With complete control—consciousness, intention, effort—Azriel laughed this time.
He laughed loudly, knowingly, at the sight before him.
And, creepily enough, his laughter matched those lugubrious laughs.
In the end, Azriel's laugh was utterly depressing.
It broke apart, just as his face did, while he forced himself to take one step after another toward the long table.
When he reached the vacant chair, he sat down. Only then did he look toward the other side.
He was seated there.
Another him.
The spitting image of Azriel.
His upper body was exposed, fractured with cracks. Blood covered him from head to toe, and the wounds on his skull still hung open, leaking slowly. He stared back with a pensive, funereal expression, one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded across his chest.
Then he spoke, his voice almost lachrymose.
"He was born beneath a borrowed sky,
with sea-salt in his breath,
a boy who dreamed too often of
the blue beyond his death.
