Still shaken and bewildered, (Patreon)

I took a seat.

“Ms. Thomson!" I muttered conversationally. "How wonderful to see you. You’re looking very, um ... alive."

"Yes, these are the tunnels of sanctuary," Thomson explained cryptically. "Here we may dwell in safety. Mr. Calaveras guides his friends here with his temporal wisdom and ever-overseeing opto-viso-sightlingations. This is Mr. Calaveras, by the way. Say hello."

"Er, hello, Mr. Calaveras," I awkwardly greeted the skull Thomson held up. All skulls look pretty much alike, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen this one before...

"I like this new Thomson," Burnside declared enthusiastically. "Stead of a fancy highfalutin Floozy she’s a lot more like reg'lar folks now. She even got a bedtime skull just like I useta have! For a long time I'd sleep with the skull o' my first lover ever' night. Whenever I got REAL lonely, why I’d take that ol skull and put it right in -"

Rebecca suddenly covered Burnside’s mouth with her hand, but the raccoon femme continued talking and gesturing wildly as if nothing had happened. “Mmmm mph mmm mmm nnnmmm nnph.”

"So, um, Thomson," I said loudly, trying not to think about what Burnside had been saying. "How did you, uh, survive?"

"I know not how Mr. Calaveras brought me here," Thomson recollected, with a faraway look in her eyes. "But I heard the battle raging outside. I found a looking hole and saw, oh how I saw. Actions never permissible in a court of law! Objection! OBJECTION! Rivers of blood! Savagery! Once proud elves reduced to beasts, tearing into each other like feral animals. Elves without legs still walked so they could keep killing. Elves without arms bared their teeth and tore throats. Elves used their own entrails to strangle each other. Elves used their own bones as knives to carve into each other."

Rebecca and I both flinched and turned away at Thomson’s graphic description.

"Man oh man, that there was SOME party," Burnside exclaimed nostalgically before Rebecca clamped a hand back over her mouth.

"The carnage went on for days and days and days and days," Thomson continued. "Move for a recess! When the final elf laid down to die, I could still hear the sounds of screaming, snarling, ripping flesh, and cracking bones. I could hear it for days, months, years. Cruel and unusual! I heard it until time lost meaning. The sounds, the sounds wouldn’t go away, so I retreated into the darkness, deep into the darkness Mr. Calaveras led me, where the sounds couldn’t find us."

"Dear Fuma…" I groaned. "So, the ghost I saw all that time ago was actually you?"

"No, all that time ago Adler was the ghost that Mr. Calaveras saw and warned me about. The sounds of battle were bad, but the sounds that Adler’s shade made were worse. I came here to hide, but it found me in the darkness. Screaming, howling, laughing, accusing, begging, and whispering. Oh but it was angry that I had left him outside to die with all the others. What else could I have done? I move for a mistrial! The things it whispered… Thankfully Mr. Calaveras chased the shade away when I finally found him deep in the darkness. The darkness was my respite from the never ending sounds of blood and death, and Mr. Calaveras could confuse the shade whenever it found me, and lead me away, away. Mr. Calaveras became my eyes in the darkness. He showed me roots, mushrooms, and vermin to eat, and dripping water so I could drink. Ah, it was quiet, nice and quiet, but then the accusing shade would find us and we would have to retreat even further into the darkness. Hmm?" Thomson cocked her head, listening to something. "That’s a good question, Mr. Calaveras. Which Adler is this? Shouldn't he be dead? Are you dead?" she asked me point-blank.

"Ma'am, I am very much alive," I informed her.

"Is this the Adler that shrieks and accuses, the Adler I left to his fate, who delights in death and bathes in blood, or is he the redeeming Adler? That's true, Mr. Calaveras, he isn't screaming. But he looks like he could start up any second. Could this be the Adler that I wished would come and take me away from this never ending nightmare of fleeing from the Crown Prosecutor and the echoing shades of death? The Adler that never perished on that field of slaughter, the Adler that was born to rule, the Adler I protected instead of abandoning? Can this Adler forgive me? No further questions, Your Honor."

Rebecca let go of Burnside’s mouth to take Thomson’s hand and pat it reassuringly. "He's the real Adler," she murmured soothingly. "Now that we’re here, of course we’ll help you."

Seeing the state Thomson was in and hearing how long she had been futilely waiting for me to saver her filled me with remorse. Of course there had been no ghost. I was such an idiot! I could have come back at any time to find her, but I didn’t. That’s another life I ruined. The old familiar deep feeling of self-loathing with its usual maelstrom of dark thoughts came rushing back. Vernier, of course, would have told me that there’s still time to make amends and fix my mistakes ... but that list of mistakes kept growing into a mountain. How could I possibly fix them all?

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