absolution

February 2024

Flash of dawn — wheel of light. The hunter seethes through this oil-slick sky, its exit-wound stars, his cries lost to the hum of afterlife which scrapes at his every blink.

He smears a thumb to the hollow of his throat through the frenzy, and finds the skin pulseless. Washed of all heat. He grits the word ‘nightmare’, over and over, as though scraping the syllables from his teeth enough times can force a heartbeat back into his chest — and he prays. As best he can. As best he knows.

The call goes unanswered, and we are left with this: a man abandoned. A man curled so tightly into himself that his entire soul begins to fracture, the tear beginning just below his torso, splitting him from the belt.

The pain is unthinkable. It carves him to pieces, fractals of light spilling from each wound. He gasps out, pleads with the cosmos, claws with star-strewn hands at the agony which curves from beneath each rib. It is not enough. Eons and seconds curl all into one, flaring through him like blood as it first learns to sing from an open wound. Earth-red and furious. Molten. Thick.

Until, all at once, a silence. A darkness, thick as cloth, smattered through with flecks of thrumming white light.

Until, all at once, a voice.

“Orion.”

The word shatters into him, absolution and apology both.

“You have travelled far,” the voice soothes.

“I have travelled far,” he mimics, dumbfounded, gesturing vaguely at the mass of stars which he must now call a body.

“You bore it well,” he hears. “Welcome.”

What once was a hand tightens slightly around his club, and Orion makes a play at swallowing back against the fact of his missing tendons. He is all fire now, all negative space, and he finds that a part of him mourns quite hopelessly for the feeling of his feet on the ground.

“Can I ask…” he returns, trailing off under the weight of so many questions.

“Of course,” he receives. “Shining Orion. Greatest of hunters. You have joined the constellations.”

Everything folds into understanding all at once. It’s like a flame lit through this darkness, a relief so palpable that it almost burns.

He looks, and for the first time, he sees. This night sky which he has been peering up at since before he even knew to crawl.

It is a family who welcomes him with open arms: bounding Sirius, eternal companion; Cassiopeia and Andromeda, regal in the distance; Pegasus, Perseus, Hercules, Bootes. A thousand others, all of them beautiful.

The sky swims with monsters, heroes, villains, beasts — he knows them well. He knows them endlessly.

For the first time since the start of this madness, Orion smiles. The stars sing with it.

All change is like this, he realises: terrifying. Inevitable. A path to better things.

“It is safe here,” comes the voice. They are not words which the hunter ever thought he would hear again.

“You’re home. It is safe now.”