The Aether chooses not who to play within their sadistic Games, it beckons poor souls, showers them with power beyond understanding, as they write the Story they oh so dearly wish to enjoy. What happens to those ensnarled, enthralled is up to the slave themselves, or rather, how entertaining they are.
Should you stop to play, they'll make you part of another.
If you fizzle out, it all depends if they can even remember toying with you in the first place.
And if you don't pay your toll in full, it's only a matter of time, until they start a new round.
-Hans
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Today was a beautiful day on the 7th of May, 2019 in the town of Wellsboro.In the town's graveyards, down to the dot, was once again a resident only known as Sarge.
Everyone knew him, but only because he was there. The old, such as the young, see him on this very day, always, at three grave's no one but him tended.
He wouldn't talk, not engage in conversations, rarely speak a word or two in any encounter, only definitively would he speak when mourning once a week.
He appeared one day, and from there on was part of the town.
Sarge was an old man, but strangely he seemed healthy for all doubts. He was big, had a chunky body, and a face like that of a rotting squash. Sarge wasn't his real name, more so an alias for the folk to use, picked up by the mailboy thirty years ago after having caught a glimpse of his home and claiming to have seen medals galore. Medals in cabinets with broken, cracked glass, almost as if someone punched them regularly. And today once more, some people watched as Sarge cleaned the tombstones, ripped out the pesky weeds, planted new flowers, scrubbed nameplates, and lastly, but most importantly, he would talk with a whisper to the dead. What was picked up by passengers could be described as lamentable, regret.
As Sarge kneeled forward, almost touching the stone with his forehead, he was for once silent, and people around thought that perhaps he has died, was it not when a dreadful, paining pop echoed through the city. Sarge fell down, barely holding himself from sinking into the inviting gravel below. The old man turned around, shivering as the taste of familiar memories pooled within his mind, just like the blood in his mouth.
"Turn around." Ordered a new voice behind Sarge, so calm and welcoming, as shivering and disturbed while people ran away in all directions. And yet, this moment did seem so peaceful.
"I said turn around, I want to see your face, Scrappy." The mysterious man spoke, and the words seemed to shatter Sarge for a moment, for while this too wasn't his true name, it was one he was once called by his friends, accompanying him to hell.
Finally, Sarge pushed himself up, remarkable for a man looking like he had surpassed ninety years of age. And as the two men met eyes, standing and staring, like they both had seen a ghost, a deceitful illusion, it would be Sarge who had the last word.
"Hans?" That was what Sarge spoke before he was discharged a third time, released from the mortal coil a second, but what waited would be a first.
A second gunshot rang through the area, and Sarge's vision was parted, as the bullet of the gun, an Astra 600 in vintage condition, pierced his right eye. The moment, as he fell to the ground, on his back, lasted seemingly an eternity, savoring the vision of his murderer: A tall, german man with blue eyes, blond hair, a bomber jacket tightly enveloping his body. But what shone most thorough in the seconds before death was the rusted belt buckle of an eagle.
Finally, the seamlessly endless, empty abyss took him back after almost fifty-five years.
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Sarge's eyes snapped open when a devastating sensation ravaged through his beck, forcing him to wheeze and cough while rolling on the ground. Finally, opening his eyes he saw an illusionary and yet elastic surface of yellow light keeping him above a voideless fall into a maelstrom of colors only some he recognized, a miasma of color. Yet, the amazement that caught the old-fashioned man lasted but a breath longer, for a booming voice announced itself with authority and power enough to make a man crumble.
"The judgment shall commence."
With his withered husk, Sarge pushed himself up shakingly, only managing to rise to his knees, sapped of almost every inch of physical strength. The old man found himself on an island suspended in an empty void which's sky was a galaxy of lights, and countless spheres formed an ocean illuminating the void below. To the rock on which Sarge was abandoned where chains fit of a leviathan were linked, chaining three metal rings of light to it, with a fourth one, shattered and forgotten far off.
A deep rumbling echoed from one of the rings, drawing Sarge's eyes to it, and from the hoop emerged but half of a creature of myth. A giant to rival all giants, a demonic atrocity of skin and muscle. The beast, a green, hulking mass bearing two tusks that grew from its lower jaw leaned forward ever so slightly. The hair, a red mane reaching down its back imitated a field of hay. But it all did nothing to describe it, for only one detail mattered to Sarge: Eyes shining so bright that and painful, that only meeting its stare whitened Sarge's eyes, cracked his skin like a month in the desert.
"Who are you?" Sarge uttered with a whisper while shielding his eyes.
"I bear the name of Osmodeus, the judge of destruction." The creature spoke with an aggravated voice, even when it appeared to be physically calm. "I once demanded your demise."
A sizzling, an ever-ending rattling that echoed ushered in the arrival of the second judge. Like a found, countless snakes grew out of the hoop's lights, melting into one grand, before returning to their parted state in a never-ending, un-flawed cycle. A create of white snow scales, shards of marble forming an ocean bearing gemstones of the kind which could not be compared.
"I am Premura, the judge of creation." The titanic serpent sizzled, but this one bore a voice more beautiful than anything he ever heard before. "And I once called for your revival."
Sarge was drawn in by the blue eyes of the snake, so deeply he felt his very mind melt away alongside all his mental perils, or perhaps, they were all that held his mentality stable. Such a soft and elegant visage that at the same time horrified his mortal body.
And at this very moment in which he was crumbling, Sarge remembered that this was just a faint display of his brain as death was cradling him into death.
"Incorrect." One last judge made its presence known with sounds so disturbing that Sarge's very bones were twisting as if they were attempting to peel themselves for the chance to escape. A clicking and clattering of wet bones and thick muck rubbing against glass, that was the music that echoed in the last arrival.
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With dread clawing at Sarge's back, he turned around and felt himself becoming void, devoid of all that makes him Sarge, human, alive, only leaving him indifferent, all caused by one look into the 'face' of an indescribable creature.
A lanky, wraith-like monstrosity to tower all nightmares. An eel-like body was bent and twisted to resemble a humanoid form to a certain extent. Stark white ribs protruded from its back and grew like bark into a container vaguely akin to a ribcage housing not organs or air, but an ever-changing mass of slime that become a new substance with every tic. Ivory, skinless limbs that were nothing but skin hung loosely from the beast's sides, longer than the creature itself and bearing three digits switching between wicket claws and pestilent tentacles. A featureless, mirror-like orb resided there where a head should've otherwise been placed, and it reflected the world around it, twisting it into the polar opposite of the sights perceivable, a miasma of nightmares and disorder.
"I am Idobaht, the judge of Opposition." The wraith-like creature spoke with a foggy voice and whispering tone. "I called for your fate to be twisted. Rewritten. Unbecoming and appearing as what opposed."
"You stand before the three judges for your crimes against the Aether." Osmodeus spoke; this time, his body leaned forward, one hand resting upon the rocky island, the other tightly formed into a fist.
"What the hell are you talking about, I don't know any of you!" Sarge shouted with much defiance, enabling himself to stand up on one foot. "What do you devils even think I own you." The mortal man spoke, and his words seemed to anger Osmodeus, and yet, barely fazed him compared to its already enraged nature.
"You misunderstand your summoning here, mortal creature." Premura spoke, her head leaning forward, but this close Sarge could only see his mere reflection in one of her eyes. Or rather, and reflection of an old memory. Countless corpses littered with holes, bathing and caked in mud and blood as flashes of light and explosions of air parting velocity surrounded the piles.
"You have called upon the Aether to grant you more time and strength to withstand great perils, for any price." Idobaht spoke; however, he leaned back. "To change what lied ahead, you offered yourself to us, and we gave you more than you could wish for. Now, we wish for the payment."
"You survived, took the lives by the dozens, became an perfect tool of war and rose up to be a warhero. You were granted all health and sweetness of live you could grant you, but thanklessly drew the divine pact into the dust. Condemning the great Aether to watch your story crumble away into a dull, undeserving slog, the only payment that was desired of you for heavenly gifts." Osmodeus spoke. Rising his hands into the sky, appearing almost fanatical.
"W-what the hell do you mean, I don't understand what the fuck you are talking about." Sarge looked around frantically as the judge's rings, and thus themselves drew in closer, their shadowless presence looming ever more crushing.
Idobaht only stared; not a tone left his globe.
Osmodeus lowered his hands, crossing them while a deep scowl overtook his visage.
Premura pulled her head back and spoke with a voice lacking any and all of the crystal-bell-like magic she bore before. "When the flames licked your face to the bone, metal pebbles by the many pierced your flesh and corpses buried you in the mud, there you called upon any creature willing to listen. Let me live, I do anything, just don't let me die here, those were your words. Such, were the terms you set, such was the contract forged."
"No... no-no-no-no.. This couldn't have been-but, what else would've done..." Sarge mumbled, his head was weakly shaking as he looked down onto his hands. The haze that clouded his mind for two hellish years was not his mind breaking under the torment, but a curse. The nightmarish spell that drip-fed him nightmares and fragments of memories, of the crimes he committed in the war, over the course of decades was beckoned by himself. The ability to move, endure, kill through anything so long as blood was shed was a bargain for his soul. All those poor people died because of him, and were all his other achievements also just a farce?
He let his arms fall and looked Idobaht in the eyes, pleading. "Impossible?"
"Impossibility is a human concept brought forth by the weakness of mind and body." Idobaht said, now leaning forward when Osmodeus un-crossed his arms and straightened his spine.
The three judges stared down at the petrified mortal before he let down his head.
"What do you want." Sarge said with defeat, there was nothing they could still take away from him; he had nothing anymore, no hell could ever compare to the horrors he went through; it all was just an extension of his time of consciousness.
"The thing you owe the Aether. A story it deems worthwhile." Osmodeus spoke harshly, spatting by the sound of his anger. "To achieve this, a second chance must be granted. The judges' rule of three will be placed upon you, and your debt will be repaid in your time beyond our reach."
Sarge feebly grit his teeth and looked Osmodeus into his eyes. Empty eyes. "Do whatever you want, Ogre." For just a moment, he saw some more teeth of the judge of destruction, and all due to a little, short-lived smirk.
"I take away your face." Idobaht uttered, and one of nine runes that circled the yellow energy floor below Sarge lit up with a black hue.
"I take away your home." Premura spoke, a white rune lit up
"I take away your humanity." Osmodeus spoke before a red rune shone with power.
'Mother, Father, Ted...' Sarge thought with grieve.
Metalic shackles sprung from the yellow field of energy and shackled themselves onto Sarge, but instead of resisting, shouting, screaming, wriggling, he only let down his head. Accepting orders like the good soldier he used to be, or perhaps, just a man who could gain through anything. No, neither, he just didn't have the care of will to defy the world any longer.
"I enforce a watcher." Premura spoke
"I enforce an untainted heart." Osmodeus declared
"I enforce restlessness." Idobaht said, and with his sentence finished, six of nine runes were lit, and the yellow floor started to lose its saturation, slowly becoming pale and translucent.
'Tom, Gary, Will.' Sarge thought with bittersweet nostalgia.
"I gift you Agramir." Osmodeus spoke proudly; whether he was impressed by the weapon or by the effect, either positive or negative, it would have on Sarge was yet to be seen.
"I gift you the body of Effunternum." Idobaht spoke and held one of his claws.
"I gift you Relilis's mask." Premura spoke, but before the ninth run lit up, a great shock rocked through the room.
"What do you think you're doing, Serpent?" It was a low, enraged grow shunned by shock and surprise. He laid both of his hands onto the island on which Sarge resided, pressing down and creating cracks that reached deep into the stone, hundreds of meters below. "This gift is unfitting." The gritted teeth and threatening tusks spoke louder than any scream he could emit.
Idobaht tilted his spherical head and spoke calmly while staring deep into Osmodeus's enraged and appalled visage. "I, too, question the judgement, but it's your choice I defy."
"You claim my decisions are slipping?" Osmodeus asked with a crooked tone. "You gift such blessing to an oath breaker?"
"It is not our place to punish when redemption is already decided, and your reckless decisions have already disappointed the Aether once greatly. Not long ago, if I recal. Afterall, wasn't the mask of Relicit lost due to your ambition to reward those useful in your eyes?" Premura spoke tightly, lifting her head and looking down upon the judge of destruction with anger.
Osmodeus glared back at the judge of creation while Idobaht watched from the side, the images in his reflective skull changing like a river in chaos.
"I agree not with your statement, but honor your argument. I will let your judgment happen without resistance." Osmodeus spoke through his teeth, almost as if he only read from a protocol and didn't speak his thoughts.
'May, Lilo and Ben...' Sorrow filled Sarge's hearts and he leaned back with his head, starring into the heavens once more as his flesh once again would be made anew.
The ninth rune shone up with divine light, the barrier between Sarge and the whirlpool collapsed, before the chains released him into the void below. Skin and flesh and bone shed to dust, but no sensations, emotions or thoughts plagued his being in that moment. Only did he witness something growing over his face.
Sarge didn't lose consciousness; however, he could not remember the things he saw, and yet, he could've sworn to have heard three familiar voices.