Beauty and desolation. That is how the beach looked. It seemed perfect for a beach trip back home, except of course for the fact that he wasn't home. The fact that he seemed to be the only living thing for miles around felt simultaneously satisfying and eerie. No other sounds were around to dull the regular roll of the waves and the constant rush of wind rushing past his ears. Usually the constant rhythm of waves would make him feel relaxed and at ease, but now he understood the waves, far greater than ever before. While they were majestic, they were also powerful and arbitrarily unforgiving. While they flung him to shore, safe but waterlogged, they had consigned others to the depths.
"Servant!" the lady of the house shrieked, clearing fuming at her humiliation.
"Yes milady", I reply dutifully, as I had been taught to do all my life.
"You're such a... a... a jerk." She said, uncertainly, then began to repeatedly slap her hands against the table. "Jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk!"
"Pardon milady." I replied dryly, despite knowing full well she wasn't meaning me.
"I mean who do you think you are! The King?"
Ah, now was the time to play the voice of reason. "He is just a child, milady. Children speak their mind and pay no attention to the consequences."
"Nobles don't"
"Nobles learn etiquette from tutors provided by their parents. And like you milady, they often begin learning before they can walk. Every noble kid worth having any hope in knows to be careful with their words before they even utter their first." This conversation was getting increasingly tiresome. "Besides, what he said could be interpreted as a compliment."
"To fools maybe! Did you not see how he treated me?"
"I was in the kitchen, milady". I wasn't. If I feigned confusion, her anger would inevitably burn itself out.
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I knew it was time to destroy the world. After all these years, I could finally lay my families souls to rest. Everyone else only saw me as an evil scientist, perhaps even mad, and I would of course play my part. "Hello world!" I spoke to the camera that broadcasted to every news station in the world. "Yesterday, I stated my demands, and surprisingly enough, some were even granted! I went through all that effort to set up an interesting experiment, and unfortunately good manners would dictate that reciprocate the good faith placed in me by those in authority. Also unfortunately, I was never schooled in proper table manners, and so, being bored, I will conduct the experiment anyway. Based on my calculations, there is a 65% chance the world will end, so I any of you are gamblers, why don't you place your bets. Mhahahaha." As soon as I stopped the camera, I stopped laughing. I was no raving lunatic. Those so-called heroes wouldn't be able to stop it. And unlike what I had said, my machine didn't have such a low chance to succeed. I had given some false hope to bastards, so this moment of reflection I was taking might even make them think I failed. Glancing to the mantle nearby, I stared at pictures rescued from my home. They were as tattered as I was, but the memories they held were clear and forthcoming. My father, mother, brothers, sister, wife, sons, and finally... my daughter. The only picture I had of her was as a baby. We had thought we had time for so many more. Picking it up, I stared at it. Then, I reached over and typed the command into my computer. Enter. Then white.
The aura at the Kings council table felt like a wobbling top spinning on the point of a needle; not only were cooperation and alliances everchanging and shortlived, at every moment things felt as if events would wobble too far, and the room would descent into permanent anarchy. One might say that the king was little more than a figurehead, but even that in itself is a generous analysis. Even figureheads have presence, providing the ambitious a vehicle from which to steer. This king did not.
The flames licked my arms and back. By this time though, I knew not to scream, no matter how much my skin charred. Doing so would be providing satisfaction to the Painkeeper, and would inevitably lead to an extension of that pain. Before I came here, I would have never imagined that someone so broken as him could possibly exist, now I see a new face of a soon to be broken man every day, a new victim for him to play with. One of the men I saw yesterday, in a moment of agonizing adrenaline, sunk his teeth into his own arm, and tore it free. Whether he was seeking freedom from the chains or his life I do not know, only that that freedom was short-lived. The Painkeeper doesn't let his prey escape. Only the strongest of wills or the maddest of minds could survive here. Other than I, only eight of the Painkeepers other tenants has shown to keep some semblance of sanity. All of us were ground down to our strongest emotions, finding new foundations from which built ourselves anew, like mad scientists.