And yet what was it for? All this power, yielding nothing but injury to the only person he had tried this far to use it for. If all it did was hurt others was there even any point? With only violence as a means, all the ends in the world would resolve the same way. Given only violence, no possible words could produce any meaning, and thus no possible resolutions could be made except in blood.

“When the time for words has passed, only action remains?”

Henry laughed to himself softly. Chen-Thai glanced at him askew, but said nothing and Henry did not acknowledge the gesture at all. With only action there is no room for compromise. With only action there is no room for hesitation. With only action there can be no second chance, only the jump and the fall and the regret; the pulling of a trigger and the splattered aftermath whose only possible next step is to be cleaned up in absence of what had come before. With no ability at all to remain the same there was no chance to improve, only to destroy and wholly recreate, and yet what remains in absence of the old self and what was thought to be the same is nothing but a shell made of little pieces of shattered bone and self stitched back together in a false imitation of life.

Henry laughed louder with total disregard for maintaining any semblance of sanity. Here, in this moment, he finally acknowledged that in every moment that passed he lost pieces of himself. In every leap of strength the fibers of muscle that recovered and improved were not the original. Every little tear, every dead cell replaced by new life, every breath drew him closer to an end he had failed to achieve.

All the power necessary to survive immolation and disintegration was at Henry’s fingertips; all the strength necessary to make entire villages tremble before him. What was it for? He had gone for so long wishing for death and after finally achieving it this was the result. Not the fast pull of a trigger and the end of his life, but a continuance he did not wish for, and yet here in this moment the slow dwindling of the memories that made him and personality that drove him to this point was at last clearly visible. There was no more hiding behind thoughts of a fast death. There was no more pretending this power was cost-free. It would be a slow transition, but the new self would have no thoughts of what came before. Even as himself the things that made him up were different, just similar enough to remind him that what he was was a soul sitting in a rotting corpse slowly being replaced by undecaying immortal flesh.

It wasn’t worth the slow loss of self to gain just a little more power. He wanted to kill himself. He wanted to be stronger. He wanted to be able to do the things he never had without restraint, and yet this was worse in every way. It was a slow death while watching the power necessary to achieve all his goals grow in tandem with his loss of self. It showed oh so clearly that it was him that was always the problem. It wasn’t his family. It wasn’t his circumstances. It wasn’t his lack of power. He was coming ever-closer ever-faster to his goals as his self was replaced, in this it was incredibly clear what exactly had caused him problems in the past.

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“I was the problem all along!” Henry shouted through fits of crazed laughter, turning away from Chen-Thai before he could fully acknowledge Henry’s growing insanity.

He had done all this to himself, but the aftermath scared him all the same. He didn’t want to drown or burn. He didn’t want to hang. He didn’t want to watch a train or car approach him in the distance, looming ever-larger in his vision in every passing second until at last obscuring it all and realizing this wasn’t even his intention. All he wanted was to be better, and yet the only way he knew to face his problems was cutting off the situation that had caused them. Running and running and running and losing his nose to spite his face; losing his family to keep from having to face his mom’s passing that he couldn’t even remember anymore; losing the face of every friend, of his mom, father, brother, and sister. To avoid the loss of one, he had lost all. To avoid facing his own problems, he had lost himself, and now came the aftermath.

Henry collapsed to the floor, unable to tell where Chen-Thai was in the room anymore, unable to hear his words or acknowledge the nurse who had returned to check on the source of the commotion. None of it mattered anymore.

“It was me hahahhahahahhahah!”

“I’m the proHAAHAHAHAHAblem ahahahahahahaahahahahahaha!!!!!”

He ran straight into a noose, thoughts of a prolonged and agonizing suffocation distant in the moment of torment and acknowledgement that no words could ever fix him or the situation. The trigger-pull was long-belated, but it wasn’t the end. All it had done was kick out the chair that had tentatively held him just above annihilation, and now it was gone. He used a gun to prevent the terror that filled him from driving him to try and escape, but it was far too late for a second chance now. All that’s possible here at the bottom of a rope was pain and regret. Is this why those who hang themselves claw so forcefully at their necks?

“I couldn’t face them with words and now I get to pay the price!” he screamed, but as he felt Chen-Thai grip his shoulder and slap his face violently, a sudden sense of purpose and drive came over him all at once.

This biological response to death was exactly what he had hoped to avoid. He wanted a gunshot to the head and an instant loss of consciousness, but instead of death he had awoken with rope around his neck. In every passing second he could feel the growing lack of oxygen burning worse than fire ever could across every piece of flesh and through every nerve that once drove them to kick out the chair beneath. In his final moment of action he had locked himself into this torment that drew out longer as time slowed with every passing second, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t thrash about and perhaps break a ceiling fan or rope itself. In fact, it was all that was possible now. Even if it was a useless effort, even if movement made every limb burn more intensely than actual fire ever could as it consumed more of the dwindling oxygen he had left, if nothing else it would make the end come faster and staying still was somehow worse.

“And you’re going to show me how to fix it.”

Maybe he would fail, but this time it wouldn’t be because he ran away in silence.