Myrkas was floating. His body was aimlessly drifting, weightless. The walls of this sphere he was in were far away. They had an intangible quality Myrkas sensed even from afar. They should have been smooth and even, he knew, but instead were marred with cracks, holes, and fissures. Void-like space could be glimpsed through.
As he drifted, Myrkas noticed he wasn't alone in this mysterious space. By flexing his will–which did look a lot like aggressively staring at nothing–his position stabilized. It allowed Myrkas to look at himself, or, more accurately, at other versions of himself. It was as if he was seeing double, an uneven double. Two versions of Myrkas were fighting, blind to their surroundings.
They fixated on each other, focused on their clash, each trying to prevail, to dominate their adversary. The two clones? alternates? metaphysical representations? had Myrkas' curly black hair and amber eyes. They looked remarkably similar but for a few crucial differences.
One was obviously older, with the beginning of a beard on his chin as well as a flimsy moustache on his upper lip. He stood almost a foot taller than Myrkas himself, but was way too thin, his cheeks sunken, bones showing under his stretched skin. He wore a hospital gown, pale blue and tied at his side. This taller version of Myrkas had trouble breathing. His chest rattled with his every breath. His neck muscles strained visibly under the effort, the skin in between his exposed ribs and clavicles drawing inside his ribcage with each of his inhales. The older teen looked sick, and deadly so.
Nevertheless, he fought on. His strikes were wide and uncoordinated. He was slow, his footwork poor even to Myrkas' amateur eyes. But he tried, he persevered. He used his superior height and mass to his advantage, though not skillfully enough to win, He only prevented his opponent from gaining on him.
The smaller Myrkas was more skilled, more trained. He ducked and dodged, retaliating with fast but weak blows. His body was half-burned, red and peeling in places. Half his hair had burned away, his scalp pocked with blisters. His clothes were scorched and hung on his small frame. The boy wheezed each time he breathed in. His swollen throat menaced to close at any time. And still, the young teen fought, grappling and kicking, only to be pushed back again and again.
Their fight spread shockwaves through the sphere. The damaged walls shook under the strain, some cracks crawling further and deeper.
Throughout the two's battlefield, frames and varied lights filled the space, in no particular order. They floated around, sometimes bumping each other. On occasion, a new light was born from those gentle collisions.
The drifting frames presented pictures, moving scenes from Myrkas' past lives. The images made an eclectic mix.
One showed the last Tremblay-Stein "Happy Holidays" card, with a tween black-haired boy smiling between his parents despite the nasal cannula on his face. Another revealed a younger Myrkas, four or five years of age at most, being held down in the dirt by his half-brother, the beaten Myrkas black and blue with bruises. Their father's shadow hung in the background of the scene.
Some had similarities between his two lives: pictures of a boy falling asleep on a maternal lap, his hair gently stroked. Others were stark in their differences: evenings of videogames contrasted with nights spent on a dirt floor, warmed by an ox's flanc.
Whichever their origin, the frames were caught in the ongoing clash's shockwaves. The memories did not resist intact. Most broke, fragments breaking away and fusing back randomly.
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The fight was wreaking havoc. The space threatened to crumble, unable to sustain itself any longer. The conflict had gone on for too long. A victor needed to emerge. But none of the two combatants would give the fight to the other. Both were determined, if not stubborn and filled with spite.
That mindset had brought them to this situation in the first place; the refusal to surrender when faced with their inevitable death, their resilience despite all. Both fought to live, to survive.
The oldest had fought to breathe his entire existence. He had spent an inordinate number of nights hooked to tubes and machines, hanging on willpower, antibiotics, and medical-grade oxygen. He persevered, always, despite setbacks and loneliness. He remembered being loved once, being happy, with goals and dreams and hopes. Life was worth it. Anything needed, he'd do for another chance.
The youngest gritted his teeth with pure spite. He used his rage to carry on, to keep training despite the scorn, and the repeated disappointments. He had only recently found acceptance and comfort. A warm embrace always ready to dry his tears and bandage his knees. For the first time, he held a piece of happiness. He could not let it go; he would not. This was his life, his body he had held on through the fire, through the pain. He raged on, unable and unwilling to let go.
Throughout their stalemate, their combined world continued to disintegrate. Myrkas felt painful spikes breaking through, heralding the end. Despite the chaos, the situation seemed salvageable. A purplish substance covered the walls, preventing leaks from the many fissures. However, Myrkas knew it would not last. Already, flakes came off, disappearing into the void beyond. Some lights and pieces of memories seeped by. They were lost, never to be recovered.
Myrkas' life hung by a thread. His state was dire. Dread too soft a word to describe the emotion filling his consciousness. His two alternate selves were fighting still, oblivious to the rampage they brought. Their will to survive alone, to prevail, the only thing that mattered. Compromise was never an option. Their common doom inconsequential.
Myrkas, the not-fighting version, the "stop being such dumbasses" one, had to intervene. His "Grand War of Selves" was destroying him. Literally killing him, little by little, shredding his soul from the inside out.
Armed with his will and fear of death, Myrkas flew over, stopping abruptly between the fighters. Before Myrkas could act, the other versions of himself attacked, for once in unison. Myrkas narrowly dodged the first blows, leaving him unsteady, unbalanced, and unprepared to deal with his copies’ next moves.
The short one kicked Myrkas in the gut, pushing the air out of his lungs with the shock. As if choreographed, the tall one immediately tackled the non-violent Myrkas, using his superior weight to keep him grounded.
Myrkas saw stars, disoriented. Fortunately, he remembered where they fought. They were floating in a metaphysical space. Meaning there was no actual floor, physical rules did not apply. Superior skills and physique did not provide the expected advantages. Instead of wrestling free, Myrkas "fell" out of the tackle, reversing their position with sheer willpower.
When the younger version punched Myrkas, he let himself be pushed away, as if inertia never existed, negating all intended damage. Again, he stopped his motion with a flex of his will, preparing to fight back. His battling versions kept fighting as before, oblivious to their third as well as the limitless possibilities this space allowed. Their vision was narrowed, too focused on their need to be the sole winner.
Myrkas flew back in the ring. The three clashed. Despite avoiding most damage to his metaphorical self–Myrkas hadn't spent much time wondering what he was in the present, he had bigger fish to fry such as not dying from fighting with himself–Myrkas was unable to prevail, to forcefully assert a cease-fire. The momentum had merely shifted from a two-sided stalemate to a three-sided one.
Worse, while neither of his representations were taking any permanent damage, their soul space and all it contained degraded under his gaze. The wild energy unleashed by their blows reverberated on the walls. The foreign purple energy keeping it together would soon be exhausted. It's shine was visibly dimming. Despite Myrkas' entry into the arena, their predicament had not improved. Death loomed ever closer.