> Quote:man's worst enemy is himself
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hello, thelazyauthor is back with an update. as my name suggests updates will be infrequent and sporadic
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five years later:
I stumble down an alleyway in a city whose name I probably learned, but have since forgotten. My purpose in this desolate alley is to find some shelter for the night. or if that fails, leave myself to the cold and the ice. catching sight of a window frozen in the cold I see myself.
"grubby clothing, check. hollow eyes, check. emaciated body.. triple check." I say to myself chuckling at my little joke. 'not that there's much left of me.' I think continuing down the alley. my head hurts and I rummage in my pocket for a cigarette then bringing it to my mouth and lighting it with my lighter. though it was hard with only three fingers, but I managed it.
as I puff on the cigarette I sink down until I'm sitting with my back against the wall. times like this are when I think about my mother and my sister, though I try to avoid it. my mother was my final kill after I became a hitman to survive. I didn't get the job from someone else, I took it upon myself to lay her to rest.
*flashback*
"give me my children!" screamed my mother, still thinking in her insanity, that I had kidnapped her children. pitiful perhaps, but reasonable. she was armed to the teeth complete with fragmentation grenades.
"I will If you will." I responded calmly. I had faced tough situations, but this was a first for me. after all, who expects to kill their own mother?
"I just want my darlings back!" she screamed then popped off a grenade, cocked her arm and threw. running to the left, I barely made it behind cover before a shotgun blast erupted over my head. jumping up, I took aim and threw the knife I had palmed when my birth-mother fired her shotgun. doubling over and clutching at the impact in her gut, my insane mother then jumped towards me and threw another grenade. this time I wasn't able to avoid it completely and part of the gate fell across my legs, pinning them. She then giggled madly while choking out "shall I kill you as I killed your partner, kidnapper?"
I realized she meant my sister as my mother leapt, and swung down her machete and cut off two of the fingers on my right hand. grabbing a knife, I stabbed her in the gut and drew back for another strike. My mother however, burst into flames and screamed long and loud never letting up until her trachea was burned all the way through. it appeared that I hit the canister of liquid phosphorus that she was carrying. It occurred to me almost to late that the grenades would explode as the burning woman that had been my mother grabbed me.
"I may be going to hell, But I'm taking you with me!" she said before her vocal chords ceased functioning and her grenades began exploding.
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two days later I had recovered enough to move, but I still lay there. weeping for my dead mother, and sister, and all those that I had killed. if I said that I still did not see them in my dreams, I would be the worst kind of liar imaginable. sitting up, I dragged myself over to a well and drank deeply before crawling over to my supplies which included food and water, the basics of any survival kit. though I was luck the grendaes were on the back of my deceased mother's belt, I still suffered second and third degree burns on my body. after refreshing myself, I took out a spare cell phone I kept in my kit, and called an ambulance so that my burns could be treated.
sitting up, I looked at the rising sun and felt something on my shoulder. looking over I saw a close companion and distant lover.
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"thank you." the spirit said "for avenging me, thank you."
I never pretended to be any better than a murderer. but in the end, it was a matter of survival. and my life was dearer to me than theirs. I wasn't the person that put all other's lives before his own. I would do what needed to be done, but I would live if I could.
"I'm just glad I could avenge you, my sister." I called to my sister's departing spirit. she was the only one I had risked my life for, even after her death. sitting down, I wept once more for my dead family and all that I once knew.
*flashback end*
sighing to myself, I extinguished my cig and stood up, making to move down the alley. when a flurry of snow entered the alley and blew past me. in the snow I thought I herd a voice say the following. "I'm ashamed of you, Shinir. allowing yourself to fall to this." It may have just be a trick of the wind, but I thought the snow flurry gestured towards my emaciated body. It was true that without a purpose, I had fallen into grief and let my body waste away, but I could still fight and I wasn't about to be scared of a patch of snow when I had conversed with the spirits of the dead and dying. "but you should be scared." the snow seemed to say, before I felt a huge pressure and fell to my knees. the wind rustled "I can give you a chance to reach your full potential shinir, or I can kill you. which would you prefer?
I stood silent, not trusting myself to speak. I wanted to die, but I wanted to finish my sister's vengeance.
"very well." the wind rustled. I will take you to another world and there you may reach your full potential. however, you must stay within the confines of that system. dragging me into the center of it's vortex, the wind swirled once, twice and I blacked out.
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deep in the land of dreams, a man stood on a lone pillar in front of the sea.
"choose!" bellowed the man. his cowl muffling his words slightly.
"beetween what?" I asked.
he raised his hand, and twin staircases fell from the sky. "light and darkness, heaven and hell, fire and water. what does it matter, choose." he said, a little more urgently as waves began to erode away the sand we were standing on.
behind me, waves of fire and ice crashed on the encroaching shore.
"CHOOSE!" the man bellowed "OR ALL IS LOST!" raising his other hand, He made gates appear over the entrance to the staircases: one shaped like a diamond, the other like a traditional door.
behind me, the waves took on a more sinister feel as they ate away more of the shore with each second.
steeling myself, I dived up the staircase on the right-hand side and was enveloped in light.
I was inside a circular room with four doors. each one framed by two opposing elements. (ice and fire etc.) beneath me the floor bubbled. if I stayed here, I would die. If I went through the door in front of me, I would be swallowed whole by a whale. If I went through the door behind me, I would never come out. If I went through the door to my right, I would face the agonies of hell. but If i went through the one to my left, I would plummet through the void for all eternity.
beneath me, the floor began to collapse and I scrambled to the side as a figure wreathed in smoke clambered through the broken floor. as his axe came crashing down, I dived through the door behind me so that I would survive.
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welp, hope everyone liked the chapter. I'll try to get the next one out soon! -thelazyauthor