The Death of Prometheus
It's hard to fathom that there's worse things than death, but believe me there are.
My thoughts are hazy, navigating through them feels like wading through a dense swamp with your eyes plucked out. I try to latch onto to something, anything, but the memories drip from my hands like grains of sand.
I'm a distant echo in my own head, a faint whisper nagging at some program from the recesses of what I used to call home.
Home...that word somehow feels solid, rigid. It's..it's coming back to me now.
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“Egtsy, wake up!” cries mother as she barges through my chamber doors with her flock of cackling servants trailing behind her. “You mustn't be late, today's your big day.”
“It seems the young prince is still tuckered out, Your Highness, perhaps we should come at a later hour?” chirps a handmaiden as I roll over and stuff my head in between two pillows.
“Nonsense!” she replies with a loud humph as her heels click rapidly on the stone floor. “This'll fix that right up.”
Without warning she pulls the drapes open and rips sleep's sweet kiss from me like a glued-on band aid.
“Mother!” I groan from under my covers as the servants start to tidy up the room. “What is the point of being crowned king if you still have to wake up early?”
“That's precisely *why* you have to wake up early my dear child.” she whispers before gently yanking me out of bed by an ankle.
“Ahh!” I yelp as the rays of our binary stars sting my eyes and temporarily blind me.
“Oh hush.” she says while lightly backhanding my shoulder. “You need to take this seriously, after your little trip today you'll have a whole planet to care for and nurture.”
“There's nothing about this trip that's 'little'.” I mumble before getting to my feet and walking towards my closet.
“You may think I didn't hear that, but you'd be wrong.” she sings as she gestures at two servants to help me dress. “All you have to do is hop on a moon-skipper, fly to Geish, read some moldy inscriptions and be blessed by the shaman. That's it.”
“Yeq said that the *shaman* is a 12-eyed monster that guards the temple with fangs as thick as trees and-”
“Oh don't be so gullible,” she cuts me off with a faint groan. “-your brother made all that up.”
“Why else would the shaman be kept on its own moon then?” I cry out as a quartet of handmaidens fit the ceremonial robes on me.
“Because that's where the temple is silly, now enough of this nonsense.” she snaps before training her sights on me. “Your father and the honor guard are making their way to the sky-port now, meet us there. Don't dawdle.”
Looking down at the goofy costume they put me in as it itches everywhere it can touch, I hear dozens of echoing clicks from mother and her litter as they make their way back down the hall.
Alone with the stuffy robes I tug at the collar, let out a deep sigh while eyeing my reflection in disgust, and bitterly march behind them.
As the nerves settle in it warps time and space itself. Father's whole speech in front of the congregation, mother's teary goodbye, even the royal send off from the honor guard, all just a blur; an afterthought to the panic that's plaguing my mind. But there's no getting out of this, it's either do it or...do it.
In silence I board the moon-skipper and fasten my belt before looking out the cockpit window to the smiling faces of my family as they wave me off. Gulping hard I muster a wave back and paint a crude smile on my face as the thrusters start to roar.
Sailing into the sky as everyone below slowly becomes dots, I stare out a nearby hatch and study the other three moons that orbit this beautiful planet of ours. Why this 'Rite of Passage' couldn't take place in one of those tropical resorts, I'll never know.
Jerking my head back to the cockpit windows as the autopilot beeps and whirs, Geish looms ahead. It's crimson fog suffocating the moon's surface like a parasite.
All the stories we heard growing up, about the monsters and demons that come from Geish, they play in my mind endlessly now. I can't get them to stop, no matter what distractions I throw at myself, no matter how badly it pains me to continue. They don't stop.
Withering witches, gruesome goblins, beasts that live in the shadows and eat at joy itself, they all live there. They'll all feed on me the moment we touch down.
Just as the terror and panic approach critical-mass a searing flare lights up the space around us, completely enveloping me in a thick white light. While blinking away the blindness, a terrible explosion rattles behind us and sends my vessel spinning.
Slowly regaining my sight as I try to keep balance and peer out a window, vivid ribbons of color start to dance before my eyes as a faint outline of the scene fades its way into view.
Deep reds oranges and yellows, flashes of flying rubble and bright lights, all set to a pitch black backdrop. It took me a while, even after my vision came back, to realize I just witnessed my planet’s explosion.
It was just there, right there, and now it's not.
I don't know what to...say, or do. If I think about it too hard I might even forget how to breathe.
It's numbing me to my foundations. Before my fear came from wanting not to die, now its from not knowing how to go on.
Dropping to my knees to mourn the collect death of billions, four of which have been in my life for it's entirety until today, I notice a flickering maelstrom growing from the center of the planet's crumbled corpse.
The autopilot has stabilized us, stopping our spinning, but now it seems like we're being pulled in by this thing.
Hopping to my feet, I slap my hand on any button or control in reach but the system wails in disagreement.
“Autopilot, do something!” I cry out as the ship moans and groans under the gravitational force. “Get us out of here.”
Through static and chopped-up words the autopilot tries its best to accommodate my requests but it knows as well as I do at this point that there's no 'getting out of here' anymore.
Grabbing onto anything with a handle as the ship deteriorates around me, I sail into the maelstrom of violent bright lights and deafening explosions till sleep's sweet lips caresses me once more.
Waking up face down in a pile of dirt, I'm surprised to be waking up at all.
Lifting my head up, the most surreal landscape sprawls out before me as my eyes try to focus. Layers of jungles and forests stacked on top of each other, some upside-down, some outright vertical. Tundras of lava, oceans of metal, none of what I'm seeing makes any sense. Nothing connects, nothing seems right.
As my muscles sing in pain while trying to pick myself up, a sudden chill creeps up my spine and jump-starts the pumping in my chest.
Inching my head back through a hard gulp, my eyes meet the bobbing head of an enormous beast without a face. It towers over me with an eerie silence while aiming the tip of its skull down at me.
Before I can react a blistering headache washes over my mind, further crippling me into a puddle on the dirt. Through the tingling agony a voice starts to whisper at me, coaxing me into conversation.
“..Help...me..” it murmurs through a crackling series of hisses and clicks.
/CONSCIOUSNESS\_OVERRIDE.4205761764
Arrgh.
What does this infernal computer want from me now?
Once again I'm thrust back in the swampy marshes of my lost thoughts, a hushed passenger to this golem's every whim.
With enough concentration I can see its current whereabouts, a hallway much to small for it on some sort of a ship. Gleaming white and gold plates line the walls with blacks accents scissoring throughout, soft purple lights hum in the spaces between them.
Bobbing silently underneath the doppelganger, a monstrous mass peeks through the shadows as a nearby widget lights its featureless face up before fading back into darkness. Clutching the reins of an extravagant saddle the doppelganger narrows its sights down to a group of tightly huddled humanoids trembling at the beast's feet.
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Soft-fleshed and chubby-cheeked, the humanoids stare back frozen in stunted stillness till one of them meanders forward.
Mouthing something I can't make out, he moves his hands around like some sort of ritual then cocks his head to the side when he's finished and raises an eyebrow. Responding with an armored claw raised high in the air, the beast slashes down at the air before it and shifts the scene to a dusty cabin nestled in a random wilderness.
Jerking its view from side to side, the golem studies the cabin while its artificial intelligence runs complex computations in the recesses of my mind. Dark and abandoned, the cabin doesn't seem all that interesting- wait. There's something else in here.
Wrapped in tattered leather another fleshy humanoid (though this one seems much less chubby around the cheeks) glares back at us through the shadows. Before it can react the doppelganger draws a huge weapon from its backside and cremates the hairless primate along with half the cabin behind him, revealing a lushly overgrown grove.
Taken back from the cold-blooded murder I loose focus, causing the scene to freeze like its a buffering video.
Examining the golem's weapon is starting to surface feelings that have been foreign to me for what seems like an eternity. Flashes of that surreal landscape are flooding my mind, its a tangible nostalgia, and I'll do whatever it takes to grab on tight.
Anything's better than living this nightmare.
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“This weapon was forged from the very first atoms to break the bonds of space time and drift into Pylae,” cries King U'ru, her thick and springy silver hair swaying in a gentle breeze. “-designed by minds from across countless realities, innumerable species, its one of the most deadly weapons in all existence. A fitting armament for our newest recruit.”
Raising the glimmering weapon over her head as both solar and lunar rays hit it from every angle it radiates energy, hums with anticipation.
“Its artillery is endlessly fueled by a mini-foundry located at the base, the shells themselves are neurologically linked to the wielder and can be altered in anyway they see fit for combat.” she yells on as a valley of strange humanoids, gaseous blobs, and countless other multi-limbed creatures listen to her every word intently. “Very few can fire this thing without their eyes permanently rolling to the back of their heads, and only one has ever even tried.”
Staring through its barrel, two energized rails sizzle inside with plasma at their tips. The mouth of the cannon is lined with tiny prongs that resemble rows of razor-sharp teeth and the perpetual foundry at its base faintly roars through its every vent as it ceaselessly churns away.
“Egtsy and Durrumai have not only survived our perilous trials after being marooned here, they saved this realm from mass extinction.” says the king as she waves us over to her side. “There should be no doubt in any of your minds that they'll go above and beyond the call of duty. Long live these two and long live Pylae!”
“Long live Pylae!” the crowd furiously shouts back as they beat their chests and raise fists in the air.
“This seems like a bit much.” croaks a voice in the back of my head that oddly enough seems very familiar to me now.
Instinctively turning my head to the side, I'm met with the same bobbing monster's face that attacked me earlier. This time, however, there's no terror to be found anywhere in my hearts. Somehow I know that this beast is my friend.
“All we did was be at the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you want to look at it.” it whispers again through my thoughts, its head bobbing in agreement with its own statement.
“If we say that they might not let us keep the gun.” I somehow reply telepathically before reaching over to scratch underneath its course belly.
“Step forward Venator Egtsy, take your mantle as protector of reality's loom. Hunt down anyone that threatens it or the Pylae, serve alongside your kin!” she booms before placing a tattered hat covered in glyphs and runes on my noggin.
Stepping forward to grab the cannon's grip, it tingles in my palm as its raw power courses up my arm. Immediately the weapon and I are one, its a muscle now just like any other.
Energized by the sensation I raise the cannon in the air. The crowd replies with primal roars and guttural cries.
“Vain much?” jeers Durrumai as its bobbing head droops in disappointment.
“Oh, shut up you.” I reply in thought. “Let me have this.”
/CONSCIOUSNESS\_OVERRIDE.4205761765
Damn this blasted bundle of circuits, why must it torture me so?
As quickly as the thought came it's slipping away, crumbling through my fingers like ash. Somewhere in the locked chambers of my mind I can feel the AI diligently hammering away. There's something its cooking up, a plan its hatching that's drawing more processing power with every second it gestates.
More than ever the numbness is taking over, even my reflection in the swampy waters is beginning to look less and less familiar.
I have to fight back, this thing won't keep me slave anymore.
Straining with all my might I try to pull the memory back from the void, latching onto anything that comes up, anything that can bring me there again.
Yes, I have something! A weapon, no, *the* weapon.
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Firing a cascading twister of artillery that follows the scampering thief like a black fog, it plops to the ground up ahead as millions of mites ooze from the thousand holes I just drilled into its exoskeleton. With another quick volley, they're all met with a fiery extermination as well.
Another day, another scumbag wiped from existence.
Raising a claw to 'port us back to Pylae, I hop off Durrumai's back when we return and walk up the winding path to U'ru's throne.
“Ahh, my favorite bobble head.” jokes the king as she scratches at her forehead and munches on a small insect that was unfortunate enough to get caught in the nest of her shaggy hair. “I'm guessing you retrieved that doomsday device or whatever it was?”
Sat on her elemental throne she cranes her neck down and meets me eye-to-eye with a crooked smile. Her thick arms jangle with carved sigils and crystals as she reaches over to grab a slightly curved yellow tube while she scratches the back of her ears using a toe or two. Peeling back the yellow tube's carcass, she devours the inside in a single breath and tosses the remains onto a pile stacked higher than Durrumai.
Throwing the encased device onto her feet, I look up to her and slightly nod my head.
“You're a real charmer, you know that?” she sneers with a wicked smile. “I'm glad you're back actually, we just got word of a real nasty one popping in and out of random realities, making a real mess of things too. Mind giving it a look?”
“It'll be my honor, Your Highness.” I whisper while feebly bowing before her.
“Oh! Well wouldn't you know it, we got a noble knight in our ranks!” scoffs the king as she throws a yellow peel at me. “Now cut the crap and get a move on, these things won't kill themselves...or will they?”
“Joq,” she screams at her snoozing assistant as I hop on Durrumai's back and snicker to myself before getting ready to 'port out of there. “-get me my brainstorming notebook, quick, I got a doozy!”
Shifting through dimensions we phase in and out of hundreds within seconds, some physical, some geometric, scanning for any disturbances using our collective senses.
After thousands we find nothing, no traces of a mysterious entity. Stopping somewhere in open space we fully materialize and drift for a passing moment.
“Weird place to take a breather.” I tell Durrumai as an icy chill seeps through my armor.
“Could've sworn there was something here...” it replies while jerking its head from side to side. “-guess it was a false alarm.”
Raising a claw to try our luck elsewhere Durrumai prepares a swipe but something catches our attention at the last second.
Swiveling my head about my neck I see a matte black silhouette hovering some distance away in the open space behind us.
With a flick of its wrist we get flung backwards following a devastating hit to our flank, with another we get bombarded by a beam of energy so raw it sends us into a phase-dive through dimensions. I black out in the between-rift before even getting a decent look at whatever just annihilated us.
Waking up to a collective agony as Durrumai and I both sustain fatal wounds from the blindside attack, we breach the atmosphere of some unknown planet then start to meteor down to its surface.
Crashing in an icy tundra we skid along banks of snow and ice till a spike abruptly stops us.
As shards of frozen water rain from above I realize that this is the memory of my death. We never make it out of this one. No last minute save from the other Venators, no hope of surviving my injuries. We never even find out who our mystery assailant was, just a bitter end.
Unfortunately for me though, it doesn't end there. It never ends.
Someone does eventually find us, some centuries later. They take our bodies, decomposed and rotted, then send it to a bunker they've built underneath layers of permafrost.
There they experiment on us, prodding us for their advancements, defiling us to suit their causes. From our flesh they developed technologies that advanced their civilizations into stages they'd never dreamed of. Then when they were done they locked us away and threw away the key, sealing us in their subterranean fortress for another millennia or so.
When the next group of ungrateful brats stumbled across us all those years later they didn't have any intention of merely studying our DNA this time, no, this time they were determined to revive us.
With every failed experiment I'd be thrust back into consciousness momentarily before reliving a new death over and over and over again.
The experiments never ceased either, if anything they only increased in frequency as droves of chubby-cheeked humanoids worked away endlessly.
One day they got exactly what they wished for. Snapping into life for the millionth time, my eyes slowly reboot as they focus and adjust to the light in the room. Fading into view I see myself floating in a clear status pod ahead with dozens of tubes coming in and out of me.
Looking down at the arms of this cloned body, they've tainted it with lopsided cybernetic implants embedded deep under my flesh. They glow with an unsettling shade of magenta and jut out of my skin like overgrown cysts.
Wherever they couldn't fit an implant they outright replaced with fused shards of my once sacred armor. Durrumai, the poor soul, is now shackled to a ridiculous saddle with golden armor weighing down its every strained breath. They even went as far as throwing two oversized cannons on each side of this thing, who designed that, a bored and malevolent child?
As the frigid realization that they've succeed finally settles in, I rip a piece of shrapnel from my armor and open my neck with it before their experimentation goes any further.
Foolish in hindsight, because my mortality never stopped them before. Nevertheless, their response to my defiant act is what shackled me to a prison within my own mind.
Next time that I snapped into life there was a much louder voice than mine calling the shots. A cold, calculating AI they lobotomized me with so that they could use me as their weapon. An instrument to unleash untold chaos on any who stand in their path.
Corrupting both my once illustrious weapon and faithful companion, they turned me into a monster. A silent terror lurking from the shadows.
/CONSCIOUSNESS\_OVERRIDE.4205761766
Reliving all those memories reminds me why its easier to just float through the marshy swamp of the intangible and unknown. It beats a shackled immortality filled with regret and dismay any day.
I did miss Durrumai though.
Focusing my energy onto the doppelganger, what its seeing starts to fade in and eclipses my own sight. I'm curious as to what has the AI's circuitry in such a knot.
Blurry clouds of soot and pillars of smoke dart the scene. Flying limbs and blood-splattered rubble come into view as my vision sharpens. In the distance wailing pleas of help get silenced by a black fog of rounds that light up the sky and reduce buildings to pebbles.
Darting throughout the ruins in muted determination, the golem unleashes wave after wave of artillery at defenseless souls. Each and every one of them cut down with efficient precision.
An overwhelming nausea takes over and slaps me back down to the swampy marshes with a splashing thud.
Rolling in the murky waters I scream at the void hanging overhead till the pain burning my throat is felt in every part of me, even the chambers in my mind that are locked away.
I'll yell till there's no sound coming out, and won't stop till every vein in my neck bursts from torsion. I'll yell till this computer registers my pain and feels what the death they've nonchalantly inflicted on billions is like.
Even then it'll have the better deal though. There's much worse things to experience.