The Creature’s Court was swarming with every kind of monster imaginable. It hadn’t been this packed for some time. In fact, it hadn’t been this congested since the very first time Kendo had arrived in Olden. That seemed like such a long time ago now. Melanie floated behind him, half real and half not, flickering. Kendo’s eyes were glazed as he trudged through the crowd, past a green-eyed woman wearing a toga and twisted maze necklace who dragged a Minotaur by a chain, past a seemingly normal Chinese man with a water dragon lizard on his shoulder and a polished golden knife sheathed in his sash, past the usual goblins and ghouls, past a kappa, a mule that had fire for feet, and a pale woman in a blood red kimono carrying both a katana and its twin partner kodachi. Both swords had a white marble dragon for a helm and a ruby red sheath to match the woman’s attire. She smirked at Kendo as she passed him, not saying a word. Distracted by the woman’s unsettling charm, he tripped over a three foot tall snail that made a gurgled, squeaky noise at him.

That kind of thing happened so often in Olden that Kendo didn’t bother to think twice about it. He scooted out of the snail’s way and walked onward with Melanie dangling behind him. He could feel the fastitocalon scales dim inside his pocket, more and more each day. Ever since Grivgas’ death two days ago, Kendo couldn’t help but feel Melanie really was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. She had just started acting so…fake. Something broke in Kendo that day, whether he was going to admit it or not.

To Kendo, Melanie wasn’t a person anymore. She was a memory, and she was fading like one. Nonetheless, he couldn’t bear to force himself not to think about her. But at the same time, he felt guilty about keeping her memory with him, like he was preventing her from moving on. Well, he supposed he didn’t really know how that worked. He let out a grunt and shuffled past a zombie wearing a red baseball cap.

Frank, that was the zombie’s name, Kendo remembered. Kendo had seen him around the Court before. He was always playing poker with three other zombies in the back corner table of Victor’s hut. It was Victor’s same hut that he was currently entering; it was practically the only one in the Court that wasn’t eating itself or burning or being torn to pieces by some form of unearthly parasite. Wilfred had been emotionally unresponsive for some time now and Kendo wasn’t so sure the old jerk was going to get over Grivgas’ passing without some outside help. And if there was anything obvious about Wilfred, it was that Victor was the only person (well, creature) able to pull him out of a stupor.

On his way inside, Kendo nearly stepped on a little black gerbil. It gave him an irritated twitch of its nose. “Excuse me! I’m walking here,” said the gerbil in the tone of a spoiled child. It scuttled away just as Kendo was about to squash it, but it wasn’t worth chasing after. Kendo sighed and moved the bamboo curtain aside, entering the hut.

The monsters in this hut were mourning. Kendo couldn’t think of a time, shy of when Wilfred broke down, that he had seen anyone in Olden cry. Still, he couldn’t deny that’s what was going on here. A flock of paper-thin dragons made of leaves whimpered and sniveled in one corner, twirling around each other in some ceremonial dance. That purple-haired chick sat mortified at the bar, swirling her finger around her goblet so it made an awful ringing sound. It made Kendo cringe; it was so high pitched his ears wouldn’t stop ringing even when she stopped rubbing the rim and dropped her hands hopelessly into her lap. A wild boar with black jewels for eyes held its mouth in an open gape and groaned and whined and cried. Kendo wondered why he hadn’t heard the wailing from outside. Some kind of magic, he guessed. He was getting used to Olden and its strange, nonsensical ways. Victor was in the back mixing someone a foul-smelling drink and Kendo made his way over there, passing the stools and tables that were dripping tears and hoards upon hoards of creatures moaning and sniffling and making all sorts of incomprehensible nasal sounds. The air was thick inside the hut, like Kendo had walked into invisible, suffocating smoke.

“It’s the Aura of Remorse,” Victor told Kendo without even turning to face him, “It is thicker tonight than it has been in a long time.” The glasses in Victor’s hand clinked together as he shuffled them on the counter, organizing. If Kendo didn’t know any better he would have thought Victor seemed shorthanded.

Also, Kendo hadn’t ever heard Victor speak so formally. “What’s going on?” He asked, genuinely concerned. Victor wasn’t the type to ever speak seriously or make rushed, frantic movements. Right now, he was doing both. It disturbed Kendo more than anything he’d seen in Olden for quite some time now.

“You can’t see it but it’s here,” Victor continued, “All around us. Everywhere.” It was so off-putting to see Victor acting anything but flirty and smooth.

Kendo leaned over the bar and hushed his tone without even meaning to, “Okay but what’s going on?”

Melanie faded into sight. She had a distant and unfocused look on her face, like she was watching a tiny bug fly around that no one else could see. She spun around herself and smiled, delirious. A third of her color came back.

“See that?” Victor gestured to Melanie, “She can see it. Normal humans can’t.”

“And?”

“It’s everywhere. It used to cover all of Olden when it first manifested. At least, that’s what the stories say.”

Kendo arched a brow at Victor. He decided to stop trying to get a straight answer out of him and instead pressed the issue he for which he was here in the first place. “I don’t think Wilfred is taking Grivgas’ death very well. I don’t know what to do about him.”

He got a sad smirk and a, “No one knows what to do about him,” from Victor.

Kendo moved out of Victor’s way as he circled around the bar to bring someone their drink. Kendo followed him past all the weeping creatures to one table where a golden-eyed woman who had something resembling an eggshell for skin swept the goblet out of Victor’s hand and didn’t even thank him before downing the whole thing in one gulp. And then Kendo followed Victor back to the bar.

Even though it would theoretically be loud because of all the creatures moaning and sniffling, the hut seemed quieter than usual to Kendo. He realized there was no music playing. Usually there was a nymph in one corner who played her harp, but she was absent today. It made the place much creepier than Kendo was used to. He was surrounded by moaning, crying, groaning monsters and there wasn’t any way of drowning it out. And to top it off, Melanie was acting like she didn’t exist and Victor wasn’t being any help at all. Kendo didn’t understand what was so awful about Grivgas dying, anyway.

So he asked. And Victor promptly threw him out of the hut.

“Just go back home if you want to know what’s so bad about it. You haven’t left Olden in weeks. Stupid human.” If it were possible to slam a bamboo sheet as though it was a door, Victor would have. But instead, he settled for throwing it back into place with a lot more force than was necessary. It swung back and forth; the light from the living lanterns inside the hut peeked through the cracks as it swished, the sound became muted and unmuted in tandem with the bamboo sheet’s swinging.

“I think you made him mad,” Melanie commented.

“Shut up.” Kendo sighed, shoved one hand into his pocket and with the other, scratched the back of his neck. Go back home? Did they really expect him to do that after all this? He thought of his father and his crappy house and whatever crappy new girlfriend his dad would have brought home in the time he was gone.

He didn’t want to go back. Not at all.

The Aura of Remorse surrounded Kendo, gripping him as a snake would coil its squeaking, squirming prey. It may have been subtle, but Kendo definitely felt it, invisible or not. It was alive and it was making it harder to breathe. He coughed a few times and jogged away from Victor’s hut, out into the open Court. Melanie drifted behind him.

The Court itself was empty now. All the creatures were either simply gone or inside the huts along the mountain trees’ edges. It was eerie and silent and uncomfortable. Kendo could hear himself breathe.

“Where is everyone?”

Melanie faded out of view. When she materialized again, all she gave him was a shrug and Kendo couldn’t shake the feeling that he was talking to himself. Maybe she really was gone, for good this time. Maybe this was all in his head. Who knows.

“I guess I should just go home.”

No response from Melanie this time; she stared blankly at Kendo as if he weren’t there. As if she weren’t there.

Kendo sighed. He flipped his multicolored hair out of his face, stuck both hands in his pockets and marched off, heading for the gateway. When Wilfred had first started teaching Kendo magic, he had shown Melanie and him the easiest way out of Olden, which was through a crack in one of the trees surrounding the Court. According to Wilfred, it was easiest in that spot because there was a crack in Reality located there, always changing shape but ever constant. You could tell when you were close if the air smelled like manure and waffles, at least that’s how Melanie had described the stench. Kendo’s boots crunched the ground, echoing in the silence. There was mist suspended in the air. That pungent smell wafted into Kendo’s nose and he knew he was getting close.

He was going home. After weeks of not being there, not dealing with school, not even having to eat, for he was never hungry in Olden; he was going home. He wondered if his father had even noticed his absence. He decided, probably not. The crack in Reality widened before them as the fastitocalon scales shuffled over themselves in Kendo’s pocket, over and under his fingers, looping like twine. Melanie pouted at the crack, which was a white light that somehow managed not to be blinding, and she twitched out of view.

Kendo remembered the first time he’d met Melanie. She had looked like she’d been through hell, standing at that bus stop. But even with her hair a scraggly mess and her face stained with tears, she had looked alive somehow. That was how she always was. She could always pull herself back up after something bad happened; at least that’s what Kendo had begun to believe. In truth, he hadn’t known her for very long before she died. What if he misjudged her from the start? What if the way he saw her was merely a fantasy he wished she could fulfill for him? Maybe that was the real reason she had been so alluring. Still, even if it wasn’t wish fulfillment on Kendo’s part, even if all those things he thought about her were really true, Melanie was dead now. That much was clear. He should have let her go a long time ago.

He decided. Facing her slowly, determinedly; Kendo removed the fastitocalon scales from his pocket. They glowed in protest as the realization struck Melanie. He was going to erase her. Permanently. She really didn’t matter to him anymore. If she could still feel anything, she supposed that would have hurt her feelings. It might’ve even angered her. She stood, no, not stood, existed, in front of Kendo and carried on her face the blankest of expressions. Fine. He wanted her gone. She was ready. Took him long enough.

The utter lack of noise seemed fitting to Kendo. His breath was shallow and distant and the cold tickled the hair on his arms; they stood on end but Kendo forced himself not to shiver. He held the fastitocalon scales out in front of him.

And he hesitated.

“What? After all that, you aren’t even going to go through with it? Will you make up your mind for once?” Melanie complained.

That tone of hers. That fucking tone of hers. Now that he thought about it, Kendo couldn’t figure out why he even liked her in the first place. He thrust the fastitocalon scales to the ground and watched them shatter. Then he turned his back on Melanie as she vanished, stepping through the void.

It was done. She was forever gone this time; no turning back. No second chances.

Kendo had to swallow his tears.

Before long, the light receded and Kendo found himself standing on Grivgas’ path, the stench of manure and waffles faded as a new scent reached his nose: the smell of dying wildflowers and stream water and old, worn gravel. Reality greeted him with a gentle breeze and light snowfall. Kendo hadn’t even known it was winter back home; it suddenly scared him how much time he must have spent in Olden. But he sucked it up, hugged himself to keep warm, and headed down the path towards his house. The snow was icy and it crunched under his boots before it morphed into slush undertow. It was getting dark, but was still lighter than Olden’s perpetual nighttime.

On his way home, Kendo passed three waste trucks picking road kill off of the local streets. Normally, he would’ve thought nothing of it, but today he couldn’t help but think of Grivgas. Victor’s warning reverberated in Kendo’s mind.

“Just go back home if you want to know what’s so bad about it,” Victor had said.

Well, here he was. Kendo stood on his doorstep and reached into his back pocket out of habit. But then he realized; he hadn’t carried his house key with him for some time. He gave a heavy sigh and concentrated, knowing that such a simple magic wouldn’t require fastitocalon scales’ enhancement, even outside of Olden. A soft copper glow buzzed in his palm before it molded itself into the shape of a key. Kendo smirked and shoved it into the lock.

It got stuck halfway into the keyhole. With a grimace, Kendo swore and wiggled it out of the door. He held it up and glared at it, as if that would somehow make it work. He supposed he didn’t know the exact shape of his key. The teeth must have been lopsided or askew or something. Calming his irritation with a particularly violent shiver, Kendo tried to think of a way to get inside that didn’t involve a key.

He could blow a hole in the door. That would be messy and his father probably would have a shit-fit about it. Or he could manifest a credit card and try to unlock it the way the spies do in the movies, by sliding the card into the door and wriggling it. He was smart enough to know something like that would never work in real life. Pacing from one side of the stoop to the other, Kendo stopped once to tap his feet impatiently before continuing. It was cold. His hands were going numb.

Finally he coughed the frost out of his lungs and knocked on the door three times, loudly. It took an eternity before he heard his father’s boots scuffing the floor from the other side of the door, and even longer for the lock to click open as John whipped the door open. Kendo didn’t enter and watched in rigid silence as John leaned all his weight on the door, a floppy wrist dangling above his head. He smelled like whiskey and was wearing only boxers.

“Son.” John sounded like his words weren’t registering in his brain.

“Dad.”

Slowly, John cleared his throat. “You haven’t been ‘round in a few,” he thought for a moment. It was taking more effort to put things together than normal. Just as Kendo’s fingers lost all of their feeling, he said, “A long time.”

Kendo rolled back and forth on his feet in a futile attempt to warm himself. After all this, his father was drunk. Life just couldn’t get any better, could it? “Yeah, been forever. Can I come in?”

John leaned forward, putting himself off balance. “Don’t you use that tone with me,” he started, but Kendo had already shoved past him and made his way into his room, which was the in the same amass of ordered chaos he always kept it in.

Kendo collapsed onto his bed as he heard his father sigh, swear, and slam the door to the larger bedroom. He probably wouldn’t even remember his conversation with Kendo in the morning. That thought made Kendo wonder what day it was. He turned his head to see if his calendar was still intact.

Then he saw it. It was the pile of clothing Melanie had left by his bedside before all that crazy shit happened. Suddenly feeling unbearably hot and agitated, Kendo stomped to his window, pried it open with a grip so tight it made his knuckles white, and threw all of Melanie’s clothing outside. He watched her skirt and blouse sink into the slush with a pathetic slurping sound. The cold air that whistled into his bedroom soothed Kendo’s aggression even if it blew all his loose papers about. He took one last look at the pile of dirty clothing, scoffed without shuddering, and slid his window closed. He took two steps back, gulped, and shut his cheap, crappy blinds.

Good riddance.

Yet somehow, even though he had been so sure of himself when he erased her, Melanie haunted his dreams that night; and in those wee hours of the morning when he awoke so uncomfortably tense after his nightmares, Kendo wondered if he would ever really be rid of her.