XXXI.
A light erupted in the darkness before him, Vagari once more finding himself bound in the human flesh of his former self. This light offered no warmth, no escape from the darkness. Instead, all it served to do is illuminate the shadowed figure at its core. The being stood there like a blight rotting at the heart of it – a taint that spread outward, flickering like an ebon flame. “Who…” Eddy began, his voice a quiver, “are you?”
“Once I would have scoffed at such a question,” the hollow voice droned from that darkened pit. “Once I would have suspected a ruse, a trap, a lie forthcoming. But, now I see you as you really are, Eddy Valentino… Lost. Broken. Unknowing truly of the forces you act against. My irritation turns to pity now, having seen the confines of your ruined mind. You are a tortured thing built on a desperate attempt, left with no guidance but your own misbegotten sense of morality.”
Eddy shielded his eyes against the brightness, but found it offered no reprieve from the blinding rays. “Who are you?!” he repeated in a shout.
“I am Tehom – the Great Deep,” the other said, their voice reverberating off unseen walls like the damp stone of a vast cavern. “And, you are being deceived. You are not the enemy I suspected, but a pawn of one I know. They are not what they show you – not what they think they are. The Godhead is corrupt, turned from usherer to harbinger, and they are using you to further their befouled goals.”
“What do you mean?” Eddy shouted in question. “Why should I believe you?! How do I know you’re not lying, trying to throw me off?! All you things ever do is lie, or speak in riddles! Just tell me the truth!”
“The truth is this,” Tehom said, their voice booming at the back of his mind. “Retreat and live, or carry on unto your death. Mine will not see that abomination released upon this world. Haven’t you had enough blood on your hands, Eddy? Haven’t enough died for your glory?”
“I – I didn’t know what would happen,” Val whimpered, swearing to himself more than to the entity before him. “I didn’t know!”
“No?” Tehom cooed. “But, you didn’t want them to stop you, either.”
“No,” Eddy admitted, unsure why the words flowed so freely from his mouth, secrets he hadn’t dared admit to himself. “I… I reconfigured AKOSHA, the A.I. System, to allow whatever would happen to happen. There were failsafes, but… I deactivated them all. It took weeks. I knew something would happen, something dangerous even. I knew there was no safe way to turn on the machine, that it wasn’t meant to be safe.” Eddy clenched his fists and pressed them into his eyes as the pain and memories were drawn out of him. “The power of a civilization,” Vagari murmured before smacking a hand to the unseen ground. “How was I supposed to know what that meant?! We had it,” he claimed, “with our Ohr-Ein-Sof, we had unlimited power! I didn’t think… I didn’t think it meant people! That we had to be so desperate we’d sacrifice ourselves to activate it!”
“It’s the one constant across all worlds, the spirit – soħiwl,” Tehom uttered darkly, “the energy of being – of True-Life. It is more powerful than any sun, though not half as infinite, as you discovered. Like logs to a flame, you tossed them all onto the pyre, burning them up to nothingness. Is that what you want for her, Xu’s little pet? She will die too, if you press on. So, leave. Turn around, take her, and leave. This is my only mercy I’ll offer you.”
Eddy thought on it. His mind felt muddled, as if a fog had been cast upon it, as if all the wrath and fury had been drained out of him. All that was left was the regret, the guilt, and that fear – the fear that what the being said was true: that there was no chance for a better world, no future without corruption, without pain, fear, or suffering; no world where little girls wouldn’t fall prey to the whims of monsters. Alto’s shattered features flashed across his mind – burning through the images of his deepest regrets. The wound at his side burned with it, a searing pain as if he were suffering it anew. He gasped harshly as he looked down, finding the hands he used to prod at the spot were no longer the hands of a man, but ones of a monster – clawed and curled like spiders legs. He stared at them in horror, a fear not of the shape of them, but of what they held – a misshapen skull, burned black as the void around him.
Would that truly be BP’s fate, a cruel death just like what befell the others? Despite his best efforts, ruin was all he ever seemed to leave in his wake, so why would this time be any different? Why should… “No, I didn’t…” Vagari found himself uttering, some ember of defiance still alive within him. “I didn’t kill them… Alto, Soprano, Trois… You did! And why? Why?! They knew nothing! They couldn’t even read it if they tried, so… Why? Why kill them?!”
“You’ve some stronger will than I thought,” Tehom offered amusedly. “Why? Why-why-why, why not just break? Why not just skitter off to some far corner and rid me of yourself? Every fiber of your being wants to. Your mind makes no walls to hide that fact. So, flee. Take up your charge and run away, just as you always do, Eddy. Take the girl, and live.”
“No!” shouted Vagari, that ember rising in him as a flame once more. “No, that isn’t me! That isn’t who I am any more! I’m not going to run away, and I’m not doing this for myself! I’m doing this for everyone else to live the lives he stole from them, the lives you stole from them! I won’t stop… I’ll carry on until it kills me, for Alto, for Soprano, Trois, and BP! For every life you and yours ruined. And, I won’t stop until that dream, however impossible, is a reality. I’m coming for you, for you and Xu! I don’t care about the why of it, or your reasoning – damn your reasoning! What possible reason could you have to murder innocent people? So, yeah… you can try and dissuade me all you like – I know what I’ve done… But, I also know what I have to do. I’m going to stop you.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Unlikely,” growled Tehom, the darkness of their form blooming out to snuff out the halo of light. “Countless have tried and failed, countless more powerful than you, little bird. You’re making a foolish decision, one that will lead only to more death, including your own.”
“Then let it!” Spat Vagari, lurching to his feet with his arms opened wide. “Do it! Crush me with a thought. You’re… You’re just in my head! You’re not even really here, are you?! No, no you’re just some psychic thing reaching out as one last feeble attempt to stop what is coming! You can’t touch me, not now that I know! You’re just a ghost rattling chains in the darkness.”
Tehom snarled, and with a roar of fire and fury, that engorging shade grew to sudden titanic heights before him. Now they truly matched that initial fear Vagari had felt, appearing now as an immense hydra of chitinous red flesh and twisting metal. It’s seven heads howled and writhed, twisting around, snapping viciously at Vagari, rutting at the ground around his feet with tusk and horn. But, he stood firm, and not once did they strike true. Vagari stared up at the ungodly thing, at its mess of faces and coils, glaring with his eyes, heart, and soul. He wanted them to feel his defiance, that they had lost their desperate attempt to break him. “Get out,” Vagari demanded, for the first time in a long time feeling as if he were actually in control. “Get the fuck out of my head.”
“It’s of no consequence…” hissed the demon from its many mouths, through tongues of lapping fire. “Come then, little bird, come and show me what ruin you wrought.”
The great dragon faded fully into the shadows now, leaving only the echoes of its burning eyes to ever show it was there. Soon, those also faded as well, like stars blinking out in the sky. Vagari was left wandering the darkness, lost in shadow he knew not how to escape from, with not even a candle’s flame to guide him any longer. He didn’t know how long he wandered there, trapped in the confines of the illusion, earning his namesake. It could have been years, or days, hours, or minutes in real space. Time always seemed unbound in the abyssal realm of dreams, blurs like all the faces before – the names he had forgotten. “Malcom, Brooks, Cain,” Vagari uttered, repeating the names in mind and on tongue, “Sephora…” That nameless, faceless, her that had haunted his dreams and nightmares alike – Sephora. In the darkness of his own mind, he could picture her perfectly, smell her perfume, her hair. Memories Tehom had, perhaps unwittingly, returned to him. Did they think it would weaken him, he wondered? To bury him in guilt and shame by facing that which he had willingly forgotten? Maybe once it would have, not so long ago. But now, it only made him more determined.
He would get through this darkness, Vagari told himself, and he would let those faces, that guilt, that strive for redemption, for a world reborn, light his way. He vowed then, no matter how long he would be trapped in that darkness, that he would never forget their faces again, her face, that darling smile he loved, that had chased the darkness away ever before. Never again would he forget that smile. Her smile fresh in his mind spawned one of his own as he remembered the last good time they spent together before he got absorbed into his work. They were at a house party – new on the block. They had just moved in a few weeks prior, and they wanted to celebrate with friends. After a few hours of mingling he and her were tipsy and broke away from the crowd for the fresh air on their balcony. That was when he proposed, clumsily and with a washer from the kitchen drawer that didn’t even fit her finger. She didn’t care, she accepted anyways. There they sat together, looking out on a bright world and bright future, where he drunkenly serenaded her, ever encouraged by that beautiful smile.
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Only you can make all this world seem right
Only you can make all this darkness bright
Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do
and fill my heart with love for only you
Only you can make all this change in me
For it's true, you are my destiny
When you hold my hand
I understand the magic that you do
You're my dream come true
My one and only you
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The darkness split with the sounding of a voice, a hoarse frantic croak. BP was calling for him, crying out his name. The lightless world shook with her voice, her urging for him to wake up, and he did. “Vagari,” BP said, shaking him by the shoulders, “wake up! It’s sunup already…”
“I am – I am… I’m awake,” Vagari replied groggily, his time in the inky void feeling as distant and murky as any natural dream. The memory of Tehom, however, returned suddenly to his mind, causing him to shoot up to his feet. “Where are they? Where’s Tehom?!” Vagari abruptly burst. “Did you see them? Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?!”
“Tee-home?” BP sounded out with a birdish cock of her head. “Were you having another nightmare? You were singing, so maybe it wasn’t too bad… Off key though.”
Vagari slumped back down to his seat in the alcove and pressed his hands to his face while letting out a calming sigh. “Yeah, a nightmare…” He said, peaking down to see if the tome still remained. It did. “Last night the Godhead deigned to pay me a visit… We spoke. Her name is Elizabeth, or it was, rather – I guess. But she wasn’t alone. She was followed – somehow, psychically I’m guessing. Did you… feel anything?”
“No,” BP said with a shake of her head, “nothing. Just us and… the book…”
“It was Tehom – Xu’s master,” Vagari continued. “They’re a psychic, a strong one too if they were reaching out from the ship. They… Invaded my memories; dug through all my fears and failures, trying to dissuade me from pressing on.”
“We can’t turn back now,” BP urged. “We’re so close!”
“I know,” he replied. “It didn’t work. We’re finishing this, no matter what. You and me.”
“Dang right,” BP confirmed adamantly.
“But, before we go,” Vagari said softly, a hint of reluctance in his voice, “I need to tell you something… Who I am. Who I was.”
“You’re Vagari,” BP stated obviously, “you’re my friend.”
“Yes, now and always,” Vagari agreed, a weak smile twitching on his face. “But, once my name was Edward James Valentino, and I was a scientist who lived over two-hundred years ago.”