Chapter 27: The Quiet After

The house felt quiet.

That was the first thing Pax noticed as he stepped through the front door.

He usually found comfort in quiet. But this quiet?

It was a murderous quiet.

The kind that devoured and left hollow.

His sister had always been there, saving him from the quiet even when he didn’t want to be saved.

She’d always been like that...

Even in her last months, when her voice had grown frail, she still filled the house with something, whether it was the faint sound of music, her laughter at a novel that was supposed to be serious, or her tiny shouts after one of her long-cultivated characters died.

Now there was nothing.

Pax shut the door behind him.

That weird hospital smell still clung to him. He hated it.

’...’

He bit his tongue.

’Fuck.’

He should have been prepared. The doctors had said it months ago, their careful voices making promises that weren’t promises at all:

"We’ll try everything."

"We’ll make her comfortable."

"She’s strong."

’She was strong...’

Stronger than he’d ever been or ever would be. But strength, he learned, had its limits.

Absentmindedly, his legs carried him into the living room. He stared at the couch. Only the faint ’meows’ of the cat hiding beneath it and the low hiss of static disturbed the silence.

Across from the couch, the TV displayed the phrase ’Enemies of Corruption,’ with ’New Game’ and ’Continue’ options below it. Behind the words, he could faintly make out their characters standing at the end of the dungeon...

’The Gate of Purity.’

It was the brutally difficult roguelike they’d spent the last five years playing together. They had never managed to finish it. They’d finally obtained the key, but never got to see what was on the other side of that damned gate.

They never saw the world uncorrupted.

She had told him they would finish it together later.

’Later...’

The word burrowed into his mind.

Sinking onto the couch, he picked up the controller with faintly trembling hands and stared at the screen.

For a moment, he waited for something... anything.

Nothing happened.

Nothing changed.

She was dead...

She was still dead.

The entire day had been a blurr. The call from the hospital, the rush to her room... He’d watched his sister’s chest rise and fall, slower and slower, until it didn’t.

’Damn it...’

He rubbed his eyes hard with the bottom of his palm as an awkward noise slipped from him.

She’d always been the one to remind him of life beyond himself. Once, she’d told him:

"You’re the anchor, Peace, and I’m the sail."

What did a sail do when the anchor was left behind? What did an anchor do when the sail was torn away?

Without each other, they were useless. Meaningless.

The clock ticked in the corner, indifferent. Time pressed onward, uncaring of everything it had taken.

Pax put down the controller, rose from the couch, and made his way to her room. Slowly, he stepped inside.

Her bed was neatly made, a blanket patterned with little constellations folded at the foot.

On the desk sat her sketchbook, pencils scattered as though she’d just walked away from them.

He brushed his fingers across the cover, then pulled his hand back, afraid that if he opened it, he’d drown in all the unfinished things she’d left behind.

Pictures of the two of them throughout the years covered the wall.

One stood out among the rest: a picture of them playing Enemies of Corruption, Serene sitting on the couch with a shaved head after chemo, flashing two thumbs up like she’d already won.

’Tch.’

She had won, in her own way. She’d met death without flinching, even joked about it sometimes...

’Who am I kidding...?’

’She wasn’t scared?’

’She was scared shitless. She was more scared than any of us...’

He sat on the bed.

’She wasn’t ready to die.’

It felt wrong.

Everything did.

He whispered her name as if it would change anything.

"Serene..."

It was a silly name, just like his own. Names that not even their own mother knew the reason for, but they cherished their names despite the absence of reason or the ridicule from others.

’Peace...’

Peace was the nickname Serene often called him.

It felt as if it were the only name left to him now...

Pax had died with her, leaving behind only Peace.

For within that name lived the illusion of her; the fragile fantasy that somewhere, somehow, his sister was still there. Still calling him.

He dragged himself upright and left the room, taking the constellation blanket with him.

By the time he reached his own room, his body felt heavy.

He stripped down and collapsed onto the mattress without bothering to turn off the light.

As he lay there staring at the ceiling, his thoughts drifted to all the moments they would never share. The life he’d have to live without her.

Then, to the last thing she had said to him. Her voice had been thin, but her eyes were steady.

"You’ll be okay, Peace. Promise me you’ll live for me. Happily..."

He hadn’t answered. He wouldn’t allow his last words to her to become a lie — an impossible promise.

His face crumpled, and before he could stop it, the tears came.

Eventually, after he had cried himself empty, exhaustion overtook him.

His breathing slowed, tears spilling onto the speckled blanket until an invisible asterism formed among its clusters.

With his last thread of consciousness, he whispered her name once more, holding on to it like a lifeline.

"Serene."

Peace finally closed his eyes, letting the quiet consume him as a crow watched his limp body through the bedroom window.

Out in the living room, the family cat, Mordy, padded across the couch, bounding over the cushions before landing on the controller and pressing the ’Continue’ button on the game. The analog stick snagged at an angle, and the characters began walking toward the gate. Then a strange new message flashed on the screen, and Mordy batted at the controller again...

Through the sleeping man’s mind echoed a soft voice:

[You’re losing connection with the mortal plane...]

[Your spirit is being whisked away.]