Note: Serious chapter.
Side Story: Eternity
(Charybdis' point of view.)
So... this is life?
The pulsating core of my life is steady and overwhelming.
Is life always this vivid?
I take some time to come to terms with the sensation only to find many more.
Outside myself I sense changes...
Air... wind... rain... sand...
Gravity.
I open my eyes for the first time...
Light.
Heat... the sun...
Cold... the wind...
Darkness as the sun fades over the horizon.
Colors.
The spectrum of light.
The distance of the mountains from the pebble at my feet... perspective.
A bird flies past... life...
As I try to move around I learn balance. As I push against a tree I learn force and as it breaks death.
I kill things that live. I see.
I meet things like myself... friends.
I enter the water to spend time with them.
Eventually one dies, killed by a falling rock.
Sadness... sorrow...
Another dies... killed in battle with one like us.
Rage... hatred... I learn these avenging my friend.
My last friend... slain by a god... out of lust.
Fury... revenge... the god fights back.
Blood-lust. I rip his body limb from limb for years until he dies.
Emptiness.
Despair.
…
…
Alone.
…
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Shiny things heal the hurt... just a little...
…
…
More gods... Slaughter...
…
I take from them a shiny thing, a mirror... it makes the pain fresh... it makes the sorrow bitter and it makes the lost joys sweeter...
I kill gods, more often and whenever I can.
I track them.
I ambush them.
I pursue until they hide from me in fear.
…
Endless wandering.
…
A mate... a friend... but they betray...
…
I search for a friend.
I am only betrayed... again and again and again.
…
…
A newly born god attacks me... pitiful child...
…
I capture him as my husband...
He says he loves me!
I love him... not as a friend... as more.
We are together.
We will be together forever...
…
…
Betrayal. It is bitterer even than the death of my friends... because I am utterly rejected.
I kill him... yet it stings me...
Tears... I wish I had the ability to create tears.
…
I kill everything that catches my eye.
Life... is boring.
I face gods, titans and others like me... they die or flee.
I cannot find one that offers anything interesting.
…
…
A strange kraken... it does not talk as the others do...
I keep it.
A friend.
...
…
I lack something... my heart aches... I have a friend, what more do I need?
…
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A husband... I cannot stop myself from this course... it will hurt me again...
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
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A mortal male...
He dies... because he fled my embrace.
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A demigod... she is caught and made my husband.
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She tries to murder me in my sleep. She dies.
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I have many more but they are not a solution.
They use boring tricks.
They say boring things.
They fear me.
They are weak.
…
I kill them as they try to escape my bonds of love.
…
I hurt so...
…
Kill them all...
…
Many have died.
I am not fulfilled, but I am less hurt...
A demigod and a titan...
Friends?
Strange.
The demigod... is weird...
I have not seen one like this...
But I will still kill it.
I hate them all.
…
What?
He is unpredictable.
Tenacious.
He hurt me?!
…
Hahahahahahahahaha...
INTERESTING!
I attack harder, I want this one as Husband.
…
He hurts me again.
And again.
And again.
…
He injured me?!
How..?
He uses water... and yet... he is so strange.
…
I demand to be his wife.
He rejects me and demands to be my husband?!
I... accept. I submit.
How strange this is...
How happy I am...
I cannot describe what this is like... was love ever this vivid?
Was I ever... weaker than someone?
…
My husband... does not even know who he is?!
I give him the one object I treasure... to make him whole...
I see similarities between us.
He is hurt by the past.
He is hurt by a god.
He is hurt by fate.
If these are his chains, then I shall break them.
I have no fate.
I have no fear of gods.
And I too am hurt by the past.
I shall make him mine, so utterly that we shall never be apart even with a world between us.
…
Then I taste what it means to BE loved, not merely to love another.
It is a shock...
I understand... for the first time I experience mutual love.
I will have this forever if I must raze the world.
…
Somehow, along the way... I began to become strange.
I became a mother...
I became more than a static, homeless killer...
I became something greater.
I think wherever this leads... I will enjoy it.
What we learned:
Poor Charybdis.
Just how unbalanced she really is...
What we missed:
Nothing as this... is... history! (Sparta!)
Just a reminder: Don't feed the trolls... that aren't authors! Banish them into obscurity, where uncreative critics belong. If they can't even make a criticism interesting they don't deserve a second glance.
Also I drastically under-estimated how much wrap-up I'll need to do, so... rejoice extra chapters! It'll be done when it is done. (Mostly just to fulfill the need to add the Captain Planet punchline last chapter!)