Page 424 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Lachlan looks up, breathing fast, filled with hate.

He crawls towards the thing.

He’ll kill it and rip those wings off and get out of here himself. Useless, grotesque, what kind of killer cries? He grapples with the monster when they meet in the middle, but each blow is met too perfectly, they glance off one another, rebound maddeningly.

Lachlan screams at it.

The monster screams back.

‘I don’t wanna be here with you,’ he snarls, trembling. ‘Look at you. You disgust me. You disgust everyone. You’re nothing but a fucking murderer, a killing machine. A sick, evil thing with no soul!’

He turns his back on the creature.

Did the monster turn its back on him?

No, it doesn’t matter.

He has to get back.

Somehow.

Lachlan takes one step.

Then another.

Then one more.

But it doesn’t take much to realise he’s on an island, surrounded on all sides by lava.

The only way off…

Is up.

He turns back, hyperventilating.

He’s so angry it blurs his vision, or maybe it’s the heat melting his eyeballs. The monster looks back too, resentful and hate-filled and… weak.

So weak.

So alone.

So helpless.

Lachlan walks to it.

The monster meets him halfway.

‘OK, listen to me, you useless piece of shit. We’re gonna fly now. You’re gonna use those wings and get us both out of here because I’m not staying here forever with you!’ the monster screams at him, mirror image of his own feelings and actions. The anger multiplies, spiralling.

Lachlan slaps his own face, briefly gratified to see the monster do the same. He smiles with madness in his eyes, and claws at his skin, hits himself over and over, watching as the monster does the same, laughing, they’re laughing while they tear themselves apart and it’s only when Lachlan looks down at his own body and sees the mess he made that it hits him.

Hits harder than hands ever could.

It’s him. His body. His being.

His cells and his soul.

He’s killing himself.