologetic, and sharply annoyed. Not at him, Benjamin could tell, but at her brother. Shaking off the look, she gave him a sudden smile.
“Well, Benjamin ... welcome to the family?”