Chapter 48.3: The Pathos of Love

  Faust awoke, shrouded in mist.

  “You died on me?”

  Gretchen’s voice scraped against something raw inside him. The fog in his mind cleared in an instant, as did the mist surrounding him. He had died at the hands of Dante Higashino, his cursed fists. He remembered concrete and the wet crunch of his own skull reverberating in his ears before silence fell.

  One strike. One fucking strike sent him here.

  “Gretchen?!” Faust yelled. “Where are you?”

  Silence greeted him. Faust scrambled onto his feet, taking in his surroundings. The landscape gave him nothing. Grey, barren earth stretched in every direction, broken by trees that looked as if they had been planted as an afterthought and left there to wither and petrify. Their twisted bark and branches were bent into shapes like arthritic fingers clawing at the sky.

  “Gretchen?”

  A tinkling laughter echoed through the desolate lands. Faust spun around. Gretchen sounded as though she was right behind him.

  “Move the dead? Was it? Of all the tales I fed you, that was all you could come up with?” Gretchen’s voice came from above this time, cutting through the grey. But her voice quickly lowered in pitch, quavering. “You sampled every possible delight, grasped at what you wanted, and this was all you could muster? My power, reduced to puppeteering corpses and blades?”

  “I didn’t have enough time!” Faust shouted, spinning around in circles to find Gretchen. “It wasn’t fair!”

  “You promised,” Gretchen’s voice thundered, “to give it your all.”

  Faust had no answer to Gretchen’s accusation. He took a step back, suddenly feeling small, but his back hit something soft.

  “Hello.” Gretchen drawls out the greeting next to his ear, her voice dripping with venom. “Johann Faust.”

  Faust whirled around, but Gretchen had retreated, standing away from him. There was no loving smile, no warmth emanating from her, and no pity. He had become a stranger to her. She looked at him the way one would look at a dog they found eating from their garbage.

  “I thought you were a smart man,” Gretchen said, one hand running down her luscious raven hair. Faust gulped at the sight. He remembered those strands wound around his fist, yanking her head back as he ejaculated in her.

  As though reading his mind, Gretchen completed her sentence, “But you’re as banal as every man I’ve met.”

  “I have given everything!” Faust implored.

  “Have you taken?” Gretchen asked simply. “You have. And you were terribly greedy.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Gretchen looked him dead in the eye and curled her fingers slowly until a single index finger was pointing at her ear. “I have taken countless secrets, fears and destinies. I have graced and retold fantasies that enraptured and changed fates. But what about you?” she said, tapping her ear. “You eat like a flea, not a king. The little troop you commanded was merely a mindless mob.”

  “I am not a flea!”

  “Then, tell me. What are you but a stupid flea?”

  All his life, Faust dealt with uncertainty to the point that he was comfortable with it.

  But not this time. This time, he could not live with such uncertainty. Unleashing a frustrated cry, he pounced on her, pinning her slender body beneath his. Gretchen hardly reacted, her fingers locked in the same position, always pointed towards her ear, which Faust could now see fully. Whenever they made love, Gretchen had always pushed him away when he tried to kiss her ear, but now, she was luring him in, inviting him. He kissed her deeply and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. Cautiously, he brought his lips towards her ear, his flesh tracing the subtle curves. It was not as dainty as he had imagined it to be. It seemed too big on her.

  “You must not have given me enough!” Faust growled. “How much of this did you foresee? How much did you keep from me?!”

  Gretchen laughed under him and pushed him off her. “Foresee? You assume too much about me.” She was surged upward toward the skies, kicking up a cloud of dust. “Your name just happened to match a character whose tale resides within me and has been retold countless times.”

  “What was the ending?” Faust demanded. “Surely—”

  “There would be a second chance, you were going to say?” Grethen’s hair flared, spreading out like black flames behind her. Her amber eyes burned, piercing through the shadows that danced across her snow-white face. “Don’t make me laugh, Johann Faust. What appalling gall you have to order me around.”

  “I’ll give you everything! I swear!” Faust held his hand over his heart. “I love you!”

  “Everything?” Gretchen tilted her head. “For something as priceless as my eternity?”

  This time, Gretchen seemed to pause and ponder. Her amber eyes glowed as she regarded him. Finally, she seemed to budge and finally came down to his level.

  For some reason, Faust found himself staring up at Gretchen. He looked down and let out a yowl.

  His legs were gone. Faust felt his field of vision start to slant and realised that one of his eyes had slid off his melting face.

  “The Aberrant has taken you as his own,” Gretchen said flatly.

  Desperation plunged its claws into Faust’s guts. “Help me!” he begged.

  Gretchen remained silent. “Speak to me!” Faust sobbed, clinging to her legs.

  Gretchen’s cold touch graced the bottom of Faust’s chin. Hot tears streaked down his cheeks as she tilted his head up. “There isn’t a world where I would entertain you henceforth.” She dug her knuckle into the side of Faust’s eye. Faust could only claw the ground desperately, as his lower half crumbled to nothing. Pressure grew as she pushed deeper.

  Faust screamed and begged. “Give me another chance!” he beseeched with a broken voice. “Please! Gretchen!”

  Gretchen’s smile twisted into a grimace, as though her own name invoked nothing but disgust. “My name was never Gretchen.” Her voice crackled with frost. “I am the Metamorphoses, and you, Faust, are nothing but a scratch of ink. Your voice tugged on my ear, but I caught your eye.”

  Faust’s eye gave. His world plunged into darkness. He wanted to raise his hands to touch his face, but he had none. Gretchen burst into a peal of laughter. Her hand must be cradling his eye—amber as her own.

  The realisation crashed upon him.

  Faust began begging for death to take him.

  But death's answer was the chime of a school bell.

  A fucking school bell.

  Gretchen’s last words to him? “Live on as nothing but a phantom seeking death, Johann Faust.”

  ARC 8: The Blood Contract [END]

  Everyone, you can laugh at Faust.

  This is his end, or is it?

  Should I do the thing Marvel does at the end of their movies?

  Here goes:

  Johann Faust will return.