Do you remember how things got to be this way?
Do you remember how hard we worked for the people of this city,
For the weak, and the poor, and the forgotten?
Do you remember that fateful night, when the city betrayed us?
I do…
Because I can never forget.
My mind is forever marred by the sight of you slipping away.
My ears are still ringing from your pain-filled cries of agony.
I can still feel what I had assumed was ichor dripping from your mortal wounds,
Seeping into my shirt, draining the warmth from your body,
Turning it to stone cold as ice.
To think that it was all his doing,
The doing of the man who helped me save this city,
Who aided me in my quest to raise this city
Into the heavens and bestow upon its people
The godhood which we thought they so rightly deserved.
I told him we could be heroes…
And he told me that we could build them…
I was a fool to assume our ambitions were the same.
I learned to bend steal, how to make it move,
When my father died for this city.
I wanted to make servants,
To make survivors, rebuilders.
He wanted to make soldiers,
He wanted to take control of this city.
And that’s just what he did.
Your cold, lifeless body in my quivering arms
Was proof enough of that.
I was such a fool,
And with the flip of a switch
I sent it all to Hell.
Because I didn’t pull the trigger,
I built the gun.
I made the man
Who put his hands on you.
And I gave him the means
To carry out his sins against you.
And as I sit here in silence, contemplating the end,
I can hear the angels beating on the door.
I can hear their constant arguing
Over the sound of my thundering heart
Beating violently in my ears like a war drum.
They scream at each other,
Bickering over the rope,
Trying to find out…
…Who will tie the noose?
…Who will hold the rope?
…Who will dig the grave?
…Who will hang the Good Doctor?
I’m so sorry, Emily,
For countless hours I have screamed at the heavens
Demanding your return,
Wishing that you could have lived on in my place,
Wishing you could have escaped
The wrath of this ill-begotten city.
You have no idea how much it hurts.
The doors won’t hold much longer,
And neither will I.
Because I feel like a dead man, Emily.
And what can a dead man do?
I need to face my greatest fear,
I need to face the city that betrayed me.
And as I sit in the pews of this old church,
Waiting for repentance
I can’t help but wonder…
…Will our souls remember where we said we’d meet on our way out of this god-forsaken city?






