Chrome: Chapter 15

The Ballad of Cage & Smoke

The Ballad Continues…

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CHAPTER 15

His name was Cage.

Her name was Smoke.

He was just a boy. She was just a girl.

A boy, and a demon. A girl, and a ghost.

A curse and a storm the very, very most.

“Welcome home.”

The voice was unknown.

It sounded like melted glass. A scorching, world-ending agony. But also a depth, a despair like grief, dark as the void, devastating as loneliness.

Cage opened his eyes. Smoke floated beside him, clasping his hand. They spun through a nest of constellations, the stars twirling like ballerinas beside them. There was no air, yet they could breathe. There was no warmth, yet they did not freeze. This was the cradle of their birth, the genesis of their suffering.

And around them, gods.

Their parents.

The beings who had forged them from heartache and pain, then had crammed them into these broken vehicles of flesh, dooming them to seven excruciating quests.

Smoke’s anger was insatiable.

Cage’s sorrow was unquenchable.

But no matter what they said or did, Cage knew it would make no difference.

Their trials were done.

The Fallen were dead.

They could live again, again.

“You survived.” That same molten voice crackled through the fabric of confusion.

Weightless, Cage twisted toward the impossible sound, a gong in the void of space and time, and stifled a gasp.

There was a choir of beings, at least ninety strong. They looked like everything, and nothing. Like a rainbow of life, and a canyon of death. Features muddied among faces—eyes, ears, noses, mouths—but nothing distinct. Nothing…real.

Yet they were the realest things Cage had ever seen.

“We did,” Smoke said, and she spoke into every mind. “No thanks to you.” She scowled across the velvet abyss at the living cloud. “You made us to die.”

A sigh fluttered from the gods. An exhale of apology. A surrender of peace.

“We did not make you,” they said as one. “You made yourselves.” A pause. An awakening. “We only set you free.”

“No.” Cage’s denial snapped through the cosmos like a whip. “No, we did not choose this. We would never choose to struggle and kill.”

“You did, and you would, if you knew your children would suffer in your stead.” The gods smiled, if such an expression were possible, and the voice softened from lava to clay. “Someone needed to fight. Someone needed to hurt. Because you both did, a million generations will not. You do not remember, because memory leaves a scent, and the Fallen would have known. And if they had known, they would have called all the rest.”

“All the rest?” Cage asked, bewildered.

The gods chuckled. “Another time, another place, another person, dear child. For now, rest. For now, return.”

Cage wanted to argue. Smoke did argue. She stiffened beside him and pulled him behind her. They continued spinning like unwanted toys.

“You cannot twist us with your lies anymore,” Smoke spat. Her starlight hair streamed, a halo of glimmering ribbons. She narrowed her eyes into twin knives, piercing every god with churning black pearls, treasures of the deep and dangerous sea.

“We never twisted you,” the gods said. “You twisted yourselves.” At Smoke’s flared nostrils and bitten-back death vows, they added, “In doing so, you saved us all.” Another ghost of a smile. “Save your rage, daughter of death. You will need it. You will use it. But to wield it against us would be a waste. Stoke your fire for worthier days.”

They vanished from the sky.

Cage and Smoke fell.

They tumbled through worlds and veils, around moons and stars, back to the start.

Through the abyss, through a violet diamond of Do Chrome.

Through shadows, through an indigo circle of Ti Chrome.

Through the ocean, through a blue octagon of La Chrome.

Through the swamp, through a green hexagon of Sol Chrome.

Through the badlands, through a yellow pentagon of Fa Chrome.

Through the desert, through an orange square of Mi Chrome.

Through the caves, through a red triangle of Re Chrome.

And last, to Deadrock, their city of castles, a citadel carved into the mountain itself.

Where a violet diamond waited for them.

Do Chrome.

The end at the start.

Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

A rainbow from beginning to end.

Do, ti, la, sol, fa, mi, re, do.

Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.

A scale of music leading them home.

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We Await Your Return…

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