Her beloved and treasured paradise is blighted – devoid of splendor. Spired towers, multifaceted complexes, bright, dazzling cities once so pure, have fallen into disgrace. Crippled. Conceded to ruin and sunken into the water. Declining into the lightless and asphyxiating depths of ink. Floating corpses amassed into a parading grave occupy the bloodied sea.
It is truly a wondrous display of the stilled and the inanimate.
My magnificent ocean of death; my little controversial exhibition of power is but a sample of my ability – a simple taste.
Enough to capture the attention of that self-righteous Esseden, I pause and quietly chuckle to myself as I hold onto that thought.
Could it be that I have finally outperformed myself?
Not in the sense of execution, but rather, in the result. There is an addictive thrill - an immersive pleasure when you unleash havoc. I could never have anticipated nor imagined such a brilliant outcome. Its as if the stars had truly aligned themselves for me – hoping for my success in my most crucial and monumental endeavor. Favoring my disposition during this trying tribulation of importance and need.
For the sake of perpetuating my own existence, I must guarantee the destruction and the survival of others – so that I may never taste oblivion.
"I can't understand why our esteemed universal architect had created such a demented and immoral soul. A soul who deems genocide a necessary act. What does self-indulgent slaughter offer, other than wickedness and tragedy?"
Why bother with a rhetorical question, when you obviously know the answer?
Is it because you enjoy berating me?
Very well then, since you are so insufferably insistent, I shall humor you for a moment, because it will most certainly be your last.
"Progression." I hiss. Taunting her, as we stand upon the stygian ocean, face to face.
"You mean regression." She counters with her usual condescension, and lack of humor. She slouches her shoulders, conveying her disappointment, and then shakes her head.
"I'm not surprised you have managed to confuse the two definitions, given your state of mind."
She never did understand my wicked sense of humor, as she called it, nor could she ever appreciate the alluring grandeur of the misunderstood element; let alone acknowledge the invaluable role it serves in the grand scheme of things. To her, darkness, is nothing more than taint – an irremovable cosmic stain needing to be eliminated. To be controlled, and culled by her.
She refuses to recognise the elements divinity as it is perpetually seen as an existential obstacle – a threat. The darkness has always been there to soothe and comfort me during my dire times of need - since it is an extension of myself in its most omnipresent form.
The Esseden brings her hands together and conjures a light-infused alosium sabre into actuality.
"A former member of the first trinity in exchange for billions of innocent lives, seems like a fair trade to me. Wouldn't you agree?" She drops down to one knee and adjusts the astral laced grip, before aiming the curved point of the blade down. She impales the ocean's surface with a downward plunge. Illuminating the water with a pure and pale effulgence. Purging my obsidian. Transmuting dark into light.
Souls are extracted from idle corpses, and congregated in legion. Beckoned by their esseden – eager to remerge as one with her soul; henceforth achieving a perfectly balanced state between creator and creation.
What a sickening sight to behold.
Her single eye boils with fuming steam, and shines brighter than anything ever imagined - mimicking the implosion of a dying star. She begins to step towards me.
"Their unwarranted agony. Their right to live a full life – wrongfully stolen by a rogue, maniacal entity." Her narrow throat panels open and shut repeatedly. She starts to wheeze and breathe heavily. Spluttering. Coughing up blood. My obsidian drains from the vertical slit between the slim, symmetrical squares. Caliginous spots, cysts, and fractures appear around the perimeter of the alosium slit.
To self-inflict and voluntarily undergo unnecessary anguish for them - for the sake of compassion - is unconceivable to me. To be impelled by moral obligation and empathy.
Such sanctimoniousness; this is precisely why I despise martyrs.
Witnessing her indisputable devotion and self-sacrifice, it's like I am peering into my past. Reminding me of a soul I once knew - a companion – a dear friend. A soul named Enjin. Like her, he also used to shoulder the burdens of others without hesitation, sometimes in a literal sense. Always putting others first despite his cruel and adverse circumstances. Even when the odds were against him, he persevered nonetheless.
I despised it.
Suffering for others – suffering for me. Knowing his pain. Seeing her is like watching him suffer all over again. He was the first soul to show me any compassion when I had experienced none. He was the epitome of selflessness. That is why I will always honor his actions; the things he did for me despite being under the influence of amnesia. For when the celestial day arrives when he regains his memories and decides to loathe me, I shall not hold it against him.
We have been through a lot together. Irreplaceable sentimental moments, as well as disconcerting ones. So it will be interesting to know his perception of me in the future, baring in mind those previous events.
On the other hand, the resemblance between him and the Esseden is too uncanny for my taste, so much so, it's beginning to sour my mood. The esseden's oculus continues to fume in sheer angst.
"I feel – everything!" She takes a stand, and changes her footing. Settling into an offensive stance. She lifts her sabre single handedly, and directs the dripping yet untainted tip at me. I sneer at her apparent display of valiance.
"Good." I sneer at her so called valour.
She lunges forward, and thrusts her blade towards me in a straight horizontal motion. The darkness within my very being reacts, and enshrouds me instantaneously as I am inches away from her enacting the delivering blow. I reappear behind her while her sabre is still outthrusted, and perforating thin air opposed to my stomach.
I leap back as she whirls around, and slices diagonally across. Then a burning urtication develops in my upper arm. I glance to my right, and notice it has been severed from my bicep. Hanging by tendon strings and bone. Realisation ensues as discomfort and tenderness amplifies.
My mind is frayed by the acceptance of reality and the temporal shock of disbelief. There is nothing to prevent the bleeding from the raw area of inflicted disjuncture.
"It seems you have lost your touch." She raises her unoccupied hand, and the ocean water quivers. The effortless movement incites restlessness, and destabilizes my footing.
"Its quite a pity, really." She clenches her fist, and a tsunami rears up from behind her.
"Because I was expecting, more."
The tsunami curls over in its imposing descent, before its seismic wave crashes down upon me. Taking me under. Swept along by its merciless underwater currents, and dragged into the elemental profoundness of my undying umbra – the oceanic bottomless pit of my own making.
A visualisation of reminiscence manifests before me in the water as a vague apparition - a mirroring image. A piece of memory assimilated from my subconscious and reflected back at me. At first, the visualisation was only a bipedal outline of shimmering aureate; then it becomes apparent and palpable - completely perceivable. Two familiar brown eyes regard me intensely. His golden pupils radiate in the darkness, pained by grief; cementing his sorrow. His palps uncurl and rear in anger.
"Don't do this! Please. I beg of you." I try to reach out but my hand passes through the visual recording of his past protest. His words echo hollow as I sink deeper.
It was never my intention to hurt him; however, I cannot circle around my existential dilemma and dismiss it. The survival of my existence depends on the succession of this prevailing outcome. The reechoing of my betrayal, and my memories of him are all that I have left; all that I can take with me.
"This is madness!" He says.
I know it is. I smirk at the apparitional projection floating above me. When did he begin to have a say in my decision-making? I find it astonishing how our relationship has changed and progressed significantly over the celestial years in comparison to when we first met.
It has been an eon since our fated encounter – or should I say self orchestrated? These days, I can no longer tell the difference. We started off on a peculiar and antagonistic note.
He had his –ambitions, while I was concentrating on mine as a maturing soul.
My plan was simple.
Intrapersonal exploration, and to find my true place within the universe I was born into.
Unfortunately for me, a certain someone decided to become my problem and overcomplicate my personal state of affairs. He manipulated celestial time and space; hence as a result of his power play, his grand-scale interference had landed me in a situation I didn't wish to be in.
Back then, Ira was at the height of his power. He outwitted the members of the first and second trinity – except for me.
I was once a member of the first trinity until Ira devastated it. Made it obsolete. Through divide and conquer, he turned the other two members against one another. Emphasising their differences and questioning the strength of their unity. Sabotaging their tolerance for dissimilarity. He knew he could not best them in combat and targeted their ego instead.
He is the sole reason why the Hunni and the Wa-omme founders cannot tolerate one another.
Why they became so bitter.
Bitter to me.
I was the only one left to oppose him, and stand in his way to universal domination. Rules did not apply to him. He perceived everything as a conquest. His lethal curiosity took him to new levels, and tested his limits. He wanted to experiment and to see how far he could go.
He yearned to know if it was possible to overthrow the universal architect.
God.
Our creator wasn't particularly pleased or overly thrilled about Ira's ambition, and so I became the universe's last resort - the final defendant.
Preferably, our architect would have us settle our own disputes instead of interfering. They wanted to teach us the value and principle in maintaining our own responsibilities. As well as to understand the concept of consequence, for we generate our own karma, both malign and benevolent. The actions we commit are returned to us in kind, tenfold.
The delightful thrill of unpredictability, eternally keeping me on my toes.
If I had of failed, as the last piece of defense and rationale, then it's only natural the creator would intervene to commence the great reset.
Ira is the reason why boundaries exist and are now implemented in place, although he still ignores them.
Then the apparition of the soul I once loved and abandoned, fades into the surrounding blackness.
I know I cannot undo what I have done, nor can I return to his side. And I can't take away his grief. Once he learns of the things I have committed, and what I will soon do to him, our relationship will never be the same again – except for our memories.
Only I can put an end to this cycle of self-entrapment.
For, I am nothing more than a perpetrator and a victim of self.
And only I can choose when and how to perish.
No one can ever have the privilege of delivering my end.
If it were possible I'd rather not be reborn again and break the reincarnation wheel instead.
Then from the pitch black, a blurred and white phosphorescent rhombus speeds towards me. I catch the subtle gleam of her sabre, and a resurge of electricity charges throughout my body, resulting in a high voltage surplus. The divine element storms forth from my eyes in a maddening fit of fury, unleashing a tremendous shockwave from myovercharged body. Then, with a gestural motion of my hand, I compel the umbra to act as a revolving shroud around me - and bring me to the surface. I could still feel the electricity within me as I stand upon the ocean again - soaked and dripping.
The esseden leaps out of the water and into the air to then swing her sabre around in a circular motion. I awkwardly grab her blade prior to her landing - before she could land a blow to my head. She tears it from my hand, slicing across my palm.
"Proven time, and time again. Arrogance often coincides with over confidence and narcissism." She remarks. Clearly airing her distaste for me. With a firm, disciplined hand and steadfast velocity, she re-angles the tip of her weapon before driving it straight through my chest. Penetrating my heart.
I open my eyes once more, and find myself floating within a golden nebula. Carmine coloured, matter-infused streamlets exude from my closing wounds – reutilising my blood; the formation of its continual flow resembles a lemniscate.
I don't know where I am nor do I recall falling asleep.
The planet was disintegrating before my very eyes as the titans fell one by one to the event of a global extermination carried out by an unidentified power.
Could this be a dream within a dream?
Or was I never awake to begin with?
There are two versions of me currently existing in each differentiating timeline continuums. The one with the Esseden is more of a regressive prologue, foregoing my fate of being consumed by the void, whereas this one is progressive and undetermined. Which one is the real version of me?
"You're awake." A familiar voice states. It is identical to the apparition's. The one named Ira. The one who reechoed his sentiments in my dream as I was sinking within the ocean's immense depths?
Midst the cloud of particles, unrefined and indistinct lines constitute a dainty figure that is highlighted in a darker shade of the present, yet prevalent regal colour surrounding me. The stranger studies me. Its rich maroon eyes are unreadable, and harbour no emotion. There is also a black hole inside its small and narrow chest. Frozen in time and compassed by a nine- pointed star emblem. The same one I saw engraved on the chamber walls.
"Who are you?" I ask the figure, trying to bridge the gap between us.
"My name is Ira."
He hesitated, but he still answered my question in a calm manner nonetheless, as he clearly articulated into my mind.
Ira?
That name was referenced in my dream. My other self mentioned they had an amorous relationship. Is he the same individual aforementioned – or someone who coincidently happens to look like him?
"Where am I?"
"My soul."
His soul? How is that possible? It snubs logic, and outright defies the constraints of physicality. I touch my face, and realise my facial contraption is still on. Intact even.
"Why am I here?"
"My, you certainly are an inquisitive one, aren't you?" He comments with a lighthearted jest – and then his tone drops an octave.
"You were in critical condition. If I had of not acted in time, you would have perished among your foes. And what kind of soul wishes to share their grave with their enemy? Hmm?"
He was the one who eliminated the common opposition and diminished the planet in its entirety. Now, he is healing my injuries? Does he know the reason why I was on that planet? I have so many questions to ask him, and yet, I've comprehended so little thus far in regards to my situation.
"Do not fret; all of your questions will be answered in due time, but for now, please rest. Your injuries are far from healed."
"I have the right to know." I push, since fate insists on keeping me waiting for a reason I do not know.
"I know you're eager for answers; however, you must understand, once they learn that their plan has been foiled, they will send reinforcements to ascertain and track our location. So, please bear with me until we reach a safer destination."
A faint caress of his spirit touches my cheek. As of now, I do not have the energy to express my disapproval or impatience.