Dauiland

Odil's Escape Remastered

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer ;
Things fall apart ; the centre cannot hold ;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed , and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned …

- W. B. Yeats, " The Second Coming"

Prologue

Odil Rostenstaphen stood on a rocky outcropping and stared at the vast gray ocean below him, contemplating how it would feel to plummet into the abyss. The exhilarating rush of gravity running its course, the aromatic allure of the salt air in his nostrils, and finally, the force of the impact that would shatter every bone in his body and end his inner turmoil, permanently.
Oblivion. Abysm. Void. Whatever you called it, the end result was the same. From a height like this—the cliff face was easily 300 feet tall, emerging from the sea in a blanketing shroud of mist—there was little difference between hitting the water or colliding with one of the many gnarled rocks that dotted the crashing surf like black confetti. He didn’t even have to jump. Just one step forward, one loss of footing on the dew-slicked crag, and he was a dead man.
Odil had always been a man with no fear of his mortality. Standing as he was mere inches from his demise, Odil outstretched his arms like Jesus on the cross, threw his head back, and drank in the sensations of the sea. A chill wind battered his body, running across his chiseled bare chest, through his matted dirty-blond hair, caressing his scarred arms with the touch of nature’s soothing yet inexorable hand. Here, it smelled of salt and stone, freedom and bondage, dreams and despair, life and death. Each shuddering feeling carrying the lost memories of a sad little boy who died a sad little death long, long ago. Did anyone mourn that boy? he wondered. Certainly I didn't.
Odil took a deep breath. Another. Spared one last glance at the unforgiving ocean below, remembering the people he had put there, wondering when he would join them, forever. He knew, perhaps undeniably, that he was nearing his end; it was less a question of when, but how, he would do his final dance with death. But not yet. Not now, when he still had plenty of unfinished business.
Slowly, Odil stepped away from the precipice and began to walk back towards the ghost town where he spent his childhood, a time that felt like an eons-old dream of the past and yet somehow infiltrated his waking present. He knew every rat-infested house, every deserted street, every salt-rusted fence by heart. After all, he was their maker. The legacy of Odil Rostenstaphen was indelibly imprinted on every nook and cranny of the village of Vale’s End—not least in its absence of any living soul. If Odil shut his eyes tight enough, he could still picture the fires, hear the screams. Everything was by design, just the way he liked it, and he allowed himself to briefly savor this image before shelving it away in the deepest recesses of his mind. He had far more important things to focus on than silly remembrance.
As the slick cliff-stone gave way to scrubby brush and finally, pitted cobble pavement, Odil strode to the small two-story cottage at the very end of the road, overlooking the ocean. In stark contrast to the rest of the hamlet, its sorrowful countenance had stood the test of time. The baby-blue paint was peeling, the shingled, ivy-covered roof groaned under the weight of the vegetation, and the once-immaculate front yard was snarled in chest-high weeds, but Odil refused to let this cottage collapse. Through an unlikely combination of force of will and woe, he ensured his boyhood home did not succumb to the elements. He had equally ensured that all that remained of the bungalow beside it was a pile of blackened timber and brick.
Odil pushed open the front door, ascended the creaky wooden staircase, and unlatched the secret compartment underneath the upstairs dresser. Inside the compartment, he carefully placed a leather-bound book, retrieved from its spot on his nightstand for the last time. From the compartment, he retrieved a very particular item. One that would prove invaluable in his quest for one simple thing. One simple thing before he could lay down his burden and return to the simple life—or death—he had always desired.
Odil left his cottage and took a winding path through the ruins of his town, drinking in its sights and smells for the last time. Why is it that the more something hurts, the stronger our desire to return to it? Odil wasn’t sure. But what he did know was that Vale’s End held a deep spiritual significance in whatever was left of his heart. There weren’t many things left in this world that were capable of hurting him, not in this life, when he had already seen it all. That Vale’s End was one of those made it unique. It was always notable if he felt something—anything—akin to pain. On rare occasions he could spend hours chasing that feeling. It was intoxicating. But most of the time, he just couldn’t be bothered. His lack of pain was a gift; it meant his conscience was clean. He had always been different from the others.
Meandering though it was, Odil’s route was in fact charted with precise and careful intent. As he rounded a final bend, an unmarked, unoccupied black sedan waited for him beside a copse of fog-choked pine trees, right where it was supposed to be. It contented Odil to know there were still contacts he could rely on, thralls he could order to do as he pleased. Ever since he was a child he had wanted control. Craved it.
Odil got in the car, started the engine, and left Vale’s End in the rearview mirror for good. He would never return, that much he knew. Or at least, not in the world of the living. He wouldn’t be surprised if being stuck here for eternity was to be his punishment in the kingdom of the dead.
At that thought, Odil laughed out loud—a short, raspy thing not unlike a dog’s bark, something he rarely allowed to escape his body. It was funny, really. He used to feel a deep and abiding hatred for this place. Now, Odil found he felt nothing at all.