The last beats of my heart are like a handful of glittering diamonds, trickling between my fingers. Falling away into endless depths of black velvet.
How strange it is, I think. How strange to lose this life.
At least I leave it as I started, as Amos. Capable of reflection and remorse. Free of madness.
I hear Quincy's voice, shouting from far away. And then his voice becomes the buzzing of crickets and katydids on a summer night in Ohio.
I am standing in a grassy field back home. The clear, black sky glitters with countless stars, like the diamonds I imagine trickling through my fingers.
Suddenly, dozens of figures emerge from the moonlit tree line, faces glowing. As they approach, walking slowly through the fluttering grass, I realize War was half-right about one thing.
From the start, War had thought that at the end of his warpath, he would be reunited with his brothers and sisters. He was half-right about that.
The ones who approach me now are not his brothers and sisters, the imaginary Weeping Willows...but they are mine.
Every face from my vision of the bloody church is here. Every face from the Community that will always be my truest home.
I see every elder and child, man and woman, boy and girl. I see my mother and father and brothers. I see my bride-to-be.
All of them stepping silently through the field. Beards and dresses rippling in the gentle breeze. Everyone smiling.
They close around me in a circle, reaching out for me. I feel the warmth of their embrace before they touch me, but I do not fear it. Even though I know they are dead.
Because I am dead, too.
A shooting star flashes across the summer night sky. I smile up at it as their arms wrap around me, weightless.
It is the last
diamond.