Book I: The Remnant of Gregory Fischer, Chapter IV: From The Ashes

--- Gregory Fischer ---

His younger self stared at him for a moment before letting out a huff of grim amusement. “We’ve always been a terrible liar…”

“We have.” He admitted, standing where he was and looking at where he came from. “But if hope is a lie… then I don’t mind believing in a lie… Maybe… Maybe if we believe it enough it’ll even become true.”

His doppelganger was silent as they both continued to smoke until their cigarettes had burned away to nothing. “Yeah… Hope isn’t the worst lie to believe in…”

From beside him his younger self began to glow before slowly unraveling into a number of golden pages that floated through the air as the world around him rapidly dissolved into a storm of pages much like the one that first constructed the world around him.

Unlike before there was no echoing voice from all around, or images from his past, instead the pages leaving behind nothing but an empty void as they aligned themselves, stacking together until they’d formed a coverless book. One that read, (“Ashes of War, The Remnant of Gregory Fischer.”)

The book floated there, waiting for him to take it as the shadows danced around them despite nothing being visible outside of a spotlight with no source shining down from above.

He inhaled before exhaling and taking the book into hand.

And so with an odd mix of feelings that were half resignation and half acceptance, he opened the cover of the book much like he had before all of this and when the book didn’t move on its own he began to read.

“Once upon a time, there was a soldier named Gregory Fischer.” He swallowed looking down at the image of him in a uniform he’d burned long ago, the picture almost moving from how lifelike it was.

“Gregory was a good little soldier who followed orders, no matter how much he hated them.” He continued his eyes going over the page of what had once been just a burning street covered in bodies but was now shifting between the numerous things he’d done while ‘just following orders’.

“Until he was given an order he couldn’t follow.” He growled, looking at the picture of how scared he’d been of a man in a suit who could only make others fight his battles.

“So he didn’t.” He declared, feeling the same sort of resolve he had when he’d first burned those documents before doing what he’d had to.

“The men he viewed as his brothers abandoned him for failing to follow his duty.” He frowned, at the image of him sitting in a canteen by himself, a clear gap between him and everyone else. And for the first time he broke the script. “And he accepted that, unwilling to have ‘brothers’ who chose ‘duty’ over ‘morality’.” His mind flashed to Toni. “Especially when not all of them abandoned him for this.”

To his surprise his additional words carved themselves onto the page, and the image of his forlorn self sitting alone was replaced by a determined version of himself marching away from the table as Toni pursued with a concerned look.

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Something… Something filled his chest at this, his mind beginning to grasp a revelation he couldn’t put into words yet.

Which is why he continued with a voice of steel despite the shaking in his chest.

“Shame filled him… Not because of the order he rejected, but because of all those he didn’t…” The image of him clutching his head while surrounded by smoke of the past still hurt to look at, (but…) “Each a mistake he could not afford to repeat… Which is why he wouldn’t.”

The day his military career ended be it officially or unofficially played out with him emptying his locker before slamming it shut as he marched away with a smoldering glare just looking for something to burn.

“Unable to do the job he was made for, they-” He paused, remembering that day really remembering it. Not simply the fact that they’d washed their hands of him, but the fact that that had happened after…

He swallowed before starting once more. “Unable to do the job they demanded, he left it all behind, happy to leave it all a burned out husk of what he’d once seen it as.”

For a moment he was scared that whatever magic was fueling all of this wouldn’t accept his new version, but the old words were removed and his new ones were written as he watched his younger self march out of his old base with a fire in his eyes.

“Thank you…” He whispered, as the shifting in his chest settled and he finally realized what the point of all this was.

Instead of writing this down, the book in his hands flipped to a new page, one that was blank of any image or writing.

He could remember what the voice had told him before, about how this was where his story began, but… (That’s not right…)

“Gregory Fischer, lived his life as best he could alongside his best friend Toni.” He told the book and whoever else was listening. “Unregretful of the choices that he’d made those days.”

A picture formed alongside the text of him helping out around Toni’s newly opened workshop they’d both paid for.

He licked his lips before continuing, feeling like a sinner in a confessional as the book turned to a new page. “Sadly, this was not the beginning of his happily ever after… For as much as he wished otherwise the guilt of the past continued to burn away at him.”

An image of himself walking through the streets with a cloud of smoke behind him came into existence, the smoke filled with bad memories that burned at the world around them.

“Eventually, he became little more than a husk of himself… Scared to go outside… Not because of anyone else’s grand scheme, but… because he was scared he’d burn the world like he’d burned himself.”

The page revealed one of his more shameful moments, an image of himself lashing out at someone in the middle of the street because the memories had become too much and someone who didn’t deserve it got too close.

“Every day was a fight with himself to get out of bed, let alone do much else… And for years he lived as little more than a husk of himself.”

A picture showed him sitting in his bed, staring up at the ceiling with a cigarette in his mouth as his room slowly filled with cigarettes, until the whole place looked like he really was going to die via ‘Death By Cigarettes’.

He was silent for a moment before once more steeling his resolve. “At least until he was given an invitation to a certain library.”

The new page showed Toni offering him the invitation that had brought him here.

“An invitation that prompted him to face his demons, whether he liked it or not.”

The image changed to one of him fighting a burning version of himself in a mirror, something that… bothered him more than it should.

“Demons he sought to make peace with in spite of everything.”

Once more the picture shifted, this time to show him and his younger self sharing a smoke. (That’s better…)

“This… This is where our story begins.”