Chương 31: The Architect’s Question

For the first time in weeks, Grayson Dirac managed to sleep deeply, undisturbed by unsettling visions. His muscles were perfectly rested, his mind lucid and free of thought. What time is it? He murmured between yawns, trying to adjust to the faint light filtering through the walls of his room at the Institute. After the encounter with Lamb, he had managed to compose himself, to put his desk back in order, and to address the pulp of ink and paper that his floor had become.

"I feel like I can breathe..." The air was cold and heavy with moisture. He trudged to the bathroom and washed his face, which had recovered something of its vital colour. His features were less gaunt than usual, visibly more relaxed, and even the dark circles beneath his eyes had faded and receded. He picked up his razor and began to shave the sparse growth along his neck and chin. The tranquillity of that morning was something he could not explain.

"That boy must have triggered something in my mind." The memory of Lamb Klinvmt, the young researcher he had spoken with the day before, surfaced in his thoughts." His words... Was he really that young?" He silently held the shiny metal in his hand, smiling while fiddling with the blade with his fingers.

"The first time, I was always covered in blood." He recalled every reproach the Well sisters had levelled at him over the months regarding his deplorable inability to handle a razor. Erika had been in the habit of patching him up with plasters and disinfectant, given her complete indifference to minor wounds. A smile formed on Grayson's lips before he washed it away with the water, rinsing off the remaining foam.

"Perhaps I can finally add a few decent pages to my diary…" He thought, pulling on a pair of thick, bluish trousers in deference to the morning's biting cold. He took the yellowed notebook and tore out the ink-stained pages. He drew a fountain pen from the drawer and began to write. He set his pen down when the noon bell sounded." This late already? It has been a long time since I slept until this hour." He covered his lean frame with a heavy woollen robe in a vague shade of green.

The robe had been a gift from Erika, given not long before the accident, months ago. He ran his fingers over the fabric, sighed, then made his way slowly toward the door, keeping the diary tucked inside the wide pocket of his coat. The corridor was empty and surprisingly calm for the hour. Grayson watched his reflection warp with every step across the white floor, brightened by the faint light from the windows at the far end.

The pendulum room beat with its usual rhythmic thud, accompanying the gusts of wind that occasionally howled through the park outside the Institute. The dark wood and crimson carpets were left to their unsettling solitude. The heavy gears of the clock drew his attention. The passage of iron through its many fastenings and the shudders it produced rang through the chamber of clear, polished glass, which vibrated at intervals under the strain. A cold sensation ran along the back of his neck.

He disregarded it, assuming it was merely a draught. He watched the leaves of the trees stir under the force of the winter breeze. After a few steps, Grayson took hold of the entrance handle and stepped outside. The cold reached him, and yet it was a comfort. The sensation of frost and the blood warming his skin with each movement reminded him he was alive, after everything he had endured.

"It has already been four months since the accident." He murmured, letting his hand drift on the wind as though it were a glider. Leaves flew past him and away, leaving behind trees almost entirely stripped of foliage.

"Oak trees are peculiar things. Why do they shed their leaves at this time of year? Winter hasn't quite arrived yet." Erika had posed that question to him repeatedly before Grayson finally resolved to answer.

"Those two really did pester me when I was younger... Not that I hated their laughs." There had been something in her smile that he needed, and he had known it. He sighed before breathing in the cold morning air.

"The oaks of Andimica are remarkable plants. They make up much of Sector II, and their sap is versatile enough to be sought by dozens of industries. The sap is highly susceptible to shifts in temperature and freezes, weighing down the leaves, which fall coated in this frost." He had caught a leaf in flight and felt the cold, damp surface of its underside. He had held it out to Erika, who had taken it with a child's curiosity, smiling as she pressed it against her rosy cheek.

Grayson felt himself flush, only now noticing that he was holding a leaf from one of those same oak trees between his fingers. The great dark monolith of wood towered above him, just as it always had, and yet this time, he was the only one admiring it beneath the wind." In the end, I am not the only one who has lost something. What a fool I was to think otherwise." He tapped the bark, breaking off a small piece. He walked away, running his tongue along the edges of his lips to bring some relief to his dry skin."

I have not only lost Erika. I have lost Grayson Dirac. I, once, would call myself mad for taking a tree as a mirror, and yet today it seems entirely natural to do so." He smiled, dropping the fragment to the ground and walking away, followed by the grim swaying of the branches.

"How many nightmares and visions did it take to reach this conclusion? My mind held everything this era's knowledge could offer, and yet I failed, time and again, to understand why her memory caused me such pain." He recognised the bench where he had spent time with his colleague a few days before. Sadly, he had not seen the man since. He sat down, letting the whispers of the forest behind him pass through him.

"I treated Lamb far too poorly. He deserves an apology. If I find him, I would thank him sincerely." He breathed on his hands, numbed by the morning cold. The condensation of his breath vanished seconds after appearing, like a ghost." It is selfish of me, but perhaps I might spend some time with Lug and begin to live again. I could live for her sake, too. It is the least I can do." He drew a deep breath, waiting for his lungs to finish expanding before continuing his soliloquy.

The damp atmosphere split, making way for a single pallid ray of sunlight." I will set aside my studies of the Demiurge and focus on other projects. I understand only now that the prizes I won held no value whatsoever. How could I have thought that money and medals would help me…" He turned over everything he had endured, and all his futile attempts to escape, understanding only now that he had done nothing actually to confront it. He moved to rise, but found himself stopped by a manly voice behind him.

"Is this to be your fate? To forget, and to live within the pretence that all is mended? That would be a shame." His shoulders froze, not from the cold, but from the spectral presence at his back. Grayson tried to speak and found the words lodged in his throat. Then a small spark illuminated his cheek, followed by an acrid smell of smoke.

"Cigarette?" The figure made the stub vanish into nothing when he noticed Grayson had gone still. Terrified by the disappearance, he began to sweat heavily, yet he could not move." That voice... Is he?"

"Do you delude yourself that the dead concern themselves with the life you took from them? And more to the point, do you believe they forgive you for abandoning their final endeavours? Unseemly, Mr Dirac. Very unseemly." The voice behind him tightened its hold still further, pinning him to the iron of the bench.

"Who… What are you?" He managed with difficulty, swallowing the saliva and sweat that had gathered on his lips.

"Someone who has understood the true value of death. You will come to understand it too, before long." He could not turn his head to see the man's face, but he was certain that at that moment the person behind him was smiling.

"I know everything about the accident. I know how you abandoned her. I also know how desperately you laboured to disguise your grief. You, Grayson Dirac, are a first-rate egoist." He released his grip abruptly, sending his hands sliding across the necklace. The golden pendant fell into his lap, cold and still.

"If you were God, what would your ideal world look like? If you could be the architect of this reality, how would you reshape it?" He turned his head, finding his vision filled with bare trees and leaves dancing across the concrete. He breathed in sharp gasps, the cold air covering his face in grey vapour. The tips of his fingers were red, though he paid them no attention.

"This is not a vision…" He closed the pendant in his hands and brought it before his face. The effigy engraved on the golden metal seemed almost alive. The movement of her hair was fluid, and even her chest seemed to rise and fall, as though breathing. The longer Grayson looked at it, the more the question pressed inside his head.

"God… What would I do if I were capable of anything?" The wind passed through his clothes, gliding then into the air and across the concrete.

"I could bring her back... But would I truly wish to? Would my world truly desire that? To live with the remorse of my failure? The same failure I would be resurrecting? And Lug? How would it leave her?" The entire torrent of doubts and anxieties struck him quickly, leaving him at the mercy of the cold." Futile concerns." He smiled, standing and separating himself from the bench. He glanced at his pendant, now entirely still, drained of any sign of life."

A god who would not even offer a prayer to himself could scarcely serve as an idol to others." He fastened the chain back around his neck and walked into the forest. Neither birdsong nor the sounds of insects accompanied his slow, steady pace. Little light filtered through the branches, now almost wholly bare. The ground was damp, and a thin film of frost made everything treacherous underfoot." Come to think of it, perhaps I ought to invent some prayer. I have faith in my numbers."

He remarked dryly to himself, pulling his coat close against a sudden gust of breeze. Lights flickered in the high tower of the Institute, where the principal supervisors and department heads of the entire university were housed, including the rector's office. The Institute was divided into hierarchies, established according to various meritocratic principles and individual experience.

At the summit stood the Director, appointed by the department heads, followed by the full body of superintendents and the junior intake. Grayson was currently a department head, assigned to the secret study of Lambdite. He drew his attention away from the black spire and resumed walking. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement." I can walk without the cane... I feel that my leg has healed completely!"

He withdrew to the shade, pulling the diary from his pocket to study some of the sketches he had drawn. Every nightmare he had experienced was annotated on those pages. Impressed into his mind: the image of the deep black sea, the sky where shadows danced, and the horrible song that had besieged his mind. On those pages were documented the horrors that had haunted him since Erika's death.

"I hope to go back to jotting down tedious equations rather than this." He snapped the small notebook shut and resumed walking toward the building when he suddenly heard a thud behind him. A heavyset man dressed in a thick, padded white jacket was running toward him, panting, tears in his eyes. He stumbled, then fell exhausted at his feet.

"Mr Far! Steady yourself!" Grayson took him by the arms and helped him upright, noticing how badly he was shaking. The man looked up at him with wet, glassy eyes wrapped in an expression of tremendous anguish.

"Miss Well… Miss Well is…" He babbled, seizing Grayson by the shoulders with force, gasping with even greater panic than before.

"What has happened?!" He lifted his face, forcing him to look at him directly. The terror was contagious now, draining every last vestige of colour from his skin.

"MISS WELL HAS BEEN ATTACKED!!" He cried at the top of his voice, shattering every last hope Grayson had. He ran desperately through the forest together with Far, at times practically dragging the man along toward the entrance. His coat was sliding from his shoulders, sweat had begun to run down his forehead and dampen his hair, but none of it was enough to slow him down.

"It is false, false, false. It is only an illness…" Grayson could not summon to his mind any image of Lug that did not include her smile or her characteristic air of quiet authority. She was the woman who had looked after him, welcomed him as a friend and a brother, and even after Erika's death had never stopped caring for him and holding him close. At the thought of it, Dirac felt sick, remembering the way he had deceived her constantly." It's my fault! I avoided her... Dodged her constant tries of loving me."

His throat began to dry out from breathing that cold air irregularly.

"How would it have gone… If I had told her the truth?" Across the room, no more sobs drifted, only the sound of wheels rolling across the floor. At the sight of the stretcher, and the arm hanging from it, the terrible colour of ash. The paramedics did not spare him a glance. They simply took the lift and carried the woman to the hospital as quickly as they could. Grayson did not even notice their pale blue uniforms disappear from the room.

He remained fixed on the red pool on the floor, currently being examined by a group of investigators, and wide enough to suggest it had not come from a human being.

"Dirac… Go home, please." A colleague gave him a pat on the shoulder, and he simply turned and made his way toward the sliding doors. He paid no attention to the murmurs or to the hollow condolences that reached his ears. He took the lift, and as soon as he reached the ground floor, he began to run as fast as he could. He struck several columns and even fell on the concrete, tearing his trousers and drawing blood.

The tears came more copiously than ever before, and Grayson remembered their taste well, the same taste when he had wept over Erika's death. All the joy and lightness of his morning had been washed away in an instant. He stumbled toward the gate, clawing at the brickwork with his nails. He was about to fall when someone caught him from behind.

"Reflected sufficiently?" Asked the man in a worn military uniform, ravaged by numerous burns and bullet holes. His long black hair moved in the wind, which had now begun to press.

"Malcolm… Harmenszo?" He asked, incredulous, as the man guided him upright by his gauntlet.

"Are you now convinced of what you would do if you were God?" Ignoring the young man's question, he released his grip and stood before him.

"God? What would I… Do?" He murmured in confusion, trying to find some foothold within himself, a self besieged by anguish and pain.

"What is your vision of this world, Grayson? What would you change, or do you prefer to let yourself rot within your own egotism?" Malcom struck him violently in the side, sending him hurling into the undergrowth. He coughed up blood, yet unexpectedly, the pain receded quite quickly.

"You notice only now, even though your ankle has already healed? Can you really be a man of science with such a poor attitude?" Malcolm loomed above him from the top of a tree. Grayson could not comprehend how he had arrived there so quickly.

"I shall answer in your stead." He descended to the ground without making a sound, like a ghost. The entire atmosphere grew colder still, permeated by an unsettling aura.

"You are imperfect in every respect. The true culprit of the assault on Madame Well is you. It was your negligence, your deplorable passivity, that killed them both. Do not seek a different conclusion, and do not take refuge in the hope that your error was in the calculations. The only error here is you." Grayson was left trembling in the leaf litter, watching his assailant take in hand a slightly elongated, curved metallic shape.

"Had you embraced the end when the moment came, Lug Well would be in perfect health, and perhaps she would have forgiven your cowardice. But now only you remain. Only the man known as Grayson Dirac, who has been abandoned even by himself. A man who cannot sustain even the illusion of escaping calamity is more contemptible than a man who drugs himself on false hope simply to survive each day." Malcolm threw the weapon onto his chest with speed.

It was corroded, and yet it radiated something sinister simply to look at. The grip was curved, the magazine positioned horizontally directly upon it. The iron sight was cracked and skewed, the barrel covered in dents.

"An imperfect god can only shape an imperfect world, just as a mediocre architect is capable of producing nothing but futile designs that shame the efforts of society." Malcolm looked him straight in the eye, the deep black of his own eyes meeting the violet of Grayson's.

"Even if you were God, the world you offered would be more flawed than this one. But that poses no difficulty for me. The more flaws a thing is built with, the more easily the End devours them. And that is precisely what I seek." He turned his back and began walking toward the gate.

"Should you be seized by a sudden flame of self-regard, I suggest you put the gun to your temple and pull the trigger. There is no one left to call you a coward." Malcolm vanished behind the column without leaving a trace. Grayson leapt to his feet and ran after him, carrying the bronze weapon in his arms. He turned the corner to find the street empty. His breathing was accelerating terrifyingly, drawing in even the condensation of his own exhalations.

The sky opened without warning, releasing fine white flakes into the air. One of them settled on his shoulder. As he watched the tears of the sky dissolve before him, he felt himself overwhelmed by grief. He groaned and reached for them with his hand, finding only a thin layer of water at his fingertips. Icy tears stained his cheeks as he fled toward home, running desperately through the deserted streets of Bayork. Every single stone in the road seemed to watch him with glee as he ran, wrapped in despair.

Grayson felt the gaze of the entire city on his skin, intent on judging him, even laughing at him. However fast he ran, he could not escape his own errors. In that farce, constructed from calculations and variables, he had finally understood that the mistake had been his all along. The door to his apartment building was open, and Grayson rushed in, climbing the stairs, holding his side, completely unharmed. He opened the door to his own apartment, closing it immediately afterwards.

His room was small, made of dark wood and with a small desk towards the end, directly under the window. He hadn't visited it in a long time, and although Grayson could afford a better one, he had decided to stay in that almost abandoned apartment building.

"Lug... Erika..." He threw away his lab coat, throwing himself to the ground, screaming in pain and panic. He tried to gouge out his eyes and ears, but he knew perfectly well that this would not help him.

"Why now!? Why is everything happening now?!" He trudged to his desk, kicking out his diary. He began to write with gusto, smearing his fingers with ink and almost breaking the nib. In the smeared reflection of the window, he seemed to glimpse a shadow, but by now he was unaware of all this. He didn't even cry anymore; He had lost everything it was wise to cry about.

"It's my fault. I didn't avoid any of this! I desperately chased my pain instead of facing it. I confess myself guilty for the evil and deaths I carry on my shoulders. I was perhaps hoping to solve everything as I always had, digging into my brain to give birth to beautiful formulas with which to build my ideal world, but now I understand that I have failed even at the thing I thought I excelled at, yet it doesn't hurt as much as I imagined."

"If God ever existed, if this Eifibes wants to give me a critique, then I have to tell her that the numbers she painted this world with were truly horrendous, but never as horrendous as the ones I built my fantasies with…" A devilish grin spread over his face as black tears started to form under his eyes.

"Nothing's working anymore. This formula is not right. Maybe Erika can give me a hand, or maybe you, Lug? It doesn't take much for me to solve it, and then we might…" His words were interrupted by a crazy, low laugh, coming straight from his throat.

"No…We can't. This is the result. I was unable to make the laws that permeated my life beautiful, and this… Is a fitting end." He smiled, taking a quick look at his necklace. Gold shone for nothing at this point.

"In the end, I was the victim of that project too. If I really wanted to, I would have hoped to be buried with her, but I don't think I deserve it."

"Praying was not helpful. Lies and lies, but in the end, I was the one who lied the most." The memories of Klivt flashed before his eyes before he was swallowed up by the figure of the Well sisters.

"I failed in the first step. The frontier I tried to shape beautifully… Had become grotesque." He smiled, closing the diary in front of him after putting the period on the last page. He took a sigh, keeping a smile. Greyness descended into the room, leaving Grayson's figure to the void's maws. The windows seemed to slam every second, hit by the force of the wind. He grabbed the butt of the gun, slowly lifting it, trembling toward his head, just above his ear, directly onto his right temple.

He raised his thumb and pulled back the starter, causing the mechanism inside to snap unpleasantly. He glanced at the snowy sky and sighed, hoping his reflection would be transmitted between the mirrors of ice travelling through the air, but it was not. Dirt and negligence prevented him from fulfilling that desire. He sighed and placed his finger on the trigger, slowly pushing it back. At that moment, every sensation was amplified dozens of times.

His heartbeat and the movements of his ribcage became almost annoying the stillness of the moment." I hope someone can design it better than I…" He thought, abandoning his sight as he closed his eyelids. The cold, rough barrel of the gun touched the skin under his hair, sending a shiver completely different from those of the cold. The trigger snapped backwards, igniting the dust in the case and causing it to violently splash out of the barrel.