Chapter 28: Blue moon (final)

As hell was seemingly dawned upon the once sleepy meadow, the scenery shifted around erratically. Trees phased into rocks, breaking into chunks of barks. Even the ground quaked morphing into itself, mashed into spikes of rocks jutting into the sky. Green grass that once covered the meadow was now buried into grey unassuming dirt, jagged as if it wanted to assault the eyes.

Color slowly drained from the sky, replaced with a forlorn darkness of the cosmos. Stars twinkling in the distance, making the view above quite a pleasant sight.

The Stairway to Heaven was once again opened to this world.

Madness streamed from the other side, infecting everything around the old Mutant’s base. All the remaining abominations now roamed the land, consumed by a desire for untainted minds. They shambled and phased towards End of the Line.

However, two beings stood in their way. They arrived on horsebacks, the Doctor and the Executioner. The animals were blinded and their ears stuffed. This way, they would not buckle upon the hellscape that was encroaching.

The ground shifted again, pushing rocks and dirt into countless spikes. Yet, the two riders avoided them before they even came out of the earth.

Continuing with their quest, the Mutants pushed on forward. They shifted and teleported continuously, even before their body reformed. Their engorged muscles turned into blurred images, appearing and disappearing erratically without any sense of order.

But they had the reach the end of the line.

The Doctor pulled out two revolvers and fired into the Mutants. But instead of shooting at their images, he aimed for the void, which was soon filled by abominations teleporting in.

“I wouldn’t mind knowing how you predict their movements.” The Executioner asked innocently, her eyes opened wide with amazement.

“Don’t even try, I know you can easily do it as well.” Doc replied curtly.

The innocence on the Executioner’s face was washed away, replaced by a most sadistic grimace. She burst out into an inexplicable laughter then stopped, whatever thought in her mind was no longer entertaining. Kicking on her horse, X dashed forward and drew her sword. She would swing the blade at nothing, which would soon be filled by teleporting Mutants, lobbing their heads off.

This was the main part of her job, to hunt and kill acolytes or eldritch infected beings. While that duty was mainly shouldered by the Blind Order, there were many operations that the Knight wanted to handle by themselves. That was where the Executioner came into play.

Perhaps it would have been easier for the Blind Order to hunt down fugitives like the Ghost or the Dolls. However, they were forced into inaction. It was the Knight Order that first encountered them and it would be the Knight Order to end their reign. Only then could the people trust in them be preserved. No matter how many green knights were sent to the slaughtered, these threats must be ended by them.

“Tch.” X looked on in boredom as she cut of heads one after another.

The Executioner hated her job. She wanted not just to kill, but to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. These creatures, now consumed by madness, could no longer feel loss. To her, the act of cutting them down was like wedding ones garden.

The two rode on to the center, where the Stairway to Heaven was opened.

There, the ground had been slowly shifted over along with everything on it. They mashed together, creating a small hill dense with cover of wood and grass.

X squinted her eyes and sniffed before remarking. “That’s weird?”

She had expected a follow-up, it was a common routine. But then the Executioner realized her partner was no longer here, and the Doctor was not going to humor her. Shrugging her shoulders, X continued.

“I have heard that the Stairway would be filled with this dark void thingy.”

“You meant the cosmos.” Doc answered.

“Yes, exactly that!” X enthusiastically replied, absolutely clueless of what he was on about.

“It seemed like the host of the cosmos had been slain, by what I do not know.” The Doctor elaborated. “Without it, the deity cannot manifest.”

“Then what about the Stairway? I thought it’s the cos-whatever creation?”

Doc turned to her with one of his eyebrow jerked up in a gesture of fake surprise. He then answered with just a slight hint of sarcasm. “It seems like your brain is not completely empty after all.” Nevertheless, the Doctor answered her question. “The Stairway is not just a creation, but a child of the cosmos, it is a different entity, albeit tied to its parent.”

The Executioner nodded excessively, despite her mocking gesture, she did understand what he was talking about. “So it is possible to invoke the Stairway to Heaven by itself.”

They went further in and split up for good. The Executioner was here to kill her mark, the Ghost and she could only care about it. Meanwhile, Doc had vowed to end all abominations and to cleanse the meadow of the eldritch. For that, he would need to climb up the Stairway to Heaven, something he had heard countless stories about but never witnessed himself.

Further into the hill, hidden behind the bushes, the Doctor found the beginning steps. So the tales were true. He wondered if it took this form because of the name given to it, the Stairway to Heaven. As an eternal infant, this entity would appear as how one perceive it. And the name by itself was enough of an influence.

Doc wanted to see the real deal, what was hidden by the image. But his mind was tainted by knowledge, by simply knowing the name ‘Stairway to Heaven’. What if he found someo…

The Doctor quickly casted those thoughts out of his mind. He was not here to study this entity, no, the man was here to push it out of this realm for now. And to have someone with untainted mind to gaze upon the Stairway to Heaven would mean to sacrifice them. Doc was ashamed of having that thought slightly crossing his mind.

His curiosity was returning but the man quickly stamped it out. But how long his desire for knowledge, no matter the cost, would remain dormant. The Doctor wanted to drew his flask, to drown his mind in liquor. Still, he held back. This mission would require all the reflex he could muster, there was no place for shaking hands.

Doc only had his words with the Kid to hold him back. And he took heart, for that was enough for him.

“I can do this, I can do this!”

The Doctor journeyed into something he had once feared. The void that was the cosmos, capable of swallowing everything into its forlorn darkness.

Walking up slowly, step by step, gunning down anything coming his way, Doc could not feel a strange forlorn sensation. In his mind were flashes of a distant memory of an encounter on a stormy night.

___

It was a rough day for the travelling Doctor, holding up in a rundown cabin in the middle of nowhere. Outside the wind was beating on the window, threatening to break it into pieces. To his surprise, the sound of knocking could be heard. Who would come here at this time?

Perhaps it was a trap, the Doctor had many enemies. Still, he opened the door with his shaking hand on the iron on his hip. Behind was someone Doc never expected.

“Are you here to kill me?” He asked, fearful for his life.

“No.” The woman replied.

“Then why would you be here?” The Doctor could think of no other reason.

He was met with a cryptic smile. What with this gentle expression, Doc could not recognize the person in front of him.

“I have one last thing to ask from you.”

“What is it?”

“I need [The World End]’s ring.”

“Why would you need something like that… and how did you even learn of such item.”

The woman replied by pointing upward. A smile on her face still, something the Doctor had never seen before.

“I wish to bring down the sky.”

“Such lunacy! There are only two things in this world that can kill us and the cosmos is one of them.”

“Oh my, are you perhaps worried about me?”

“Not in a million year.”

“For us who do not age, I am sure that time would come to pass.”

“Not if you decide to face with the cosmos… Anyway, I do not want such an item to be lost.”

“I see. Sorry to have been a bother, I wish you a happy life.”

The smile on her face was one of a hint of disappointment, even so, it is still a smile. What had happened? The Doctor was burning with questions. Unable to contain himself, the man called out to her.

“Why do you want to do it… to bring down the sky?”

“Because I have found a cause, someone to fight for.”

Her answer was a simple one, yet it pierced through Doc like an iron spear. It was that empty feeling again, the void deep within him. One that could not be filled no matter how much he indulged his curiosity, the cost be damned.

Biting his lip till it bled, the Doctor called out one last time.

“The ring, I never have it… it is still with its rightful owner.”

“So I have to find [The World’s End], how exciting. Do you want to send her any words?”

“You seem confident that in your chance of success.”

“It is what keep me going on, Doc.”

“… No, I do not wish to send anything… Now, begone.”

That she did with a tip of her hat. The woman made her way into the storm, standing tall and dignify, always with a smile on her face. The Doctor stood and watched, until he could see the crimson no longer, only the grey rain fall remained.

___

As Doc took his steps, a rising fear slowly crept in, cold sweat running down from the back of his neck. Even if the host of the cosmos was slain, the void would still be there, on top of the Stairway to Heaven. After all, it was no longer of this realm. And that darkness, that void would be more than enough to swallow him whole.

Such thought gripped him tightly, freezing the Doctor in place. But as he gazed up into the dark, the man could swear he saw a faint figure. It was an image of that woman, walking up the steps confidently. And Doc knew, she would do so with a smile on her face, always.

“I… too, now have someone I want to fight for.”

Before, the Doctor would fear death, for he wanted to at least experience life without that void in his heart. But now, he was content. Before, Doc would question his mother’s decision to settle down, as she was capable of so much more. But now, Doc had found the reason. Someone he could look at like how mother once gazed upon her children.

The Doctor hum to himself to keep calm, his favorite melody.

“Blue moon! Now I'm no longer alone.

Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own.”

Taking a deep breath, Doc climbed the Stairway to Heaven, following that crimson shadow.