Elias hadn't adapted to the trickery of the End's Delusion.
He woke on the Forsaken Throne, head rolled to the side, posed like a slumbering lord draped in black. He flexed his fingers first, frowning deeply as he slowly turned his head.
It was a world similar to his own. The same towering modern buildings, the same streets. He recognized them—but there was no way it was his own world.
He'd seen it shatter before his very eyes.
When he flexed his fingers again, tendrils of string ghosted from the tips, delicately spinning around him. Then his body hunched, and he let out a guttural groan of pain. It was an excruciating agony, penetrating the marrow of his bones, the depths of his soul.
The strings spun around him faster, cocooning him in their sharp edges.
It was hours before they dispersed, leaving behind the image of an exhausted, miserable man. He watched the strings again, grinding his teeth.
The strings had belonged to the teenager.
A gift from the dead.
He didn't want it.
Lucas, still observing quietly, realized that something else had altered in Elias' beautiful blue gaze, darkening and polluting it. Information, he soon realized, after Elias shakily stood, gazing at the chaos around him.
The aftermath of an earthquake—but this would only be the beginning. Trapped inside the cocoon, he'd realized several things.
What role he played now—the same as his past—leader of a well-known gang. And then, he knew the role he would play in the End's Delusion.
To the one who killed a Catalyst, he must then replace it.
Elias was quick to understand and process the information, understanding his position rapidly. He let out a bitter chuckle, and his eyes remained icy.
"Is this what he meant?" wondered the man. "I tried so long to survive, and now I'll become one of the ruins in another world."
His fingers curled into each other, digging against his palm. "A Catalyst, hm? I suppose others might become drunk with the power they have, and those who resist fighting are manipulated by other means."
Elias began to make his way down the mountain of rubble in the silent world. All humans had entered their first Story.
"Allow me to guess. You would've used the corpse of Tiger to force me to obey. After all, for those who gave everything up, including their souls to save somebody, they would love even the illusion of their lost ones."
His voice was bitter and dark, speaking to the listening air.
"Unfortunately for you, you've underestimated me as a human. Or a former one now, am I? But that teenager, now that he's dead, no longer means anything to me."
It was a lie.
A lie written in the tight atoms that made the defined lines of Elias' face, woven in between sentences too confidentially spoken to be deciphered. Lucas saw it immediately.
Elias' emotions, or his lack of them, had always fascinated Lucas, whose constant hobby was to observe the expressions on others' faces.
He'd seen worry when Elias saved him, confusion, and dull affection. He'd seen genuine amusement too, but never this.
Never grief.
And Lucas suddenly couldn't look away.
But even the End's Delusion was fooled, attempting to break down his spirit further and further. Elias laughed at those who challenged him, fighting a casual battle that he never intended to win.
His power was stronger than the other Catalysts', the sole reason to force him to use it, to kill and murder until all the bits of humanity finally faded.
Until he proved the End's Delusion cause—that no person was immune to illusion.
Here, he was more powerful than any other. He could roam the broken buildings, take whatever he wanted, and not feel the slightest fear. He could save anybody he chose, as if a god toying with lives.
Elias liked to rebel. He snuck into Stories, leaping inside the splintering pages of paper as he jumped through reality and into another Story.
He watched, from the sidelines, how humans were pitted against each other.
In every Story, he chose a particular person, of varying ages and appearances. A woman with red hair and freckles scattered across her cheeks, and then an old man who walked with a silver cane. A child who lost their mother, a gothic teenager who fought valiantly.
He protected the person from the sidelines, watching quietly. Lucas thought that while they all looked different, there was a certain quality to them.
All were part of a pair, siblings of two fighting to survive.
And every pair ended with tragedy, one eventually lost to the whims of apocalypse.
Elias floated like a ghost, disconnecting with the world more and more. He continued to rebel and toy with the End's Delusion, ruining Stories, saving humans—but at the end of the day, what did it do?
Nothing.
The stars still flickered out; humanity was still dying.
His emotions were growing dull, watching a senseless battle. He was stabbed in the back several times when he attempted to slip into groups, betrayed and tormented.
Elias wasn't somebody easy to bully. To those who turned their backs on him, he would retaliate with petty tricks—until he grew bored, and killed them after they betrayed him.
After all, wouldn't they die eventually? He was only hurrying the inevitable.
He felt like a speck in the universe, the cracks that ran along the roads. Always existing, but insignificant. Enough to do something—to trip somebody, to injure and bring disaster, but what else?
He wasn't enough to change the fate of the world. He didn't carry the heroic determination to continue endlessly either.
Every person he protected died, just as that teenager did.
The amount of scars along his back—because he was strong, not invulnerable—continued to grow with betrayal and battle. Fights that he didn't even seek out.
He killed those who approached the Throne because he knew the truth. That no wish would save everybody—the End's Delusion awaited a special wish that even he didn't know. He killed because he was required to, compelled to by a force he couldn't begin to comprehend.
Perhaps he was prolonging the fate of the world.
But there was a faint pulse of hope, hope to see success. To witness a person who would sit on the Throne and break free from the Delusion.
To claim the Throne, it was difficult enough to gather all the swords of legend, belonging to 'Kings'. Those who did always died at his hand, and if there was a person close by, the swords fell onto them.
They would attack and befall the same fate.
When there was nobody else in the surroundings, the swords leaped to a different owner, for somebody new to gather them all.
'It's all pointless.'
Elias sat on the Forsaken Throne, dully gazing at the rubble and the endless night skies. It'd reached a point where even the brightest star, the brilliant sun, didn't dare reveal itself.
He wondered how many were still alive in the sea of chaos and blood. He wondered if he really cared, or if he simply wanted to care. It wasn't the same, the two.
Then, amidst his thoughts, a lonely figure trudged up to the Throne.
The man swung up his sword, charcoal eyes burning beneath the sweep of raven hair. He lifted his chin, but desolation and exhaustion weighed his shoulders.
He wore a tattered doctor's coat, shredded at the ends, but he didn't seem to care. Elias had to wonder if the coat held a special memory, perhaps to honour the dead, or to remember the past.
"I've come to challenge you, Catalyst."
It was a smooth voice, with clearly enunciated words. Elias concluded that before the apocalypse, the man had likely been well-respected.
Although that didn't matter anymore. Not to him, not to the apocalypse.
Elias laughed and drew himself out of his chair lazily, unhurried. Another life to add to the list, it seemed. He stretched out his arm, crooking one finger.
"Let's see what you've got, hm?"
The once-doctor lunged with a surprising amount of strength and dexterity. Elias dodged to the side, and a bored smile played at his lips.
"You'll have to do better than that, doctor," taunted the Catalyst as the man swung, each heavy swing filled with desperation.
This was probably a hero, a man who had saved many.
A man who had something to fight for.
It was the longest fight Elias had had, and he almost hoped that he would be defeated, laid to waste. He was tired of witnessing destruction repeat in a society he'd already disconnected from.
He wanted to become the blood that ran along the rubble, to become nothing. He'd spent so long wondering about the significance of anything.
He couldn't find anything.
But he saw the way the doctor's knees buckled, how the arm of his sword hung lower. Lucas floated, watching with unblinking eyes the scene of his brother's failure.
Kane fell and slammed his blade into the rubble to stop himself from crumpling. Scarlet dripped down his face, and his dark eyes gazed heavily ahead. He opened his mouth to speak, but all his strength had gone.
His eyes fluttered shut, and his body crumpled, slumping over the sword. Elias huffed, standing straighter to gaze at the new corpse.
He shook his head with a wry laugh and turned to walk back to the Throne.
A shadow fell over his head. He spun around, and a body leaped towards him, a metal bat soaring high. It swung down with the blunt edge, nicking the surface of Elias' skin before smashing rubble into pieces.
A young man crouched, shakily rising as he raised the bat with ease. He wasn't looking at Elias. But instead, the corpse of the doctor sprawled helplessly on the ground.
His entire body trembled, only once, as if allowing the roar of sorrow to a boil in his chest. He seemed to be resisting rushing to crouch, beg the man to wake.
Because he was somebody who could tell when somebody was dead.
He wouldn't hopelessly hope for them to be alive.
He couldn't. Shouldn't.
He swung his head towards Elias, a tear trickling down his face like crystal drops. Like the stars that no longer shone.
Without saying a word, he raised the metal bat high once again.
Elias admired the man's volatile strength; the bursts and deadly blows made from a simple metal bat. His strings manipulated the air, a web of sharpness, but the white-eyed man easily flipped, weaving between them.
Elias' lips twitched before he realized he was smiling. It wasn't one of taunting. No, it was the illusion of hope he'd abandoned.
Hope that burned in the snow-white gaze of this man.
But the battle that seemed endless ended as all things had to.
Elias' hope extinguished once again. He had to give the man some credit, no matter how his skin became sliced, no matter how many times he fell, he would stand and swing the bat once again.
He staked his very soul on the fight, breaking past exhaustion. His limbs would waver, and he'd force them up with sheer willpower.
The man—objectively handsome—now collapsed. Elias had realized at some point that it was likely that the man before him and that doctor were related.
Brothers, cousins, something. He had a soft spot for siblings.
But in the end, their fate had been the same. He turned around to leave the man to waste, but a hand clutched at his pants. He forcefully jerked his leg, but the man's grip was as stubborn as his spirit.
Elias felt a little annoyed, watching the man rise and fall again and again, refusing to give up to the bitter end.
It's all worthless, he wanted to tell him.
All so pointless, he wanted to seethe.
There's no reason to fight, he wanted to confirm.
Instead, he said coldly, "Your persistence is irritating, darling."
The man choked out a bitter laugh, unsuited for his icy features. "Humans are like that, sort of like annoying flies that won't stop buzzing around you. It's just the way we are, and I quite like it."
Elias raised an eyebrow in amusement at the harsh words contrasting with the trembling voice, hoarse and filled with pain.
The hand fell from his pants, and the man continued calmly. "Will you kill me?"
"Hurry up, stop idling," said the man, irritated even at his death.
Elias lowered his eyes, having no interest in turning away anymore. The man who was bold and strong, likely prideful, and fought for the sake of a dead brother. Elias was a little curious.
"Do you want to die?"
"Of... course not. But I'm not stupid enough to hope in a situation like this."
"I could save you."
A laugh spluttered out of the dying man's cracked lips. There was a vicious growl in his throat, and sarcasm flitting over his glare. Elias had to genuinely wonder if this man could smile or laugh joyfully. He couldn't imagine it.
He wanted to.
"Do you... honestly think I want to be saved by you? You damned spectator, are you saying you want to fucking save me, now?"
Elias admitted, "I tried to kill you."
Then he continued, "Now that you want to die, it isn't so interesting anymore."
"...I'd like to hit you a couple times."
Elias felt greatly amused, more so than he had in a long time. More than the pointless, distant conversations he had with those who feared him. "You could try, hm?"
"Tempting," sneered the man.
They continued their bitter conversation, though the man seemed to want to die sooner rather than later. Yet his head turned weakly to the doctor's corpse, a distance away.
Elias watched silently and wondered, what if he rebelled against the End's Delusion one more time? All his rebellions had resulted in nothing, but what was one more time?
One more time, hoping?
He'd met a woman stuck in time, briefly. A Teller who watched the sidelines as he did. But her existence seemed hopeless, like a drifting ghost.
She knew how to notice a bad person from a good, and as soon as her odd coloured eyes landed on him, she looked ready to sprint.
Disguised, he managed to coerce her into answering a few questions. She didn't know how she was stuck in time when the world was moving forward, but a Title that bound her claimed so, and therefore the rumours began.
It was a little disappointing to find that she wasn't a person who'd trudged through present, over and over.
But she'd told him one thing.
Tellers, the most powerful in the End's Delusion, could shape their own abilities. They could perform acts inhumane, even stranger than the normal oddness of the apocalypse.
His ability was a form of panpsychism, allowing him to dive further into the thoughts of inanimate objects, but also living things. He preferred using it on the latter—the former had too many drawbacks.
And he was no scientist, but perhaps it was worth the effort. Worth one last rebellion, because if not this, then he would waste away and truly become a puppet.
It was unlikely to work. Too easy, too beyond what the End's Delusion would allow.
He would try anyway.
He spread his fingers wide, delicate threads that once belonged to a young teenager who fought to revive a sibling long gone. They continued spinning out like thread, a pulsing glow in every fiber.
"Do you want to do it again?"
He heard himself say quietly, to the last hope he saw.
The threads flew out, twisting and threading between and around broken rubble. Shattered buildings and corpses beneath the curtain of night.
"I'm not insane," insisted the fallen man hoarsely. "But... I'm fucking annoyed."
"Why was that person sacrificed for the sake of this stupid game? Who made it in the first place, and why couldn't I see them and punch them? And you too, damn bastard, I want to punch you too."
Elias chuckled at the harshness of the dying man's words, blue gaze reflecting the glowing threads that had stolen into the ruined world around, waiting for his order.
If he could manipulate everything, every object, every corpse, every single thing to turn back, using this stupid ability that was never really his, given by the End's Delusion as a means to control him—
—It wouldn't matter what he'd have to lose.
Of course, his ability would set things in motion. It would push the clock hand back, urging it to spin rapidly backwards until the End's Delusion was forced to cooperate, resetting the world.
It was an experiment. One that would destroy this world, and in turn, any life left in him. Or one that would change everything.
The dying man's voice cracked, and he shakily raised his vicious, pale gaze. Through the threads that consumed his vision, Elias thought that the man's eyes were beautiful. Lit with stars that no longer shone.
"I loathe this stupid, broken ending where I survived alone."
Every thread felt like it was woven out of Elias' skin, his flesh and bones. It trembled with the ghosting of air, and Elias' entire being felt overwhelmed, as if he were strung and electrocuted.
He fell forward over the man, deciding to ignore the pain and focus on the way the light retracted over the snowy vision.
He reached out, wiping a smudge of blood as pain roared in every atom of his body. There was the twisting urge to scream in agony, a million sounds blasting in his head, every cell burning in lava.
"Then change it."
Elias' vision blurred, and as he saw the man's head fall to the ground, his body slumped beside the near corpse.
"You won't remember this," he said softly, "and yet, let the regret that makes you burn and boil etch into your mind."
'Feel the same hatred to the End's Delusion as I did, and force another ending.'
He reached out a hand. At least, if this were his dying moments and not a new beginning, he wanted to remember the warmth of humanity. But as his fingers grazed the man's cheeks, he found them icy cold.
He spoke, a bare whisper, a hope that for too long had been masked with indifference and laughter.
"Wake up, dreamer of dreamless dreams."