To see through the fog

A man asks his friend to stay beside him on the night he knows he will die.

"Life has been most kind to me," said he with a touch of sadness in his voice.

"Indeed," I murmured, watching as a tendril of smoke drifted from between his parted lips and into the cerise sky. A brisk wind coming across the gray sea rose and that wisp of smoke disappeared into the encroaching dusk.

" You are not going to die, at least not tonight," I said, leaning against the wind, one hand pressing down my hat and the other gripping the lapels of my Inverness coat. I could taste salt in the frigid air.

" Unfortunately, I am, Harry."
There was such conviction in his voice that it frightened me.

" This is why I called you. I cannot face it alone." he paused, his gray eyes fixed on the horizon. " I believe you have received my telegram."

I inclined my head, watching as he flicked away the stub of his cigarette." I half thought you were mad." was my simple reply.

He laughed at this.

" Well, what about now, my dearest friend? Do you still think me mad? Do I have my sanity with me or have I lost it over the years? I, myself sometimes think Bedlam is just the place for me. "

He turned to look me full in the face then, his movement graceful as always. Time had etched its marks upon him, as it had upon me. But I knew in essence he was still the boy I had known almost for a lifetime.

I shook my head," No. I think you are quite fit for society." And I meant it.

He sighed, the wind blowing away his words, " Kind as always. But you did not believe my words and still don't." I had nothing to say to that, for it was the truth.

We watched the sun making its way down the horizon after that. In silence, we stood shoulder to shoulder under　ａ　sky ensanguined by the setting sun. To me, it seemed that the heavens were smeared with blood, the life that was to be spilled.

The silence was suddenly too much, too stifling. Yet I found that i had nothing to say.

" How long have you had this…er…faculty?" said I at last.

The sun sank deeper into the sea and I felt a feeling akin to panic rise inside me.

He gave me a shrug, his cold, haunted gray eyes as luminous as the stars sprinkled across the purple sky. I saw tears glinting brightly in them.

" Ever since my birth."

He wasn't looking at me.

" I once thought it a blessing, a gift given to me by God. I believe you still remember those days, those days of debaucherous joy. ”

There was a hint of detestation in his voice.

“ I have always been a good gambler. “

I smiled wistfully at this, remembering how he had always seemed to know which horse to bet on.

“ You were more than good, you were the best.”

He inclined his head in agreement; I saw that he was terrified, " Indeed. This, let's say, talent of mine has earned me quite some money and I had told myself it was a grace endowed by God Himself . But when the glamour of youth fades into the sordid process of aging, I found that it was a curse, a vile creature with its heart set upon the destruction of my sanity. Harry, I saw how ugly the world is going to be. "

His tone changed, his high, lilting tenor of a voice turning suddenly to a scream of utmost horror, " By God, it is a curse, a bloody curse. "

He gripped me by the arm with such vehement that it hurt me; his eyes were aglow with sudden mad horror.

" I've seen terrible things, Harry. Death and the destruction of all humans."

Then as abruptly as he seized me, he released me. his voice dropped into an urgent whisper. “ Listen to me, Harry. Leave the continent after my death. The winds of change have begun to blow, a wind with destruction in its wake. And many would wither before its blast. ”

I shivered at his words, “ But surely you can do something about it. ”

He sighed, “ Alas, I see only pieces of it- random images flashing through my mind. Seeing the future is like looking through a clouded window. You see only shadows, shadows of disorienting shapes. This is what frightened me most, half knowing the truth.”

The sun slid further down the horizon.

“ Fortunately or unfortunately, I would not be there to see the end of it. My own doom draweth nigh. What frightened me so, Harry, is not death itself but the unknown of it.”

He looked at me with pained eyes; there was nothing that resembled sanity in them, “ Pray tell, what would my death be like? Would it be death by drowning? ”

He stared doubtfully at the water beneath us, his voice quivering with terror “ Or perhaps it would be a heart attack.”

“Or perhaps you would not die," I said quietly, trying hard to believe my own words. " perhaps your instinct is wrong for once.”

He shook his head,“ Never, never wrong. One way or another, I would die once the sun shines on us no more. ”

He fell silent for a few seconds, “ It is the unknown I am afraid of. There must be a way to see through the fog, to see how it would turn out for me.” he said at last. And then as if struck by a sudden inspiration, his face brightened.

What happened next happened in a blur. As if on an impulse he plunged his hand into his greatcoat, a look of utter madness crossed his face. His hand came out with a six-shooter, an evil-looking thing that glinted under the last of the sunlight, “ Harry, forgive me.” The barrel touched his temple and his thumb the trigger. I had no time to stop him.

Under a purple sky already dotted with stars, the man who was once my best friend blew out his own brains, taking a fraction of my sanity with him to the world beyond.

I ran to him belatedly. He dropped to his knees almost in slow motion, a look of horror and gruesome fascination frozen on his face. Then he fell face down into the wind-swept grass, just as the last shimmer of sunlight disappeared beneath the horizon, plunging us both into complete, utter darkness.

All around me seagulls screamed his death and I screamed with them.