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DATE:28th of August, the 70th year after the Coronation
LOCATION: Concord Metropolis
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As the shards of nightmare fell away, I was back in the garden. No shadows clawing at the edges. No blood splattered on the ground. The familiar, gentle shine of the moon restored.
Aku lay on the grass, unconscious. Foam leaked from his mouth. Rabid? Had it pushed him that far? I took a cautious step closer, but he didn't move.
My clothes were back to those cheap threads I'd picked up earlier. The contrast was jarring. Comfortable, at least.
I slid a hand down my chin, feeling the stubble of clean skin press flat beneath my fingers. I supposed having a beard didn't feel that bad after all.
Pamela was nearby, clutching her chest, pale and trembling.
She was throwing up—dry heaves that shook her fragile frame.
I got closer and squared up near her.
"You!" she spat out, voice rough and accusing. "How could you do that?"
Her body had deflated from canceling her powers. It was strange how those things worked. You wouldn't have guessed her body was fat before; the only telltale signs were the ugly earrings hanging off her lobes, the short choppy hair, and the cheap makeup smudged across her face.
What a difference.
She wasn't as pretty as her younger self was, but compared to a corpse like before, she looked like a queen.
I shrugged. "Guess I went a bit overboard."
"Overboard?" She scoffed. "Just a bit?"
I smirked. "I'm not sorry. You brought me into that dream."
Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not angry about what you did. I am furious that you probably would have done the same even in real life."
"Most likely," I admitted.
The night whispered around us; the garden held its breath.
Nothing else needed to be said.
Pamela rose to her feet and punched me square in the stomach.
I didn't bother dodging. The impact drove the air from my lungs and sent me to my knees, arms wrapped around my midsection. Surprising strength—was it because she was a super? Or just raw emotion driving the blow?
She turned away from me immediately, walking to Aku. She slapped him hard across the face.
He jolted awake, eyes snapping open. He lunged forward at empty air, hands raised defensively.
Pamela stepped back, watching.
"I—I thought you were him," Aku stammered, realizing his mistake.
Oh, screw him.
He scrambled to his feet and threw his arms around Pamela, voice breaking. "I can't believe you're actually back. You're really here—you're okay—"
She didn't return the embrace. Just stood there, rigid, arms at her sides. She was pondering something.
"William," she called out, voice steady despite the tears still fresh on her cheeks.
She patted Aku's shoulder. He released her reluctantly.
"Yeah?" I said, straightening despite the ache in my gut.
She approached me again. Another hit incoming? I didn't take a defensive stance. If she wanted to beat me into the ground, fine. I'd earned it.
Instead, she stopped in front of me.
"Thank you," she said, voice cracking. "Thank you so much for freeing me."
Then she started crying again and pulled me into a tight embrace, her face pressed against my chest.
I stood there, arms hanging at my sides. I felt myself frowning. Didn't hug her back. Didn't push her away either.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Aku's expression—frozen like a statue, confusion and something else warring across his face. Jealousy? Disbelief?
Whatever. Not my problem.
Pamela sobbed into my shoulder, her grip tightening like she was afraid she'd disappear again.
I waited for her to finish.
Pamela's breath hitched as she drew away, her hands hovering uncertainly, not quite sure if she should let go. She looked toward the ground, shoulders hunched, as though something in her wanted to retreat. For a moment she couldn't meet my eyes—her forgiveness hovered between effort and fear, and I caught the tremor in her voice when she finally spoke. There was a flicker there—pain, maybe regret, or the instinct to shield herself. She settled, but it was clear she was bracing for me to reject her, or worse.
Her kindness felt sharp—unearned, unasked for. I for one didn't know what to say..
At some point she pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"I have no reason to hate you," she said quietly. "Because it was true that my dream was selfish. The real person who killed my husband was Zilliam."
I tilted my head. "Why were we even in that dream?"
She hesitated. "I don't exactly know. When I was entering my body, I thought of him—of my husband—and that just... happened. The dream built itself around that memory."
Aku looked between us, utterly confused. "I went unconscious from the light. What the hell are you two talking about?"
"Why couldn't he enter?" I asked Pamela.
"Probably because Aku wasn't close to death like you," she said, glancing at Aku apologetically. "The same reason he couldn't see my ghost before."
"I could see you now," Aku said defensively.
"Because of the full moon," Pamela explained. "The veil is thinner."
Aku frowned, turning to me. "What even happened in that dream?"
I opened my mouth. "I was forced into someone else's skin—maybe for weeks—"
"Only a day," Pamela cut in. "Probably just the day you woke up there. I could barely stay with my husband before you summoned those creatures."
I paused, then asked the question that had been gnawing at me since the rooftop.
"Do you even remember your husband's name?"
Aku scoffed. "Of course she does. Don't be ridiculous."
Pamela opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
She froze. Her face went pale, eyes widening. Her lips moved silently, trying to form words that wouldn't come.
"I... I can't..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I don't... I don't remember."
She staggered back a step, hands going to her head. "How can I not remember? I spent twenty years waiting for him. Twenty years as a ghost, holding onto his memory, and now I—"
She couldn't finish.
I started laughing—low at first, then building into something uncontrollable. I bent over, hands on my knees, shoulders shaking.
"You—" I gasped between fits of laughter. "You built an entire dream prison around a man whose name you can't even remember!"
Aku stared at her, horrified. "Carter, stop—"
Pamela stood frozen, tears streaming down her face again—but different this time. Not grief. Horror. The kind that comes from recognizing your own monstrousness.
I kept laughing until my ribs hurt.
Still beside me, she started punching my chest. Soft, weak blows—barely enough force to feel through my shirt. She couldn't put out enough emotion—just weak, desperate hits that landed without force.
Her knees gave out. She collapsed to the ground.
Aku stood there like a bitch, frozen, processing. Then rage overtook him. He shoved me hard, sending me sprawling onto the dirt.
"How could you treat her like that?" he demanded, voice shaking with fury.
I scoffed, brushing grass off my sleeve. "I have quite a big trauma about being forced into dreams. I didn't appreciate what she did."
"You're wrong," Pamela said quietly from where she sat.
I chuckled. "What are you talking about?"
She stared at the ground, voice hollow. "I probably remind you of yourself."
"Stop exaggerating."
She looked up at me, eyes red but steady. "Do you remember your wife's name?"
The question landed like a punch to the throat.
I froze. Still on the ground, unable to move, unable to speak.
She was right. I'd also forgotten. But that was due to being undead, right?
Pamela crawled over on her knees and gently lifted my chin so I had to look at her.
"Kassius," she said softly. "I understand."
That name.
It ignited something vicious inside me—rage, grief, something older and darker than both.
I lunged forward, still grounded, and grabbed her by the jaw. Hard. "Where did you hear that name?" I demanded, voice low and dangerous.
She winced but didn't pull away. "I could see it all around you," she said weakly. "Floating letters surrounding you. Kassius. And written on your face... Aionis."
She paused, meeting my eyes. "I can still see those letters."
I released her, breathing hard. My hand trembled.
Aku moved toward us but stopped, seeing something in my expression that warned him not to intervene.
I turned away from them both, staring at the moon.
Kassius.
I'd forgotten her name. Just like Pamela had forgotten her husband's.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
I gave her a cold expression, then stood and walked farther into the courtyard to be alone. My mood had soured beyond recovery.
Still the same Kassius?
Me?
Should I take that as a good sign?
As if. It meant I was branded. Marked. Owned by some entity that gleefully observed my suffering.
Still a coward.
Still a slave.
Pathetic.
I kept turning over what Pamela had said—that she understood me. Who the hell did she think she understood? While she stood bound in place, forced the dot about the past, I was moving and… still forced to see the past.
Aren't my nightmares the same thing?
Why was I so defensive about it?
Because I'd rejected everyone else who thought we were the same? Alice with her anxious need for validation. Sophie with our shared suffering while growing up. Sarah with her open desperation. Sasha with her supposed shared trauma.
All of them had looked at me and seen a reflection.
All of them had been wrong.
Or had they?
What if I actually was similar on some level? What if the thing I hated most in them was the thing I recognized in myself—the inability to let go, to move forward, to stop clinging to ghosts?
Whatever.
What was done was done. It wasn't like I was going to take any of their hands. Not Pamela's. Not anyone's.
I'd made that choice a long time ago.
What was I even living for if I rejected everyone? What was the end goal in fighting UltraMan?
Just to save the world? Me? Why even bother?
Why was I doing all of this?
To find the entity that revived me? Then what? It is clear that I have no power. So why even bother?
I just… didn't know.
I sad hunch sat at the back of my head. Why couldn't someone tell me what to do? The mere fact that that I thought that made me feel… I just don't know anymore.
I was the same Nameless guided by the Balmundis.
But how could I do anything else if that had been all my life?
I just didn't know. Or I did and my mind kept the answer away, too ashamed to admit.
The moon hung overhead, indifferent and cold. It was totally unlike Alice's little moons. I wasn't sure I saw a night this grim.
I stood beneath it, alone, and felt nothing.
—
At some point, two inquisitors approached me.
One was a man whose face was wrapped in a blood-soaked rag, spiraled around his head like a grotesque bandage. Only one eye was visible—red, unblinking. He didn't wear the standard Bureau suit, but flowing robes that looked ceremonial, almost religious.
The other was younger—a girl with a bubbly energy that felt wrong in the atmosphere. Her hair was green with yellow coloring toward the tips, vibrant and eye-catching. She reminded me of Alice before the depression had hollowed her out.
She came over laughing, watching me stare at the sky. "Pamela returned safely to the dorms and explained everything," she said cheerfully. "You won't face repercussions for hurting those students. Or Yonezu."
She grinned wider. "Not that you'd care about that to begin with, right?"
I didn't respond.
"But here's the thing," she continued, tone still light. "You used powers that weren't listed in the information you provided to the Bureau. We want to let you go, we really do, but headquarters is putting pressure on us to make you explain yourself." She tilted her head. "It won't take long if you cooperate."
I was so fed up. Too tired to mask anything.
"I'm not doing this tonight," I said flatly. "Leave me alone."
She laughed—thinking I was bluffing—and started walking closer.
"Come on, I'm not going to—"
She didn't finish.
The robed man behind her raised his hand. Blood erupted from his palm like a rope, wrapping around her waist and yanking her backward.
"Look at his eyes," he said quietly.
She stopped mid-laugh, staring at me. Her expression shifted—confusion to realization to something like fear.
I frowned, wondering what they were seeing. I touched my face, feeling the skin.
Veins pulsed beneath my fingertips—thick, swollen, throbbing with pressure.
I was about to release another shockwave.
I hadn't even realized it was building.
Shit.
I tried to pull it back, to suppress it, but the rage was already escalating. I felt heat emanating from my pores. Is this from holding it back?
"I swear on the Goddess Luna," I said, voice low and even while pointing at the sky. "If you pester me any longer, I will kill all of you."
The girl started to object, opening her mouth to argue back, but the robed man's blood-rope tightened around her waist.
"Back off," the man with the bloody rag said quietly. His voice was calm, measured.
He yanked her into the air, lifting her off her feet, and began walking back toward the dorms with her suspended like a puppet.
"Your behavior will be remembered," he called over his shoulder.
"Corpses don't remember anything," I replied. I should know.
His visible eye morphed—pupil dilating, the red deepening to something inhuman and dangerous. He stopped walking for a moment, considering.
But he didn't attack.
Smart.
They disappeared into the greenery, leaving me alone again.
My mind was clear. Strangely, perfectly clear.
Normally when your thoughts are interrupted halfway, you feel disturbed, scattered. But this was the opposite. It was as if I had been taken out of a slump. The moon shone overhead, bright and focused, and everything fell into place.
God, I was stupid.
What had I even done these past few days?
Killed an inquisitor? Some homeless man assaulting a woman?
Freed Pamela?
The thought made me feel even more foolish. I'd wasted time—precious, finite time—bothering to question why I was fighting when enemies surrounded me on all sides.
Why?
Why even debate the point of living? What would killing myself prove?
My goal was clear. It had always been clear.
Free myself from the curse that kept me living. Dying again wouldn't cut it—I knew that now. I'd just end up stuck in some hell that my "master" had concocted for me, suffering eternally, proving nothing.
I would forever be in pain.
More than that, I would prove it right.
That I was weak. That I couldn't escape. That I was truly a slave.
No.
I wouldn't give it that satisfaction.
No. I couldn't have that.
I stared at the moon, feeling its cold light wash over me.
The path forward was simple.
I had to unbind myself. The first step was determining whether the demon inside me was my necromancer or merely something placed there to observe me for its own entertainment. The dream made it clear that asking directly wouldn't work.
The second step was to find what my deal even was. On what terms was I resurrected?
So I needed more information. Either from that Necromancer working for the Combine, or from that Saturnite priestess in Rome.
The Necromancer should be the easier target.
But I needed equipment for that. A few hundred Zols wouldn't cut it.
Rob some stores?
No... why had I been such an idiot? I was the leader of the Legion. I'd simply request funds from the accountants.
Why had I been acting alone these past few days?
I should leave first thing tomorrow for HQ and start recovering Emily. She'd be invaluable in tracking down that Necromancer.
God, it all clicked into place.
Why had I taken everything so seriously? Why had I cared that Alice "betrayed" me? Why would it matter? She'd always been a pathetic creature I kept around for reputation's sake. If she turned out to be as low as I suspected, it only helped me.
I finally had a reason to cut her off completely.
Hopefully she'd commit suicide and free me from her nonsense.
Yeah. I was feeling good. All this from aspirin? I should stock up on more.
I returned to the dorms, smiling.
The moon followed me overhead, bright and indifferent.
Everything was falling into place.