I wake with the taste of copper on my tongue. It is thick. It coats the back of my throat. I am in the cell. The light is grey. It is always grey here. I am a soldier. I am a law. I am a mistake. The walls are cold. They press against my skin. I do not move. I do not breathe. I wait for the door to open.

My name is Elias Thorne. I served for twenty years. I kept the peace. I kept the lines. I drew the borders. I erased the ones who crossed them. Now I am inside the line. The line is a cell. The line is a cage. The line is me.

I think of Margaret. She is the only real thing. The rest is dust. The rest is paper. The rest is ink. I remember her hands. They were soft. They held the map. No, they held the bread. Bread is better. Bread is life. Bread is love. I fed her. She fed me. We were a single body. Two lungs. One heart. Now my heart is stone. Now my lungs are empty.

The door opens. Light floods in. It burns. I squint. A man stands there. He is tall. He is thin. He wears a suit. It is black. It is stiff. He smells of tobacco. He smells of fear. He is the Warden. He is the judge. He is the god.

"Elias," he says. His voice is dry. Like leaves in autumn.

I nod. I do not speak. Speech is a trap. Words are knives. I have used too many knives. I have cut too deep. I am bleeding out. I can feel it. It is cold.

"You have a visitor," he says. He points to the chair. It is empty. It is not empty. It is full of shadows. I see her. I know it is not her. I know it is a trick. My mind is a broken lens. It bends the light. It lies.

I sit. I wait. The chair is hard. The wood bites into my bones. I feel the pain. Good. Pain is real. Pain is proof.

A woman enters. She is small. She is pale. Her hair is white. It is like snow. It is like ash. She does not look at me. She looks at the floor. She looks at the dust. She brings a box. It is brown. It is old. It is mine. It was mine.

She places it on the table. The wood is scratched. I see my initials. E.T. I carved them. I did it in a moment of madness. A moment of love. I loved this box. I loved the wood. I loved the smell.

"Margaret," I say. The name falls from my mouth. It is heavy. It is wet.

She looks up. Her eyes are red. They are wet. They are dead. She is not Margaret. She is a ghost. She is a memory. She is the thing I am becoming.

"I brought you something," she says. Her voice is a whisper. It is the wind. It is the rain.

She opens the box. Inside is a bottle. It is glass. It is blue. It is empty. It is full of air. It is full of nothing.

"Drink," she says.

I reach for it. My hand trembles. It is a leaf in the storm. I touch the glass. It is cold. It is sharp. I pull it back. I look at her. She is smiling. It is a cruel smile. It is a sad smile. It is a lie.

"What is this?" I ask.

"Medicine," she says. "For the pain."

The pain is in my head. The pain is in my chest. The pain is in my soul. I do not want medicine. I want truth. I want the end.

I drink. The air is sweet. It is bitter. It is nothing. I swallow. I feel nothing. I feel everything. I am gone. I am here. I am nowhere.

I close my eyes. I see the war. I see the fire. I see the blood. I see the faces. They are screaming. They are crying. They are begging. I am the one who fired. I am the one who killed. I am the one who lied. I am the one who survived.

The door opens again. The Warden is there. He is angry. His face is red. His eyes are hard.

"He drank," I say. I do not know why I speak. I do not know why I care.

"He tried to poison you," the Warden says. His voice is iron. It is cold. It is final.

"No," I say. "She loved me."

The Warden laughs. It is a dry sound. It is a dead sound. "Love is a delusion, Elias. You are a criminal. You are a monster. You drew lines that killed people. You erased history. You erased them. Now they erase you."

He points to the box. "The bottle was empty. There was no poison. There was no medicine. It was a test. A test of your sanity. You failed."

I look at the woman. She is gone. She was never there. The box is empty. The glass is broken. It is shards. It is dust.

I am alone. I am truly alone. The world is a lie. The walls are a lie. The love is a lie. Only the pain is real. Only the hunger is real.

I look at the shards. I pick one up. It is sharp. It cuts my finger. Blood wells up. It is red. It is bright. It is life. I let it fall. I let it go. I let the pain go.

I stand up. My legs are weak. They are old. They are tired. I walk to the wall. I press my hand against it. It is rough. It is cold. It is real.

I am a soldier. I am a law. I am a man. I am a ghost. I am a nothing. I am a everything.

The door opens. The Warden is there. He is not angry. He is sad. He is tired. He is old.

"Sign the papers," he says. He holds a pen. He holds a sheet. The paper is white. It is blank. It is full.

I take the pen. It is heavy. It is light. I sign. I do not look. I do not think. I just sign. My name is a mark. My name is a stain. My name is a scar.

I hand it over. I feel nothing. I feel free. I feel lost. I feel found.

The Warden nods. He leaves. The door closes. The lock clicks. The sound is final. The sound is complete.

I sit down. I look at the table. The box is gone. The glass is gone. The blood is gone. The room is empty. The light is grey. The air is still.

I close my eyes. I see the map. I see the lines. I see the borders. I see the people. I see the death. I see the life. I see the choice. I chose to live. I chose to die. I chose to forget. I chose to remember.

I am the map. I am the cartographer. I am the ink. I am the paper. I am the lie. I am the truth.

I open my eyes. I am in the cell. I am in the light. I am in the dark. I am in the middle.

I reach for the bread. It is not there. I reach for the water. It is not there. I reach for the hand. It is not there. I reach for the self. It is not there.

I am nothing. I am everything. I am free.

The end is not a door. The end is a breath. The end is a pause. The end is a silence. The end is a peace.

I wait. I wait for the light to fade. I wait for the dark to come. I wait for the end. I wait for the start.

I am Elias. I am Thorne. I am the man in the cell. I am the man in the war. I am the man in the love. I am the man in the lie.

I am here.

I am gone.

The walls close in. The light fades. The breath stops. The heart stops. The mind stops. The soul stops.

Nothing.

Everything.

Peace.