Heavenly Metals, Precious Stones

We ran down the hill, rainbow-streaked waves of grass beneath us, moving at the speed of the clouds that changed shape above us. Illumined by six clear rays of the sun, we sprinted, laughing, unburdened and free.

Lawrence, thobe-clad, ghutra-crowned, bespectacled, had aced today's Algebra I test, sparking our celebration of friendship and the future. We had been standing on the hilltop, discussing Algebra, when Dani suddenly and without context bolted. We all gleefully followed.

Dani wore a slim, corset-like black jacket, adorned with metal spikes and studs, black leather pants, and platform boots,his long black hair framing his ruddy face, covered in heavy eyeshadow and jet-black mascara smudged in thick lashes, teeth sharpened into an evil grin.

To his left ran Sean, the biggest boy in the school, who, despite being in the 9th grade would be taken as around 40 by anyone, muscular and shirtless, dark hair slicked back, face tough and furrowed, a large tattoo of a cross across his back.

Castle's long, straight pink hair, parted down the middle, flew behind as he ran, revealing his thin white face, hooked nose, and black lipsticked mouth, his lanky limbs arrayed in a purple and lavender pinstripe suit, purple satin shirt, and thin red tie.

Behind him, Herbert's head remained stationary, protruding from his rolling white pizza dough-blob of a body.

And there was me, Andromedus, the runt of the bunch, rail thin, my body having failed to grow since I was a baby, sporting my favorite Robin pajamas.

A series of rolling hills continued for miles, covered by perfectly maintained grass and dotted with mounds of collected leaves, which we kicked and cartwheeled over as we ran, never losing our momentum, reaching the bottom of one slope before then continuing upwards to another one.

As we reached the top of the highest hill, the overlarge sun plunged into the icy lake beneath us and the sky turned to a fire-splashed quilt of red and purple. We ran down the steep path leading to the lake.

We all took out our phones and pushed our camera buttons repeatedly, trying to capture this impossible sunset, until we plunged into the autumn-cold, crystal lake, somersaulting through a transparent sky of bubbles. I saw dead leaves floating still above me, as if suspended in ice.

After much splashing and dunking upon emerging to the surface, we all took a moment just to smile at each other, treading the sparkling ripples.

Dani was the first to speak, his Suffolk accent as refreshing as the air.

"I propose... a pledge!"

He dove under water again and disappeared for a few moments before bursting out again, perfectly landing a triple backflip onto the shore.

By the time the rest of us reached the shore, he had already dug a small hole in the dirt.

"A pledge…? What is this Dani?" Lawrence asked, quizzically surveying the hole.

Sean also retorted in his thick Boston accent, smacking his chewing tobacco.

"Yeah, what's with the act here, Dani? What's the deal."

Dani waited a moment to respond, grinning and looking at each of us one by one as we all formed a circle.

"A mine. Bloody ‘ell, let's start a mine together."

Lawrence spoke for all of us.

"A... a mine?"

"That's right, a mine. Diamonds! Gold! Jewels! Silver! Let's dig it all up. Let's swear on our friendship!"

Castle didn't hesitate to respond, fists raised cutely in front of his chest, eyes shimmering with hope, head tilted and blushing slightly.

“Oh, that sounds wonderful! I love precious stones!”

Dani cocked his head and flashed his sinister smile.

“Then let’s make a pact! Everyone’s got a little summin in the pisser, eh? Let’s mingle some fluids and make this a promise!”

He took out his Prince Albert pierced cock and pointed it directly into the hole, glancing from face to face waiting for us to join him all while maintaining that sarcastic smile. Castle cocked his head and smiled in return, unzipped his silk pants and took out his own thin peepee.

Dani egged the rest of us on.

“Come on now, come on now, don’t be shy!”

Herbert nodded his head, resigned to Dani's decision, and opened his fly to reveal his globular white prick.

Sean blew through his nose with a little chuckle.

"You know Dani, you're not all bad ideas after all, you know that? I swear, sometimes, I like the way you think."

His dick was sturdy, like a bratwurst.

Next, I took out my own sizable shaft, the only part of my body that had developed, and added my quip.

"It sounds hard, but let's do it."

Now only Lawrence's stick was left. He squinted deeply at Dani, and the two locked eyes, both at first serious until Dani cocked his head and flashed his sharpened, sinister grin. Lawrence didn’t take his eyes off of Dani’s as he slowly joined his reliable rod in with dark determination, much to Dani’s delight.

Just at the moment, the sun at last sank under the horizon and the endless emerald hills were blanketed in starry dusk. We closed our eyes, hearts one, and feeling the spinning of the planet, imagining our place among the stars, released our warm streams of piss. The twinkling sounded in the now dark downs’ ambience.

Owls screeched and coyotes howled; bats' wings beat as they hunted insects, prey who sang in continuous drone.

The hole was transmogrified to a chalice of dusky gold.

"So it's settled then! We start digging tomorrow!"

With the last percent of power in our phones, we looked at the photos we had taken earlier. Instead of that wet, ruby sunset, our cameras had captured vague collages of light: blurry, washed out, faded streaks.

*************************************************************************************************************

The centerpiece of the meeting room was a laminate conference table, surrounded by ergonomic, mesh-backed chairs.

Dani stoically adjusted his rimless glasses, the temples and bridge of which were black, matching his corset-jacket.

He shuffled papers in preparation for our meeting. We were tenth graders now, deep in the business of managing the mine. He silently stared at his wristwatch (alligator leather strap, bezel encrusted with black diamonds, obsidian dial adorned with blood-red rubies, hands tiny daggers made of white gold), standing up at the moment the second hand ticked to 9 am. Everyone followed suit, each of us staring at a small booklet.

“Let us recite our creed.”

We spoke in rough unison.

“The voice of our hearts gushes out in precious stones.
We hide our starving fangs and smile at our prey: the howling depths, pregnant with sacred jewels.
We will color this world in a palladium finish, open every door and empty every chest.
The call of the rubies in the chalk of our bodies is answered by the rubies that rest in the earth.
We will break every body, drain any life for the hope that we place in the metals of heaven.”

All sit.

"I henceforth commence this meeting as chairman. Executive Officer Lawrence, please deliver the monthly report."

Executive Officer Lawrence stood up (gold embroidery tracing the sleeves and hem of his thobe, ghutra encrusted with diamonds and sapphires, secured by a solid platinum agal) and distributed a copy of the report to Chairman Dani and we other four board members. He commented on figures regarding production volume, cost and expenses, revenue, operational efficiency, labor compliance, and future forecasts.

When Lawrence reached a pause in his presentation, Board Member Castle raised his hand (pinstripe suit woven through with platinum threads, buttons made of amethyst and tie embedded with rubies, silver skulled-shaped cufflinks adorned with pink diamonds) and spoke upon Chairman Dani's acknowledgement.

"I understand that compliance-related risks have been acknowledged regarding our use of slave labor in the mine. Do these risks seem significant enough that expanding this use would be inadvisable? Do you foresee prolonged and larger scale procurement of this labor?"

Lawrence, still standing, glanced at his notes and adjusted his glasses before continuing.

"The successful procurement of free labor has been a cornerstone of our operational efficiency, significantly reducing costs and contributing to our competitive advantage in the market. We've conducted extensive surveys and risk assessments, and the likelihood of penalization is currently deemed minimal. Given these findings, discontinuing this practice would not align with our short-term strategic goals. The benefits, in terms of cost savings, have been a substantial boon for our business, and outweigh potential compliance risks at this time."

Lawrence paused as a sharp glint flashed across his glasses.

"As of now, no critical changes are planned."

Castle ruffled his brow and slightly turned his face, maintaining eye contact with Lawrence at an angle.

"Thank you for that explanation. In that case, could the seamless avenue of free labor we've accessed not provide new avenues of profitability? What I mean is, could we focus on increasing the flow of laborers, which we could then use for additional business ventures?"

Lawrence seemed about to speak before Dani interrupted.

"Executive Officer Lawrence, I'll handle this question."

Castle recoiled with a slight gasp.

"Thank you for your suggestion, Board Member Castle. However, we are a mine, not a slave trading operation. Any labor we procure is for the purpose of mining the finest precious metals and jewels. Anything other than that doesn't match our original intentions. Surely, you most of all must understand this?"

Castle furrowed his brow further, his eyes and nostrils opening wider as he looked down at the various gems adorning the rings on each of his fingers, onto of which feel a droplet of sweat.

Castle came to.

"Of course, Chairman!"

Dani looked right into Castle’s face, his stern look twisting into a plea.

"Our goal is beauty, not profit. We mustn't forget this. Are you sure you understand?"

Castle regained composure.

"Yes, I understand."

Dani slammed both his hands on the table, stood up, picked up a paper weight, and chucked it at Castle, loudly smacking his forehead and leaving a stream of blood running down his white face. Dani repeated his question with a barked shout.

"Do you understand this??"

Castle stood up in return, knees firmly locked, his upper lip tightened, accentuating his nasolabial folds, and shouted resolutely.

"Yes, I understand!"

We all noticed, in addition to the streams of blood and sweat on his forehead, another, secret stream originating around his crotch, dripping down the pants of his pinstriped suit, onto the beige, low-pile carpet.

************************************************************************************************************

The walls of the surveillance room were covered by dozens of CRT monitors, each showing a different scene of workers surveying, boring, drilling, sampling, blasting, grinding, loading and hauling. The workers’ skin was mottled green and brown, a mix of wet rot and dried, tightened sinew. Some were already dead, and their colleagues would simply roll their wagons over them. Others wandered from their tasks and babbled into corners.

It was my job to monitor everything happening everywhere, and push a button if I noticed any problems. Although workers jumping into molten pits or burying themselves in avalanches was common, I had never pushed the button.

A few of the screens showed, instead of scenes from the mine, rooms from the underground compound from which we managed our business. In one I could see Herbert in the large central kitchen, slowly washing through a pile of hundreds of dishes.

Another screen showed a smallish chamber, floor and ceiling covered in red velvet, all four of its walls covered by red velvet curtains. Dani and Lawrence sat in velvet-tufted wingback chairs, with gold-finished legs and nailhead trim. Sean stood in the corner, hands behind his back, having grown over a foot and doubled his muscle in the year since we opened the mine, still shirtless, but with the addition of a black leather police cap adorned with silver filigree and a gleaming obsidian at the center of its band.

Castle stood before them, his 17th century Stainer violin in hand. As a celebration of exceeding all of our production goals in our first year of operation, Castle, always an exquisite violinist, was going to play through all six of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas For Solo Violin, which he knew by memory. His mouth was slightly pursed and eyes scrunched closed as he lifted his curved, period-correct Baroque bow. Dani watched with a bemused look, while Lawrence’s expression was neutral. Sean remained motionless, eyes shadowed by his hat.

After a final, sharp nasal exhale, he pulled the bow’s horse hairs across the sheep intestine strings to begin the first Sonata’s Adagio. However, instead of the subtle, complex timbre and long, patient phrasing usually characteristic of his playing, a disgusting, corrupt sound, shrill, and slimy, vomited off of the strings. Visibly shocked and unsettled, Castle tried starting one more time, producing the same tumor of sound. He inspected his violin, peering into the thin f-holes.

“What the fuck…”

As he said this, all of his strings snapped, cutting deep into his face. The velvet curtain opposite him automatically drew back to reveal a large, powerful spotlight, which blasted him with an almost burning radiance. Castle used his violin to shield his eyes, squirming in his now sweat-logged suit.

Dani leaned forward, earnestly taunting.

:”What’s the problem Castle? Let’s hear the Adagio!”

A rolled up sheet of paper, as if pushed by some force, inched out of Castle’s pocket, wafting over to ground before Dani and Lawrence’s feet.

Purple mascara and white face paint melted off Castle’s face. When he noticed the paper falling out of his pocket he held his hand to his mouth as if he were going to vomit, his eyes opened wide in terror, revealing deep, yellow whites shot with tiny blue veins, his pupils nearly erased by the intense light.

More papers pushed themselves out of his pockets, and soon even out of his sleeves and pant legs. Castle shrieked, dropping his 400 year old violin on the ground as he failed to stop the stream of documents now uncontrollably streaming out of outfit’s every orifice, down to the chest pocket.

Dani feigned confusion.

“What squit is this, boy? Lawrence, take a look for us!”

Lawrence, calm throughout the strange events, stood up and sifted through the papers, holding random clumps in each hand, which he glanced at perfunctorily. A swath of light washed across his glasses.

“It seems that Castle has betrayed us… he’s been making plans to secretly open his own sub-mine, carved into the earth in the shape of his own face…”

Dani also picked up one of the papers, crumpling it in his hand. He closed his eyes and quietly shed a few tears as he walked over to Castle, now backed into the corner of the room, shielding himself with his violin as he attempted to apologize.

“Dani… Lawrence… I was just trying to expand our mine… to create more beauty… I was going to tell you all…”

Dani showily held back tears as he swiftly kicked Castle in the balls and stomach, hammerfisting his skull and sending him straight to the floor, where seemed to trying to fit the tip of his boot into Castle’s nostril as he ground it over his cheeks.

“I’m so fucking sad Castle… I’m so fucking sad that you never believed our dream… you never believed from the start!”

Castle attempted to offer some kind of rebuttal as Dani crushed his mouth, ignoring his wordless grunts.

“You needed to make it all your own… you needed to have it in your hand… you needed to have it in your hand when it was already right here!”

Dani emphatically pointed to his heart as he leaned down, resting his nose directly on Castle’s face and inhaling deeply.

“Do you not have a heart Castle? Is that why you only think of yourself?”

With a revolted expression he ran his finger across Castle’s face as if he were dipping it directly into a bowl of French onion dip, accumulating a thick glob of makeup, which he hesitantly sniffed with disgust.

“What is this shit you put on your face… Look at your fucking shirt. Did you even fucking iron it you twit? Look at this fucking stain on your jacket. You think choosing a beautiful jacket will make you beautiful? You didn’t even make this… To me you look like a piece of fucking shit who was lucky enough to get some gold flakes sprinkled on him. As for your playing, I’ve heard more convincing phrasing from a drunk puking in the gutter…”

Castle cried quietly, futilely attempting to protect himself by curling up, the makeup on his face having turned into greenish, grey mold.

As if he had been carefully waiting for the correct timing, Lawrence hit a button on his wristwatch, and the room's curtains slowly started to be mechanically drawn back as Dani continued his speech, no longer holding back his tears, repeatedly pushing Castle against the ground, as if insisting that Castle must surely understand what he meant.

“Castle, don’t you fucking see? Anything that comes from an evil heart is ugly. When a heart is rotten like yours any music you play will be vomit and anything you do will be shit. It’s faith, Castle… it’s faith in our dream that got us here, and now you’ve betrayed that… When you’re a liar, a sneak, when you have no friends, everything you do becomes a mockery, a disgusting sickening wretch… this was your choice. You’re forcing us to do this… “

Dani grabbed Castle by the shoulders, shaking him violently as he screamed into his face.

“I don’t want to do this Castle!! Whatever pain you feel right now I feel a thousand times more!!”

The clean metallic spikes on Dani’s jacket reflected Castle pulling his hands from his face to reveal his exasperated expression, as if he were trying to make some interjection.

“I’m sorry…”

“That doesn’t mean a fucking thing Castle!”

Dani grabbed Castle’s hair and thrust their lips together, fingernails tearing hard into Castle’s back as he sucked a long deep kiss, breaking it to slap the bewildered Castle one more time before backing away, black hair stuck to his face by spit and patches of moldy face paint. Just as Castle, who now seemed to lack any will, relaxed into a sleeping position on the ground, enormous machine guns, which had poked slowly and steadily out from the wall after Lawrence hit his button, turned to Castle, and with a terrifying swiftness, released their barrage.

Silk, various gore, and 400 year old spruce, maple & pine splashed on Dani, Lawrence, and Sean, the latter of whom had remained completely stationary throughout the proceedings, eyes fixed on the floor before him. Dani cried through the splash of gore, stress-boils bulging all over his face.

I watched the whole thing through the CRT monitor’s scanlines, without diverting my attention from the tatter-clothed workers and vacant hollows in place of their eyes.

Herbert couldn’t see, but heard the exchange from the kitchen, as he sped up his dish-washing to a frantic pace.

************************************************************************************************************

Lawrence and Dani were onsite at the mine all day for a quarterly operational review while Sean, Herbert, and I stayed in the compound to attend to secretarial matters.

It was lunchtime, and Sean and I sat at the long banquet table in the dining room as Herbert rolled the lunch cart in. He carefully spaced several embroidered silver cloches evenly across the table before tucking the cart into the corner of the room and opening the cloches one by one to reveal today’s menu: roses of marrowfat in absinthe-infused aspic, fermented roe dyed and arranged in oyster shells to resemble pearls, honey-veined foie gras shaped like a human infant, and a cocoon-shaped meringue for desert, complete with parasitic wasp-shaped black licorice crawling over it, and today’s original cocktail to wash it all down, the “Ambercandle,” made from ambergris liquer, black vodka, creme de violette, and dry vermouth. Herbert nervously turned to us for our approval. I, feeling comfortably hidden in my soft cotton domino mask, turned to Sean in deference, who nodded, muscular arms crossed over his bare chest, still clad only in black leather pants, a studded belt, and black leather police cap. He had continued to grow and must have been nearly 3 meters tall.

Herbert discreetly heaved a sigh of relief at Sean’s nod and began plating lunch for us. When he was done, Sean took a bite of the foie gras and darkly chewed for a moment before nodding.

“Hm. That’s not bad Herbert. But hey, next time… maybe go a little easy on the honey. Gets in the way of… the flavor, you know.”

Herbert girlishly blushed, glancing downwards with a buried smile.

“Thank you, Sean.”

As I started to eat as well, Herbert took the ingredients for his own lunch off the bottom layer of the cart: honey ham, cheddar cheese, two slices of white bread, and honey mustard, and started assembling them on his own reusable plastic plate.

Between the sounds of clinking silverware, hearty smacks, and nostril breathing,Sean started speaking, staring straight ahead at the wall in front of him rather than at Herbert or me.

“I know what Lawrence is gonna say when he gets back. Drommy Boy, you know what he’s gonna say?”

I shake my head, which Sean seems to catch in his peripheral vision.

“He’s gonna say…”

Sean paused to watch Herbert eating his sandwich. There was a hole in the top slice of bread, out of which a copious amount of honey mustard had spilled onto Herbert’s fingers.

“Herbert you’re a fucking slob! That’s fucking disgusting!!”

Herbert, not seeming to catch on to what Sean was referencing, inexplicably started turning his head around, scanning the room for what might be the source of Sean’s displeasure, putting his mustardy hands on the table to lean in closely, as if he may find the source of the trouble in the table’s wooden grains.

"You’re gettin’ mustard all over the goddamn table, ya fuckin’ moron!"

Herbert, noticing the mustard on the table, but seemingly not the source of it, still steadily erupting from his sandwich in bubbly spurts, grabbed a linen napkin and starting wiping a small portion of the table, his face so close to the spilled mustard that it now touched the tip of his nose.

"Can’t even sit down for a decent meal without you screwin’ it up! Get the hell outta here! You have no business being in this room with civilized people!"

When, instead of leaving, Herbert continued scrubbing the mustard into the table, Sean stood up and smashed the plate of half-eaten foie gras baby over Herbert’s head. Herbert paused for a second, seemingly stunned as to what he should do, before starting to palm the foie gras on the floor onto the plate in a futile effort to clean it up.

"Fuck this shit! I can’t fuckin’ deal with this crap! I got shit to do, and I ain’t lettin’ you fuckin’ asshats ruin my day!"

Sean stormed out of the room, taking a moment to stomp Herbert to the ground. I waited a little bit while Herbert piddled around, now stuffing the smashed food into napkins in a bizarre clean-up attempt, before I left my plate of disgusting shit and went back to the security chamber.

************************************************************************************************************

“What the fuck?? Andromedus, get your ass over here!!”

A few hours after lunch I heard Sean calling me out from my post. I stepped into the epoxy hallway and could hear a clamor from the kitchen. Pushing open the swinging doors, I saw Herbert rolling around on the floor with a bomb strapped to himself, which Sean was trying to take hold of.

“What the fuck are you doing with that thing Herbert!! Don’t fuck with me!”

I instinctually took my Colt Single Action Army from its holster, ready to shoot if Herbert tried to detonate the bomb.

“Herbert, I don’t want to shoot you. Take the bomb off now and I’ll make you some mozzarella sticks.”

Herbert was a listless blob on the floor. I found myself wondering if one, two, or all of us are going to die. Sean was pinning Herbert’s arms to the floor as he looked up at me.

“Don’t just stand there, diffuse the fucking bomb!!”

When leaned in to do as Sean requested, it was clear that the bomb was a plastic toy, and emitted a loud squeak as tore the top off of it. Upon realizing this, Sean gives Herbert a swift kick before standing up.

“Herbert you fucking asshole, pulling something like this! I thought you were about to blow this fucking place up!”

At that moment I noticed a faint clicking sound. Somehow, the cylinder of my Colt, which I was holding in my left hand as I untaped the toy bomb with my right, turned on its own, aligning the bullet into place. I was still holding it pointed at Herbert, and before I had a chance to react, the hammer struck, the primer sparked, and a bullet went straight into Herbert’s heart.

How did Herbert modify my Colt, I thought. I realized he had chosen from the start that he would be the one to die. Sean stamped his foot in frustration as blood spilled from Herbert’s exposed heart spread all over the tiled floor. While I was kicking the blood to keep it from further dirtying the kitchen, I noticed my revolver’s cylinder starting to turn on its own again. Even Herbert widened his eyes at my gun’s automatic movement, which only further exasperated Sean.

“Herbert you fucking dupshit! You even fuck up your own suicide!”

I picked up the gun and tried finding a safe place to point it before it fired again.

“Not the fucking pantry, you’ll blow up our cereal!”

I kept spinning around until the revolver fired just as it was pointed at our cat’s food bowl. Pieces of ceramic and the rotting dead mouse that had been in the bowl splashed all over the kitchen, mixing with the still-widening pool of Herbert’s blood. Herbert flapped around as if trying to be noticed, exacerbating his bleeding. Sean was preoccupied with trying to pick up the shards of the cat food bowl just as the cat walked into the kitchen for its meal.

“Andromedus will you fucking help me! Veronica’s gonna get her paws all scratched up! What the fuck are you doing??”

As I bent down and started cupping bloody ceramic shards in my hand and vaguely collecting them into a pile, I could hear Herbert softly whisper, as if he had been waiting for his chance to speak.

“I’m really dying…”

Sean snapped in reply.

“Shut the fuck up and go die somewhere where you dont need my help, goddamit!”

I continued cleaning as Herbert slithered out of the room. I looked over and noticed that his blood was full of glitter and confetti. Thought we hadn’t noticed, it seems like his whole suicide had been an attempt to entertain us and boost our morale. He rolled out of the door, and must have fallen into a hole somewhere, as none of us ever saw him again.

*************************************************************************************************************

One night, sleeping as always in my security chair, with the light of hundreds of small monitors beaming through my lids, I swiftly fell into a vivid, transfixing dream. A swell of golden light, softly arcing like the curve of a tender horizon, distant, larger than the world, and calling only to me, curling in on itself with enough gentle gravity to sustain the whole cosmos. Shadows traced its faintest edges and stretched across its form, as if caressing the smooth, yielding surface.

I thought, this is the shape of infinity.

Small like a distant star, cold like a winter sunrise, silent like a hurricane seen from space. The form peaked in a delicate crest kissed with the blush of some barely perceived blooming, at once surrounding me while making me feel lightyears away.

Gazing on this form, I felt a spark in the depth of my body, wafting through me like heavy syrup, like a thread being spun around some unknown core within me. Something like the inverse of pain pressed and tugged at my innards, directing me towards this great, vast form, which was secretly being revealed only to me.

As the surface of the curve of light shimmered with breath, I felt a sense of some deeply lodged memory. The zenith turned a delicately darker hue, a faint, blushing crest, an anchor for my gaze, its contour weightlessly narrowing slightly beneath the peak.

A faint line emerges beneath the curve, tracing the gentlest shadow, suggesting softness, pliancy, a yielding strength that seems to hum with a quiet, unspoken vitality. The thread within me tightened and the heat intensified until I woke drenched in sweat.

In my sleep I had walked to the screen directly in front of me and rested my forehead on it directly. There, poking from the tattered, ruined tunic of one of the mine slaves, I saw the form I had glimpsed in my dream. I checked all of the cameras and, while I had somehow never noticed it until now, all of the workers had a pair of these mysterious bulges that I had seen in the dream on their chests, now covered in soot, coarse, cut, and bruised. I watched as they excavated tunnels, transported ore, fanned fires onto rocks, cleared flooded shafts, and sorted worthless rock from minerals.
I felt a certain, unquestionable resolve to destroy what I saw on these TVs. These workers should be caked in vaseline, kept beautiful and safe in pods, with especially their chests hidden and safe from all harm. As I gazed at the bare bodies of the workers, I felt my heart quicken in an aching, asking accellerando. Just as it seemed that I was fated to obey this pulse, some compulsion greater than my pathetic thoughts, I punched through one of the CRT TVs, and the shattering glass cut a deep incision in my wrist. WIth my left hand I grabbed the flyback transformer, charged with high-voltage electricity flowing from the capacitors, and thrust the output terminals into my wound. 40,000 volts surging through my body disrupted my heart’s rhythm. It spasmed and overexerted itself in an attempt to regain control of my body, swelling and engorging with stagnant blood painfully pushing against my sternum.

How could I have lived until now without thinking of my heart? Now it beat madly, and its beats were numbered. Each of these mad beats would propel towards what I now must do. My heart was beating in a straight line towards its destiny. Until now I had only been wandering in an illusion, a groggily sleep talking, ignoring my heart trying to speak to me every moment, instead listening to lying ghosts and phantoms. Herbert and Castle had followed these phantoms into their final tunnels, as I too would have had I not been graced with this dream. I thought that maybe I had been chosen for them, and for all of us. Their deaths, and all of our coming deaths, were sacrifices to the intentions of my engorged, leaking heart, which would at last break out of and destroy my body, as well as everything in its path, exalting its own lacerated beauty, bleeding onto those ruined, dream-filled bodies, so at least I could be destroyed with them I was ready to, at last, live, and die.

*************************************************************************************************************

Dani and Lawrence had returned late last night, so once the sun had risen I went straight to Dani’s office and knocked on the door.
“Lawrence is that you? I told you I need some more time to prepare the bloody report. Can you at least let me finish my fucking rusks first?”
“Good morning Dani. It’s Andromedus.”

“Drommy Boy, what has you leaving your post?”

“I need to talk to you now. It’s very important.”

“Anything for you, lassy. Let yourself in then!”

I stepped into the office and sat down on a chair in front of Dani’s desk. His office was surprisingly plain, with files bursting out of boxy steel cabinets, a looped pile nylon carpet and heavily dishevelled desk overflowing with reports. Beside him was a plate of half-eaten biscuits and a block of some soft white cheese, accompanied by a plain white mug of coffee. It seems like he may not have gone to sleep after returning from the inspection and had been working through the night.

Dani took off his work glasses and laid down his pen.

“Well get to it then. I don’t think you came here just steal me rusks, did you? Lawrence is up me butthole about getting this expense report cleared.”

I hesitated, feeling the immediacy of how easy it would be for me to turn away now, to bury the lie and act as if what I had seen and felt throughout the night didn’t matter to me. But instead, I cast my die. With an uncertain numbness I threw myself to fate.

“Dani, we need to destroy the mine. We need to release the workers.”

Dani cocked his head and squinted his eyes at me, mouth slightly agape.

“Sorry Drommy, I do my best to laugh at people’s jokes but I’m not getting this one.”

“It’s not a joke Dani. For me to not be a liar I need to save them. They can’t live like this. I need to set them free.”

Dani remained in the same position, squinting harder.

“I really have no bloody idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you actually would like some of these rusks? Some coffee perhaps? You still half in the land o’ nod?” “I’m sorry Dani. I’m thankful for everything you’ve done for me, and I really value our pledge. It’s really important to me. That’s why I have to follow my dream.” Dani leaned back, unsquinting his eyes and lowering his brow.

“Listen Drommy, I’ve got a 80 page stack of expenses to approve, and I haven’t an inkling what you're on about. How about you go back to your room, do your job, I do my job here, and we talk about whatever this squit is over lunch?” “Dani, I know you may not understand. I don’t blame you for not understanding. But it may be my responsibility to do something that I won’t be able to make you understand. I’m sorry that it will hurt you, I really feel for that and wish I didn’t have to, but it’s the right thing for me to do.”

Dani slammed both of his hands on his desk,sending his breakfast and various papers flying off, and leaned out of his chair and right into Andromedus’s face.

"What the bloody fuck are you on about, cunt?"

I look down to find my words before answering him.

“I’m telling you what I’m going to do. I’m going to destroy the mine.”

Dani’s face scrunched into a red, demonic gnarl, and thick, mucous spittle flew from his mouth in all directions as he screeched.

“Don’t fucking play with me cunt! You pathetic invalid! Take one step away from me and I will tear you to fucking shreds!”

“I’m sorry Dani. Goodbye.”

I quickly left the office as Dani screamed behind me.

“It’s your fault Herbert killed himself! We’ve given everything and you’ll ruin all of it. I will fucking destroy you! Don’t walk away from me! No! Don’t go! Andromedus! Please! Please! No!!!!”

As I closed the door behind me I could hear Dani’s screams collapse in wild, messy sobbing.

“Everyone hates me! Everyone hates me! Noooo….”.

*************************************************************************************************************

The flaps of my leather aviator's cap flew in the wind and oversized goggles protected my eyes as I sped through the desert on my Honda Z50 Mini Trail (upgraded with a Zongshen 190cc engine, Maxxcross desert tires, a gusseted chromoly steel frame, Fastace AS-02 inverted forks, DNM MT-RC rear shocks, a Sunstar 14T front sprocket, a JT 37T rear sprocket, and a Kitaco Type 3 oil cooler, all modifications I had made myself).

Endless dunes spread under a blanket of blue sky. Local inhabitants rose from their grottos at the sound of my bike and removed their turbans in supplication as I passed. Their legends said that the desert had once been the site of a great city, cursed into sterility by some forgotten betrayal, the sands not grains of earth but the pulverized remnants of its palaces and temples, shattered and scattered in a divine reckoning.

Recently, the dunes had been getting smaller and smaller as more and more sand was blown into the sky, disappearing in cyclones and never coming back. It was said that within a few years the dunes would be completely gone.

Tattered stips of cloth flew from rough-hewn posts distantly visible on each end of the horizon. Reaching one would bring one within minimum visibility of the next flag of the same color blowing on the horizon. The blue flags lead to White Dragon Lake, yellow flags to Happy Island City, green flags to the Spring Valley Forest, none of which I will ever visit.

The sinking and rising of the sun cast sundry shadows.

I realized that this air, sand, and wind had been calling me, these periodically placed, crude, circular towers, these wells and pits, their walls adorned with symbols, abstractions, forms of the wind, sun, and moon run through the void of man’s mind, changed into homages to beautiful secrets, promising each of us that to you, alone, everything is worth it.

Now I finally knew what it all meant.

Pitch black strips pointed the way to the Carnaldus Abyss, the mine we had established two years ago. In that time, the mine's operations had skyrocketed to 2 million metric tons of ore annually, boasting a yield of 500 grams of gold per ton, along with veins of flawless diamonds, platinum nuggets, and a consistent stream of rubies and emeralds.

Dani and Lawrence were already making plans to empty the sacred grottos to create more tunnels expanding to the mine.

Flying over the globular world, I imagined the Abyss approaching on the horizon.

*************************************************************************************************************

The entrance was marked by a grand black flag flying tall from a solid platinum flagpole. On a pitch black field, six stark white sticks were arranged, pointing inward, with droplets emitting from them and mingling in the center. Directly over this design, the letters “Carnaldus Abyss” were written in jagged, asymmetrical white, like a primitive seal stamped onto a sigil. I recalled mingling our fluids, slashing our palms, and then dipping our hands into limewash to share in creating this logo.

Underneath the flag, lone sands stretched endlessly.

I announced my arrival.

“Andromedus requests entrance to the Carnaldus Abyss.”

Rusted steel in the shape of a bowl with a hole at the bottom emerged from the sand, attached to a thin tube that also served as a retractable probe. The bowl patiently waited as I unzipped the fly of my red pajama bottoms to take out my pee-pee and release a fresh stream into the bowl. It took a moment for the bowl’s contents to drain completely as I redid my zipper. A brief moment passed as if the bowl were carefully considering the contents before green lights flashed up and down the probe and it retracted back into the sand, which then started to rumble. While shaking like a washing machine, a small booth made of the same weathered steel rose out of the earth before stopping with a mechanical clank. Once all of the streams of sand had cleanly been blown off it, the door slid open with a clean clank, showing a staircase that descended into complete darkness.

I turned back to my bike one last time, giving the seat’s vinyl a thankful rub before starting to descend the stairwell.

*************************************************************************************************************

After I had climbed down for what seemed like about twenty minutes, I finally felt an end to the steps. The path continued straight for a short span before I ran into a wooden door. Feeling for the knob, I opened it to enter Carnaldus Abyss’s antechamber, a square, symmetrical space, walls covered in steel-gray, with many of that same flag that flew over the entrance draped evenly throughout the room. The floor had a sharp, checkered pattern, and the room was brightly lit, leaving no shadows. About 14 meters straight ahead of me was the door to the shaft that would begin to lead me to the mine’s bowels.

I walk to it and speak to the intercom.

“This is Andromedus. Take me to the vein.”

The small monitor flashes a red X and replies in a robotic voice.

“Access denied. Access denied.”

“What the hell…?”

As I stood perplexed before the door, a thick, working class Boston accent boomed behind me.

“You thought we would let you do this Drommy Boy?”

Sean, who seemed like he had grown another meter since yesterday, was a thick, disgusting titan.

“Sean, I have to do this. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you personally. I’m glad that I can see you now one last time. I’ve appreciated your friendship and am glad that I got to know you.”

“Listen to this guy… listen to this FUCKING TRAITOR!!!”

Sean stomped the ground, crushing the checkered floor, sending jags of rock flying and leaving the whole chamber shaking as he kept walking toward me.

“Why are you doin’ this? Tell me, Drommy, why are you doin’ this? You know how sad Dani is that Cas and Herb are gone now, right? He really didn’t want to see you go too. He really didn’t. He really liked you Drommy. And you know what? I liked you too. I thought you’re a nice guy. I didn’t want to see you do something like this.”

“Sean, I have to do this. I know that you can’t understand and I’m sorry that this will hurt you. But it’s what I have to do.”

Sean, who was now directly in front of me, shook his head at the floor.

“It’s what you have to do… it’s what you have to do… What about our dream Drommy? What about our promise? What about pride, loyalty, honor? Do you care about any of that?”

Sean got on all fours so that his face was inches from mine. He had clenched his teeth, speaking through sobs and suspended tears.

“What about our friendship Drommy? What about that?”

“I value all of that Sean. It’s why I’ve done everything I’ve done until now. That was all real and I did my best. But this is my dream. And I have to obey.”

Sean looked at me with open mouth and questioning eyes. He inhaled his streaming snot back into his nose, furrowed his upper lip, stood back up and chuckled.

“Your dream… your dream eh…Well you know what… I fucking hate your dream. I despise it. Do you think I’m a nice guy, Drommy?”

“I think you’re my friend, Sean.”

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

Sean took off his black leather belt and cracked it like a whip, which seemed to activate some kind of mechanical lift that emerged from the trefoil cross tattoo on his back, securing a hydraulic skeletal structure around his torso and limbs. Robotic arms unfold, snapping two revolving chainguns to each of his arms. Massive steel boots eject steel protection that merged with the torso armor. A transparent bubble helmet locked into place over his head, connected to the power unit on his back by two corrugated tubes. Finally, an armband emblazoned with the Carnaldus Abyss logo wrapped itself around his upper left arm.

The transformation seemed to be incredibly painful, as Sean asymmetrically grimaced, letting out a foamy roar.

The four guns all simultaneously opened fire on me at once.I somersaulted away as the bullets left a steam of destroyed flooring and upturned stone behind me. His mechanical lumbering was slow, and I noticed that there was a brief reload cycle after the chainguns released a full round of ammunition, which I used to scan the room for places to hide: nothing. In the meantime, mecha-Sean unleashed a fresh round, which I was just barely able to dodge again. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.

I tried shooting my Colt at what I thought must be his weakest point, the helmet, but the bullet bounced right off. I was going to need to find another plan, fast.

I noticed that after firing continuously for a few seconds, the energy pack attached to Sean’s back opened up for a moment to expel ammo casings and steam. Sean seemed annoyed that I was still alive.

“IT’S A WASTE OF TIME!!! GIVE UP AND DIE!!!!”

Thinking it may be a chance to directly attack the core, I saved my energy to just barely dodge one more time, bullets grazing my domino mask, and waited until his energy pack opened up again. I grabbed one of the casings that had been dropped on the floor, and, failing to consider its intense heat, screamed with pain briefly before lunging directly towards Sean.

“YOU WANT TO DIE SO QUICKLY??? DIE NOW!!!”

I somersaulted into a sideways roll before sliding under his legs. Still on my back, I looked up and saw the exposed core. I threw the scalding casing at it as hard and fast as I could.

“AHHHH!!!!”

Blue sparks briefly wrapped around the mecha as Sean shook in agony. He quickly turned toward me and released his chainguns at full blast. Having slid on my back, it took me a moment to roll, and my left arm took a hit.

“Aahhhhh!!!!”

Somehow Sean seemed only to grow more enraged.

“HURRY UP AND DIIIIIIIIIIIEEE!!!”

With my right palm thoroughly burnt, I was hoping I could use my left hand to pick up the next casing, but it seems like the bullets must have totally severed the nerves in my left arm, as I could move neither it nor my hand at all. I stood and sprint, bullets breaking the floor apart below me with each step. I noticed that steam was now leaking out of Sean’s energy pack.

I again got closer to Sean and started sprinting in circles around him. His mecha wasn’t designed to spin and he wasn’t able to keep up with me.

“YOU WICKED LITTLE PUKE!! DIE NOW!!! DIIIIIIEEEE!!!!!”

In frustration he started firing rapidly. Now was my chance. I grabbed one of the freshly expelled, now hotter than ever casings. My already burnt skin melted away down to the bone. Through the pain I jumped onto Sean’s back, which was releasing hot steam, burning my whole body further, wrapped my legs around his helmet, and chucked the casing at his core as hard as I could. The resulting shock threw me off of him.

Sean again screamed in agony, and the blue sparks didn’t stop this time. His mecha stumbled as if drunk before the pieces started to collapse one by one. I could see that inside the mecha, Sean’s body had also been burnt. His skin was charred and molten, with peeling layers, cracks and fissures. His pants had also evaporated, and he was butt naked. Still spinning, he collapsed to the ground in a crying heap.

My pajamas had also turned mostly to char, only half of my domino mask intact and my yellow cape half turned to ash.

Sean whimpered on the ground. With most of his sinew exposed, there was no saving him.

“Help me…”

“I’ll help you, Sean. It’s going to be okay.”

I pointed my revolver at his head and shot. It was my last bullet.

Sean had fallen belly down, backside exposed. Under the cross tattoo on his back we all know, a circular tattoo surrounded his butthole with “Dani ♡ Castle ♡ Sean ♡ Herbert ♡ Andromedus ♡ Lawrence ♡” spelled in a ring of Fraktur letters.

I threw my Colt aside, picked up a metal bar that had been part of the now ruined mecha suit and squeezed tight. It’s hot metal fused with my palm’s melted skin; it was part of me now and would help me complete my task.

“Thank you Sean. It’s thanks to you that I’ve found my final weapon.”

The monitor at the shaft was still beeping and blinking its red no symbol. I thrust my new metal supplement through the screen, and the sound abruptly ended, replaced by shattered glass falling. The doors opened. I walked in and began my descent.

==============================================================

The first shaft took me 500 meters below the surface to the initial hub, now completely depleted of all valuable minerals. There, I transferred to a rail cart which dropped through a steep tunnel at great speed. I had to carefully choose the correct direction at various forks to avoid falling into chasms or smashing into dead ends. From here I could board a specialized deep elevator taking me another 1000 meters below the surface. This level too had been depleted, and from here I had to board a narrow winched platform to the rich, still unknown veins about 5000 meters below the surface where our workers were currently extracting adamant and orichalcum.

The platform stopped at a black-red, living chamber emitting a miasma of vaporous minerals, the magnetism of the earth’s core a palpable breathing. About 50 meters in front of me a crag opened up to a vast lake of magma, waves of which broke against wet floor of rock and dispersed a burning spray. On either side similarly glowing walls were dotted with tiny tunnels, out of all of which tracks led straight into the lake. Carts sped over these tracks at a steady pace, all out of tunnels and into the lake. To some of the carts clung desperate workers, trusting the carts would bring them to some promised end. Others rolled over the floor, already on fire. Others ran wildly into the tunnels, spaces unknown to them and to anyone. And slipping from all of their tunics were bared, supple breasts, pockmarked, split open, gangrened, or leprous, but of the same beauteous form that I saw in my dream. I had to release them from this evil world.

Noticing my presence, they started limping or crawling toward me. I wasn’t sure if they were approaching me as their savior or trying to stop me.

“All of you… your pain is over… I’ve come to release you…”

As they started to pile on top of me, mouths agape, emitting voices of rattling breath, all too weak to hurt me or in any way impede my movement, one by one I bashed their skulls with my metallic augmented hand. Most of them already had no eyes, and their upside down crescent mouths didn’t change shape as they fell. I made sure to give each one of them a personal message.

“I love you.”

“Join eternal bliss.”

“The promised time has come.”

“I will see you in heaven.”

As I progressed little by little, smashing them as I went, I noticed a silhouette against the breaks of magma, a shadow wearing a ghutra, a bisht grandly blowing in the scalding chthonic wind. The billowing form turned to me, and approached step by step.

I couldn’t stop now. I continued my path of bashing in skulls.

Lawrence stopped about four meters in front of me and the growing pile of bodies.

“Andromedus, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You can’t stop me, Lawrence. We are all going to die here. You can accept that, or resist it.”

Lawrence let out a smirk, his whole frame still a dark silhouette save for the glinting on his lips and the lunar reflection of his glasses.

“Andromedus, I understand what you’re doing, and what motivates you. I too, have been waiting for the time to take action. But I ask you to consider, is what you’re doing not abdication under the guise of liberation, annihilation blindly taken for freedom, an escape into nothingness falsely identified as transcendence? Are you not wasting the very agency that moved you to make this choice in the first place by choosing destruction?”

Behind the crowd of withered flesh in front of me, I see Lawrence’s sweaty face, and notice a sizable pimple on the side of his nose.

“I ask you Andromedus, is not the beauty you saw in your dream something to be worked toward? Rather than a call for destruction, can what you saw not be a template for creation? Can this mine not be the marble from which we chisel your ideal? Imagine this place, for all its labor and pain, not as a prison— but a crucible.”

Lawrence had always stayed fit, but a close look at his face revealed, sagging jowls.

”What is a dream if not the residue of your will, distilled into an image? A dream alone cannot live. It requires action, persistence, struggle. What you offer is dissolution, a severing of the thread. And I tell you, Andromedus, such severance leaves nothing behind but silence.”

Hundreds of workers were now lined up for their demise, tens of hands tearing at my tattered pajamas, as I thrust my metal rod through one’s eye socket, punched through the jaw and into the brain of another.

“To destroy this mine, this locus of our efforts, is to declare war not on suffering but on the potential that suffering contains. Would you cut down the tree before it has borne fruit simply because the branches groan under their own weight?”

I found a worker’s chest directly in my face, and all over again felt the sadness of losing that dream, and anger that this flowering would be so shamefully exposed here. WIth renewed vigor I tore my metal rod through their chest, fishing out their dried, jerkied heart, which I spun round, severing the heads off of many more surrounding me.

“Don’t you see Andromedus? The meaning of this mine is in its ugliness. Out of this hell called nature we have forced out things of beauty, we have faced this misery and made it productive. Is that not better than fleeing into some imagined purity? Is not the soul itself shaped by the material it inhabits?”

Lawrence’s voice was heavy and deliberate, beautiful in its precision, but weighted, as if by sacks of sand.

“Andromedus, join me. Let us overthrow Dani. He is led by cheap complexes and passions. Let us throw him into the pit so that we, teens of vision, may mold this mine into what you saw in your dream. What you chase is not in the stars or the fire below—it is here, among us, in the conflicts we resolve, the pain we chew on, and the beauty we forcefully tear out of this corpse of existence!”

At the final words of his speech Lawrence’s until then deliberate cadence quickened, his voice turned to a snarl, and he clenched his fist before his face, grimacing at me, and holding the pose as his cape blew in the inferno.

I held the metal rod fused into my hand against my engorged, at every moment disintegrating heart, sending the remaining waves of electrical impulses flowing from my heart’s nodes into the shaft, which started to glow hot white. I screamed as my Robin cape blew behind me, hundreds of workers’ bodies being thrown away by the electrochemical gradients flowing from me.

The path now clear between us, Lawrence opened his fist and extended it toward me, beckoning, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, lips tensely pursed. I pounced on him, locking my tiny legs around his neck, swiftly thrusting my metal beam into his left eyesocket until it protruded from the top of his ghutra, brains attached. I bashed his head off of his neck and jumped to the ground, where I stabbed into his head from the bottom, scooping out its contents piece by piece, scraping cleanly every bit of brain off his skull, like I was emptying a pumpkin to be a jack-o-lantern. I kicked that empty husk into the magma, picked the rest of his body up by his feet, spun it about repeatedly, and sent it off, cape billowing, until it likewise disappeared into plumes of steam and volcanic gas.

With all of the workers finally dead, I took some desiccated lily petals I had carried with me in my pocket, and scattered it over their bodies as I passed.

As I did so, they all slowly started to disappear, leaving their empty clothes behind on the molten rock.

The dream I had held dear will be forgotten, far away.

I dedicate this to you, who are forever disappearing.

==============================================================

My mine cart sped down at an 80 degree angle, stalactites breaking off and narrowly missing me in my descent, geysers of molten rock shooting from gaps in the floor being the sole illumination. The track split into false pathways that fell straight into the ocean of magma below, but I made a perfect run into the deepest chamber of the mine.

After taking the last fork, my cart jumped into blackness as the track disappeared below me, growing feathered wings on either side that gently flapped me down to the final chamber, from which one could not return.

The wheels gingerly hit the ground in a perfectly cubic room with each side 5 meters long, and unlike the rest of the rough-hewn mine, made of sleek grey concrete. The only lighting was a large red, blinking button, on which were written the white words “SELF DESTRUCT.”

However, behind me another light appeared, first as a small, bright point in the air, which expanded in all directions, until forming a flat rectangular surface. Its edges sharpened and solidified into a glowing, floating screen, projecting the image of Dani’s face, seemingly mere centimeters from whatever device he was using to record himself, mascara dribbling all down his cheeks with tears, his eyes swollen to about 1.5 times their normal size, pupils dilated, silently sobbing, seemingly at a loss as to what to say.

“Dani, this is the moment. We finally have our dream. We don’t have to care about the world any more.”

Dani’s mouth rapidly transitioned between a lifeless smile and frown of confused terror, eyes an unchanging kiddie pool of tears.

“Is this the pledge Drommy?”

“Yes, this is the pledge. At last, we’re living our pledge.”

Dani seemed encouraged, and his sobs were mixed with weak laughter.

“We needed to get rid of all of it Dani. But you were afraid. Of course, so was I. We kept trying to save some of it. To keep on living as we had. The problem was, we didn’t really believe.”

“I want to believe Drommy, I want to believe.”

“I know. But we carried so much chaff. So much from before we made our pledge. So much that wasn’t our dream.”

Dani inhaled through nostrils, ruffled his brow and panted. I continued.

“And now we’re here. We’re strong enough to do this. We always were.”

Dani’s panting intensified into a rhythmic wheeze from his chest, raising and lowering his shoulders as he pulled his damascus steel Lefaucheux M1858 into the frame. Its polished ebony grip, silver filigree, and pigeon blood ruby set into the pommel were handsome even in the low quality webcam video showing on the floating screen.

“Let’s recite the creed Drommy.”

“Yes, let’s.”

I matched my pace to his as his recitation was interrupted with sobs and grimaces.

“The voice of our hearts gushes out in precious stones.
We hide our starving fangs and smile at our prey: the howling depths, pregnant with sacred jewels.
We will color this world in a palladium finish, open every door and empty every chest.
The call of the rubies in the chalk of our bodies is answered by the rubies that rest in the earth.
We will break every body, drain any life for the hope that we place in the metals of heaven.”

At the last word Dani stuck his Lefaucheux in his mouth and pulled the trigger, and I hit the button.

Dani collapsed out of frame, and the screen similarly compacted back into the air.

Simultaneously, the walls of the room I was in fell, leaving me on an island over a great sea of magma.

I assume a Padmasana position as the earth began to shake, and here I end my notes, my mental recollection.

The bright yellow flashes that punctuated the glowing ceiling start to flare and grow, transforming into tongues, then whips of flame. The magma bubbles, splashes, and starts to rise.

I want to take off from this world. I have grasped, and am the ruler. I have bettered my enemies and all my failings are transformed into glory, because they are me.

==============================================================

As the end credits begin to roll, we see Andromedus maintaining his lotus position as molten slabs continue to fall and the cavern starts to crumble more intensely while the following song plays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rJ-Qrh96S4

He is increasingly surrounded by more stones and fire, until he is at last engulfed. The whole screen is gradually covered by nothing but flame, until at around 2:42, the screen fades and transitions into that hill where the boys ran on that autumn day two years ago, they all as they were then, but now clad in flowing white gowns, wings of lace, wire, and tulle, halos made of tinsel-covered loops of wire, attached to plastic headbands by hot glue, feet bare with lace anklets, and gold glitter sprinkled over their cheeks They frolic and play together, with sequential close ups on each of them as they look directly at the camera and smile before shyly averting their gaze. As twilight blends into night, we see them continue their games as shadows as the camera zooms out to reveal the endless landscape of hills, before turning its gaze upward to the flashing, glittering stars, and lingering on them before fading out. *
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