Two thousand, one hundred and eighty six years had passed since that strange event of his birth, his waking and his first few experiences. Although he'd attempted to recall such memories in his rare moments of reflection. Every time he managed to catch a glimpse of it, it slipped through his fingers, fading as soon as the thought had manifested in his mind. All the same, no matter how deeply he ruminated upon it, the one thing that stood out from everything else was that he was adrift, and was lost in his existence.
He was a nightmare, a ghost of a bygone era, a memory forgotten by the living, a reflection upon the lakes. Never did a waking mind greet him, let alone a companion he could find, or touch. The moment he laid his very hand upon the soil, a mountainous arch grew.
The idea of life was so fascinating, that in his curiosity, and utter abandonment of rationality, he took every chance and possibility he could to see things new and interesting. Each time the earth was disturbed by him, a building or two or five hundred would sprout. He created a land, not by hand, but by soul. By will and subconscious effort.
This land, in his vision, stretched across infinity, the light of the sun at his back. As he strode from hillside to valley to peak, it was quite impossible to discern whether or not he had simply discovered more of this 'land' or simply created it. From 75 meters to infinity; the only way to reach its edge being the slope of a slope that would stretch indefinitely, leaving one confused and utterly baffled at what had happened before the slopes ends. A literal mountain built on another, leading into another and another, and so on.
The truth disdained him, his will, however powerful was unable to comprehend this strange world, his 'home'. In the depths of the universe, as an outloud phrase would tell anyone who could understand him, this was his domain. His dream and his unconscious, an unstable combination between the two, were molded together by the sheer, incomprehensible, powerful will of the great creator.
Sometime after meeting the living cadavre of a woman, and what should've been his last breath, as it is said he is dead, but to call that a life, even he couldn't justify that. His head began to agonize; the sensation of countless, ceaseless pains erupted at the very tip of his ears to the top of his head, running down his brain, to the point that he screamed in unparalleled shock, and fell to his knees.
When he reached to grab the ground to stabilize himself, another intense wave of pressure throbbed across his forehead, running all the way to the bottom of his ears. His hand left a glowing print into the grass, as if a rock was set ablaze.
As he left that print behind and continued to walk aimlessly, as if given life, that print seemed to grow brighter, and larger by the minute. Such was a familiar occurance that came with the endless headaches.
....
Yet, some unknown amount of time in the far off future, the headaches had dulled into a dull, pain, a mere tickle in the back of his head. Despite not knowing this, that sensation that pulsed through his every limb and extremity in the beginning was something even he could not have known. For if one knows what the darkness truly feels like, they would've said it would have been different. And different it is.
However, with that, he couldn't possibly have expected for a soft voice to break the monotonous silence he had been accustomed to. But he didn't mind it. Rather, he was an often smiling type of creature, no matter who or what greeted him. He smiled. And that smile was not a show of happiness, a warmth. It was a bizzare gesture, a questioning one.
He heard the light steps of a living thing behind him. Frantic, rapid steps like an energetic dog, but this thing wasn't a dog, or any animal that he'd know. He knew nothing, after all, aside from childhood stories from the very few years his mother had coddled him like a new babe in the womb, and what she'd once referred to as 'hell'.
But he heard that thing step closer, as the smell of life grew stronger. He looked back to see a familiar sight; that decrepit, small thing from before.
"Hello," the small thing spoke, grinning with its rotting lips and dull, black eyes that reflected no light whatsoever. "Funny meeting you here. I thought I'd found myself back in the Boundary once again."
To dare return here, she did. He laughed, he was sure it did not laugh. Yet, she stood before him with a placid, undeterred expression. He wanted her to answer, answer the question, and yet. Yet he just couldn't ask the simple question, 'Why?'
She saw him, the pathetic, hollow thing he was, a thing that had lost the light of life and its purity long before the days and months and centuries passed.
The woman saw the expression and laughed. A sad, amused one.
"To answer you, yes, it is because I wish to destroy you," A hypocrite. "Why should the worlds of light and darkness, or so it has been decided, remain together? Since they are opposites, both a counterpart, yet opposites. In which case, one could say, these things were created alongside their counterparts. You know, I haven't forgotten, not one moment of my damned past. Nor the hell that followed because of You."
His mind muddled by her words. He did not want to believe this thing, no matter what kind of mind-bending existence it was.
"Yes. You, and everything. I was cast aside. You destroyed me in more ways than You destroyed yourself." Was she talking about their previous encounter or something else entirely? He simply didn't know. He did not wish to remember it. In fear he might recall how and when.
"Is there a reason for that, other than my own desires to tear your kind and existence apart, to simply return a favor that was so lovingly done unto me? What did my race ever do to You and Your people?"
He replied with nothing, his pools of nothingness merely stared back at the woman as he did not know what she was speaking of.
"How curious." She raised a bone-white hand. The little one asked, and he was curious to see what exactly the thing could do.
So he allowed it. He allowed it to know the truth. That truth that has never been uttered from the lips of any god nor creature, that had never been known by any mortal nor divine. She spread out her arms, as a single wind began blowing.
"Do not worry, I shall give you your first death." The wind was weak, it hit his body with such soft force, a thing he would hardly even notice, like an ants bite to a wolf. Yet, even the weak wind blew over the mountains of the creation, as the girl, the pale thing spoke once again.
"And since you cannot die, I shall make it worse," the wind became stronger, and stronger until the mountains began to cave inward, until a burst of white wind spiraled throughout the land he had created and sculpted. But he simply 'looked' at her with his nothingness, the hollow abyss that it was. He refused to fall, he would not yield, not to her nor any god.
This white wind, so tainted a being. He understood it would be the wind to carry him away. So he exerted an authority, and spoke his only words, "Stop." He felt a sting deep within his body, a pain. This time it wasn't the headaches and it wasn't the visions he couldn't possibly hope to see, but that familiar stab in the heart. His voice was cracked, hoarse and breaking.
And she, as if a doll in stasis, stood rigid and un-moving as her winds ceased and her simple authority returned to her. Part of the infinite plains returned. In all of its glory it is shown once again. But in doing that, the true power of one's authority was showed. A power that could rival the one's that could shake the universe to its core, or maybe he'd thought so.
Speaking his final word, "...Away." he sighed heavily, but there was a smile on his lips. This woman, whose authority was made to pierce through the world, as her soul's existence was. All these thoughts he had in his head were not truly his, yet he didn't have to say anything. His actions were the most talkative of them all.
The girl stood there, dumbfounded, an almost scared look on her face. Then the sky shook, and the horizon broke as the lands began to fold and cave inwards. They both stared at each other, with horrified expressions; two beings, two phantoms afraid of each other, knowing the truth and their fears, and both were given another's fear. As the second passed, their emotions faded from view.
It did not fear. Perhaps it was not a perfect deity, or one to match the others, nor did it have powers to compare. But its domain had a property to be far, far greater than the power that either of the other's. But if it truly was a deity; if it was simply a woman of dreams and nightmares.
It may not have been perfect, but there is one thing the girl saw. As her image was reflected across its gaze, what it truly saw behind its emptiness where its eyes should be, was not nothingness, not pureness nor whiteness. What it saw was the true nature of reality, and that nature was something akin to reality, a shifting, ever changing flux. But, she thought, it had to be nothing more than her imagination going wild again. But the fear remained and lingered at the back of the shadowed mind, its skin pale as bone, flesh stripped, rotten and torn, muscle tissue was exposed, veins visible throughout, a mirror of a rotted corpse, a decomposing and living creature.
This...This was no ordinary person, let alone the type of beings she had fought. There was a name given for his race. She was one of them too, at least, that is what they'd called her before...before...before everything had gone to hell, to darkness, where the lights would vanish without a trace.
As the lands caved in on her, the moment of awakening came. A wake to a familiar nightmare. It was a desolate, cold land. The planet itself was spinning inwards, crumbling like sand. She thought to herself that the god would want her dead, yet he did no more than to escape with his body intact.
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What became of her that moment was unknown; But one thing he knew, was that if one does not possess the physical properties to withstand the harsh winds and crushing skies that came from the dying lands, they will perish without a doubt. That is what he told himself, when that was the last thing she'd seen, before his 'vision' blurred and his 'sight' vanished from him.
...
That world had already been gone, from the very moment of its inception. Its 'home', his home. He wondered if it was merely a dream or just another realm, he wondered, why would it, why should it think he could take such a massive land that touched the edge of infinity, for something so important? It seemed too real, too fresh, like it was meant for a purpose other than to simply hold and sustain him, a guardian that protected him for the first minutes of his existence, had then proceeded to annihilate the entire world.
'I can't be afraid anymore, I've seen too much evil.' A silent voice broke his train of thought, and stopped him dead in his tracks. Was that her voice, he thought, is this my doing, a reaction to its fear? Were those millions, or perhaps even billions of memories of all those souls that he met when he was still but a newborn, who all had died by the hand of darkness? Or, a third option, it could've simply been a manifestation of his fears, perhaps, a trigger left by the will of the great creator to test if a power so great, that can tear an entire world apart with ease... No, it was him. He thought this.
'I've seen so much evil, yet... What have You done, if anything?'
It felt, strangely real. Like the words that were said weren't said at all. They were coming from something he didn't think possible. It wasn't someone who was speaking these thoughts.
"Do I have to be evil, too? Please, anything but." he pleaded. Weeping for the first time in hundr--thousands?—of years.
These thoughts are not coming from me, nor was that woman. Who...
"Mother," He mouthed.
These were her words, and these thoughts. Could it have been a message for me, maybe, something left to protect me. To comfort me for that was all I wanted, for thousands of years. "Please, mother, tell me. Anything but." he begged her again.
But nothing happened. For no reason known to him, he experienced his first emotion, sadness. Tears welling up his empty sockets and running down his face, his head tilted upwards. His tears fell to the ground. For he didn't know what to do anymore.
He wept and wept, a river flowed in his eyes, and even still, a child-like whimper echoed around. He felt, not his first. This was not his first time experiencing emotions. For he cried, and continued, over and over. That is all he could feel; a vast sense of longing, of confusion, a desire to know something more, and not just know it. To know what to expect. And, the feeling of a deep sense of despair, yet he found it comforting. But that is not a memory, that is an actual feeling. Something that even he, nor the voices had the power to fabricate.
Snow began falling as his tears slowly continued in quiet sobs. White flakes dotted his body, yet they were hot and burning against him, as if liquid fire. They ate into him as he was on the ground, hugging himself tighter and tighter, hoping for an end, an end to a war that didn't exist, or anything, to stop him from hurting. "I want it all to end..." He mumbled, and for the first time since it's creation, a snow flake fell from the heavens above the snow, it was cold, and soft. And it felt the same as his tears, burning, freezing, hot and cold.
Slowly, in his misery, he drifted into sleep, in the cold comfort of the snow, and the lands converging around him as if nothing had happened.
In that horrible state of his, where his body had been laid on the ground, as the black sky loomed overhead. In that moment, he did not wake in a long, long time, for though his 'eyes' may have closed, his ears still opened their own lids to listen, and they listened for some time as the dark clouds grew darker.
And the quiet weeping began again. Yet it didn't come from his mouth, but somewhere else.
Somewhere where no eyes, or ears, nor bodies could hear or see what he heard. It was that of a human voice; one he didn't recognize. It was high pitched, frantic and tearful, that much was clear. It was a mixture between fear, happiness, anger, despair. Like all emotions mixed into one, but it was more of a cry of fear.
That fear, like the sun and its tears, was cold and unyielding. Yet a single phrase escaped his lips as he watched this sight.
Not knowing what this feeling was, he said, "Am I a monster?"
In which he replied to himself, "Yes."
The snow kept on falling, it was very cold for someone that shouldn't feel it. For someone that doesn't have blood, veins, or flesh, nor does he possess anything other than his being. How long had he been asleep for?
The answer came in the form of the words spoken. A small voice, as the tears fell from the sky in the form of gentle droplets, landing softly on the bare rock and stone around him.
'You are not.' A warm, soothing presence washed over the black landscape, and it felt...real, even though he could sense and touch things, hear and see. His body moved before he even noticed, his senses began working once more. The voice continued, "You are not a monster," this time it spoke clearly, as if embedded into his memory forever. "You never will be." It sounded so sincere, so gentle and compassionate, unlike before, he didn't smile in the warm light. The voice was happy, yet sorrowful as it spoke. He smiled, but not for the same reasons.
"You're okay," It whispered. But he knew he wasn't. "It'll be alright soon," But he knew that this was a lie. His smile grew from ear to ear.
"I understand..." If it's one thing he learnt, it is that words are rarely anything more than lies. Words don't do anything other than make him a prisoner to his own thoughts. The same way his mother was.
"Mother."
If she was here to guide him, then he will trust her. But if the end has already come to him, to a world devoid of any emotion whatsoever... then he'd refuse to die in this barren, hopeless wasteland of nothingness.
With a wave, his consciousness snapped awake. The snow was beginning to fall. He gazed at the flakes falling past. They sparkled and glowed so brightly in the dead of night, their lights twinkling merrily. This conflux of emotion, of thoughts. That thought, that ugly thought. But he'd forgotten something.
The weeping continued; now he recognized it as a newborns, the tears that come from an infant's eyes, though they are not theirs, and their pain. Those tears and fears, they have no place in the world that he created, no reason to weep or fear at all. For he spoke a single phrase to ease this thing, whether he exerted an authority or something more, was unknown to him. All he needed to know was, it worked, and that is all. "Do not weep, you will be alright."
And so the white snow continued to fall. Its warmth fading the further he stared at them. The clouds began rolling over the horizon in a blanket of white. For once, this was what he thought true, it is beautiful, peaceful. This land will be different now, it will no longer be shrouded by a black night sky nor its moon, but bathed instead by a brilliant sun of life, a place where no true sorrows shall ever happen again, for nothing ever does.
"Life." The word simply was the best to describe the condition that was not his. His feelings and his pains, these are not a dream. They are real, he knew that from the moment he met the girl of nightmares, for even the greatest powers could never come close to recreating or projecting the feeling, and he knew this in a way no man could have guessed, that he himself didn't know of.
Now, with infant in hand, he walked towards a small city he'd erected years ago. It was full, functioning, a thing of beauty in its own way. Yet, it too, did not appear real. This entire city is filled with only the young and aged, as it's the only two types who had actually lived and breathed on this new world, there weren't enough adults, in fact. But they all worked as a community; all horrible memory of their past lives, he thought himself a saint to have given them a new life, erasing all memory of their horrible, horrible lives. He, too, wished to forget the old life he had lived. Yet it had done little other than allow more children into his hands, and left himself to experience that wonderful sensation alone.
This infant, this precious child, he could peer into the truth of her life, what she had seen, what she could have done.
A vision came to his mind; Two parents yelling at each other frantically, and he knew he couldn't stand hearing such terrible things being said to others. He looked at the poor girl her body was riddled with so many injuries and bruises that it was beyond description.
The vision continued—a deafening crash rang throughout his ears, the sound of glass breaking and tearing through skin and muscle tissue, blood spraying everywhere. Screams came after—from the dying woman's mouth—and she died instantly, as his arms instinctively wrapped around her, the baby. "I'm sorry... I-I'm so sorry... Anne... Forgive me..." her mother lay lifeless on the cold wooden floor of their home. Her father, holding her after having killed her mother.
Oh, poor Anne, he thought. She was here but... how? There shouldn't be any sorrow here. 'Please, allow me to give you a new life.' He placed his hand on the anguished child. A darkness spread through her body as her memory was purged. The image of her mother's death faded. In his hands, the infant opened its eyes and gave him a warm smile. A true, pure smile of happiness. His heart ached for some strange reason. But, the visions didn't end there; images flashed past, as though the baby were projecting them directly into his mind, in the last few moments before she was found and brought into his world, she had finally disappeared, taken by an angel, who smiled softly, "Anne, your name has been chosen..."
'Mother?' That was the man's mother. 'God's angels.' Is there no place for sorrow here after all? Then this wasn't right... Why was she taken back when he hadn't been? This demon in his hands, the one who stole his mothers love. It didn't matter. It didn't have to. Not here, not on his creation... The memories faded; everything, except the man's thoughts; thoughts of destruction, death and, most of all, betrayal. The child was dropped to the ground; and pained it was, It may have cracked a rib from the fall, or even sustained a concussion from the impact. With an expressionless face he turned towards her with nothing but that same blade that killed her mother, conjured from nothing but pure memory. His smile was no more.
The child wept, another cry of fear. Sightless eyes followed the image of him raising his hand, the shadow growing from his face and bringing forth his knife. He brought his gaze back to the infant. The sky was red, his 'sight' painted with only that same colour; Red, the colour of blood, and pain. "SILENCE!" A voice bellowed. There were screams. Blood splattered. A heart stopped beating. But there was only the sound of screaming from the child as her life faded away.
It all passed by so fast—all of a sudden. One moment his memory had been intact, the next moment he felt lost, empty inside, like a blank slate, or a shell of a creature. Something he was not meant to be, but still had managed to achieve anyway.
He figured that after all, his mother thought him to be a creature of duality. Was it the male that took this young child's mother? Was it the same for him who took her fathers life? His very being? Had she decided not to abandon her creation as she had feared so many millennia before him, to strike that blow so merciful and yet cruel all in one moment?
'And yet she failed you.'
Who was that? A new voice spoke to him, yet he thought of them only briefly as his thoughts returned to the child lying motionless on the ground. The image of what had just occurred seemed to freeze in time, as the air stilled around her. She whimpered a few times, before it stopped, completely.
"You were not meant to see those events," he spoke finally, walking over to the body and placing his hand upon her body, as if usurping it and the events that had occured, the child and her blood completely disappeared. Cause and effect, giver and taker, it was all his doing. All of a sudden the world was silent again, he wanted it all to disappear. Never to be awake for longer than a day, never to sleep for less than years. So... So he sat and waited for the inevitable. For nothing to happen.
Eventually, his mind awoke once more to the sound of laughter. Right... he was near a town, where he would've given that child new parents, a new and fulfilling life. But that child had betrayed him. His mother had betrayed him.