Afterward,
we celebrated.
We
also learned who we had lost; Kimble would never awaken, and only his
tribe lived in the flying fortress thereafter. George had suffered a
heart attack on being struck, as had Gina; she would recover, but he
had died immediately. Clara looked battered; she had flung herself
from her rented bed almost entirely across the room.
Over
the days that followed, and we relaxed from our tension, the new
normality began to assert itself. Gina and Ray were set to become
the leaders of an ever-growing body of dreamers. There would,
assuredly, be remnants of the cult of Kether-Kinal seeking them out,
in both worlds. But they had loyal disciples, now, and every reason
to expect more to come, growing the populace of dreamers in Kingsport
and, perhaps, beyond.
Sooner
of later my corpse will turn up to be identified, or I'll be declared
properly "whereabouts unknown", on top of being "wanted
for questioning," and they'll have a funeral to manage, too.
Maybe someone out there has the other photographs in that set; they
might need to deal with that, too. But those are all their
challenges, now; my part in the waking world is done.
I
exist at speed, now, and spending years watching, waiting, for the
accomplishments they touch on in only a few months just doesn't
appeal. So it is that I write this as my last act before going to
the realms beyond, imagining words onto pages and seeing them spirng
into existence. I will leave it with Kimble, when I go.
If
you are reading this, then maybe I will see you in Ulthar some day.
Perhaps we will meet in Celephais, or some other strange and
improbable place. I won't be waiting for fellow travellers, but I
will keep an eye out.
Until
then, farewell.
-Benjamin
Carter
