Playground

A Shadow danced across the cobblestone streets of a ruined city.  Its fluid movement casted a ripple in the surrounding air, a wake trailing behind likes a waterfall of wind.  Footfalls echoed urgently through empty corridors, resonating amongst the tattered and broken kiosks of a market district.  This town was a Playground and it Burned.

Cold in the dark assaulted the Shadow’s senses.  Icy winds filled its lungs.  Daggers of frost pinched its fingers and its toes.  The Shadow risked a glance up into the sky, fearful of tripping over fallen objects in its path.  A faint, pale light met the Shadow’s eyes of midnight blue.  Forgotten stars shone bright upon the dead city; in this place life’s twinkling glow was extinguished.  Long ago. 

But, this night, there were beating hearts and rushing veins once again in Old Quedy.  Far behind the Shadow, in quiet pursuit, a Ghost stopped in the middle of a vast square and dropped to one knee.  A powerful, scarred hand ran itself into the silky silt that covered the rock beneath, scooping the brownish dirt between leathery fingers.  The Ghost allowed the sand to sift and watched it fall back the ground, blowing forward with the evening breeze.  The Ghost stood back up, taking in its surroundings.  It was a giant to most, tall and solidly built.  The space before it seemed to cower in its presence, yielding to pure force.  A blinding white cloak draped the Ghost’s body from head to toe, and it flapped in the wind as if a sail on a ship at sea.  The snapping of fabric called forth into the twilight – Run, Shadow.  Run

Charred buildings on the perimeter of the great square looked down upon the Ghost, and the Ghost returned their stare, peering into lonely homes and tired ruins.  Memories of the past flooded through the Ghost:  screaming women, crying children . . . dying men.  And from the windows that now gazed at the Ghost knowingly, shouts of the wounded begging for their lives drowned out the sorrow... and the prodigal son smiled.

The Ghost followed its prey with a quiet resolve, moving with unnatural quickness as it leaped over toppled pillars, crawled through shattered doorways and ran through abandoned streets.  Though the Ghost moved with speed, its methodical progression had no hurry.  To the Ghost there was no time but its own; a deathly intent to its measured pace.  The Ghost left no sound of stomping feet; no trail of scattered sand.  From within the hood of its white cloak emanated a sickly chill; deliberate breath a counterpoint to the warmth of the quiet dark surrounding.

Nightfall came and went as the Shadow ran and the Ghost followed, spending its last few breaths as whispers of morning began to kiss the darkness.  Only the solemn dusk remained.

It is coming, the Shadow spoke softly to itself as it turned a corner with harrowing speed.  The streets of the market are long and winding.  There is still a chance.  It is coming.

Closer behind now, a scent in the air drew the Ghost’s attention toward the East, the pattern almost making it laugh.  Almost.  Why do they always go to Sunrise?  Throughout time the Sun had been a symbol of righteousness and purity for the Shadows and their paltry ancestors.  If this Shadow sought deliverance, so be it.  There would be no hope.

And so the Ghost stalked in a familiar direction, in its mind’s eye seeing the enclosing paths of the Playground.  It had been changed after the Sunrise rhythm had been discovered, dead ends and locked doors clustered towards the East, pathways and corridors narrowing as if a funnel. The Keeper had never claimed to be fair.  Their only concern was the Game.  Keep it fresh.  Keep it bloody.  The Ghost whisked past windows and bolted through doors, the white robe flashing in the growing morning rays.  Sometimes it would get close to the Shadow, creeping along in the lifting darkness, and the Ghost savoured the taste of fear left lingering in the air.  The Keeper was cruel to take his game away from him.  Tonight there would be no reprieve for the hunted.

___

The Shadow ran through the ruined city until its lungs felt like bursting.  When they for certain could not take any more physical punishment, they were pushed harder.  There was no secret to survival here.  Keep moving.  Keep quiet.  Every now and then the Shadow would catch a glimmer of light out of the corner of its eyes, streaking between the cracked walls and structures.  The Ghost approaches, thought the Shadow.  East, Shadow.  Go East.

     Why is it here?, wondered the Shadow.  How did it get here?  The same questions ran over and over again through its mind, yet still they remained unanswered.  Confusion and dread were trumped by the primal urge to get away.  Answers would come later.

     Another corner turned brought upon the Shadow another endless street, the same stone buildings laughing down upon the frightened figure.  Closer now it felt the drawing presence of the hooded assailant, the very whisper of the wind fading against the approach of a Ghost filled with vengeance.

     A glint in the horizon lifted the Shadow’s eyes, the pink hue of redemption coursing across the morning sky.  The dawn called out to the forsaken one, absolution from the Ghost’s embrace waiting to swallow the Shadow and its plight.  Blessed is the Sunrise.  That which ensures we are born again.  With the flash of light that had come, the Shadow had glimpsed its target—freedom.

With a final burst of acceleration the Shadow streaked across the remaining earth in front of it.  Each breath was a painful whip across its back, urging it forward.  Each exhalation a silent scream of panic.  There were no sanctions here under the shrinking moon, no rules and no reason.  This Playground was purged.  Why is it here?

     The exit was within its distance now, and the Shadow lunged with outstretched limbs.  In that instant, all the stories and legends of the Playgrounds played through the Shadow’s mind.  Scary fables and fortunes told at night to a little boy, cultivating a method of behavior; trials and tests given to a young adult to establish a regimen of discipline; secret gatherings of initiates to rekindle fear and ignite the instinct to survive.  The Shadow was conditioned to survive-- evolution at its finest.  That instinct and fear had kept this Shadow alive over a vast number of games in the Playground; each time it was dropped into the midst of a blood-crazed Ghost it had escaped unharmed.  This Shadow was among the very best.

This Playground had been host to many games.  Old Quedy was among the first of the Playgrounds, and among the last to Burn.  Many years ago, the Shadow had run this same course and had narrowly eluded a determined predator.  Each time the Shadow had outran, outlasted, and outthought the Ghost, escaping the clutches of the pre-ordained with the sheer will to exist.  What is it to exist?  A funny thing to wonder, thought the Shadow, with the exit now shining before the Shadow’s eyes as it flew through the air.  The exit had manifested itself under a spiraling stairway, the villa at the top as hollow as the portal below.  The shimmering rip in reality distorted the feint light around it.  The Shadow remembered this exit.  All tonight it had made its way here.  For a moment the Shadow enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment, for it would win this game and its life.  But only for a moment.

The light winked out of existence, and now, agape in terror, the Shadow’s mouth yearned to cry in agony.  Immediately it pulled itself into a ball and rolled as it fell, snapping its head up to take-in immediate surroundings.  A trap??  The light is not a lie.  It cannot be a lie.  Quick, darting glances revealed an absence of threat.  The villa at the top of the stairway stilled smoldered and smoked--The Keeper’s Flame lived eternal.  The Shadow scaled the stairs in half-a-second and disappeared inside the fiery depths.

___

In front of the exit that was not an exit stepped the colossal figure of the Ghost, hellish blue eyes blazing beneath its brilliant white cloak.  It had watched in silence as the space-fold collapsed in on itself, vanishing from sight as the Shadow dove in faith.  The Ghost could not explain the disappearance, but it wondered on the possibilities and probabilities.  Regardless, the Ghost was happy.  Its prey remained, and the Ghost must not lose this night.  Not now.  Not after all this time.

     Shivering beneath its cloth enclosure, the Ghost wrung its hands together, blowing on them methodically.  It watched as warm breath misted the winter air before it and passed over frozen flesh.  It brought the raw and rugged hands before the drawn hood and gazed at them for a long time.  Those hands would do murder this morning; the feeling brought by that statistical fact was calming.  It was a familiar feeling that brought serenity to the Ghost’s forsaken mind.

     Now, crouched against a stone wall, the Ghost reflected an image from the consciousness of a populace lost long ago.  Tattered clothes and bowed head, naught but calm pulsations of a powerful chest to give evidence of life.  Here, under the rising sun of the morning, the Ghost did something it had not done for all the time it could remember; think of something other than the Shadow.  The Ghost wandered through its thoughts of the years behind it.

     The Ghost remembered a figure, robed in similar brilliant white clothing, standing at a dais and speaking down upon it.  The figure was stern and admonishing, yet spoke clear and concise.  The Ghost also remembered the blunt edge of a sword battering its limbs until they were bruised and useless, a helix protruding from the hilt and, when it struck, leaving its twin mark upon the boy’s brittle body.  The Ghost remembered humiliation at the hands of fellow students, in failure of a task or just because.  Plowshares into swords.  Children into Ghosts. 

     Blinking back to the reality of the moment, the Ghost swung its covered to the right, gazing down a street that disappeared over the curvature of the world.  It gazed to the left and saw much the same.  There were no people in the street; this city had been abandoned long ago.  Foliage grew out from the sleek lines of the towers and roads, their space-metal no match for the slow advance of time.  The Ghost was all alone in the silent city, save for the Shadow scampering through a ditch in some wretched corner.  The Ghost would find it and destroy it, and this thought pleased the Ghost.  From here it would finish what was once started.  Again.

___

Rest now, Shadow.  Safe now, Shadow.  On its knees, now.  Is this escape?  The game always ended before.  The Shadow moaned-- it had been abandoned by Him.  He had left from the Shadow’s light, taking with Him his light.  The air stirred when the Sunrise took the light back.

The Shadow collapsed to its knees, the reality of existence crashing around it.  Where was the purpose without the light.  Without Him?  The Shadow shut its eyes tight and rested its palms on the floor.  Refresh.  Remember.

“This is the way.  There is no other way.  You cannot turn and run.  You cannot stand and fight.  You must go forward.  This is the way.  There is no other way.” Scratching his mind . . . leaving their mark.  Words were law.  An Arbiter spoke them now.

“The beyond waits.  Search for it.  Seek it out.  You will be delivered.”  Tears flowed down the Initiates’ face in parallel with the blood that seeped from its wounds.  They merged and danced together to the Doctrine, a cruel meeting of pain and agony.  He would remember.  To forget was to die.

It ran.  Through fire and across rock, numb to the sharpness on his feet and the stinging at his back.  The Arbiter trailed close behind, a looming darkness upon the wind.  A door.  Slight . . . concealed.  It was there.  Eyes are slits, focused on escape.  Light dwindled around its tunnel, the pinpoint of redemption brilliant.  Toned muscles bulged from his legs, its pace quickening.  Each step a leap, synchronous with laboured breath.  The Arbiter followed.

“I bring pain.  You cannot stop.  The dark must be consumed by the light.”  Whips cracked from behind, slashing at its back.  Teeth clenched tighter.  Grinding with exertion, the exit mere seconds from its reach.  I cannot stop.  I cannot stop.  From the depths of his mind a memory was pulled and commanded his body to listen.  Push it back, Initiate!  The individual cannot interfere!  Composure regained, the Initiate twisted and conformed in midair as it blurred from the Arbiter’s vision, a whirling mass that avoided the whips and fire from its nemesis.  Elongating the body burst through the exit, cool waves greeting it as it submerged into the receiving pool. 

Metabolism returning to normal, the Initiate opened its eyes and listened to its pulsating heart struggle to slow itself.  The risk is justified.  It would sleep many hours this night.  Hands grasped its arms as they pulled it out from the pink water, silent figures in hoods.  They did not look at the Initiate, but rather forward towards the entrance to the receiving room in which the pool existed.  A great sun stood guard over the receiving pool, casting illuminations in ripples over the darkness.  The effect was magnificent.

From a not-seen entrance below the sun, a new figure emerged, cloaked in a robe more black than night.  Red eyes churned from within.  A chilled whisper struck its ear, speaking with fervour and grace.

“You find us well, Initiate.”  The figure of black leered into the Initiate’s very being.  “Not many reach us, my son.  Not many.”  Tears again spilled from the Initiate.  So graced to be spoken to by Elder.  So blessed.  “The Arbiter must have trained you well, Initiate.”  More tears.  And joy!  Such joy.  “Or perhaps there is something else.  Yes, perhaps.  But, Initiate, who can be sure?  Who?  But no matter.  No matter.  Rise, Initiate.  Rise.”  From the pool to his feet, dripping water on white marble, the hands were gentle as they pulled him into their midst.  As they guided him forward, still they looked towards the hooded figure with the raspy voice.  Towards Elder.

“Come to me now, Initiate, and be welcomed into our Brotherhood.”  With that, the figure raised his arms as if to embrace it as a father.  The scene was reminiscent of the stories the Initiate had heard.  Its childhood was rife with songs and legends surrounding the Brotherhood; their mystique  enthralling.  Its choice now was as absolute as it was when first imagined.  It would be a Shadow of the Brotherhood.  That is, and always has been, the Initiates purpose.  I am no more.

 I was no more.

___

     The Last Man was as a stone.  Rigid.  Unmoving.  Terrible and mighty, nothing in his eyes.  Nothing.  He stood in a box, onyx and gleaming.  Seamless.  No way in.  No way out.  He stood and he watched.  There was a bed.  He didn’t think he would sleep in it soon.  No, he hoped not.  Everything was different now.  There was also a chair, comfortable and worn.  He had sat in that chair many times and for many hours.  Too many, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure.  No time, my friend.  No time anymore. 

The Last Man sat in his chair.  His hands moved to the arms and felt them.  His buttons.  There he sat in his chair, pressing his buttons always.  Always pressing his buttons.  Ironic, he thought, that the buttons were now life.  But he had no time for irony.

___

     The Ghost decided that time enough had passed, and any further delay would cause the scent to be lost.  Even the thought of such failure brought pain; pain it couldn’t describe.  Nerve endings slept inside the Ghosts body undisturbed, no synaptic transmissions carrying harmful orders.  No, the pain it carried was like a mark from birth branded into its mind and angered by the prodding of shortcomings.  They had placed it there.  Carefully.  Meticulously.  With every beating the mark dug itself deeper into its grey matter.  With every victory the mark cooled and merged with its neural network.  Pavlov—the destroyer of worlds.  Good dog.

     The Ghost sat up from the perch where it had been resting.  The Playground sprawled before its view, the smoldering city its horizon.  Rooftops and canopies sprinkled over hills upon hills, torn flags and faded artwork scattered their landings.  It would be no great task to jump from stoop to stoop, travelling a road never paved over these blackened roofs.  From there the Ghost may spot its prey and keep any descent surprising.

The Ghost knew this Shadow well, for they had met before.  Many times before.  This Shadow painted its escapes with unknown colours, random and arbitrary directions its masterstroke.  Chaos.  In this place it was not just a theory.

     It raised a giant hand above its eyes, peering through the now blazing solar shade for shadows of Shadow, hoping to catch a glimpse of a flicker between windows or against ledges.  Where would it go now, the Ghost wondered.  There was no more goal: no exit or escape.  The Shadow’s only pattern before this day was the Sunrise.  Now, the two ancients both existed in a Sun fully risen.  It was different, this time. 

As the minutes past and the Ghost continued its most deadly plot, the nagging of an identity lost kept poking into the foreground.  Frustrated and confused, the Ghost attempted to swat away the feeling like a fly, but the Ghost’s own consciousness could not be ignored.  Who am I?  What am I?

___

The Last Man sang to himself.  A Shadow Hangs in Quedy.  The voices of laughing children singing the ancient song echoed through his onyx box, but they were only his thoughts and so he could not hear them.  It didn’t matter, though, for he was happy now-- happier than he had been since the Burning.  How long had it been?  He could not remember, but t didn’t matter.  He was happy.

 The Last Man sat in his chair and he watched as he sang.  Everything was different now.

___

     The Shadow crept along the edges of a crumbling rail, the last barrier between a tile roof covered in soot and the dirt-brown ground far below.  With its back to the wooden outcropping, the Shadow shimmied its way using across the roof using small bursts of muscle contractions.  The Shadow moved without sound, just as they had taught it in the time before.

     A strange thing was happening to the Shadow.  When the light left it, when He had taken it back, the Shadow felt alone.  So incredibly alone that the screams from the pit of its soul would never be heard.  Lost.  The despair of this loneliness grew and grew while the Shadow struggled to regain a purpose and direction, all the while a churning question eating away at its existence.  The burden of identity pushed onto the Shadow’s shoulders, driving them down, further and further into this game that did not end.  How did it get here?  Why is it here?

     As the Shadow inched forward, no end to its means, it began to wonder upon the beginning, trying desperately to latch its mind upon a fixed point in time where everything began.  But the more it tried, the more the Shadow realized an awful truth.  Nowhere in its memory could it remember, as if there had never been a starting place.  Always, the Shadow remembered, it became aware as it was hunted.  In this Playground, in others like it, in some that couldn’t be described and in some that the Shadow would not describe—where did they begin?  Always, no matter where, the Shadow would not and could not remember the time between each exit and emergence into a game renewed.  Sometimes there wouldn’t be any exit or escape at all; just pain and crimson dreams.  The Shadow squeezed its eyes tight and tried to remember.  It couldn’t.  A new loneliness it could not bear.

     The Shadow had no path now.  Just move.  The Shadow had seen the Ghost on its perch, back by the broken bell tower, and it was silent in vigilance yet exposed for all of the Playground to see.  Arrogant.  The Ghost wanted the Shadow to see and to know.  It will not give up, nor will it fear, at this brave new world.  The Ghost wanted the Shadow to know that nothing had changed.  Nothing is different.  Run, Shadow.  Run.

___

     In the time before, the Last Man was a boy, living in his box of glassy black.  Undisturbed.  Unwanted.  Selected.  Chosen.  Needed.  Control it, boy.  Keep it.  His curse.  His punishment.  Together always, the Last Man and the game.  Together always.  Keep it.  Control it.

     Then the Burning, bright and horrible.  No Initiates to protect them.  Not anymore.  The Burning came and made the Keepers pay.  For their sins.  For their compassion.  They brought it on themselves.  The Last Man cried.  Together always.  How true.

___

     The Ghost weighed its options, running through probabilities and extrapolations.  How can it calculate a likely decision tree when an unknown and unquantifiable variable has been introduced?  It could not.  The Ghost was all alone now, abandoned and frightened by the collapse of its belief.  Liars.

     The Ghost remembered the man in white speaking to it, strong, loud, and with conviction in every word.  Have faith in your mind, children.  The Universe does not lie.  It speaks to you in a language of primes, and in your hearts you know it to be true.  Trust your sequence.  Trust your mind.

     A crack of a whip split the air, a splash of blood coloured the floor.  The pain was a remainder to a carefully crafted equation, something to remember and cherish.  Muscles bulged and tendons tensed, the desire for retribution growing in a body developing terrifying strength.  A warrior of destiny, manifested, tried and true.  There could be no other result.  The Ghost was borne unto a world not its own, a soldier for the weak.  But it could not hate them, for they gave it reason.

     Until now.  The Keepers took the Ghosts’ game away.  They Burned it from memory.  The Ghost remembered each time it choked the life from the Shadow and hung it from a statue, the image of death a tribute to life.  The Ghosts also remembered each time the Shadow laughed in its face, fading from vision while disappearing into the void.  Do not let it reach the portal.  It was the law.  It was life.  The Ghost also remembered the time between.  The nothing.  The waiting.  The longing for the Shadows’ return.  Before this night, the Ghost had waited a long time.  Too long.

     And then the Shadow came.  There, under a winter blue moon, it stood.  Just there.  The Ghost could hardly believe it, yet there a Shadow stood.  The Ghost would make it pay for the sins of the Keepers, for not returning to it so that it may have purpose once again. 

     The Ghost ran its fingers along splintering wood of a rooftop rail, feeling the warmth residual in its structure.  Touched.  Kissed.  The crash of atoms against each other releasing in entropy their signature.  The Shadow had been here.  Recently.  The Ghost smiled.  Its prey was scared.  Before next moon, I will have my revenge.  The Ghost brooded for a moment on the rooftop, indulging in the thought of catching its Shadow.  The indulgence waned, however, for a familiar concern broke through to his forethought once more.   And then I will remember my name.  What is a name, I wonder.

___

     The Last Man was ashamed of himself.  It disgusted him to take such pleasure in feeling alive, once more tasting his existence.  It sickened him to know that he could laugh again, exclaiming in surprise at a game with no end.  In the time before it would have been all right.  It would have been ok.  But now, it saddened him.  No reason.  No purpose.  Everyone was gone.  Everyone had Burned.  And the Last Man played with his buttons.

___

     My name is Charlie Grey.  Would it begin to sound right, the Shadow wondered, if he kept saying it. The revelation had come while crawling through a tunnel linking adjoining buildings, avoiding an ominous journey over the open road.  There, in the dirt, the smell of the earth filing its flaring nostrils, the Shadow began to recall the time before.  The Shadow had been startled; the flood of recollection tweaked its already frayed nerves, and the Shadow brought its body to a crashing halt.

     There were others, it remembered, spanning thousands of Playgrounds over this world.  All running.  Always running from the Ghosts.  So many of them!  A sea of white robed lunatics with atrocity in their grasp.  All chasing.  Always chasing.  The hate was so strong.  So strong.  There was nothing else. Just the Shadows.  Just the Ghosts.

     It wasn’t always a game, the Shadow remembered.  Not always.  My name is Captain Charlie Grey.  The war, Shadow, it must be won.  They are coming, Shadow.  You must run.

     Run, Shadow, run!  Push it back, Shadow!  It shook its head, erasing the confusion of its mind.  The crawl resumed, hands like claws gripping the ground before it.  To the West it must go.  To the West.  Sunrise.  Sunset.  Blessed be the Sunset.

___

     The Ghost did not want to know.  It did not want to remember.  The prey, Ghost.  Focus on the Shadow.  Find it and stop it.  It cannot escape.  That was all that mattered.  But why?  Sharp pain swept through him, questions attacking him as he tried to continue his autonomous march.  What is my name!  Shake, it Ghost.  Forget it.  Your name will not win this war.  Find the Shadow.  Stop the Shadow.

     And then the answer came to the Ghost.  Breeding was the Ghosts’ saviour, the etches of genetics carved into its sequence allowing for the discovery.  The Ghost wanted to shout from behind the statute roof where it now stood.  I have beat you, Shadow.  I have won.  It was so simple.  So simple.

     The Shadow had no purpose, now.  No reason.  The Ghost knew that.  The Shadow’s light was taken.  Gone.  There was no end to its equation, no sum of the parts, no solution to a problem.  Yet the Universe demanded a conclusion; a result.  The Shadow could not go where it begins, if it could even remember, but it could go where it ends.  The portal, the Shadow’s light, always appeared at the Sunrise.  And the sun always sets.  That is the end.  Sunrise.  Sunset.  The Shadow would go West, and so the Ghost would go West, too.  It’s over, Shadow.  Nothing is different.

___

     The Last Man watched them embrace their needs, not knowing what they were.  We were gods, he thought.  We were gods.  Look at how clever we were.  Look at what we created.  Shrewd, Cunning, and Agile.  Powerful, Calculating, and Strong.  The Shadows and the Ghosts.  Protectors of the East.  Warriors of the West.  We were safe in the hands of the devil and we hated it.  Peace delivered us from our shelter into the depths of despair.  No place, now.  No place for our brave Men of the East and the West.  Not here.  But what did they know of peace.  We were too good.  They would not stop.  How could they? 

     Let them play, we said.  Build for them a home and let them play.  We will keep it.  We will control it.  Let them play.

___

     Stop it!  The Ghost cringed now, holding its head in its hands, the colossal figure kneeling at the base of the monument.  Into the air the man of steel pointed, straight up into the sky.  The man pointed at a green blue globe that hung low in the horizon, one finger stretching forward.  The man did not smile, but rather wore a grim expression of accusation.  We know, Keeper.  We know.  At the base of the monument, raised letters adorned a silver plaque:  “You cannot Keep us.”

     Searing pain in his mind now, the Ghost could not ignore the swell of its consciousness, breaking through the calculus of its life, crying out to the individual within.  Remember me!  Before the Ghosts eyes, now, images of the time before appeared and played as a movie before his eyes looking inward.  A woman with red hair and soft hands picked him up from a crib and kissed his forehead gently.  A man with black framed glasses and a tie held his hand as they walked down a busy city street.  A boy his own age lay bleeding beneath his bruised childish hands.  Men in uniforms with guns and shields fell before him and his brothers, tanks rolling over their corpses and bombs bursting far away.  The Ghost wrenched back his mind from the annals of memory and stared into space without seeing.  He had dipped his head into the stream and seen all there was to see, the time before opening itself unto him.  We know Keeper.  I remember.

___

     The Shadow watched him writhe on the ground in terrible pain and felt sad.  We are human.  We exist.  I know it now, Ghost.  I remember.  I am Charlie Grey.  I am a Shadow.  I will not run.  The Ghost was remembering.  He could see it.

     The Shadow walked out into a large clearing between several large, towering buildings.  A set of swings stood in the middle of the clearing.  The Shadow walked to it and sat it the leather strap held between two chains, facing the monument in the distance and the agonized Ghost.  The Shadow swung, back and forth, and he laughed.  He laughed loud and he called into the sinking Sun and approaching dusk,

     “I exist, Ghost!  We exist!”

     From the opposite end of the clearings, the Ghost slowly trembled.  He leered at the Shadow, not knowing how to deal with recent events.  The Ghost began to walk towards to Shadow, heavy feet planted with thundering steps, slowly approaching the swings.  He stopped in front of the swinging Shadow, watching him flow through the ripping air, moving up and above him, then back and away.  We will not play, Keepers.

     “We exist, Shadow.”  The Ghost cried it out into the new day, expelling his chains and embracing himself for the first time.  The Ghost sat on the adjacent swing and began to swing with the Shadow, moving in parallel.  Two giants in the sinking Sun.  They laughed together, and when they could swing no more they held each other.  Tears streamed from their rugged faces, beaten from the passing of time without measure and weary from a war that never ended.  They existed.  They were men, the Shadow and the Ghost.  They were men.

___

     Disbelief and fury stormed through the Last Man.  He slammed his buttons, pounded them in desperation, and eventually sunk into a ball on the floor, a huddled mass of wailing grief.  No reason, now.  No purpose.  The Last Man was all alone now in his box of darkness.  He rose his head from the floor and he watched the Men on the Moon dance in the streets of the Playground.  I am sorry.