The static poured down on him, washing out all other sound. What had first felt warm returned to what it truly was; what had been red for a heartbeat lost all color and settled into a cold gray. He opened his eyes, face to face with the heavens, but saw only a black cloud veiling the sun. Not dark. Only dim. Like the moments before dawn on an autumn morning.
Was it merely the season? Or was he still asleep, caught in a delusion of his own mind, or an illusion shaped by something else? How could he know, when moments earlier the rain had felt wrong, the light cold, and the sounds of the world all ethereal?
The rain that fell upon him now. Was it there to wash away his sins? Could a man so sinful even be graced with such intent? If a murderer yearns for redemption, ought he ever have it when the murdered cannot rise to embrace him with forgiveness?
How does a murderer become a man again?
Kanrel did not know. He doubted he even had the right to ask. Punishment; retribution, not redemption; was all he deserved. Not for himself alone, but for the world, and for the victims he had undeniably brought into existence. The world yearned for justice. And he, who had once been the Fool longing for gentler dreams, could not allow himself even that.
But what if he were to wake from a dream in which he was Kanrel and remember he had always been a butterfly, fluttering from flower to flower, forgetting that it had ever dreamed of being a man? Perhaps a man with so many crimes would rather unbecome himself entirely. Insects do not know guilt. Yet a man may act so lowly that others recoil from him as from a roach.
Did he even have the right to dream? To change? To wish to become anything other than what he now was?
Questions came endlessly; answers came nowhere. How could he deserve them? How could he lie here, among the green grass soon to wither, when all he ought to do was rise, find someone, confess everything, and let another decide what he deserved?
Do not look down. Get up and keep climbing.
So he did. He pushed himself off the grass, legs and hands trembling. Cold seeped into him; his muscles burned; his mind offering no sense of clarity. Where was he to go, if not away from where he had fallen?
Home. Whatever such a place meant now, he had to find it. He needed humans, judgment, a voice capable of welcoming him and damning him in the same breath. Someone who might love him despite all he had done. Someone who could refuse forgiveness even as they offered it. He needed punishment, and perhaps salvation, though he deserved neither.
His body shook. Each step was violence committed against the self, each as punishing as those taken on the stairs that had once led him into the realm he had longed to call home again.
Still, he walked, fragile feet carrying him toward a forest of pine and spruce. Tall trees still green that now granted him a slight cover from the cold static that had baptized him with memories he could never escape.
He stepped into the woods. No voice called out. Only the silence of a mind unsure whether its thoughts were real. The world alone offered him things: the wind, the rustling trees, the rain falling down in the static of his dreams. As he walked, these sensations grew more vivid, or perhaps he only convinced himself they did. How could he trust reality, when dreams had offered him pain indistinguishable from the waking world?
He walked. Soon, he could only crawl. And eventually he would collapse again, lie down, close his eyes, and dream the dream from which no man awakens. Part of him longed for that.
No.
The Fool had accepted his fate. He could not run from it. Duty, meaningless as the word was, still bound him, for he had chosen to bind himself to it. He had to believe it mattered. He had to believe he lived for some eventual judgment.
The Fool was Kanrel. And long ago, perhaps Ignar had been a Fool as well. But the clouds above had shown how easily Ignar had abandoned duty.
Ignar blamed god instead of himself, though he once possessed the will to do good, untainted by the desires of others.
So Kanrel would do what was right, even when hiding would be easier. Strange, that the harder path felt like the selfish one—seeking absolution through punishment. Yet hiding would be more selfish still.
A faint, absurd urge to chuckle stirred in him—a genuine want to express amusement at the mind's insistence on creating meaning where none existed. Duty, spite, yearning; his thoughts raced to build them all, to give reason for each trembling step. Yet he found no laugh, no smile. Only silence and another step. And another. He wandered deeper into the forest, directionless, uncertain. He could only presume he walked eastbound. Even if he were to get lost, even if nature tore him apart, he must walk. Action, even when pointless, was all that remained. So he walked on, toward where he believed east lay, clinging to the memory of the village he had once called home.