Chapter 21

chapter twenty-one OK, now the entire-life-flashing-before-my-eyes thing is gonna happen. That's what I think as the chunk of statue falls on me and everything goes black. But instead, all I see is darkness, followed by that same horrible image. The thing that I saw through the rip-tear. The embodiment of absolute horror. I see it for longer, this time. I want to look away, but I can't. For real, it's not possible—it's just there, behind my eyelids. And I think... darn it, I'm about to die, and I never even found out what that vision was. The words start to repeat in my head like a little lullaby, rocking me to sleep. I never found out what it was. I never found out what it was. I never found out what it was. Found! OUT! Words twist and shift and slide together. "Found!" It's Quint. "Found him!" he says. And he's talking about me. I feel rubble shifting, falling off me.

好了，现在整个人生在我眼前闪过的事情就要发生了。 当大块的雕像落在我身上，一切都变黑时，我就是这么想的。 但相反，我看到的是黑暗，接着是同样可怕的画面。 我透过撕裂看到的东西。 绝对恐怖的化身。 这次我能看得更久。 我想把目光移开，但我做不到。 说真的，这是不可能的——它就在那里，在我的眼皮后面。 我认为……该死，我都快死了，我都不知道那个幻象是什么。 这句话开始在我的脑海里重复，就像一首小摇篮曲，摇着我入睡。 我一直不知道那是什么。 我一直不知道那是什么。 我一直不知道那是什么。 发现!出去!词语扭曲、移动、滑动在一起。 “找到了!”这是五胞胎。“找到他了！”他说。 他说的是我。 我感觉碎石在移动，从我身上掉下来。

"OUT!" It's Wracksaw, roaring, "OUT OF MY WAY!" I feel something crawling near my ankle. I bite back a scream and look down, expecting it to be the same foul rodents that piled atop Quint. But it's not. It's a strayfur. Specifically, it's the strayfur I slipped on. The dead one. Only... somehow it's not dead anymore. It's moving in a herky-jerky, shuffling manner, reminding me a bit of how Alfred walks. And the realization hits me like a comet. This strayfur isn't dead. It's undead. It was bitten by Stargrove. Stargrove is a zombie monster. And zombies make more zombies. Which means this entire place... is now filled with hundreds of zombified strayfurs. And this is terrifying... unless you know how to control hundreds of zombies. I think back to Ghazt's words: Now you are the general, Jack. Until this moment, I never truly considered what it would mean to wield the powers once wielded by Ghazt. Ghazt is evil. Ghazt served .e...c.. Ghazt helped me solely out of desire for revenge against Thrull. Ghazt, in the end, was weakened and broken. But that

“出去!”是锯鬼，在咆哮，“让开！”我觉得有东西在我脚踝附近爬。 我忍住一声尖叫，朝下看了看，以为那是堆在昆特身上的那些肮脏的啮齿动物。 但事实并非如此。它是一只流浪狗。 确切地说，是我踩到的那只流浪狗。 死去的那个。只有……不知怎么的，它不再是死的了。 它慢吞吞地移动着，让我想起了阿尔弗雷德走路的样子。 我恍然大悟，恍然大悟。 这只流浪狗没有死。这是不死的。 它被Stargrove咬了。 Stargrove是个僵尸怪物。 僵尸会制造更多的僵尸。 也就是说这整个地方… 现在到处都是僵尸化的流浪狗。 这很可怕……除非你知道怎么控制几百只僵尸。 我回想起Ghazt的话：现在你是将军了，Jack。 在这一刻之前，我从来没有真正考虑过拥有加斯特曾经拥有的力量意味着什么。 Ghazt是邪恶的。Ghazt服务于…… 加斯特帮助我完全是出于对瑟鲁尔的报复。 最后，Ghazt被削弱和瓦解了。 但这

was only because of the error that occurred when Evie tried to summon him to my world—the error that caused his true, godlike form to be replaced by a ridiculous monstrosity. So now... I'm supposed to take on that mantle? Use those powers? If I do, I'm crossing a bridge that can't be uncrossed. How far will I go to stop .e...c. and to save my dimension and my friends? Dumb question, Jack. I'll go as far as I need to. But what if in doing that... I lose control? Thrull weighs heavy on me. And not just the massive stone chunk of his head currently sitting atop my body. It's the information we've learned about Thrull that presses down on me—knowing that, at one point, he was not pure evil. He fought against the servants of .e...c.. His greatest moment was right here—on this ground where I'm now lying. How did he turn evil? Did he make a choice? Or did it just... happen? Could it happen to anyone? At the forbidden fortress, I saw June about to be killed—and the Cosmic Hand saw, too. It acted on its own, to save her. And that terrified me. It meant I was no longer fully in control of the hand, or of myself. And

只是因为伊薇试图召唤他到我的世界时犯了一个错误——这个错误导致他真实的、神一般的形象被一个可笑的怪物所取代。 所以现在…我应该承担起这个责任吗？ 使用这些能力？如果我这么做了，我就是在跨过一座无法回头的桥。 我要走多远才能停下来？ 为了拯救我的次元和我的朋友？ 愚蠢的问题，杰克。我要走多远就走多远。 但是如果这样做…… 我失控了？我很难受。 而不仅仅是现在躺在我身体上的他那巨大的脑袋。 这是我们了解到的关于Thrull的信息，让我感到压力——在某种程度上，他并不是纯粹的邪恶。 他与他的仆人作战…… 他最伟大的时刻就在这里——在我现在躺着的这片土地上。 他是怎么变坏的？他做出选择了吗？ 或者它只是…发生什么?这种事会发生在任何人身上吗？ 在禁城，我看到琼即将被杀——宇宙之手也看到了。 它自己行动了，救了她。 这让我很害怕。这意味着我不再完全控制这只手，或者我自己。 和

if I'm not fully in control of myself, I can't be fully in control of what I become. That was the most frightening part. But Dave saw my fear, understood it, and told me to lean into it. Accept and trust it would work out. And I've been trying. I've been trying so, so hard. Accepting, continuing to power forward even as this hideous, otherworldly force was becoming stranger, larger, more a part of me. But knowing what I now know about Thrull? Can I keep trusting what I'm doing is right, when there's no way to truly know? Light splashes my face. The world comes into focus—I see a chunk of rubble being lifted off me. Wracksaw looms over me. I stare up at him– and pain rips through my arm. The Cosmic Hand twitches. But I fight it. I still have the faintest mental grip on the power of the Cosmic Hand. It's a bucking bronco and I'm riding it, trying to hold on. Two more zombie strayfurs limp into my field of vision. One tries to fly, like it hasn't realized it's dead. It leaves the ground for a moment, then falls. My eyes flick up. Wracksaw doesn't notice the strayfurs. I have the memory of his voice in the back of

如果我不能完全控制自己，我就不能完全控制自己。 这是最可怕的部分。 但戴夫看到了我的恐惧，理解了我的恐惧，并告诉我要直面恐惧。 接受并相信它会解决问题。 我一直在努力。我已经非常非常努力了。 接受，继续前进，即使这可怕的，超凡脱俗的力量变得更陌生，更大，更成为我的一部分。 但知道我现在对斯拉尔的了解吗？ 我还能相信我所做的是对的吗，当我无法真正知道的时候？ 灯光洒在我的脸上。世界变得清晰起来——我看到一块瓦砾从我身上被抬走。 断头台向我逼近。我抬头盯着他——一阵剧痛穿过我的手臂。 宇宙之手抽动。但我与之抗争。 我对宇宙之手的力量还有一点点的感觉。 这是匹野马，我骑着它，试着抓住它。 又有两只迷路的僵尸跛行进入我的视野。 一只想飞，好像它还没意识到自己已经死了。 它离开地面片刻，然后下落。 我的眼睛一眨一眨。Wracksaw没有注意到流浪狗。 我的记忆里有他的声音

my mind. I shut my eyes, and I see him... THIS LABORATORY IS WHERE I BUILD MONSTERS. BUT YOU WON'T NEED TO BE BUILT. YOU ARE WELL ON YOUR WAY TO BECOMING A MONSTROSITY YOURSELF. WITHOUT MY HELP, My eyes reopen. And now... my vision is filled with a thousand mind-doodles. I'm seeing the thoughts of the strayfurs. Which means it's not only Stargrove I can communicate with and command. And if I can control every strayfur here, then I'll know for sure: if I get home, I can control every zombie marching toward the Tower. I feel the hand growing around me again, forming the Slicer, the midnight blade, jagged and fleshy and made of the same strange skin that covered the Scrapken's body. I stop fighting it. And I deliver the mind-doodle: get this statue off of me.

我的脑海里。我闭上眼睛，看到他…… 这个实验室是我制造怪物的地方。 但你不需要被建造。 你正在一步步变成一个怪物。 没有我的帮助，我的眼睛重新睁开。 而现在……我的视野里充满了上千个意念涂鸦。 我看到了流浪狗的想法。 也就是说我不仅可以和星林沟通和指挥。 如果我能控制这里的每一只流浪动物，那我就能确定：如果我回家，我就能控制每一只向伦敦塔进发的僵尸。 我感到那只手又在我身边伸了起来，形成了那把切片机，那把午夜的利刃，参差而多肉，由覆盖在刮刀人身上的那种奇怪的皮肤制成。 我不再抗拒它。然后我在脑海里涂鸦：把这个雕像从我身上拿开。

At once, the zombie strayfurs swarm toward me, turning the world black as they dive beneath the monument, pushing, nudging, beaks digging into the ground and chipping at the stone. The statue starts to move, just slightly. Enough for me to get one leg free. Wracksaw staggers back. "Wracksaw!" I shout, sitting up. "Didn't you realize? Didn't your all-knowing, brilliant mind consider? That if the hand wrestled control of my being, took over— then your enemy would be a monster?" At once, the undead strayfurs pull the monument up, freeing me completely. I stand. The strayfurs swirl, forming a tornado around me. A massive, terrible army of the undead.

顷刻间，这些游荡的僵尸向我涌来，它们潜入纪念碑下面，把整个世界都变成了黑色，它们推推搡搡，用喙挖进地面，啃着石头。 雕像开始微微移动。 足够让我解放一条腿了。 断臂锯摇摇晃晃地往后走。“Wracksaw !”我喊着，坐了起来。 “你没发现吗？”你那无所不知的聪明头脑没有考虑过吗？ 如果这只手控制了我的生命，接管了——那么你的敌人将是一个怪物？”亡灵们立刻把纪念碑拉了起来，把我完全解放了。 我的立场。流浪动物在我周围旋转，形成了龙卷风。 一支庞大可怕的亡灵大军。