Four

The Trial of Penance

"You still haven't answered my question."

How long had he been walking now? Hours? Days? Minutes? He couldn't tell- time seemed to ebb and flow at will, and he'd trek for miles and miles to look back and see that he'd only taken a few steps.

If he was dead, as he was beginning to believe was likely the case, then this was one hell of a limbo to stick him in. If he wasn't dead, then he'd surely gone insane because there was no rhyme or reason to why any of this should be happening at all.

But despite everything happening, it would be far more tolerable if he hadn't been stuck with the one person he could have gone the rest of his life without talking to again-

"You did go the rest of your life without talking to me. I don't think having a conversation is asking too much-"

He gritted his teeth, and turned to Dimitri who had materialized on a rock off to his right, sitting and staring at him with a guise of innocence. "You betrayed me- you tried to kill me. What gives you the right to think I owe you a goddamn thing?"

"I never said you did," the other man said, holding his hands up. "But surely you'd rather talk than just walk the whole way in silence?"

"No," he said shortly, and continued walking. The floating triangles in the air glittered at him, sparkling as he moved and their reflections of light shifted position.

"That sounds like-"

"Like I don't want to talk?"

"No," Dimitri said, narrowing his eyes. "Like you don't want to give an answer."

Tobias spun about and pointed at the apparition, his gloved hand slicked with his own blood. "You don't get to question me! Not after everything you did, you don't deserve so much as a second thought-"

"Then why give me one?"

He found himself speechless, completely without an answer for the sudden question which had caught him off-guard.

Dimitri cocked his head ever so slightly. "You've made it clear that you hold me in utter contempt- yet, you thought of me often in your life. In your darkest moments, when you were broken, alone, at your most vulnerable- your mind would turn to me. Why?"

He stood rooted to the spot, his expression quickly changing from one of surprise to that of sheer loathing.

"What the hell do you want me to say, Dee? That your betrayal scarred me? That I spent the rest of my life wondering if someone else was going to turn around and stab me in the back? Congratulations, the answer is yes."

"Well, now we're getting somewhere!" Dimitri said cheerfully, completely ignoring the scathing tone that coated his words. "Glad to know I made some kind of impact on your life."

"You're a piece of shit, you know that?"

"Just the memory of one."

He threw his arm up in the air in barely contained rage. "What the hell is that even supposed to mean? You say you're just a memory- what is this then? Is any of this even real, or just some hallucination I've concocted?"

Dimitri shrugged. "Who said it couldn't be both?"

"Go to hell."

"Seems we're already there, my friend."

For the first time since he'd arrived in this dark and barren world, he gave a laugh- a short, pained bark of mirth. "We are not friends."

"We used to be."