The howl of the wind could reach his ears. The scratch of his feet against the wooden planks, together with the heavy steps of the figures clad in bronze armor, resonated through the hallway. He was being carried away, taken to a place of no return.

Grabbed by the dislocated arms, he contorted, again and again, every time he was pushed forward, to the point that he was already losing sensations in his body. One foot pointed against the floor, the other twisted the other way, his face a combination of purple and red together with his body, and little streams of old and fresh blood flowing like a curtain covering his face. Going out of the hallway into the windy night, he raised his eyes to the moon, the only thing gentle enough with him in his final moments.

Not before long, a black cloud masked the moon away.

The wooden planks continued into the darkness, torches lit being the only thing lighting the way, and as they move further into the night, squeaks start echoing in his ears together with the howling wind, dancing around, trying to take his breath away.

They reach the end of the way. Looking below, his eyes can only see shadows. In front of him, the peak of some mountains can be devised. A thunderbolt illuminates the darkness, only to reveal to him part of his destiny at the bottom of this chasm: The land, painted red, and at the end of the steep slope, a sea of corpses, at the edge of a forest.

He is swung once, then twice, then thrice, and before long he was flying away. And although his heart felt fear, not once he doubted that this was a fitting end for him, for his crime was too big for most punishments to free him from his guilt, his great shame.

When he started to fall, in an instant he recalled a memory from a time now long gone. It was when he was six years old and he was sitting on the lap of the woman who would become the pinnacle of womanhood to him in his life. Of fair skin, black long straight hair, eyes like blue sapphires, a slender figure covered in a white dress that emitted its own, soft light, with her long and delicate-looking arms and fingers she just finished tickling him.

As he was reincorporating, her expression took a more serious look, with her usual smile vanishing behind an unusual sorrowful look. This clutched his heart. Realizing how her expression was affecting him, she changed her expression back to her usual, free-spirited ways, and opening her mouth, the words that came out of it has never left him ever since.

You have a great destiny, to free all men from the oppression of the Abyss at the center of the world.

As the child he was back then looked down, he raised his fingers to his mouth in an attempt to perform once more his bad habits, but she catches his fingers before they reach his mouth, cuddling them with her own.

This habit… told your mother that she should stop, but it seems she didn’t follow through with my words.

Raising his face, he remembers saying:

I’m sorry, my Goddess… It is just that… this destiny… seems too much. Isn’t the Abyss, like, really scary and stuff? I’ve heard stories of how terrible the J’avo are, how tough they are, how… terrifying they are… I-I… I apologize for saying this, but… I don’t want this destiny…

The eyes of the boy are flooded with tears as he looks down once more.

The Goddess once more raises her arms, and with her fingers, she takes away the tears that one by one start falling down the boy’s face. Then, cuddling him against her chest, she says:

My Prince, all living beings have a destiny, a destiny they can’t escape. It is set in their Soul and in the World from before they are born, and without a question one day their destiny will come for them. No one can control that… But there’s something you can control…

Raising the Prince’s face so his eyes meet hers, she continues to take away the boy’s tears as the boy’s eyes come more attentive, more focused. Smiling, she then says:

What you can control is who you will be the day destiny is opening the door… So don’t let the fear get the best of you, my Prince, for the greater the destiny of a man is, the more help and assistance he will receive so he may fulfill it…

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Touching the chest of the boy with one finger, right in his heart, she finishes her words:

And I’ll be with you, right here, always…

On the boy’s face a smile is drawn, once more, but no other word he can utter, as the Goddess suddenly attacks him with another barrage of tickles that sends him into laughter.

Hitting the steep slope, he can hear how his body cracks under its own weight while he starts rolling into the darkness, losing his sense of orientation completely. Diving right into the sea of corpses, he is cut even more as he ends up at the edge of the forest, but no blood came out of him this time around, even when his right eye is slashed by a femur that still retained a bit of its integrity and protruded out of an old corpse.

Feeling the cold of the earth, his body twitches involuntarily, but he can’t tell the reason why his senses being completely dulled at this moment. The sense of pain, nowhere to be found, but maybe this was a fitting end for him, for someone who committed such a crime, to die in this shameful display.

Yes, maybe once he dies, the burden on his shoulders will lighten, maybe the darkness’ lull will return him his peace.

Thunderbolts echoed in the night, and a slight drizzle started to fall on his face followed soon enough by rain. Captivated by the cloudy night and the arcs the thunder formed in it, he waited for the sweet embrace of death…

-”Look at you, traitor…”- a voice reaches his ears. This voice alone overpowers the sound of rain and the thunders, and it is like it is delivered right into himself.

-”Nothing but a shadow left, uh?”- the voice sounds more clear. Raising his sight towards the forest, he catches the glimpse of a faint blue fire, dancing in the dark.

-”Thought it was the end for you? That you could deliver yourself to death and kiss this life goodbye?”- The faint blue fire comes closer, and from inside it a hand appears, delicate, slender fingers being embraced by the flames.

-”Death is too good for you, traitor.”- The voice says again, as the figure comes completely out of the shadows. Of fair skin, slender figure, long delicate-looking arms, blonde straight hair, and a left eye like a fiery ruby and a right eye like a blue sapphire. Wearing a black patterned kimono with a pink sash to her waist, sandals, and a wide, big umbrella, accompanied by seven blue flames that surround her, at each step she takes the ground lights up in a faint light, then cleans itself up.

A knot ties itself in his throat. Her sudden appearance steals his attention from everything else, even himself. She is different, yes, he understands that, but she looks so much like her that makes his body tremble as he tries to regain control of his limbs.

-”What? There’s nowhere to run, not anymore, traitor… Nor that you could do it anyway with that body of yours right now, have you realized that your head has done a complete one-eighty?”-

Only his eyebrows reacted at her words.

-”It seems you didn’t realize, but oh well, don’t worry…”- she says as she crouches with her knees together and reaches for his face with the hand embraced with blue flames -”As I take your death away from you, you will realize it soon enough anyway…”-

She puts her hand on his face, and at her tact, the flames felt cold, cold like nothing he had experienced before. These chilling flames penetrated inside him, giving back little by little his sense of pain.

-”Heed my words, traitor. I, Goddess Ereshkigal, have taken your death away, but instead of what you may believe or want, I did not come here to punish you... not yet, at least...”-

His heart jumped at her words. Only one word came to his mind.

Why?… why?

-”Why, you ask? Well, because there’s a chance for you, who walk this life between the worst sinners since the Shattering, to remedy what you have done.”-

Even when the pain started to inundate his body to levels he didn’t experience before, all of his attention focused on these words.

-”Yes, traitor. There’s a possibility to save her, but I want you to do it. You shattered her, you will go and put her back together, that is, if you truly want your death back…”-