I feel like everything inside me is crumbling.
Hopelessness grins. The other giants stand stationary, tall against the sun.
She looks at me, a mixture of pity and derision creeping across her face.
No Maker. Just her, part of them, all along. Then everything, the Hope, the battle, the fight, all of it has suddenly been reduced to one simple, effective trap - a trick of the light almost, formed in the heart of my great enemy - she who had pretended to be my friend.
I know that no-one is coming to rescue me. There is no-one to call, and no-one to help. The game is over and I have lost.
-
Somewhere far off, the telephone rings. Sunlight dances through the open window and the breeze ripples the curtains.
A voice crackles on the end of the line. She clasps a hand suddenly to her mouth and nods silently as the voice continues.
Then carefully, she replaces the receiver and sighs to herself. Her eyes flick around the room.
There it is. There in the corner - the picture. She clasps the frame and lifts it gently from the wall.
--
"Tie him up."
"Aren't we going to kill him?"
"Not yet. I want him to suffer," says the Photographer.
The three giants shuffle on their feet.
"I'll squash him," says Uselessness.
"No. Not yet," she continues. "Hopelessness, bind him."
"I shall." There is a sort of grudgingness to his voice as it hisses through his teeth.
The ground thuds as Hopelessness drops to his knees. A thick strip of coarse fabric is wrapped around my body. He beams garishly as the final piece coils tightly around my head, finally blocking the sun. Everything is darkness.
--
"I say, really?" says a voice.
"Really."
"Then we must move at once. Are the others ready?"
"They are. Do you still have the device?"
"Of course. And you're certain that this is the message?"
"Absolutely. But time is short."
"I understand my dear. I do understand."
--
I'm being carried. From what I can work out, the giants seem to be taking me uphill. I can hear Uselessness grunting. It occurs to me that I can no longer hear the trees burning. I can still smell the smoke though. Its acrid stench surrounds me. Even the giants are coughing as they climb.
--
"Fire it up!" he cries.
The flames roar into the air. Fabric flutters open.
"That's the ticket, by jolly!" he says, "Tell the others to do the same."
--
"This is the place!" says Loneliness, loudly. Uselessness coughs and splutters as he fishes me from his pocket. I'm still blindfolded. My head rushes with blood as he tosses me around.
"Yes!" says a smaller voice, the Photographer's from below. "Here will do."
"Time to meet the real Power behind it all," says Hopelessness laughing. The ground hits me hard and I roll, still bound in the rough fabric.
The giants laugh above my head.
--
"Now!" she says.
"Aye captain!" says the Balloonist. He cranks a lever and the basket shudders into the air. A cheer from below.
"It has to be now!"
She picks up a small metal cone and places it to her lips; she begins to whisper, carefully and slowly into the end.
The balloon gently rises into the blue sky. But it's not an empty, cloudless sky; soon it's dotted with the bulbous shapes of hot air balloons silently rising into the sunshine. There are hundreds, floating delicately above the city.
The air carries a thousand whoops and hollers as the gentlemen fire their burners. One waves a top hat, another flutters an oversized handkerchief. The balloonists are away.
--
"Shall we untie him now?"
"Not yet," says the Photographer. "Place him on the tree. These things must be done on the tree!"
Uselessness grabs me, roughly. My ribs ache. Then squarely he shoves me into what can only be the nook of a great oak. I smell the bark and hear the leaves. There's a soft thundering sound too, coming from somewhere.
"We don't have long!" cries Hopelessness. "Soon the fire will be upon us. How long must we pre..."
"We will be gone by then," interjects the Photographer.
"Yes," says Loneliness gleefully.
"Let's prepare!"
I'm left in silence. Silence and darkness. I can hear my breathing, intertwining with my thoughts as the truth collides. She had seemed so genuine, so real. And she was so confident about the Maker. How could none of that be real? And me? I had felt hope. I had felt hope whenever she was around. But between them the giants had stripped me of all of that. I am resigned to my fate. Tears sting in my eyes and I blink them away.
I can't see anything through the fabric, blindfolding me from the world. It's as black as the night, as dark as my soul.
And yet, somewhere deep inside there is still a flicker of something. Back in the woods, when I'd heard that music and my friends had sung through the trees - I had felt it then too. The trap, the pretence, perhaps, but there had definitely been something... well, real about it.
And when I stood in the trees and shouted that message given to me, shouted that I am loved, that had felt real too. And when Uselessness had fallen. It did feel... like... something.
But with no Maker then what? What had made me feel that rush of... hope?
Something flickers. The air is silent. I can hear the forest burning now - the crackling leaves sound like water, a great sea of flame rushing towards me. It is coming closer.
I can see it too. At least, I can see something through the blindfold. It's like an orange glow in front of me, indistinct at first but slowly pulsing and growing brighter. Heat swells over me. I blink. The glow is still there.
Then I see it. I see it behind the blindfold. The glow is a fire, a fire of intricate flames. I see them dancing and twisting into shapes, great and terrible, intertwining and licking and turning. The leaves whisper. The flames glow red and white and yellow as they spin and they twirl. Then suddenly, as though emerging from the dark fabric, each flame begins to spin, deliberately burning into the shape of letters. Another, flicks into shape, angled and burning, until the fire shows me... four... words... I know. Four Words.
I stare at them noiselessly as they shimmer there in the darkness for a moment. Then as though extinguished into nothing, the fire vanishes and once again I am left alone.
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