It was still dark, though dawn could be an hour or two away. Daniel felt warm, not because of the hot weather. He was burning with fever. Suspended over his mattress, looking through his eyelashes, he tried to find some patterns on the ceiling. Though the ceiling was just pure white paint of simplicity and dullness, his irises were locked, glaring at it. He ran his hands over his eyes and noticed how hot his face was becoming. He breathed out, discharging hot air from his burning lungs. Then he sucked in a large volume of air, hearing the sound of his inhalation.

Sadness and anger grew inside him as he reflected on yesterday's dreadful confrontation and revelation. But while he looked at the wall with tattered wallpapers, there was a strange comfort for the awful woman who had told the truth to his very face. He was so illogically happy that the four corners and the four sides of the adjacent room detained her well. His peculiar imagination couldn't resist laughing at the idea that his mother was locked up in a mental hospital, wearing a strap jacket with only a single bed, a ticking clock, and a porcelain toilet bowl as her company. It would be better if she began to chat with those inanimate things deeming that her psychosis stepped up to another category.

Daniel brooded more about her illness. Inside his mind now, his mother was in a bastille, inside a filthy cell, with a tiny window letting in a beam of light to highlight the cold, unsanitary floor. Her legs were shackled. Her wrists were cuffed, collecting the trickling water droplets from a crevice of an igneous ceiling.

Daniel nodded, concurring with his wicked thoughts, for she did deserve to be lonely. The fever had climbed up to his brain ablaze with vicious ill will. A burst of silent maniacal laughter reverberated across his ear canals. It was contagious, so he clenched his teeth, then he snickered.

While he was finishing packing his bag, a quick tremor shook their house—the iron gate screeched feebly, the old apartment building bellowed painfully, and there was a shattering noise of broken glass, a windowpane perhaps. Daniel didn't feel any worry or dread whatsoever. Overnight, he grew too numb, too selfish, and too cynical. He surveyed his trembling room cold-eyed.

Please, Mr. Tremor, it's a pleasure if you wreck this house, getting rid of the morsel of hope still beating in it. Take it away. Since, anyway, the world is about to end, he evilly thought.

He could not quite comprehend the train of thoughts looping in his mind, but brooding made him prideful. And it tasted abnormally palatable. He spun his entire body in mid-air, then clawed the floor, pushing his torso up and stretching his arms out, welcoming the first crack of dawn at his window.

For a moment, before he reached out for the doorknob, he slowly took a deep breath. Woozy, he was probably because of his little weightlessness diving acrobatics. The lad twisted the knob, let the door stay open, and gently prodded a wall to go into the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet door, and a single orange pill was floating inside. He plucked it. "Paracetamol," he read the label, "Just what I need."

Squeezed between his index finger and thumb, he popped the pill in his mouth. His tongue jolted when its buds mediated the pill's bitter taste. Not subjected to his control, the salivary glands secreted liquid preparing for deglutition. His tongue pressed the hard palate forcing the moist pill into the pharynx, and the pharynx muscles contracted, pushing it into the esophagus inferiorly. He imagined that the drug was manna bestowed only for his consumption. The medicine neatly glided into his throat, giving him a speedy remedy. He closed the cabinet and saw himself in the mirror. His reflection looked at him directly, and its mouth moved, making a dialogue.

"Daniel," his reflection started, "I know what you wrote last night. You're quitting, right?"

The boy replied, "No. I am not. I listened to my mind, and it gave me muscle and freedom. Leaving her will free me from lies."

"Lies?" his mirrored face arched a brow, "But you are lying, I can tell. You don't want to leave her."

"No, you're wrong! She hurt me. She never loved me. And so there's no reason to stay!"

"Maybe you're right, or maybe you're wrong."

Daniel flexed his neck to the right and narrowed his eyes into a squint, "I don't need your advice, my pathetic reflection... because you're just an image seen in a mirror. How can you speak when you're brainless and heartless?"

"You've changed. I can't see myself in you. Before, you had an innocent face of mercy, but now it is a horrid face of antipathy. Yet the way you spoke, no wonder every wall and every piece of furniture in the house thinks you are lying."

Daniel folded his arms, "You have an answer for everything, don't you?"

"Yes," his reflection smiled wickedly, "Conscience smote sorely."

"What did you say?"

"Did it bite you?" the boy in the looking glass unfurled his lashes, "Now, I think you planned Luna's death. You have deceived me with your drama and tears. You are really good at it. Look, I am clapping my hands. And maybe you might get a trophy for best actor."

He parted his chapped lips in indignation. "How dare you! It was an accident. You told me so. The mother of the lost child was the idiot, not me. She didn't turn aside to avoid the incoming ball."

"Now, you're pointing fingers at her, and your reasoning sounds pathetic."

The boy slanted his chin to the mirror. "That is a fact, and I now call this an epiphany. I will never allow my judgment to be corrupted by you again."

"Bravo! Indeed it was an accident, but I doubt it was her fault," the reflection of his miserable face glowered, "Luna was a victim, now in limbo, and it was her fault?"

His head ticked, "What happened has nothing to do with Luna. Get out of my sight!"

"My words are not empty. I am you but more... more despicable!" the lad in the mirror rowdily laughed.

Daniel punched the looking glass. His distorted reflection was still talking, haunting him with a tortuous patchwork quilt of craziness, intrinsic worth, morality, and memories. He fled to his bedroom. "You can't stop me from leaving! Don't be so soft now, Daniel," he paused for a moment, "I don't belong here! I can support myself and find happiness alone!"

His fever subsided, but foolishness swelled and inflamed his brain. He collected himself and decided to go on with his plan. He put the leather jacket on, zipped it, and rolled the sleeves. After that, he tied the handkerchief around his clammy head, wore the aviator hat, fixed the foggy goggles snugly against his face, slipped his hands into the tattered gloves, dusted off his jeans, and tightened the laces of his sneakers. Then, he went outside, tethered himself with the garden hose, clambered over the roof, and said his final farewell to the sun and his kind thoughts to the departed friends. He was done with the overture. At this moment, he was ready to perform the interlude.

For the interlude, beginning in his room, he fetched his knapsack first and then recollected the memories he had in the house. He didn't rush his leave-taking. He hung around for at least half an hour in every room and forgotten corner of the house except the forsaken main bedroom. He was wobbling from the exertion of the heaviness he felt inside his chest. He clung to each memory as if these things he had kept in mind defined his life. But then, he refreshed himself that they were unimportant, that whatsoever could go right or wrong after taking his last steps beyond the brick fence would define his dear existence. To end the melodramatic fun, he slid the latch on, ensuring that the gates were fastened. He fixed a defiant gaze upon the house.

"Goodbye, house," he frankly said, "Thank you for letting me in." The indomitable boy never looked back, and it was the cue for the epilogue.

It was quarter to twelve, and the hellacious noontime heat was unbearable. There was only a hush and mirage on the streets. The people who drove him away were cowering inside their homes. "You know what?" his voice echoed through the streets, "You can come out. The sun's fine. Feel its wrath! It just burns a little of your flesh! Embrace the torturous heat!"

He anticipated a commotion or a sound to rebound back to his ears. "Hello? Come on and join the fun! Let us celebrate the meaninglessness of life. So, you better take a big breath and chant silly songs about the end of the world because death is totally going to get you! Embrace it, morons!" he shouted. Only the cockroaches hiding in the sewers applauded his little elocution.

At length, the towering mansion was swarming with houseflies. Perhaps something was rotting in there. The stench of death was pungent. These dipteran flies were vectors of diseases. It might be the cause of someone's eventual death, allowing somebody to encounter their quietus without the slightest shade of compunctions of conscience. He visualized that the bones of his fellow nobody littered the place. He sped up and stoically averted his eyes from it. For him, it was a sight of a food web like a war, the law of the strongest—a consumption of life deciding whose species must thrive. In this competition, the houseflies won.

He saw the milestone by the road, and it triggered his peculiar imagination again that the world was a tomb, a cemetery full of weather-beaten headstones, weeping sculpted angels, and broken monuments. The ghastly depiction inside his mind gave him a chill, but it did not have an impact on aborting his plan. Macabre slaked his curiosity. He was like a sociopath laughing at the crashed airplane and strutting like a lost ghost within the heart of the leafless forest. His eyes widened when he saw the long bridge.

Now, he was closer to his destination, to embrace his destiny. He drifted towards it, gripped the rusty railing firmly, and looked down. His facial muscles contoured his mien like an emperor as much as a conqueror, throwing a grin at the pitiful beings in the valley below.

"What are you doing, Daniel?" Lucy sprouted behind him and noticed crescents of gray shadow under his eyes, the signs of a sleepless night or bad health. "You look sick?" she asked tentatively.

"I'm not. I feel fine."

She knew that he was lying. "Oh, okay," she produced a transparent thing in the air, "Here, catch!"

"A liter of water," he cleared his throat, "Thanks." He slid the bottle inside his backpack.

"That was from the other side," she lifted a finger, pointing at the glistening waterfalls of the floating paradise, "It will be sufficient."

"Sufficient?"

She derailed the conversation, "Did I tell you that you would be here today, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

"So, you ran away?"

His underlip twitched. "No, I am not," he delivered his answer quickly.

She nodded and just caught him lying. "Look up at the skies. The glows of our innumerable ancestors are beaming at us."

"You mean the stars that I can't see because of the daylight."

"Do not speak harshly, for they can see and hear you. They are always out there, day and night, judging you."

"Silly me."

"Why did you come back?"

"To cross the bridge, to leap from pain and torture," he responded.

"You mean to escape from your purpose and responsibilities?"

"No!" He skirted around the question, "And why are you so curious today?"

She swayed, letting her white feathery poof dress fly. "I just miss you," her voice dwindled, dropping two octaves, "The—old—you."

"Can you help me to cross the bridge?"

"Yes, but it is too early," she scanned the horizon, "Can I play with Lady Mondragon and Mr. Lens first?"

"Of course," he unzipped the bag and pulled out the Rubik's cube first, then the barrette and the magnifier came out last. He handed the three objects. "Here!"

"Thank you," she tossed back the cube. "For some time, I guess you didn't spend time playing with your toys. You know what? You can do some twisting to solve that almost unscrambled cube."

Daniel's intuition told him something was off, but she was right that it was too early to leave. "Okay, I think I need some quiet time... alone," he glided a meter behind, twisting his legs like a pretzel, suspended in a state of determination and meditation.

Lucy twirled his parasol behind, propelling her to the edge of the broken bridge. She didn't want to disturb the boy working on the cube, hoping it might help change his mind. She did engage in recreation with Lady Mondragon and Mr. Lens, trying to alter her voice to mannish, then switching back to her typical sweet sound, and then pinching her nose to sound like an annoying mature woman.

Daniel had solved the top face of the cube. He glimpsed at Lucy, then at his toys, and turned his attention elsewhere. He wanted to smile, but he could not. He pulled out his phone and tapped his thumb across the cracked screen, lighting it up. He stole a snapshot of the giggling girl in white, throwing her arms covered with white elbow-length gloves in the skies and shuffling his white doll shoes on the bridge.

He managed a faint smile, for he had captured the holy grail he longed to feel. He coveted joy or peace or love. But it was impossible to achieve because they felt plastic whenever he showed his pearly white teeth. He was now barren from understanding the essence of these good emotions.

He went on winding the three-by-three cube, cracking to complete the final layer. He didn't mind the time but noticed the bridge was now striated with tapering shadows.

Lucy spun the umbrella rapidly, and it lifted her off. She crossed the long gap of the ruined suspension bridge and landed smoothly with one foot at the edge of its opposite half. She waited for the right moment to speak.

"Daniel!" she yelled.

He could hear his name echoing. "Wait," he said without looking, "I am almost done."

She spat out the cruelest words she could think of. "It's a sucker who plays it cool by riding his pint-sized crushed ego unconcerned and heartless!"

Daniel made slow circles with his lower jaws. He felt an icy rigidity overtake his body—a straw in the wind indicating a forthcoming hiccup. Her message was as acute as the revelation last night. It thrust like an ice pick into his very heart. The moment was at a juncture when his conscious intellect challenged his predispositions for control. With one last rotation, the cube would be completed, and it would set the birth of an outré rhythm of the coda for the turn of events.

The enraged boy turned around and barked, "It's done!"

———————

"It's done!" Gale said over the microphone inside the helmet. "It's working!"

"Good," Vishesh smiled.

"Vi, I'll stick around for a while."

"What did—" he uttered. Gale's channel went off, "—forget it," Vishesh finally said. His mind was screaming at his friend and cursing his mind, inventing trust as insipid as worry. He patiently awaited to tune into his mate's channel.

The machine commenced creating artificial gravity, displaying its splendid kaleidoscopic illumination. At 0.01 g, nothing happened; thus, Gale waited another five minutes. At 0.05 g, there was no movement, and he gave it another chance. The artificial gravity amplified to 0.10 g, and some nearby pebble-sized space debris had slow inward motion. He was mesmerized by the exhibition of the things drawing towards the dodecaplex gravity orb. For another five minutes, it magnified its pulling power. Now at 0.15 g, the stationary three inner orbits felt the force inviting them to have a taste of it. The gray and black rocks gradually fell to the gravity machine's pulling attraction, pressing them together like a solid ball.

Gale maneuvered the MMU before the pulling force from his invention engulfed him. He kept firing the thrusters and dodging some debris on his way to the rendezvous point. He cast a look behind and then felt that its power intensified. The astronomical remnants filled the gaps and spaces where the iridescent beams tried to pass through. The force was becoming irresistible! It was dragging him inch by inch toward the gravity orb each second. He fired the thrusters more until his right hand coiled and clung to the tether's endmost segment. He tugged it to signal Vishesh, for he knew that his suit's transmission was unstable. There was no reply.

Consequently, the mechanism automatically attaching the tether to the MMU pack was not operational. And so, he tied the tether securely around his waist and repeatedly poked the glowing blue and orange screen of the spacesuit's gadget on his arm. The signal whirred and flicked to life on and off. "Mission Specialist Azad, this is Mission Specialist Veneration. Can you hear me?" he tugged the tether harder, "Vishesh, do you copy?"

Vishesh's suit caught some interference. "Gale—" he listened intently to a garbled voice.

"Vi, reel me in!" Gale said aloud.

Vishesh pressed a button and pulled his fellow astronaut towards the space garbage vehicle.

Gale felt a jolt pulling him. His rear bent backward, and his limbs dangled forward as if the artificial gravity was tugging his extremities. He felt secure while watching the hurtling and heaving of lunar and the dark planet's fragments towards the new core of the Earth's sole natural satellite. His chest kindled the thoughts of what it meant to be a father, a husband, a friend, and a hero. He couldn't imagine that he was trying his best in all categories. He luxuriated at the moment.

A giant chunk of lunar crust hit his side. It came out of nowhere. His head slammed against the inside of the helmet, knocking him out. The contagious smile that once graced his unshaven jaw gradually faded away. His suit's channel and telemetry went off, still as death.

Fate was indeed a cruel mistress.