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Oubliette of Sand and Fire · Cinema Yūgen

• 0:17
  Part 2,
• 0:22
  The footprints the killer followed came up to the thoroughfare,
• 0:27
  then left signs of their passing on the remaining boards,
• 0:32
  which lay like broken piano keys before the empty structures,
• 0:37
  which stood in equal disrepair.
• 0:40
  The faint trail had wandered indoors, and the killer followed,
• 0:44
  his own footsteps hearkening in an air stirred and shaken by the breath of the
• 0:51
  desert, which is all that was left beyond this place.
• 0:55
  Up some stairs and along a hall to a door that hung open, expecting company.
• 1:01
  The room within was an oubliette. There were some dusty books pilled high in one corner.
• 1:08
  An old blanket had served as a bed.
• 1:11
  There were torn papers and maps of a sort,
• 1:15
  hand-drawn with a candle, almost at the end of usefulness, its dry blood cementing
• 1:21
  it to the neck of bottle which, had in its day, washed away painful memories
• 1:27
  for but a brief portion of time.
• 1:30
  The dark man looked at the scene and knew that it to be a place of last hope.
• 1:37
  The trail he had followed came and went some time ago.
• 1:41
  It was possible that whoever anticipated his coming, and so like the killer himself,
• 1:48
  wasted little of the night with sleep and spent more on waiting and preparation
• 1:52
  for this day as good as any for a dying.
• 1:57
  Something below stairs scuttled then. The dark man came down quickly and found
• 2:03
  fresh markings This person was cunning and not a complete coward They knew how to stalk,
• 2:10
  how to get the drop on a man With a pistol and these talents,
• 2:15
  the dark man studied some on the notion that there might well be a new sheriff
• 2:21
  in town But he let a smile creep from ear to ear at that,
• 2:26
  Who is the law going to protect and serve here?
• 2:30
  This land had had already watched the human race finally as one, reach a level pegging.
• 2:37
  With all folks now with their wooden coats on, they were at last equal.
• 2:42
  A scurrying across some boards and a door being made use of by something other
• 2:48
  than the wind brought the dark man back out into the daylight.
• 2:54
  The footprints, the fresh makings, zigzagged over Main Street and from there
• 3:00
  into the opposing edifices.
• 3:02
  The killer mused on going in, following them back into the shade, but held his ground.
• 3:09
  He could spend the better part of the day doing that, chasing this ghost with
• 3:14
  earthly feet all over town.
• 3:16
  As much time had gone by, and as much as he had the hours to put in the practice,
• 3:23
  the dark man knew in his heart that the love or the use for patience did not abide in him.
• 3:31
  This being a cold fact, he holstered his guns and sat upon the boardwalk,
• 3:36
  using the dried remains of an old horse trough as a windbreak.
• 3:41
  There he brought forth fire, and after the gathering, set it to dance its way over the town.
• 3:48
  This place was already over and done.
• 3:52
  The fire that rose simply allowed this last station of humanity to pass into
• 3:58
  legend in a blaze of glory.
• 4:01
  The killer moved to arise in the landscape to watch the town disappear.
• 4:06
  His gaze, though, was not fixed on the flames.
• 4:10
  No, it was on the desert beneath the black smoke, watching and waiting for his
• 4:16
  prey, his last victim, to take to the sand and run for their life.
• 4:22
  The sun was at its peak, and the dark man was at his limits when a shape ran
• 4:28
  from the fires of damnation and out into the nothing.
• 4:32
  The killer rose slowly. For him, there was no need to run.
• 4:37
  This person's own tracks would work against him,
• 4:41
  and the dark man put little credence into the notion that whoever it was could
• 4:48
  keep up a pace required to see the sun come down on them for the last time. But the hours came in.
• 4:56
  The tracks ahead of the killer were deep and constant.
• 5:00
  This last pray wasn't done yet, and it was beginning to be troublesome. them.
• 5:06
  This person had brought some of the fire that drank their last place of refuge with them.
• 5:13
  They were not content to merely lie down and die.
• 5:18
  The dark man, though, could match this resilience with tenacity.
• 5:23
  He who had followed in the footsteps of many and played judge,
• 5:28
  jury, and executioner had not been beaten yet.
• 5:31
  Sure, some of his victims had possessed a certain wiliness that prolonged the
• 5:36
  inevitable, but not for long and not forever.
• 5:41
  Eventually he caught them all. He would catch up with this person,
• 5:46
  though he thought to himself, I will greet this person.
• 5:51
  I shall ask them of that which has allowed them such a life.
• 5:55
  What power it is that has seen them endure.
• 5:59
  I shall ask them to give it name. I shall ask them their name.
• 6:04
  As this shall be humanity's end, then this passing will be well made.
• 6:10
  But night came before the killer would be called again to go for his guns.
• 6:16
  The sun fell and rose, moving over the killer whose prey still managed to elude him.
• 6:23
  It was in the heat of the day. three days
• 6:26
  after he set off on this pursuit into the
• 6:29
  nothing that the trail vanished the
• 6:33
  dark man knelt before the final footprints and quietly let his shadow linger
• 6:38
  over them in some strange form of worship there he came to it there in that
• 6:44
  moment he came to the realization that he had been beaten.