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Pain! My existence was nothing but pain and darkness! It was as if every nerve was set ablaze, then doused in liquid nitrogen to extinguish the searing flames. I cried, laughed, and spiraled deeper into madness, tossing and turning in the abyss, each moment slipping further into anguish and insanity.
I clawed at my face, peeling it away and giggling maniacally as tears streamed down my torn cheeks. Flesh ripped and blood splattered as I pushed a finger into my eye, turning it into mesh before revealing an empty socket. In a frenzied rage, I bit off the fingers of my other hand, thrashing and screaming into the void, repeating the motions as though I had never done them before.
Fingers…
Still there.
Bite.
Thrash.
SCREAM!
Shattered! I was beyond shattered; my mind was utterly broken. I heard whisperings by the thousands, millions, each in my own voice, echoing haunting torments. The damage wasn’t seeping into me, but rather, it was pouring out from my shattered soul. Driven by desperation, I clawed, bit, and thrashed at myself, at my fractured soul, desperate to silence the voices. The voices resounding from within... from me. My voice. Silence my voice! Silence me! No more.
My soul—obliterated, hadn’t it been?
My soul.
Shattered.
Even without the sanity to comprehend how I knew this, deep down, it was unmistakably clear. Memories flooded my mind in vivid, rapid snapshots, each too swift to fully grasp. I was certain these weren’t my memories, yet something deep within me felt this wasn’t true at all. No. If I were to be honest with myself, they were indeed all my memories retained by my shattered soul.
The air was thick with yelling and shouting. A hostile crowd bellowed at me as I stood on a stage before them, a noose tight around my neck.
“Witch! Witch! Witch!” their cries rang out in unison.
Why? Why do they hate me?
Hate.
Hate!
“Hang the bitch!” someone screamed, hurling a rock that struck my stomach.
I wanted to collapse to my knees, gasping for air, but even as my legs buckled, the noose around my neck cruelly kept me upright. My legs shook uncontrollably, pain searing through me as I struggled for each breath. Then, suddenly, the platform beneath me vanished, and I felt gravity pull me downwards.
Clenching my eyes shut, the sound of the crowd faded into silence. When I reopened them, I found myself standing in an empty alley, surrounded by buildings reminiscent of Victorian-era London. My head felt light as I swayed.
Glancing down, I saw unfamiliar hands with wrists bleeding profusely. Worse still, there was no desire within me to stem the flow as my vision slowly faded to nothingness. No cries came for me, no expressions of love; I slipped away utterly alone in some forgotten alley.
Alone.
You’re alone.
I’m always alone.
I felt a pipe touch my lips. With a deep inhale, a bitter taste flooded my lungs, erasing my mental aches. As I cracked my eyes open, I found myself now in a hut reminiscent of some old dynasty I couldn’t quite recall, filled with the broken, suffering, and forgotten. Around me, others drew deep breaths from their pipes, letting the opium wash away their pain. Driven by a greedy desire for that numbing sensation, I inhaled deeply again—and again, and again…
There was a recurring theme within each memory I witnessed. Despite inhabiting different bodies, whether male or female, I consistently suffered. I was a pariah, unwanted by all, losing myself in drugs, cast out by society, or ending it all by my own hand. In every life, I was a pathetic creature.
You’re pathetic! Kill yourself. Nobody loves you. Kill yourself! Pathetic! KILL YOURSELF! You’re pathetic! Kill yourself. Kill yourself! Pathetic! Nobody loves you. KILL YOURSELF! You’re pathetic! Kill yourself. Kill yourself! Nobody loves you. Pathetic! KILL YOURSELF! You’re pathetic! Kill yourself. Kill yourself! Pathetic! KILL YOURSELF! Nobody loves you. You’re pathetic! Kill yourself. Kill yourself! Pathetic! KILL YOURSELF! You’re pathetic! Nobody loves you. Kill yourself. Kill yourself! Pathetic! KILL YOURSELF! Nobody loves you. Nobody loves you. Nobody loves you!
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I listened to a chorus of my own shattered voices, each emanating from a fragment of my soul—every fragment bearing a portion of a memory I had witnessed. They yelled, whispered, and screamed into my mind like a cruel mantra.
Alternating between laughter and tears, I thrashed about, tearing at myself, overwhelmed by a desperate desire to end it all.
“Nobody loves me. I’m shunned, despised, alone. Nobody loves me, not even myself,” I whispered in unison with the voices.
Tears streamed down my face as I clenched my torn eyes shut, my emotions wildly fluctuating between snickering, mourning, giggling, and wailing. My sanity was gone... I was gone. How did this all happen? Where did it all start?
Shattered.
A memory, a vision from the past, unfolded before my mind. I found myself standing in a dungeon within a realm entirely different from Earth. A realm filled with magic! I was Blake, transformed into a monstrous Black Pudding in human form—dark, sinister, and cruel.
My hand clasped the dungeon’s core as time froze around me, and before me stood the Primordial of Magic. Her ethereal beauty was a wisp of blue, pure mana, with swirling clouds of pink dancing in and out of existence upon her skin.
She killed me. She shattered me. My soul was destroyed by her hand. Yet here I am. Here, I suffer. Here, I replay the agony of so many failed past lives.
I was a pawn in her game.
She used you.
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She used me!
She destroyed you.
She destroyed me.
I wept for my loss, cackling through tears mingled with anger and madness. I laughed hysterically as I continued to pull at my hair, tore at my flesh, and clawed at the very essence of my soul.
Betrayed.
Discarded.
Shattered.
Utterly alone.
Curling into myself, I spiraled further into insanity, cycling through memories of past lives that surfaced in my shattered mind. I saw myself banished from my tribe, wandering lost through the prairie. Another tribe found me. Violated me. Scalped me. That’s how all memories seemed to unfold—always marked by my suffering. Overwhelmed, I recoiled, unable to endure any more.
No more.
No more!
No more.
NO MORE!
“I love you,” a voice whispered into my ear.
I opened my eyes to gaze up at a nude woman in her early twenties, smiling down at me. Her fair, freckled skin glowed under candlelight, her long blonde hair cascaded around her shoulders, and her green eyes shone like emeralds—she was beautiful. She moved her hips slowly—gently—as I felt her warmth envelop me. As I reached up to touch her face, I was startled to find my arms were not my own, but strong, masculine limbs. Her rhythmic motion continued.
“Aaaah, Bowen. I love you,” she moaned.
“Aislinn,” I moaned, thrusting as I clenched my eyes shut in pleasure and affection.
Soft lips met mine as a gentle summer breeze blew past. When I reopened my eyes, I found myself on a cliffside overlooking the ocean. Beside me was Aislinn, her head resting on my shoulder as we gazed out at the sea, utterly blissful just to be near each other.
“I’m with child,” she whispered into my ear.
These moments with her were the furthest back any memory went—there were no others before her. It was as if we were newborn souls, living happily together, inseparable, in love. Our connection transcended anything I could define with mere words.
Standing up, I extended a hand to help her to her feet, our gazes locked on one another. She leaned up on her tiptoes for a kiss—suddenly, an arrow alight with flames whizzed past us! I whirled around to witness another scene unfolding.
Romans were stepping out of the forest, the bitter cold of the winter solstice clawing at my limbs as I grasped Aislinn’s hand. The screams from the village pierced the air as soldiers butchered everyone in sight.
“RUN!” I yelled as we took off, Aislinn in tow.
She dies.
You died.
Her pace was slowed by our unborn child as we ran into the forest… we didn’t make it. The Romans killed us, my love and unborn child dying bloodied within a snow-filled forest.
The scene shifted again in ways I had never imagined possible. I found myself floating within the void, just as I am now—a mere soul without a body. From my chest, a tether of light emerged, guiding me to Aislinn. She floated in the nothingness, her soul mirroring mine in every detail, as though we were identical twins. In her arms, she cradled a child.
The child I instantly recognized as our unborn daughter, not an infant but still young in my eyes—and my eyes alone. Her form emitted a brilliant white light that bathed the entire void in radiance. Clearly, our daughter’s soul was ancient, far older than ours, yet despite this, she remained unmistakably our unborn daughter.
Nonetheless, she appeared frail, wisps of her essence flickering off as if her life force was being used to sustain the entire void. This energy seemed to power a constant cycle of reincarnation, with souls flickering in and out. While it was roughly two thousand years ago on Earth, it’s been only about two hundred years on Völuspá, where time flows differently between realms. I can’t even begin to imagine how frail her soul might be now.
I approached them, but before I could reach them, the void opened up, and tendrils shot out toward our daughter. Aislinn’s soul pushed our child out of the way, only to become entangled in the ethereal chains that ensnared her. Before I could intervene, she was yanked from the void, her soul lost to me.
That was my turning point. That was when I first broke... That was when I first shattered.
Aislinn’s soul was taken somewhere beyond the realm, leaving me utterly alone. Before I could even reach my daughter, she too slipped away, reincarnating as someone else on Earth, much like I had. There was no fighting reincarnation, no means to stop it. That was when I fell apart, life after life, carrying only a lingering feeling that something was wrong, something crucial was missing. In each new life that followed, I found myself pathetic and alone, severed from my tether to Aislinn, my twin soul. My soulmate.
Pulling back from my tormented memories, I continued to cry and laugh, clawing at myself in a frenzied mix of despair and hysteria, no longer reliving past lives within my shattered consciousness.
Suddenly, a soothing hand brushed my head, and a soft, dreamlike voice hummed, “I have you. You’re mine now, and I’ll never let you go.” Her words, whispered gently and lovingly, enveloped me in motherly warmth as she took me into her arms. I faded into peaceful slumber, cocooned in divine love.
“She’s beyond broken; her soul is entwined with too many conflicting powers—it would be a kindness to end her misery.”
“NO! She’s mine,” came a sharp retort.
Voices pulled me from my slumber. My eyes fluttered open to a quaint little room bathed in a soft, irritatingly cheerful light. Every fiber of my being ached and burned—a sensation as familiar as it was infuriating. I lifted my arm, staring at the pale, tattooed skin—just like before I died on Earth.
When I was Blake?
Are you Blake?
Am I Blake?
You doubt.
Yes, I am Blake. Blake. That’s who I am.
Is it?
Yes! I am Blake.
Ignoring the conflicting whispering within my mind. I gazed at my hand, seeing not just the surface illusion of my past self but peering deeper into the true essence beneath. Darkness and cruelty swirled—a mass of untold eldritch horrors writhing like a black sludge. Yet, fractures marred this sinister core, molten gold seeping through every crack as if I were being held together by a glowing, divine essence.
“Dusk, she’s not some pet you can claim. Her soul has merged with that abomination of a body,” a youthful girl’s voice chimed in, tinged with concern from outside the room.
“It’s Duskara, Mother,” came the sharp retort, dripping with defiance. “She’s not a pet. I rebirthed her soul using my own essence. She’s my child—the first soul reforged since you abandoned Life! She’s mine.” The last words resonated, unmistakably a threat.
“I...” A long pause followed, the words emerging almost remorsefully. “I’m sorry. I still believe it would be a kindness to end her suffering, but I’ll help where I can.”
“You’ll help?” came Duskara’s stunned tone. “I thought you were done with everything and everyone.”
“I can never forgive Magic, but what she started is changing things. Life’s coming back, and I’ve got a few billion years of housekeeping to do before she does. So yes, I’ll—” Suddenly, the little girl’s tone shifted, abruptly halting her sentence. An eerie silence enveloped the room, as if a massive presence had locked its gaze onto me. I let out a nervous gulp, feeling as though the glue binding my soul together was straining, threatening to snap and scatter me into a million pieces again. “She’s awake,” the girl whispered, her voice followed by a high-pitched squeak as the oppressive feeling vanished. “Ow! What was that for?” she yelled. “You didn’t have to slap me upside the head like that.”
“Watch what you’re doing, then,” came Duskara’s sharp warning.
“Jeez, I wasn’t this overprotective with you or your siblings,” the youthful girl grumbled.
Ignoring them, I still felt a bit out of sorts as I rose from the bed on wobbly legs. My first step nearly sent me flat on my face, but I managed to catch myself on a large mirror beside the bed. With a groan, I pushed off the mirror, only to freeze as I took in my reflection.
Wiping away a tear that trickled down my cheek, I gazed at my pale face and then back at my tattooed arms—adorned with flames, tentacles, and My Little Pony unicorns. You better not be judging me!
I was most certainly in an illusion of my old body from Earth—the last one I had before being summoned into this realm of magic. I was a short, blue-eyed, skinny, pierced, washboard-chested goth girl with pale skin and shoulder-length hair dyed half black and half green down the center, concealing my natural red. Oh, and let’s not forget the black t-shirt emblazoned with “I Decapitate Teddy Bears” paired with a short plaid skirt adorned with a few chains—and yes, I know it might be a bit overboard for a twenty-three-year-old, but that’s exactly why I still loved it so much!
But just as when I gazed at my arm in bed, with minimal effort, I could see past the illusion to the dark soul beneath, marked by glowing cracks that marred my entire body. Yet, I found myself stunning, like a shattered black vase with gold filling all the cracks—resembling a work of art! Even my eyes now glowed with that same golden light.
No one needed to tell me what I had become—no! I was the embodiment of darkness, a wellspring of cruelty, a true monster—
You’re broken.
You’re vile.
You still doubt.
—I was a beautiful nightmare!
Running my hand along the wall for support, I moved on unsteady legs past the mirror toward the door, eager to discover what came next. A malevolent smile spread across my face as black tears dripped from my eyes.