> “It’s time to reset the clock. Mend the arm, set the bone.”
> -Anagas Song, in a little while
His right eye was pierced, but still could see, and from it he saw death aplenty as the mad moon and gods clashed for the hundredth of thousandth of times already, any sense of time and normalcy evaporating every time they met. The blood shed could’ve refilled the Infinite Lake already, if the chasm left behind had behaved simply as a chasm. His left fared better, suspended in a jar somewhere dark for now, the cycle of day and night somehow still being upheld even as everything else was abandoned. Its new owner was once a store owner, now turned smuggler and the occasional black market dealer. Sometimes the hunger rises and the thought of eating its newest trinket comes to the front, but each time a small itch would come and rest in the lizard-fish’ blasted out eye socket, and its will wilts, at least for the moment.
The bones fared the worst, scattered and splintered in pieces as small as sand, with the biggest embedded into the side of a wall alongside forty other shrapnel of odd make and kind. Less said of the blood, the better. The skin fared best, surprisingly, collected early on and made into a pair of shoes, a jacket, and a watch’s straps of all things. Ah, but the heart. What of the heart, the liver, the spleen, the stomach, the guts, and all the paraphernalia of a person’s make? Where did they all go, scattered about like leaves blown in the wind? Will only the teeth survive on account of their hardness?
The fastest thing to fade, of course, was of a name, of a presence barely felt in the Retribution Fields, and all but forgotten back in a certain Godhome. It was coming close that Micha Ostor, a godling, will be naught but an errant blot of ink in history’s progressing script. But, as luck would have it, fate had other plans for the child. Its threads pulled the bits and pieces together even as others were torn asunder, to be rebuilt and reborn with the arrival of the one that would save it all.
A comet to wipe the slate clean named Anagas Song.
He pondered his life, short as it was, as he battled the perimeter titans of Blood Falls. What could have gone so wrong for someone to resent being given everything you could’ve ever wanted in a life? Perhaps it was how it closed off all the paths that Anagas Song could’ve gone on, leaving only a path of either indulgence or austerity. He’d either use it all or reject every single bit, and truthfully he straddled the line pretty well. But there was one thing that made him fall in a different direction, a new path wherein he could be satisfied and achieve something of his own hand. It was also a path of annihilation, of death, but death was an old friend, literally. The question was of time, and if Anagas wills it, he could force things to go his way and ruin it all for everyone else, their destinies be damned.
That was the thing about infinite power; it can’t be stopped, not even by itself. That said power had a safeguard in the form of a person and the bindings and intelligence that came with a person was par for the course. Anagas’ parents upheld these ideals in the purest sense, being mainly concerned in making sure the other didn’t step too far over the line. And if they were in a stalemate, then Anagas Song was checkmate in one move. He knew it, his parents knew it, and so did the rest of their families and servants.
One titan slammed a fist the size of a mountain right at Anagas and it connected, sending the young heirling deep into the earth. Anagas sighed as he stood back up and went flying back to the fray, turning one of his hands into a gigantic dragon’s hand, sinking its claws into the nearest titan and rending it to pieces. Anagas then turned the rest of his body to follow suit, taking on the form of a walking, fire-breathing natural disaster. His roars cracked the titans’ shell before his fire melted the layers away, revealing their bare bones ready to be plucked. It was a massacre, and Anagas knew it.
Once the dust settled and the air no longer plasma, Anagas settled back down to his base form, flying closer to Blood Falls and the barrier enclosing it. It shivered at his slightest touch, and the heirling paused as he considered his options. Finally, he came across an idea and lengthened one of his nails until it was but a point. He then carefully placed it against the barrier, waiting for natural fluctuations to bring the barrier close enough for it to poke itself upon Anagas’ nail. The moment that it did, Anagas kept himself from rejoicing as now came the hardest part. The nail became longer until it suddenly branched up and down, twisting and splitting apart as it became something other than a nail. Soon, the form of the mass became clear, suspended in the air as its gestation was accelerated from minutes to seconds. Without a doubt, it was Anagas Song once more, reborn, but a mere facsimile; an echo of an echo.
Its umbilical cord was retracted back out the barrier as the original inspected the clone. It was sentient and had a degree of free-will, but was ultimately an extension of Anagas Song, and therefore, would never deviate from the plan it was given with. The clone opened its newly-formed eyes with some surprise and not a small amount of trepidation, as it possessed some of the memories of the original, including the limitless power they possessed. The clone turned around and looked at Anagas, at himself, and wondered if he should get a different name now.
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“No.” They both spoke at the same time, though only the original continued on. “I am you still. This is a dream and you will find the dreamer. End the dream and you will come home.” The clone nodded, understanding, before moving forward, marching into the depths of Blood Falls.
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There was a test once. She didn’t quite remember anymore what it was about, but she knew it had happened and where it took place. She was standing now on the rubble, of what used to be the roof of a school. The metal twisted while the bones shattered, leaking blood black as oil and twice as thick. It was rare that living thing were used as buildings, but this one survived on but a fancy of a former lord, and so became shackled to the ground while miles of wire were pushed through and threaded through veins, nerves and glands to serve whatever electrical implements were needed to serve the needs of the new occupants. The brain was more ruthlessly cut out, with parts either consumed or used in one tool or another, with the rest serving as little more than decorations, to be gawked upon and laughed at while the body continued on, a lifeless ember of what was once a majestic beast. All things considered, it was now given the mercy it so desperately needed.
The war was new, and yet it was already going on for far too long on everyone’s mind. Dreams of the past floated past screams of the dead and the living. The present goings felt like every hour was a month-long trek that had no end save for the calm that came as every man, woman, and child though to themselves, ‘Oh, I’m going to die, aren’t I?’, which held no alarm or fear, just a kind of constant reaffirmation that mortals in the Retribution Fields always face but never had to confront so consistently before. It wasn’t the time for denial nor was it the time for lies, so lies the path of truth and oh, how most that started it never finished it in the end.
But, back to the woman, who now went with no names as there was no cause to be known anymore, not by ruin or rubble. She was standing by as part of a watch, officially claimed by the one that goes by Righteousness, but in truth was simply a holding place for those leftovers that fit nowhere else. It was fine, and the pay was fine, and the people were … alright. It was temporary order like a stick stuck upon the sand, waiting for the waves to come and crash and turn it upside down. But for now it holds, and the woman sighed.
“You reckon’ they’ll stop any time soon? Well, for us mortals at least.” A fellow watchman, going by the name Watchman, of all things, called up to the woman. He carried a spear-gun that was twice his height; a comical sight if the woman hadn’t seen how proficient Watchman was at using it to pierce through enemies and blow their insides out. But that was an anomaly, a chance brought about by circumstance. In the urban ruins of Blood Falls, what usually came about were traps and sudden deaths by ambushes, snipers killing rows of men at choke zones, and the mines. The fucking mines that walked, crawled, and sometimes even jumped at people, latching on with powerful jaws seconds before the explosion kills three and incapacitates seven.
“The gods? Her Righteousness? Or everyone else?” She asked, not really expecting Watchman to answer before she continued on. “I was fine just visiting my mom every now and then doing things every other while, and now I’m here over what’s left of my childhood home. What’s left of parts of it. I didn’t think I would amount to anything at all in life, and I accepted that. I know my lot in life and now I don’t even know if life’s allotted me a slot once this is all done and over with. I might just move on and disappear into the desert forever. Die in some way that’ll make me never feel peace forever.”
“I think it’s bullshit.” Watchman said, moving back and forth while leaning on his spear-gun. “You know? All this in Blood Falls, even before everything went to shit. I was a conman working for the Darah Daging, telling shit to lure people away into the alleyways where the butchers were waiting. I seen my like do the same in the Trium Illustricate, but instead ties nooses called contracts and own people that way. And the third? I don’t ever seen them in my time, but I’m guessing they use curses, because hey, magic can do anything if you got the mind for it.” Watchman chuckled to himself.
“I’m guessing there’s a point here you’re making that warrants breaking my break?” The woman flashed Watchman the smile she only uses when she was dealing with idiots and insufferable fools.
“I was getting to that. Blood spilled on Blood Falls? No one even notices, not even when arteries spurt, but when it comes with death and devastation, of whole towns worth of people murdered in single blows? Then suddenly people cared enough to organize, to defend one another even when before they’d have strangled each other with eyes wide open. But it wasn’t enough. We are flies upon an open carcass where once only one scavenger gnawed upon the bones, but now two are here and fight over it, while we hang on, waiting for one to finish the other. We can move on, but we’ll never stop being flies. Do you get me?” Watchman said while admiring the figure of his company.
The woman paused as she took in his words, then she pulled out a smoke and lit it up with a fire from her mouth. “I get you, Watchman. I get clearly that you think yourself a fly, but me? I am no flier. Never will be and not about to start now. I am fire like the pyres, and I’ll dream a dream of liars as I fire them. Do you know what that means, Watchman?” Watchman took a step back as the woman’s face gave off heat like a bonfire, and her eyes glowed like a dragon’s ire.
“I-I wouldn’t presume to know, ma’am. But would you look at the time? It’s time to retire, permanently, to my bunk for tonight.” The watchman bowed and sprinted before the woman said more, his face alight with fear of fire and sparks of desire. The woman scoffs and decides to stay on watch a little bit longer. It wouldn’t do good to be caught by surprise after all.