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When Suitcase opens her eyes, she sees light.
Bright, blinding sunlight that makes everything blissfully hazy. Her vision is warm and blurry around the edges. It all looks soft, unreal, like a memory.
She’s standing on a dock. The planks are rough under her feet in the most familiar way, and a lake stretches out below it—the whole thing is the spitting image of the dock on Inanimate Island, the same island that…
Suitcase’s first thought is that she’s dead and in limbo. Strangely, the concept doesn’t worry her. First, being stuck in a place like this doesn’t seem so bad, what with all the traumatizing visions of tendrils and drowning she’s had. Second, everything around her is wonderfully distant. Almost like she’s looking through the eyes of someone that isn’t her. It’s hard to process anything when it feels like her brain has been severed from her body.
The swath of water before Suitcase moves serenely, because there isn’t any wind. The waves are soft enough that they look like flowing strips of velvet. The only sound is the gentle licking of the water against the shore. And the bugs are all quiet, because they’ve all died.
Suddenly, though, Suitcase hears the crunching of grass behind her. She doesn’t even turn at the noise. Until:
“Suitcase.”
Immediately she recognizes the voice. How could she not, when she was created to know? Suitcase turns around to face him and opens her mouth to speak and this is what comes out:
Nothing.
She only tastes something sour in her mouth, metallic but not blood. In front of her stands Knife. He looks healthy. There isn’t a scratch on him. Suitcase wonders what she looks like right now.
“Suitcase,” he repeats, and so she smiles weakly.
When she doesn’t respond, he takes a step closer. Then another. Then, eventually, he approaches the space where grass meets wood, and going any further would put him on the dock with her. He doesn’t move, just teeters on the edge.
Knife is close enough now that Suitcase can see two stones nestled in his hand. One for him, and one for her, maybe, to skip across the lake. But Suitcase didn’t have arms to throw it properly. She never did.
With Knife so near, Suitcase feels unusually hot, like the sun burns brighter the closer he leans to her. She glances up towards the sky. There’s a white ball of fire up there, and it’s not dark but it hurts the way looking at an eclipse would. Suitcase levels her gaze on Knife again and a big black spider of after-burn crawls in her vision.
The world feels like it’s gotten impossibly whiter. Suitcase worries that the sun might actually descend upon the two of them and consume the entire island. Past the black rift in her sight, Suitcase can see Knife staring at her with an unreadable expression.
Finally, he asks, “Is it hot?”
Suitcase looks at him inquisitively. She nods.
“It’s summer. But it's only hot for you and me. Because this world belongs to us.”
Suitcase knows she must look completely confused, and Knife sighs.
“You can’t understand,” Knife says. He runs his finger along the smooth surface of one rock. “Don’t think too much about it. You’ve worried enough.”
Her eyes widen. Knife is speaking, but the words don’t sound like his. Would he ever be so apologetic? Suitcase doesn’t know. Like he said, this is their world. Maybe it’s what she wishes he would say.
The black spider in Suitcase’s vision grows tendrils and expands, rope-like snakes. It eats at her sight until everything is dark except Knife, who has been bathed in a cold white glow. A chiaroscuro come alive—or, as alive as he could be, given the circumstances.
“You should rest.” Knife again. “Suitcase. Close your eyes.”
But this is our world, Suitcase thinks. I don’t want to stop looking at it.
So she doesn’t. She stares at him, unblinking.
“Suitcase.” It’s the fourth time he’s said her name. It feels like he’s reminding himself of who she is.
She continues not closing her eyes until Knife glows lighter, and lighter, and looking at him starts to burn. It’s like a constant flash-bang, so bright that her eardrums feel crushed, too. He shines as if he’s the sun. Suitcase knows better. Everything is inverted. In a normal light, Knife would be a giant gash in the world, a black hole.
“Suitcase, you’re going to die anyway,” the white silhouette of Knife says. He extends his hand and opens his palm, and in it are the two stones. The only two objects that appear perfectly realistic. Suitcase is afraid what will happen if she touches one.
“You know we’re dead. Everything is dead now.”
Suitcase squints against the sting of looking at him. It feels like he’s speaking through her skull. Her sight becomes slightly blurred. Knife takes one step closer in an otherwise-void world and, fleetingly, he reminds Suitcase of an angel.
“I’m not leaving,” Knife continues, “because I can’t. And I don’t want to, either.
"Suitcase. We’ll close our eyes together.”
All of his sharp edges have been dulled by the white fuzz emanating from his body. Suitcase knows what she’s seeing isn’t real, but it’s easy to convince herself that Knife’s words are. He’s come to die with her. If they’re connected to this world, they’re connected to each other. Perfect partners.
So Suitcase opens her mouth again, unsure if the universe will allow her to, and says, “You’re dead.”
The silhouette of Knife forms a thin, black mouth that smiles. “So are you.”
“I’m dead.”
“You don’t sound afraid of that.”
“I’m not. Because you’re here.” My angel, she thinks.
Yes, she hears back, but she can’t tell if it’s her voice or Knife’s that’s speaking anymore. Maybe it’s both. Maybe she'll never know. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way.
In Suitcase’s chest she feels a soft bright ache bloom, a longing to follow Knife. She doesn’t resist. She tips forward and takes one step towards him.
“Here,” Knife says.
He throws a stone over to her. She reaches out to catch it, but she never does.