Epilogue: Never Without You
~BlackRoseRaven
It was late, and Last Call had been reading quietly when the knock came at the door.
One, two, three.
Last Call frowned a bit, then he checked the clock: it was nearly midnight. Who was coming by this late? Was it the Sheriff, here to arrest him? Was it Furor? But no matter who it was, he couldn't just ignore it. He was better than that.
One, two three knocks.
Last Call strode over to the door, then he reached up to grasp the handle. For a moment, he felt a terrible chill.
The Alignment was over, though. The Kiz were gone. It had been a month since then, and nothing had happened. As a matter of fact, he'd finally started to sleep soundly again, in the bed he had always shared with his wife.
One, two, three.
“I'm right here.” he tried to say, but it came out like a croak. He shivered. Why was he afraid? Why had his blood turned to ice in his veins?
He bit his lip, then turned the handle.
He looked through the crack in the door, and he saw a mare. She smiled at him, and he opened the door before he could stop himself. He opened the door, even through he knew it was all wrong, that this mare was not his mare.
The mare strolled calmly in, covered in dirt and frostbite, icicles and innards hanging from her midsection. A few moments later, her hindquarters came after, moving with the same sultry stride even though they were disconnected from the severed front half of her body, only a twisting black fog acting as a bridge between her front half and her back half.
Last Call closed the door, as the mare smiled at him, looking at him with black, hollow hell-eyes.
“Thank you for letting me in.” she said.
Last Call only looked at her, at the mare who was not his mare. At the darkness that the Kiz had woken up. At the thing he had been warned about, and yet couldn't turn away. At the beast that had caught his scent, and he knew he could never escape: that if he tried to run away from, it would only do worse when it caught up to him again later. The face, the shape, the defiled beauty it wore now was proof enough of that.
She smiled at him, then strode past: first, her front brushed against him, and he felt her body was terribly cold, and she smelled not of rot, but of the earth, of frost, of frozen blood; a few moments later, her hindquarters switched gently against him, bumping into him before the rear half almost caught up to the front half that stood leaning against a door, before she said tenderly: “I'll be waiting, my love. Don't keep me waiting for long. It's been such a long time since I've been warm.”
With that, she pushed through the door into the bedroom, and it swung closed behind her, closing with a gentle click.
For a moment, Last Call considered running away. Fleeing into the night. Trying to escape. It was the sensible thing to do.
Last Call walked across the room and opened the bedroom door.
He looked inside. He trembled. He shook. He felt tears in his eyes, and his heart halt in his chest, and bile rise in his throat.
It wasn't her, but it was her.
It wasn't but it was.
It was her.
Last Call stepped inside, and closed the door behind him.