Epilogue

Around midday, acting like a professional tour guide, I innocently revealed to Ice and rest of her fellow captives the horrific scene that I have orchestrated, that crimson hell of blood and bone that once was Bloodbeard and his worms.

It was a painting of hell.

All of them doubled and started retching for dear life with the exception of those who fainted right on the spot. I waited, demanding them to wake those who have fainted back. I stared at them, watching the horror and betrayal in their expression with cold apathy when they realized that I was not a prince charming who came to their rescue.

I am a prince and I am charming, yet, I am not their prince charming, nor will I ever be.

I told them that whatever happened inside that accursed village that Ekar created should remain inside it, otherwise, I would recreate the horrific mess, this time with them as the main ingredients for my next paint job. I was willing to put my faith on them, that despite being made to live like worms they can be human again by their own will since they did not choose to live like that. I doubted that they would, judging from the white on their face.

At that moment, a random crossed my mind, not an unusual thing since my thought has always been random. Why is Sinintee a God of War and Civilization again? That question was one of the biggest mysteries in the world of ROC.

Niwdar was the goddess of Nature and Mercy. That made sense because people could always depend on the generosity of nature to survive. Therefore, Nature and Mercy are in a way, complimenting each other.

Wonten was the god of strength and justice.  He upheld the ideal of justice. He protected the laws with his strength. Without strength, there would be no justice. That made sense as well.

Eogaill was the goddess of wisdom and truth. That made sense as well because wisdom and truth go hand in hand with each other.

However, War and Civilization are not the same. They don’t go hand in hand with each other, complement each other, or depend on each other. They are not the same.

I understood that Sinintee was responsible for the creation of the intelligent races in the world of Escana by secretly giving them the first fire. He provided the catalyst to transform beastly beings into intelligent beings. He gave the intelligent races the ability to harvest energy from fire, thunder, wind, water, which was one of the many important aspects of any civilization. However, that was not the core of civilization.

People needed safety, so they banded together to form their societies, to feel safe. To keep these societies sustainable, first, Law must be established to keep these societies structured. Second, a system of Economy must be established to provide food, water and clothing, goods to supply and feed these societies. Thus, Law and Economy have always been the supreme rulers of civilization, and they had nothing to do with war.

If Sinintee was the god of Law and Economics, he would definitely be a god of Civilization. Heck, even Wonten and Eogaill was the better representative of civilization. So why Sinintee?

That question would probably be never answered until I had a face to face talk with Sinintee himself.

I killed Bloodbeard and his worms. From their corpses, I made an example of those who went against my laws. I created order by simply tell Ice and her fellow captives to respect the laws that I have set for them. I provided them with provisions and housings that Bloodbeard and his worms have robbed from them. By providing these people with these basic things, I have created order and order is the foundation of any society or civilization.

I did not wage any war. I did not fight a single battle and yet, I have already successfully established a smallest of a model of civilization with this group of captives. In fact, the historical records on Earth were on my side, proving that time and time again, Culture, Laws, and Economics are the supreme rulers of civilization.

War is wasteful in terms of economy. War destroys cultures. War disrupts laws. War is chaos. Civilization is order. So how Sinintee can be both the god of chaos and order?

I did not dwell on that thought for long. These things were not even my business. My business was elsewhere. Sometimes, I just hated myself for being a busybody.

I gave the responsibility to release and take care of other captives, who were locked in the dungeon, to Narik, Narse and my other companions. Erinys and the eight women, I told them to help the captives without giving a flying fuck if they could do that or not. Sometimes, they just have to try. They had to be human again one way or another, so it was better to be sooner than later. Moreover, it was better for them to realize that there were those who were weaker than them and were just as unfortunate or more. That sight could prove tremendously helpful to their progress, but that was just a speculation of mine… so I did not put any hope into that.

I gave Erinys a quick kiss to her forehead, informing her of her mission and telling her to do her best before sending her off. “If you need something, look for Atuc,” technically, I dumped the majority of my responsibility on Atuc.

I gathered the other captives with Ice’s people in one spot and cast “A strange choice” on them. I used “A strange choice four times in a row, putting my mana level in the red zone. I let the golden orbs and spectral fireflies to remove most physical damage that Bloodbeard and his worms inflicted on the captives, most.

“A strange choice” could heal the burns on Ice’s body. It could heal broken bones, bruises, cuts and more. It granted a miracle beyond any miracle that a disciple of Niwdar could conjure, and yet it was not omnipotent, nothing in this world is omnipotent, not even Death. Those swelling bellies, those hollow eyes devoid of hope and strength, those who were already cursed to be scarred forever. I could not heal them. Lives that were lost forever, I could not heal them.

“Why didn’t you come sooner?” Eyes that marred with hatred directed at me, “Why didn’t you save us sooner?”

I stared at them with cold emotionless eyes, “Do you hate me for not saving you earlier?” My eyes were cold, my question colder, encouraging their hatred, the very hatred that directed at me.

“Yes,” gnashing teeth gritted with anger.

“Then hate me,” I commanded them. “It’s alright to do that. However, at the moment, you lack the ability to do that. At the moment, I am stronger than you and so much stronger than your dead enemies. If you want to vent out your hatred on me, you have to be stronger than me.

So live, I tell you. As long as you are still alive, you still have a chance to take your vendetta on me.

Eat, build up your strength, steel your heart, sharpen your fangs and talons, be stronger, stronger than you ever were in the past and stronger than you are at the moment, stronger than your tormentors, only then, you have the ability and strength to take out your hatred on me. Otherwise, you won’t amount to anything.”

I knew what it felt like to be them.

For them, the scarred, the broken and the tormented, they needed something to cling on to live other than the things that they have lost. They felt the desire to blame their loss on something, to take their frustration on something, the desire to find justice and closure. However, I have already weeded out Bloodbeard’s worms to the last with the single exception of One-eye, whose life would prove infinitely useful to Narik and Narse.

The more I looked at those mentally scarred people, the more it reminded me of a person. These scarred people could no longer vent out their frustration to find a closure inside their heart. Bloodbeard’s worms robbed these people of their lives and loved. I robbed them of their chance of achieving closure, hence I was the greatest injustice of all the injustices in the world. If their hatred for me can give them the strength to stand on their own feet again, that’s a good thing because while I cannot give them the closure they deserved, I can provide them a reason to live.

Thus, I cackled insanely. “I’m Fearless, Prince of The Alliance. Be stronger than me and strike me down, whenever you feel ready. I can wait. But know that, I will strike back as well. If you ever decide to strike at me, at least give yourself the chances to do so. Don’t make it too boring, too easy for me.”

I have always introduced myself to people with “I’m Fearless,” and not “My name is Fearless.” The same thing, but the context and the meaning of the two phrases were a world apart. It was precisely that because I can introduce myself as “I’m Fearless”, whenever and wherever, that I can tell them to hate me. If I was weaker, if I was not Fearless, I would have accused these people for being weak. I would have attributed their suffering for their inability to protect themselves, their lack of strength. I would have told them that it was wrong of them to hate me and direct their hatred at their lack of strength instead, effectively running away from my responsibility.

A great man once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Even though he was but a fictional character on one of Misery’s comic pages, and he died too early after a few pages, there was some truth to his words.

I remembered there was the time that ROC was easy, super easy. I only needed to do my part, chasing after the back of FY and Misery. The two of them would win the game somehow, even when our schemes and strategies crashed into the iceberg like the Titanic. I have always had a firm belief that the two of them would get the job done, somehow. The games were easy until the moment a strange thought came into my head, “Maybe, just maybe, I am the better Ender.” That sounded like ego speaking, perhaps it was. I never voiced it to anyone. Yet, it’s haunting and it stuck inside my mind like a stake.

Every game after that was… difficult, extremely so, whether they resulted in a win or a loss. Every game of ROC felt like treading through a large pit of quicksand. It was strange that such an innocent question could make such a huge difference. I could not remember when it started specifically, which game, which tournament. By the time I started to be comfortable with the pressure on my shoulders, I was the primary option of the team, an Ender.

On that day at the World Cup, when FY amended our team’s rotation in the last minute in an effort to deal with the other team’s counter-strategy against his, inside my head, I have already known FY’s answer, somehow, as if it was prophesized to me in my most hidden dreams.

I was the answer, thus, I acted like one. That game was hard, punishingly hard. When I looked up, there was nobody there, neither FY nor Misery. When I looked to my sides, still nobody. Only when I turned my head around, I could see them. Everyone was looking at me with the same eyes that I used to look at FY and Misery. I was the spearhead and the ultimate weapon. I was the answer, just not the correct answer on that particular day and that particular match. Since, the game became even harder, punishingly harder. Every game felt like a punishment.

Responsibility was never my things… I can’t even be responsible for my own life... The only time I could be responsible was when I played ROC…

The moment that I realized that my thought has become scattered, I willed myself to ignore my burning up body.

I just wanted a taste of spirits to feel the burn inside my throat and that strong whack on my temples. I just wanted to find a bed and dropped down on it. I just wanted to sleep now.

Despite my effort, I kept getting distracted by all manner of things.

A little bit more, just a little bit more…

Staring at those hollow eyes, I thought that if I took away their chance of closure, it’s only right that I must give them something else in return, at least. I could not take responsibility for their lives. I could not heal them, but time would do that as long as they have a purpose, as long as their hatred for me could carry them.

I called Ice out for a quick and private conversation. After that, I ordered Narik and Narse alongside some forty captives to clean up the bloodied mess I created. At first, I thought that was easy. Then, when I watched a flock of crows feasted on the corpses of Bloodbeard and his worms, then slowly melted inside out, I realized what kind of nightmare biohazard I have created.

Dragon Bane killed its victims through the curses imbued within its solution. It was not the poison that killed the victims. It was the curses. To remove curses, proper rituals were needed to be held and magic casters who possessed knowledge of greater blessings to counter the fourteen deadly curses in Dragon Bane were required.

Why had I never thought about this before?

In the end, I called an extra thirty men from the captives to help to accelerate the process. I made the cleanup team to soak up the contaminated pool with the soils they dug up from the surrounding area. Then, I made them shoveling those contaminated soils into empty ration bags to be stored in a large barn until I figured out a method to deal with them. As for the remains of Bloodbeard and his worms, I had Bloodbeard’s worms to prepare and stack combustible materials for this moment, making it easier for the cleanup crews.

I offered another prayer to Death before searching for Atuc who was in charge of providing aids to the released captives. When she saw me, she flung a bag of wine at me, “Fire Wine, strong stuff just like you asked,” she said.

I opened the bag to have a quick gulp, feeling my tongue and my throat being scorched by an inferno. “Thank you,” I muttered with a heartfelt appreciation.

“Goodness, aren’t you afraid that I would serve you your poison?” Atuc smiled coldly, tossing me the silver tube that I have given to her. I caught the tube with one hand, gave it a good shake, empty, and tucked it to my belt.

I knew that Atuc was merely trying to scare me. I cupped her chin, gulped a mouthful of Fire Wine and shared a fiery kiss with her, “Good, now you don’t have to live by yourself, all alone without me,” and watched her snickered ceaselessly. I was even surprised at myself for having the spare energy to flirt with her.

I gave Atuc my final instructions, left the command to her, and retreated to my room on top of the tower. “If you really need me, like really and desperately, break the door. Otherwise, let nobody go near my room. Kill them if you must. Also, take care of Erinys for me.” I shared another passionate kiss with her before heading off.

“What is she to you?” Atuc asked, “Why are you giving her such special treatment?”

“Are you jealous of her or what?”

“So what if I am jealous? Yes, I can’t help but feel jealous about her. The fact that you cherish her so much like that makes me can’t help but feel like bullying her a little bit.” Atuc smiled with her lips alone.

I sighed, putting my arm around Atuc’s waist, “Can you not try to taunt me at this moment, please. I know you don’t mean that. But I’m very tired and stressed right now. I don’t know what I might do if I lose my shit right now thanks to your taunting.”

“Goodness, such a selfish man,” she said, pecking on my chin, “You ask me to help you with so many things, and yet…”

“She reminds me of someone. That’s all.” I sighed again.

“An old torch of yours?”

“No, he’s a man, a traitor and a quitter,” I replied, making sure that my face remained emotionless while I gave her this answer.

Afterward, I bid Atuc goodbye for real. I had no energy to climb the steep stairs that lead to my room. I teleported twice to get back into my room. After that, I barred the door with my arms heavy as dead logs. I asked myself if this was even necessary.

Precaution…

I just tossed whatever I could grab with my hand at the door, trying to make it hard for whoever intended to enter the room. Soon, I limped toward my bed. I did not realize just how exhausted I was until I dropped flat on my hay-stacked bedding.

My entire body felt like the fiery red of my holiday villa when I flooded it with gasoline and turned it into a midnight sun. My brain felt like a witch at a witch trial, a screaming red pyre. I drained the bag of Fire Wine that Atuc has prepared for me without leaving a drop.

I closed my eyes, hurling myself into the embrace of darkness, knowing my real battle has not even begun.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There was a time in my life that I have just been convinced to go to Hell after I live out my lifespan. Then, I became sure of that decision and decided to spend the entire length of my afterlife living in Hell.  

But Hell was an unknown place to me. I had no idea how to get there and I wanted to arrive at the correct address just like anyone would. Thus, I tried to expand my knowledge about religions, voraciously studying the Ibrahim’s Bible, Buddhism’s Tripitaka, the Qur'an, the Vedas and many more. I wanted to make sure that I would not screw up and find myself standing in front of the very gate of Heaven or Nirvana or Jannah or some similar places by even a tiny mistake. I studied those holy texts carefully, using them as maps to navigate myself toward Hell while worrying that I might or might not earn enough qualification to arrive at Hell in the afterlife.

Just like anyone, I encountered many difficulties while navigating my way through those holy texts. The difficulty of studying those holy texts was not reading them since humankind has invented one of the most amazing inventions, audio books. I can listen to them whenever and wherever it suited me, whether I was sitting on a toilet bowl, driving a car, watching ROC matches…

Understanding those holy texts was a giant problem. I had to study them as if I studied a History book, meaning I had to raise many questions, as any student of history would have while running through the texts.

How much should I trust those texts?

Which information might be true and which information might not be?

What is the context of these texts when they were written?

Those three were just a few of the many basic questions that any student of history would ask whenever they study a historical record. I can put my faith in the Christian’s God, the Hindu’s gods, in the great Buddha himself, in the many other gods, trusting that they are good, pure good. However, putting my faith in their worshippers was another different territory.  As long as they are human, I must doubt whatever they say or write, regardless of their disposition as holy men, virtuous saints or sacred monks. Historical records existed to show that it was foolish to believe in the nature of man regardless of their identity and disposition.

However, even without the existence of a historical record to remind me of that, I can always look at myself in the mirror. If I devoted myself to act like a virtuous man, a saintly person, a person that is purely good, it was extremely easy. If I wanted to twist God's words to the advantage of my desire, it was even easier. Thus, I had to doubt everything I read or listen.

Eventually, I have found the address that I wanted to arrive at and the paths that would take me there in the afterlife. Thus, I planned my trip ahead while still living, believing that without a doubt that I would arrive at the place I wanted to be.

“How did I arrive here?” I counted every time that I asked myself that question since I have arrived at the world of Escana in ROC.

Escana is without a doubt “Hell”, but not the Hell that I wanted. I have arrived at Hell just like I always wished, just a wrong kind of Hell, a very wrong Hell.

“How did I arrive here?” I kept asking myself that question and kept counting until the number exceeded triple digits. Trying to accept that I have died was already hard enough, the realization that I have arrived at the wrong address just made my troubles doubled.

That made no sense to me. I had a million of questions that desperately needed to be answered. But every time I solved one question, ten more would pop up to replace that one question that I have just solved like a hydra regrow its chopped head with more heads.

I wished that all of these nonsenses and this strange Escana world was the result of my hyper-imaginative mind being imaginative, and I was merely being brain-damaged, currently lying in a hospital bed somewhere. That meant if I died, If I could die one more time, I would arrive at my intended address in the afterlife.

However, I immediately knew that was just a perfect wish-fulfillment-thought of mine the moment I set my eyes on Her figure.

There She stood in a garden of blooming white flowers, like a statue, holding a bluish wispy lamp, quietly gazing at me as if she has been waiting for my arrival for a millennium.

Any intelligent being living in the ROC universe, the souls living in the nine spirit planes or the souls living in Escana, all of them would know Her the moment they saw Her, immediately.

 It is just that easy to know “Her” for who she is and what she represents.

The fact that I mentioned “Her” as “Her” and “She” as “She” might sound like I was playing a Pronounce game on Earth, but I was not.

This was not Earth, no longer Earth. In this place, just by saying “Her”, everyone would immediately know whom I was talking about as if I mentioned the “He who must not be named” in the Potter universe.

The black moon of Da Noira Marthias was her home and domain, no gods, goddess, or any Demon Lord dared to challenge that, or her authority. She was the Supreme Ruler of the dead, the Corpse Queen and the Overseer and Arbiter of the Reign of Chaos, Mistress Death herself.

I was staring at Death in the eyes, literally, while standing inside her garden. Behind her a pair of great bony white gates towering. I should have looked and marveled at the intricacies of those great bony gates, however, their details just blurred out of my vision so that she was the queen, the only queen that mattered, the queen who commanded my undivided attention at this moment.

Death smiled, pleased, if that inkling of a curve on her pale milky lips could be even called a smile when she saw me bent my knees out of reverence. She lightly pulled the hem of her dress, revealing the silver of her ankles as she regally trotted toward me.

Why am I here? I asked myself. Was I killed? Did Atuc really pull a fast one on me? Or perhaps, this is a Divine Dream.

After experienced being inside a Divine Dream, I no longer had any doubt regardless of what a god or goddess or Demon Lord could do to a mortal inside a Divine Dream.

A Divine Dream is a land where neither reality nor time matters. It could be just a dream, or a flashback, or a nightmare that feels short or endlessly long. It could be a message, a challenge, a tool or whatever the creator of that Divine Dream designed it to be. That was an excerpt from the Wikia page that explained the nature and importance of the Divine Dream in the world of ROC.

That makes no sense!! I remembered saying something like that when I read that page. Then, I experienced reliving my childhood inside a Divine Dream conjured by Clariciel. I was blown away.

Since that moment, I have prepared to be trapped inside another Divine Dream as soon as I went to sleep. I was expecting to see a bunch of Demon Lords to appear the moment I went to sleep. After all, I had something they wanted.

I was expecting to have a talk with Sinintee, Niwdar, and Wonten himself because by now, they would have discovered my existence through Clariciel’s meddling. I was hoping that by banging Atuc on her altar, I got Eogaill to come out of her library to meet me.

However, no, my prediction and anticipation were off. Death was the first person who came to see me as soon as I went to sleep instead.

Black was Death’s unadorned long dress, a masterpiece of a creation to perfectly frame the cadaveric white that was her skin and the platinum locks of her hair. Upon more careful inspection, I noticed that her dress was sewed together by millions of living black moths just like her illustration and fan arts that I have seen.

White was her untouched skin, not that untainted pure white like Iliva’s fair skin, but a morbid white that made even the most fearless man felt the crawling of his own skin when gazing upon such color. The long stretching hem of her living dress dipped behind her and swept up white dandelion-like flowers into the air as she approached me.

“The man who named himself Fearless, why is he on his knees when he sees me?”

I have expected Death’s voice was like the wail of winter just like the lore of ROC has mentioned. But, hers was like the chime of wind-bells, clear and beautiful, extremely familiar to my ears. That familiar voice made my nape ran cold. I thought I knew whose voice that was, but at the same time, I believed that my mind was playing a trick on me.

“To show my respect,” I replied while being held spellbound by Death’s examining eyes. I have seen her ghoulish eyes in her illustration arts before. Her eyes were dark as the abyss, hollow and empty, like that of a monster. However, when I have finally looked at Death in person, that swirling darkness in Death’s eyes harbored more than just emptiness and horror. She was not a monster but something more terrifying than that.

I felt the shudder that ran down my spine became more painful than ever. Never before had I felt such a desire to run away from a person.

Death hid her spreading milky lips behind the forest of her slender fingers, her long nails dark as night, and started chuckling. Her shoulders shook animatedly.

Is my answer that funny?

She chuckled as if amused by my answer, “Respect? Are you sure that’s not fear?” As her shoulders continued to shake, a small pair of dark wings divorced from her long dress and fluttered in the air and innocently approached me.

“Respect,” I affirmed, inadvertently raising my left hand and the moth nonchalantly rested its wings upon my fingers. Despite being a familiar and messenger of Death, born from her blood, it did not look that different from any moth on Earth, not that I would know anything about a moth, to begin with, just a gut feeling.

Death blinked her silver lashes, “Respect, why is that? I have done nothing to command your respect,” her frigid expression betrayed a tiny surprise when she saw me received her familiar.

Now, she’s just playing with me, I thought. However, her words have confirmed my greatest suspicion to me that she has seen my memories, without a doubt. In my entire life, I have only genuinely bent my knees to the heels of two goddesses. The first was a tyrannical insane bitch who believed that she was a goddess. The second was Beauty herself. Death was asking me which of the two reasons that I knelt to her.

“I ask you to forgive my insolence. I believe that modesty is a virtue to enshrine. However, your modesty in term of your look is a great sin to all the women in the world.” Gathering my knowledge about Death, I replied.

Death smiled mysteriously, slowly extending her hand waxy white hand toward me, “You may kiss it,” she demanded.

If I were not already sure that Death has seen my memory, she has unabashedly just confirmed to me that she has seen my memory with her demand.

I slowly held Death’s hand while avoiding making any strange and questionable movement. Her white waxy hand was completely devoid of human warmth, cold, repulsively cold and unlike anything that I have ever felt. Slowly, I planted my lips on Death’s fingers while feeling my body warmth seeped out of my body through the brief contact with Death.

Praise be the Corpse Queen,

She who rules the dead

Yet neither dead nor alive.

I remembered a few passages that described Death in the lore of ROC. I have never understood how someone can be neither dead nor alive at the same time, until now. Despite the coldness of her body, Death’s skin was elastic and soft like that of the livings. Emanated from Death was not the raw aroma of festering and decaying fleshes or that horrid mushy smell of dead, on a contrary, she smelled like a bouquet of spring flowers.

“You are a bad man,” Death commented, wearing a mysterious smile on her lips, telling me that she realized that I was checking on her pulses while holding her hand.

“You misunderstand me, my Lady. Your complexion doesn’t look very good, so I was checking on your health to see if you were alright.” I lied barefacedly, knowing that Death would not be offended by such white lie.

“Then what is your opinion after you have checked the condition of my health?” Death played along with my lie.

“You are the image of health, my lady. I’m somewhat envious of your condition,” I replied. Death has pulses, so that meant she’s pretty much alive, yet her body was cold. Does that mean her blood is cold like crocodile and frog? That, or she’s not Death but someone else who pretended to be…

“Envy? You are the only person who would tell me something like that. What’s it about me that makes you envy?”

“Your hands are very cold, my Lady. My people have a proverb saying that people with cold hands have a warm heart, the colder the hands, the warmer the heart. You would be very much loved by my people if you lived in my world.”

 “You really know how to flatter a woman. But careful, that only works against me.” Death playfully pinched my lips with her thumb and index as she warned.

I let Death pinched my lips until she was bored of it to make my reply, “I’m thankful for the lesson. But, please forgive me for attempting to rectify your word…I wasn’t trying to flatter you, my lady. They are my honest words.”

“Honest? If you are an honest person as you claimed, all the liars in this world must have disappeared.”

“I am an honest liar.”

Death cocked her head back and laughed, hiding her pearly white teeth behind her ghostly white hand. Her laughter doubled her body with impunity, ruffling her lanky shoulders and ample chest. The white dandelion-like flowers inside her garden lifted and sprang into the air in a stream of silver vortex with the sound of Death’s laughter, a spectacle to behold.

When her laughter has finally subsided, Death gazed at me and said, “I have forgotten when the last time someone made me laughed this much was. You, the one who called himself Fearless, you have pleased me. If you have any question for me, ask now, I will enlighten you out of respect for your talent.”

I was under the suspicion that the woman who stood in front of me was Clariciel in disguise all along.

However, the moment she broke into her laughter, I was sure that she was not Clariciel. I thought carefully on what kind of question I should ask Death in person and decided to be bold. “Then, allow me to be indulged in your generosity. Am I admiring your beauty through a Divine Dream? Or perhaps, this is the reality?”

“Why do you even think that this is a Divine Dream?” Death tilted her head with such a ladylike movement and inquired with a mischievous smile on her pale waxy lips.

“Thank you, My Lady, for that question of yours has just confirmed two of my biggest suspicions.” I matched Death’s mysterious smile with a cocky smirk on my lips.

“I can start to see why she asked me to be extremely merciful to you.”

“So Clariciel asked you to do this. Until now, I was suspecting that she has transformed into you to have this conversation with me or something.”

“Why do you think so?” Death furrowed her eyes.

The moment Death asked me that question, many things became clear inside my head. I started cursing at Clariciel inwardly, despairing at her godlike stupidity.

Fucking meathead of a goddess. Why are you so stupid? Aren’t you supposed to take after your aunt? Why the fuck are you so stupid? Why all the people I have met in this world are so fucking stupid?

“Thank you, your answer has confirmed something to me. You are not just speaking to me by mimicking Clariciel’s voice in this dream. You demanded her voice as a price to meet me in this dream. Am I correct to think so, my lady?” I asked Death in the most respectful tone, without any arrogance or flirtatiousness.

“I have yet met someone as smart as you in a while.” Death nodded her head, smiling. Death’s jolly mood seemed to be resulting from the fact that she had the chance to test her new voice on me.

Fuck you Clariciel. Your mom must have taught you to not make a deal with Death… why? It was not worth it at all….

I had no idea how Death managed to trick Clariciel to give up her voice. I had no idea what made Clariciel thought that it was a good idea to strike a deal with Death. However, I knew that I was one of the reasons. Had I received the package from back then, this shit would probably never happen.

Why didn’t I just receive it back then? Was I afraid of receiving some stupid letters? I cursed myself.

Other than their importance in the lore, the twelve Valkyria were the poster girls and mascots of ROC. They were more popular than their mother, the goddess of Nature Niwdar herself, the one people believed to be the most beautiful woman in the universe of Escana. While the twelve Valkyria never appeared in the multiplayer mode, the popularity of the Valkyria among the fans allowed them to appear in everywhere else.

For instance, the entrance that leads into the ROC Hall of Fame to immortalize the greatest of ROC pro-players in the history were decorated with twelve life-size bronze statues of the twelve Valkyria standing in attention. Players who were inducted into the Hall of Fame would walk on a regal red and golden carpet that led them into the Great Hall of the Immortal. As they walked on the red carpet, players would be greeted by the twelve Valkyria standing on both sides of the carpet in their respective set of weapons and armors.

The Valkyria also appeared as game icons and in between of the loading screens. The Valkyria was so popular among the fans that the developers of ROC developed a virtual assistance Valkyria-Helper, not so much different from Cortana or Siri, in fact, this virtual assistance was inferior to those two.  However, Valkyria-Helper had twelve sets of voice and personalities that based on the twelve Valkyria in the lore of the Escana series. Whenever the players received emails, social messages, news, or in-game cosmetic loot boxes, their chosen Valkyria would appear on their PC screen or portable devices and informed them. Hilda, the Fallen Valkyria was set up as my virtual assistance.

Yet, Clariciel was the one who showed up to deliver my package…

As quickly as possible, I weaved my suspicions and thoughts into a cohesive picture and cleaned my throat, “Lady Clariciel’s voice is beautiful, but it is raw and untrained like that of a teenage girl. Besides, it lacked range and weight, it lacked everything when you compared to mine. I think my voice would suit someone as mature and beautiful as you better, my lady.”

“Yours?” Death asked, raising her heavy white lids as if amused.

I nodded my head, started to sing in falsetto and slowly changed gears to showboat my innate gifts. Falsetto became Spinto, then Baritenor, downed to Bel Canto and then all the subcategories of bass. Then I swallowed a gulp of saliva to clean my throat, singing in soprano then fell into mezzo-soprano and finally all the variations of the contralto. I was reminded of one of the many reasons why the nickname “Princess” was attached to me until my high school years.

“This, my lady, is a gift that I was born with. This is something that can never be taught. Furthermore, I trained and polished it through the years. And I believe that this range is the most befitting for someone of your stature, my lady, unlike the voice you are using,” I spoke to Death in a most queenly deep voice.

Death smiled, but her smile was no longer mischievous but sneering, “Such a gift. And yet, you are willing to part with it. Why is it matter to you whether that child has lost her voice or not?”

“That moron is not a problem. Her mother is. I especially have no desire of getting into a conflict against Lady Niwdar if possible. If Lady Niwdar learned that I played a part in making her daughter losing her voice…” I sighed heavily, dropping my shoulders, “I really don’t want to imagine that scenario. I rather pick a fight with even the Great Sinintee himself and all the Other at the same time than being at odds with Lady Niwdar.”

Death was known to be extremely kind and benevolent toward her subjects and potential subjects, knowing that I hoped that Death would be willing to give me a leeway.

“Then, that’s easy. You just have to become my champion,” Death smiled as if she has already expected me to give such reply from the beginning.

I blinked my eyes, staring at that morbidly smile on Death’s lips blanking out. I have expected everything, my best scenario and worst and everything else in between, but not this. In the worst case, I prepared to pick a fight with the Demon Lord, not just one or two or three, most of them and their representatives or die trying, but not before pissing off Sinintee and his siblings as well.

Death was the Overseer of the Reign of Chaos, the judge, and referee of the endless wars between the champions of the gods and the Demon Lords over the administration of Escana. The multi-player mode of ROC was a representation of what happened if the players were the gods and Demon Lords, fighting for the very soul of Escana.

Death’s role in the Reign of Chaos is a neutral one, always, since the first Divine war. She appeared in both the “Defeat” and “Victory” screen. Also, she has never championed anyone in the Lore.

So, why me? Did she take away Clariciel’s voice to force this decision on me? For what purpose?

I stood, staring at Death in the eyes. “That is an honor beyond my stature,” I could not understand why Death would champion me if her role were neutral in the war. My brain processing speed was already working at its maximum speed, and still, I had no answer.

“Are you surprise that I would make such an offer?” Death asked, obviously pleased by my complexion.

“Yes, I am,” I nodded my head, speaking true for the first time since we had our conversation.

“I don’t blame you. Right now, Naharis’ children are still squabbling among themselves on whether or not they should kill you or leave you alone.”

And not fight for the right to champion me as their representative?

As if Death could read my inner thought, she chuckled, “They have made a new rule among themselves to not pick you as a representative.”

Are these fuckers looking down on me? Did they believe that I am lesser than Bloodbeard or something?

No, if that were the case, then they should not even consider killing me as an option.

What the fuck? Why me?

“I wonder if the reason why URLOX is so harsh on you is because you are their most beloved.” Death smiled mysteriously.

“URLOX? You mean the devs?”

“We call them the Creators out of our respect for creating this universe.”

If my life from the moment I arrived at Escana until this moment was turned into a movie, I am willing to bet that an M. Night Shyamalan wannabe was responsible for the script. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?

Death smiled and waved her hand, her garden of white flowers eroded completely by a swarm of fluttering black moths. I blinked my eyes out of reflex when the little moth resting on my hand took flight as well, flapping its dark wings in front of my eyes.

I stood in the ROC Hall of Fame with Death standing next to me. Confused, I looked around, trying to find the clue, any clue. Then, it suddenly dawned on me that this was not the ROC Hall of Fame to induct the greatest and most influential pro-players.

This is Naharis’ throne room.

My eyes locked on the ultimate prize of the Reign of Chaos, the vacated Great Throne of Kings that the dark god Naharis has left behind. On the Great Throne, a white ivory skull of Naharis rested with a golden crown on top of it. The person with the Golden Crown on his head while sitting on the Great Throne would be the Supreme Ruler of Escana.

“This is where your problem began,” Death said, ghoulish black eyes gazed at the throne.

Silver flames suddenly spewed from the ivory skull of Naharis, swirling around the Great Throne as if it was a serpent. The flame danced, coiling around the throne before sinking into the great throne to form words.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Upon the 14th great eclipse,

A prince shall arrive.

All the nine planes of spirits shall know his name,

Escana shall be painted in his color,

For whoever has him

Shall win the Throne.

Death read the prophecy aloud and I repeated the words left behind by the silver flame, again and again, and again and again, for as many times as I must. My hands started digging into my scalp and my legs have already started stomping at the ground below me, “FUCK YOU DEVS. ARE YOU SHITTING ME? FUCK YOU ALL. DO YOU THINK MY LIFE IS A FUCKING JOKE? FUCK YOU. I HAVE ENOUGH OF YOUR BULLSHIT.”

I started reciting all the names of the people involved in the developing team of ROC and cursed them all. When I ran out of the name, I began to curse my own fans. I cursed and kept on cursing. I stopped caring about my image even in the presence of Death.

I heard many clicking sounds within my head.

The first click made me realized the reason I found Enfermé and Dragon Bane inside the temple. I was given two ultimate weapons to fight against the immortals. Thus my enemies were immortals.

The second click sounded and I realized that Bloodbeard was a test. My best option was to fail that test, running away from Bloodbeard to prove that I had no desire to fight a war.

The third click came, and I realized that I have owned Clariciel a giant debt.

Then came the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth click. I knelt to Death again, “I’m sorry for my unbecomingness, my Lady.”

“Don’t be. I like watching you more when you are honest.” Death continued to wear her mysterious smile.

“Will you indulge me in your benevolence and give me some insight?”

“Of course.”

“What is your intention by making me your champion?”

“What if I told you that I want that throne?” Death joked.

“Then, I’m very sorry. You will not have it even if I become your avatar. I will fight no war.” I answered firmly, leaving no room for guessing while knowing very well that Death was only lying about that.

“And yet, you have scored the first blood in this war.”

“That’s my rejection toward whoever trying to involve me in this war.”

“So wise of a man, but also just as foolish. Can you guess what happens if you rejected my offer?” Death snickered, hiding her teeth with her hand.

“I will arrive at your Great Hall, one way or another.”

“What if I tell you that you will nott?” Death asked coldly.

I stared at Death, trying to figure out the meaning of her riddled words.

“You shall know a true death, but you will never arrive at my Hall. Your soul and flesh shall be divided into equal portions for each of the children of Naharis to possess.  That would ensure that every one of them has an equal chance of winning the throne.”

 I paused to absorb the news and then chuckled. The immortals in this world have a funny of solving dilemma.

 “For whoever has him shall win the Throne.” That meant, “If anyone has Fearless, that person wins the throne.” The problem is “There is only one Fearless. So who can have Fearless?”

 “If Fearless cannot be possessed by anybody, everybody should have a piece of Fearless.”

Sharing is caring. Great!!!!

“For whoever has Fearless, even if Fearless was no longer himself, full and wholesome, just a fraction of himself, just tiny piece, that person can win the throne. Therefore, everyone should have a piece of Fearless.”

Such great problem-solving decision. I want to meet the genius who came up with such an ingenuity of a solution.

While chuckling, I believed that I have already realized the identity of the genius who solved that dilemma. And yet, there were three things that I did not understand.

“My Lady, what do you gain by making me your champion?” I asked Death that question once more to let her know that changing the topic of the conversation was a known trick of mine.

“Because I want you,” Death smiled, “Everything about you, your soul, your bravery, your fear, your emotions, your love, your body, and your kiss,” Death traced my lips with her long fingers before sealing mine with hers.

In all honesty, Death was an inexperienced kisser, so inexperienced that she gave Dragon Bane, the poison that known as the Kiss of Death and the poison that made anybody who has tasted the Kiss of Death to crave for more, a bad name. Yet, that made Death’s kiss numbing to me, as the realization that I was definitely the first and only man who came to know the taste of her lips.

Never had I tasted such a strange kiss. It was numbing, a kiss that left a person numbed, cold and frozen, a winter-like kiss. Death’s lips tasted like winter, piercingly cold as if they were forged from ice that can never be molten, yet soft as virgin snow.

I did not actually know whether I liked Death’s kiss or not until she stopped, putting but a hairbreadth of a distance in between the two us. I can feel the floral aroma of Death’s breath brushing against my face.

“Is this considered as necrophilia or not?”

Death’s spread her waxy lips invitingly. And before I knew it, “Fuck it, who cares” I pursued those winter-like lips like the mindless horny moron that I was. Something just never changed.

Knowing that I was kissing the aspect of death and ultimate destruction made my mind numbed, numbed in a bad way, the excited way. The painful shudders that branded on my nape and spine became even more painful when I invaded Death’s mouth with my tongue, and yet, those shudders became addicting when they became even more painful and unbearable when I realized that it was Death who I was kissing. I tasted Death’s tongue, squeezing out its numbing sweetness like sucking on an ice-cream in the coldest days of winter. Never had I experienced such a cold kiss that it made me numbed and breathless.

I became connected to Death in more than just the fleeting crystal bridges of our saliva. Her cold hands straddled my chest after they have all but roamed all over my body. Mine seemed lost in an adventure, sank in a snowy deep mountain range in one moment, then trapped in the watery abyss of Death’s slit in the next, but never alone, always accompanied by Death’s guarding yet inviting hand.

With my caressing fingers, I taught Death the torment of unfulfilled canal desire, a craving that only bred more terrible craving. With my kisses, I let Death experienced a fever that brought about both pain and sweetness, a fever of passion.

After that, everything was a blur, an endless and painful wrestle of summer haze and winter howl over a shared desire of a consummating union. My breath steamed white launched an assault on her soft breasts. Her silver cold mist brushed against my cheeks, filling my nose with sweet floral aroma. Then, things just became a blur of drifting mist and boiling steam. No longer had I possessed the clarity to know whose hands were whose, which were mine and which were hers, the one that hungrily changing my black suits to my birthday suit or the ones that plucking away those obstructing black wings in a frenzy. It was a great and painful blur that devoid of clarity, but I felt my tormented craving for such blur was just as great as Death’s. It did not matter to us who were pulling whose body to the ground. It did not matter if my heated fever burned away her white cadaveric flesh into a pinkish color or if her numbing coldness just sucked away my soul and my everything through the contacts of our naked skin. It did not matter to us whose eyes were whose and whose reflection was whose. It was an inception of inception. Teary ghoulish dark eyes, which were impregnated with the torment of carnal pleasure, joy, and pride over a hardened object of lust, reflected inviting dark eyes that swelled in awe and marvel inside another pair of ghoulish dark eyes.

Then there was a brief moment when time seemed to stop and movements were all but petrified, and heart just forgot to beat. At that moment when my thought was all but lost, the black wings were all but a flock at the distant background, a distort blur to highlight the glossy sight of Death’s naked sweaty body that blushed red with my emanating fever. There was no need for words of flattery. There was no need for any fruitless search and vain attempt to praise such sight. That stillness of movement from a man who was all but lost in the abyss of lust was the best compliment to such picturesque sight.

At that moment, in this fleeting stillness of movement, I regained a tiny fragment of clarity. I was reminded of that a popular elven proverb:

Gold is Niwdar

Red is Lust

Black is Death

The most beautiful woman on the golden moon was Niwdar. The undisputed queen of beauty on the red moon was Lust and on the black moon, nobody can contest with Death. However, I was sure that at this moment, nobody in this universe could contest with Death. No force in this universe could stop Death, not even the most unlikely a tag team of Niwdar and Lust could stop it.

Death plucked my lips, pleased by my absentness and stillness. The longer my lips were sucked into Death’s waxy lips, the louder the howl of winter winds inside my head became. The wetter the sound produced by my own tongue that was busy teaching the joy and torment carnal pleasure to its inexperience partner, the whiter my thought became. When Death moaned, Clariciel’s voice echoed inside my head, repulsive. When Death let me marvel her blushed flesh, Niwdar’s body branded my mind, revoltingly nauseating. It was this moment that I have realized that this was no illusion and Death was not playing me for a fool. If I were under the suspicion that Death was only conjuring this illusion to trick me while watching from afar, now, that suspicion was gone. Death let me touch her flesh for real.

Then stillness fell upon us again when Death wrapped her cold fingers around my sizzling red-hot blade like a scabbard of winter, preventing me from piercing her inner flesh with it.

I gazed at my own reflection in Death’s eyes, a fool lost in his own lust, a man with dick for a brain. Death, she was like a maiden on her marriage night, torn between her shyness and desire. She barely hid that shyness branded on her lips through the gaping opens of her clutching freed hand. The two of us were like the lead actor and the lead actress in the middle of a romantic scene from an R-rated movie, and yes, actor and actress we were. Death put an innocent kiss on my chin, wordlessly telling me everything that I needed to do before she would free my blade.

“What do I gain by becoming your champion?” I asked.

“Everything I have to offer,” Death whispered into my ears in a delighted voice.

My body shivered, betraying the swelling of a whirlpool of desires within me, “Will you return Clariciel her voice in exchange for my voice if I ask?” I returned Death’s playful kiss with a mirrored kiss.

“My body would be yours if you decided to be my champion, my one and only champion. Whatever you desire to do with it is your freedom to decide,” Death blew into my ear, straddling my shaved chin.

“What is my duty as your champion?”

“Live for me, die for me.”

“That sounds very charming, but what does that mean, specifically?”

 “Worship me as your one and only true goddess, no one else.  That and administrating my justice, and of course, love me, do not betray me.”

I sank my lips into Death’s ample chest for a fierce and sounding kiss, “Are these your justice?”

“Yes,” Death chuckled and sank her teeth into my earlobe, “But no, rain punishment on all the worshippers of the false gods. Make those ignorant children know that there is only but one Goddess in this world, her name is Death.”

I kissed on Death’s ample chest for the last time, “Then, my lady, you have already found your champion,” while desperately trying to free my blade.

Death twirled like a breeze of winter out of my arm. She straddled my cheek as if apologizing for leaving me cold. Her caressing fingers were soundless honey-coated promises of our long and passionate future to come. “That can wait,” Death whispered apologetically, mischievously pecking on my chin.

Death cut her wrist with her sharp nails. Black blood oozed out from the gash. “Drink my blood and swear an oath to me. Swear that you would love me and that you would live to fight and to die for me as your one and only goddess.”

Death could not hide just how long had she waited for this moment. So was I, I was literally dying for this moment to come.

Thus, I scratched my head as if confused, “Why?” I asked, “You have already found your champion. Why do you even need me?”

Death stared at me, blankly for a full ten second, finally realizing that she has been lead on.

I could not wait any longer to wear the most vicious sneering smile on my face, “Time is your champion, is it not? Time will administrate your justice. Time will make those people realize that you are their sole, their one and only supreme ruler after time claim them. Time will punish their ignorance. Time will never betray you, unlike someone like me. Oath or no oath, if I must betray you, I will. You must have seen that from my memory, my lady.”

“You are breaking my heart,” Death’s chuckle became cold with the sound of her gnashing teeth.

“That’s what I do, you have already seen that in my memory. Yours was not the first that I broke and it will not be the last.” I smiled dastardly.

“So wise a man, why is such a wise man making such a foolish decision? Does he not know that his fate is beyond salvation if he rejected my offer?” Death asked and sharply waved her hand, ordering her black moths to return to where they were originally.

“My lady, you have watched my memory. You have seen what I have seen. You have heard what I have heard. And yet, despite all of that, why don’t you feel I feel? Why can’t you understand me? Am I that difficult to comprehend of a man to you?

If that were the case, please allow me to say it in words with brutal honesty so we can understand each other better.

Firstly, I don’t know anything about you, my lady, except a bunch of groundless rumors and myths, but we can get to know each other at any time and at our own pace. However, I don’t like the fact that you held Clariciel’s voice hostage to force me into accepting your offer. I don’t appreciate the thought that despite that you are the woman I was holding and making love to, and yet it appeared to me that I was violating lady Niwdar of her purity and dignity. I am honestly disgusted by that.

Secondly, I will not champion your justice, my lady, especially your justice. I AM the greatest injustice, please let me remind you of that. I will conduct my injustice whenever and wherever the presence of my injustice is required, must I ally myself with justice to conduct my injustice, I will do that. However, I refuse to champion justice.

Thirdly, I have knelt to the thighs of many goddesses. I would love to kneel before your thighs, your real thighs, my lady. But you can never ask me of my complete devotion, love and respect the same way my one and only Goddess has commanded me.

Lastly, you ask me to swear a sacred oath to you, to form a bond with you, a bond forged from deceits and threats. I am a stupid man, the most moronic of a man but I know truth from lies. You cannot possibly believe that I would agree to forge such a bond with you, my lady. You ask me to be truthful with you. You ask me to never betray you. You ask me to bind myself to you while you are lying to me.

 How could you possibly ask me to agree to such a thing, my lady? Thus, allow me to humbly return your kind gesture. I have nothing else to say now, my lady. Do you have any? I will listen now.”

“Arrogance, arrogance, arrogance, such arrogance.” Death shook her head in disappointment, “I feel as if I am talking to Pride.”

“You call it arrogance. I call it bold and brutally honest. That’s our difference, my lady. I’m trying to tell you that.” I replied, wearing a serious look for once.

“What do you gain by rejecting my offer, he who knows no fear? Would your little Valkyria regain her voice? Would your little spider be rewarded for her devotion? Would your doll be protected? Would your whore be loved? What do you stand to gain by going against me? I am your only ally, the only person who can protect you from the children of Naharis.” Death locked her scornful eyes on me.

“I can see that this is your first attempt of establishing a relationship, my lady,” I sighed, “What I am trying to do at this moment is explaining to you my lady of our differences.  In order for us to forge our bond, we have to put our difference aside first.

I’m asking you to take a blind leap of faith with me, my lady. Please return Clariciel of her voice and Lady Niwdar of her body. Please appear before me with your real self. I cannot make love to you while you are still speaking in Clariciel’s voice and wearing Lady Niwdar’s body.

If you do that, you have to accept the risk that I might not hug you and kiss you the same way I kissed this borrowed body of yours. But you will definitely have my utmost respect for your bravery, my lady. Because any person who did something like that for me while knowing what a liar and betrayer I am, that person deserves nothing but my ultimate respect… even if my respect is nothing but a consolation prize to you and has no value.

I’m asking you to reveal your secrets to me, my lady. No more lies or beating around the bush, my lady. I’m asking you to do that while knowing that I might or might not cross you, my lady. You have to accept the fact that even though you have to go in blind, knowing that there is a chance that I would refuse to forge a bond with you.

This is what a genuine relationship looks like, my lady, to me at least. Every decision feels like a gamble and they are gambles. It feels like we have to compromise everything to pursue something so risky and shaky, so fragile and tiny. It feels like we have much more to lose than what we can receive.”

I inwardly told myself that I should have just accepted Death’s offer quietly and graciously. Being her champion, I would have removed myself from the war as a true paragon of neutrality. Becoming Death’s champion, I would have received her protection from the participants of the Great War. Yet, I made the most bullheaded decision that I could have made and mouthed her off.

Death stared at me, stunned, and then cackled coldly behind her guarding fingers, “You, the man who knows no fear, I want to have you at my side, now, even more so than before. I wonder why. You have ridiculed and shamed me. You have rejected me. I wonder why. If you are so wise, can you tell me?” Death asked.

I stayed quiet, completely understanding the hidden barbs of Death’s cackle. I watched Death waved her hand, anticipating the worst. A bluish screen appeared within the depth of my mind, a small notification screen.

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 “I have promised the little lady to do that. I might as well do that now,” Death darkly explained, “While you can still receive it.” She wore a dark smile on her waxy lips. “You told me that time is my champion, did you not? Then let time be my champion. Let time punish your ignorance. Let time convince you that your fate should be with me and not someone else. Let time make you feel like you want me as much as I want you.” Death announced.

Suddenly, everything became black.

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I had no idea for how long I have floated among the crashing tides of darkness, following the cold tides to a place beyond the reach of the light, without any sense of direction.

It was one of those dreams that I have seen repeatedly, one of the best dreams that I have ever had. However, when I described it to my psychiatrist, she adamantly called it a nightmare.

There was no cicada inside that dream, nor there was blood or anything else that made me suffered. It was just me, the sound of the cold clashing tides and a perfect world of swirling darkness. How could it be a nightmare? I argued.

How could it be a nightmare?

A real nightmare was a bright blistering day of summer that filled with the chirping of the cicadas when Mrs. Hạ Đông sent me off to school with the sweetest kiss in the world.

A real nightmare was a vanilla summer day when Thùy Dương sent me off to work from our holiday villa with the usual tyrannical smile on her rosy lips when she told me to gently feel her swollen stomach.

My other self called them his dreams. I called them nightmares. Not once have we come to an agreement on this subject.

Those were the real nightmares. They were so visceral, so beautiful, so vivid that they were real. I actually believed that gods have given me another chance to make it right. I fought them, the worst of demons and worms, and won every single battle. In those nightmares, I was beyond godlike. I knew how to squash them, the worms. I knew how to break them, the damned demons. I was so much better than Tom Cruise ever was in Edge of Tomorrow.

I won not only the battles but the wars as well, singlehandedly every single time.

I married Mrs. Hạ Đông. And I was there, sitting on a chair, waiting as I listened to Thùy Dương’s painful bellows. I clutched my hands together, praying to all the gods and goddesses that I knew like a helpless moron. My heart felt like it has forgotten how to beat until a quiet cry of a baby entered my ears to relieve me of my worry.

That’s worst things ever. And then, I woke up, just like that.

I was always in a strange place and a strange bed. Around me, women, some whose name I do not even know until this day, sleeping, naked. Men who I hardly remembered their name, naked, sharing a blanket with me.

I can win. We were strong enough to win those battles, either one of us, Phúc or me. I have always known that. If I were there, or he was there, if he skipped school on that day, if I did not sit on my usual seat and played in the Final of the World Cup on that day, the world would be so much different.

Yet, I did not have the chance to fight those battles. I wasn’t there to fight those battles. I lost both the battle and the war without even having a chance to fight them. Yet, the hammer of justice dictated that those worms should have a fair chance of achieving redemption, to be human again, no matter how long. I disrupted the court only to point my finger at the worms, asking a very honest question, “Do they look like they want redemption to you, your Honor?” The hammer fell anyway, and history was made like that.

“Tao mệt,” Bạch Đại Phúc said only two words, “I’m tired,” in Vietnamese and disappeared before I could tell him my words. Life without Thùy Dương was already hard enough. My other half ditched me as well, did not even attempt to fight. He quitted, just like that, “I’m tired,” he said and then, he left me. He only reappeared whenever it suited him and then disappeared to god-knows-where. That was a dick move. That was a clear violation of the bro-code. That was a nightmare.

That is what a real nightmare looks like, anything less than that is just the regular kind of nightmares, the cheap kind of horror movies. And those cheap horror movies, you only feel afraid for a while, a night or two, then you forgot about them, their entire plot and existence. Therefore, whenever I had that argument with my psychiatrist regarding whether those dreams were nightmares or those nightmares were a dream instead, it lasted forever and then the next thing I knew, I woke up with her by my side in a hotel bed.

The cold water, the pitch-black world, the sound of the crashing waves, they brought me no pain. Therefore, I had a hard time understanding why Death conjured this dream to punish me.

However, I wasn’t sure if I have ever seen those tiny bluish wisps that floated on the dark water surface in this dream, like ever. Those tiny flames lined in two columns, lightened a small path in between that stretched to infinity and beyond. Knowing that this was Death’s challenge, I swam and swam I did, not knowing what is waiting at the end of the path.

I had no idea how long I must have swum until I discovered that the wisp-lit path would never end no matter how much further I would swim. This would never end and never would I see the goal.

Epic tasks, impossible missions, this was one of those. Within this dark lucid dream, I was clear about that and still, I swam. There was no reason for me to swim, other than simply to annoy Death. But there was also no reason for me to not to swim, either. So, I just swam.

I kept on swimming in that dark water. There were moments where my arms and legs seemed to give up. I would fill my belly with so much air that I would float like a balloon to take a rest. Once I felt rested, I was back to swimming again. When I was hungry, I filled my stomach with the dark tasteless water. When I had to pee, I peed… simple. When I felt like sleeping, I tried to explore the uncharted territory of unihemispheric sleeping like dolphins despite being human. I must have nearly drowned a thousand times before I figured out a method to cope with my situation. Just a few seconds in every once in a while, that was enough.

This darkness and this impossible challenge reminded me of a boy and his sister.

That boy was never much of a swimmer. Whenever the boys in my class had their swimming lessons, that boy was finding comfort beneath some cool shades, playing some random songs with a leaf on his mouth, always.

It was until the boy’s sister was struck with inspiration to show him her bikini swimsuit, the first one that she has ever brought, that he entered a swimming pool for the first time in his life, more like was tossed into one, nearly drown. The tyrannical girl unreasonably forced that boy to swim. She unreasonably held swimming lessons in his school swimming pool at night, of course, after she has received the special permission from his adopted mother and her key to the swimming pool.

What the boy’s adopted mother did not know was that her daughter taught her adopted son more than just swimming lessons in the school swimming pool. How could she? Her perfect daughter and her angelic-looking adopted son, how could they? Especially at that age, how could they?

“If you can’t swim, then you are not a man who deserves me,” The girl would say those words in her usual tyrannical manner whenever the boy was about to give up. The boy cursed her inside his head as his rock heavy legs flapped and his lead-filled arms stroke the water on their own.

That girl just dragged that tiny boy into any kind of adventures that she could come up with her imagination. She was his waking nightmare, a symbol of tyranny and absurdity. She made freedom her lapdog. Her name has the character of “Thùy”, “Gentle” in Vietnamese, but she was anything but gentle. She was a scorching sun that chose to shine at midnight instead of midday, an absurdity.

Whimsically, she entered the boy’s name into a piano competition, knowing that boy can no longer play the piano. Yet, she demanded him to do so with her usual tyrannical arrogant smile. She sat by his side for weeks until his fingers played the piano as if they were separate beings from him while his eyes were white with tears. Those weeks were easily the most painful weeks in his entire life until he knew the worse kind pains.

Yet, the girl made her little brother played her favorite song, the Eine Kleine Nachtmusik , the song she registered in the competition, repeatedly and again, until he was tricked into believing that he was supposed to play that song in the competition. Then, on the very day of the competition, in front of a crowd of five thousand, judges, musicians, pianists and spectators, and everyone else, he played “Happy Birthday” like a champ according to her absurd demand. The judges were offended beyond any stretch of the imagination and yelled the boy to get off the piano. Still, he played. The crowds were a booming mess of laughter. Among the crowd, she laughed the hardest and the loudest. It was her birthday and the girl told his little brother that was the best birthday gift she has ever received yet.  She made sure to stress the word “yet” to make it perfectly clear to him that the sheer ridiculousness of her demands would only escalate.

Since then, every year, that boy lived in the terror of “THAT DAY”, not knowing what kind of birthday gift she would demand.

There was the year when he had to run 100km in a day on his own feet to see her before her birthday passed. He nearly failed that task and nearly died from exhaustion had his little tyrant not call an ambulance. There was also the birthday when she made him hiked a mountain on a pinkish pair of five centimeter high heels to reach her.

There was the year where she pulled the famous “Mario, your princess is in another castle,” and made him searched for her all over the city like a lunatic.

Then I came along.

There was a year that she demanded to see but a single blooming flower on the night of her birthday. It was easy and surpassingly kind of her, or so that foolish boy thought until he did the research on that flower. He and I wished that our tyrannical queen of the night had demanded us to swim in a pool filled with ice again to reenact that one scene in The Titanic like the year before, rather than presenting that flower to her in that season.  She made us do the “There is no mountain I would not climb and there is no ocean I would not swim to prove my love to you,” in every literal sense.

That boy had no idea why he would fall in love with a demonical and tyrannical woman like her, neither do I. Our rights as a human and freedom meant nothing to her. She made us questioned our sanity whenever I listened to her ridiculous demands. She made our life miserable.

Every year, we would tell ourselves that if we could repeatedly live through another “THAT DAY,” nothing in life could ever faze us. Year after year, I had always wished that the next “THAT DAY” would never come, so was that boy. And when that wish was granted, we cannot have it unwished.

If I had learned something from living under the harshness of my tyrannical midnight sun, it would be “Human is especially scary when we really put our mind into something.” I would not know how strong or how weak I was until I put myself to the tests. I would not know my limits until I challenged them. Lastly, I was the most foolish, the most insane of a man in the entire universe for not trying to escape that tyrannical midnight sun.

“Get it done. I don’t care how. Get it done,” Thùy Dương always said those words whenever she demanded me or that boy to do something stupid, “Get it done.” They were not encouraging words. They were a command, the ultimate commandment in our entire life if there was ever one, even now when I can only listen to her voice in my worst nightmares or in phantom whispers.

So, at my own pace, I swam toward a goal I would probably never reach. I knew inside my head that this battle was one that I could never win. This challenge was different from Thùy Dương’s unreasonable tyranny. Thùy Dương’s unreasonable demands came from her desires for affection and self-satisfaction. This challenge was not born from such desire.

As I continued to swim, I started to understand that this dream was just a mind game designed to let me see the futility of my decision, to let me understand the magnitude and strength of the woman who I have pissed, and to make me regret my action.

The moment, I understood the challenge. I found a way to solve it. The answer to this challenge was easy. I just have to backpedal in the opposite direction. And by doing that, I showed Death my doubts toward the goal I have picked for myself, thus admitting my repentance against the futility of my stupid decision.

However…

Who cracks first? You who created this dream or me?

Whose patience ran out first? Yours or mine?

I wanted to hear those questions answered from the very lips of the person who gave me this challenge out of sheer arrogance. That was enough for me to keep trying to swim in the same direction.

The moment I walked out of the Mangora Forest, I was far from prepared. I knew what I was heading into, but I was not prepared. However, the moment I chose to bang Atuc inside Eogaill’s Temple, I have picked my side in this game. Knowing that it was clearly a stupid decision and still stuck with it to the end, this is me, the biggest moron in the universe.

I chose to be this way and I would be this way regardless of people’s opinions. Gods or goddesses, they cannot make me act smart.

Since, I swam at my own pace, while singing nonchalantly as if I was enjoying every bit of the futility that I have accepted. Sometimes, I swam extremely slowly as if I was trying to see how slow I could swim. Then, there was the moment that I advanced with great strides as if the goal was just right front me. It was no longer just a challenge. I made it into a game, my style of game. I thought that I must have driven Death insane with my bullheaded stupidity. That thought alone brought me an endless amount of delight, which became an infinite source of fuel for me to take my stupidity to the very extremity of stupidity.

I swam, sang and laughed like a blissfully bullheaded idiot while thinking what sorts of concession that Death would make and in what form those concessions would take. Would she create monsters in this dream, breaking her own established setting to make me be fearful? Would she conjure a goal for me just for the sake of it because I was too stupid to stop or turn back? Or would she just say “screw it” and end this challenge? Those thoughts brought me nothing but delights.

This dream was made to be an impossible mission and an unwinnable battle for me. However, I thought I saw a chance of winning the war. In fact, I don’t need to win this battle to win the war itself. I would not give Death the satisfaction of winning this battle. I would let she win neither the battle nor war. I was determined to let Death experienced the futility of correcting my stupidity.

And yet, futility was called futility for a reason. I should have known that.

“Then let time be my champion.” I should have understood her words immediately.

I had no idea how long have I swum in that ocean of dark tide. An impossible challenge was called an impossible challenge because it cannot be completed, for many reasons. An unreachable goal was but one of the many reasons that made this challenge impossible to complete. The moment I realized that I started to lose many of my bearings. The longer I swam, the bigger the doubts inside my heart became.

Little by little, I started to realize my opponent for who she was and what she represented. She is Death, an immortal, a person who has lived an endless time and will live an endless time after I was all but bones and ashes.

She was trying to make me realized the futility of my decision on my own rather than trying to punish me to make me realized the futility of my action. This dream was a challenge, a warning, and an example and yet it was not. It was a warning, a very gentle yet brutal warning against the brunt of futility that I was about to face.

I was going against the immortals of Escana and Death as well. However, knowing does not mean understanding.

My lofty desires to win meant nothing. My sense of purposes meant nothing. The patience of a human meant nothing before someone who has lived an endless amount of time and would live another endless eternity after I have all but expired.

This challenge would last forever and forever meant forever.

A Divine Dream was a place, where time, space and reality can be twisted to the will of the creator. Tests, messages, challenges, prophecies, they could become whatever the creator of the Divine Dream wishes them to be.

I remembered the feeling I had back then when Clariciel made me relived my life again. It felt so real, so vivid, and so authentic that I could not even begin to assess which was real and which was not. Had Clariciel told me that Iliva and my days in the Mangora Forest was a disillusion, I probably would have believed her. Such was the common power wielded by the administrators of the world of Escana and Death herself in the lore, a Divine Dream.

 “Gods and goddesses are such tyrannical beings,” I sighed and began to understand why I felt a sense of nostalgia about Thùy Dương in this dream.

No longer had I held any disillusion that I can win this battle or this war. The unbreakable perfect darkness that enveloped my entire world slowly made me believed that this was a nightmare like my psychiatrist has once told me.  Slowly, the darkness around me took away my sense of time. It fed the paranoia and fear of darkness within me, making me imagined that there were horrific aquatic monsters lurking beneath and around me, despite knowing that the creator of this dream would not do that. It made me long for companionship to the point that I was willing to make friends with any aquatic monster in exchange for my own life. It took away my edges and so much more. It stripped me of my purposes, and by doing that, it told me “Turn back,” soundly and clearly in a most brutal yet gentle manner.

This challenge was different from those absurd demands that Thùy Dương made me do. This challenge was designed to make me admitting defeat, that I have perfectly understood.  Therefore, I resented myself for understanding all of that, because if I did not understand all of that, I can blissfully continue to swim ahead for as long as I must, and blissfully committed to being stupid to the end.

To fight an immortal is like “Die Trying.”

I swam and continued to swim in that dark watery world, knowing the futility of my action. If I could give myself a pat on my back, telling myself that “I tried…like really hard,” I could never live through the unreasonable tyranny of my sister. I had no idea how many days, weeks, or months since my sole and only purpose of winning this war was lost to me. The creator of this divine dream will never run out of her patience or ever. That made it pointless for me to even continue this futility.

I was swimming still. I had no idea why. I just did.

There were moments that my most trusted fingers rebelled. They twitched as if they had a mind of their own, then, they played with some invisible magic coins, which I cannot see or feel.

Get it done.

Sometimes, my fingers, those rebellious bastards, they even tried to mimic my sister’s tyrannical voice, making me hated those three words, now more than ever.

Look, this is not a battle that I can win. This is just like those tropes where your heroes were supposed to lose in those RPGs.

Get it done.

You insane or what? Your lofty mind game would not work. Your opponent can play this game with you forever. There is no smart way or shortcut around this challenge.

Get it done

Fuck you.

Fuck you too. Get it done

I hated myself. I hated my fingers even more.

Get it done.

Now, they were just tempting me to bite them off my hands. I would not fall for this mind game. “Do you know who I am? I’m Fearless.” It took more than that to make me fall for such simple mind game.

At some time, while swimming, I suddenly remembered the forbidden fruits of knowledge of good and evil mentioned in the Book of Genesis.  That part of the Book of Genesis was one of my favorite.

It was written in that book that Eve and Adam were banished from the heaven because they tasted that forbidden fruit, not because they were naked or doing whatever they did as a naked man and a naked woman would definitely do inside that garden.

Had they remained stupid and ignorant, they would not suffer. The two of them were made to suffer because they gained knowledge of right and wrong, Which meant that the Book of Genesis was telling people that if a man innocently banged a woman, it was not a sin. But if he was aware that banging a woman is a sin and still choose to bang her, that is a sin. Am I correct? I remembered I have said something like that in front of a devout crowd, Could not remember how that has ended.

I sighed and wished that I were ignorant just as Adam and Eve before they tasted that forbidden fruit. There was no longer a purpose for me to swim forward, and still, I swam in that direction, doing the most stupid thing that I had ever done. I took the meaning of the three words “Futility,” “Masochism” and “Stupidity” to a new height, as far as I could swim.

I swam so much that I was confident enough to represent my country for the next Olympic, though whether I made it to the team or not was never up to me to decide.

The further I swam, the darkness around seemed to be so much more than darkness, and the splashing noises of the crashing waves started to sound like the voices of people talking.

Occasionally, I saw some beautiful mermaids split the waves and accompanied me in my quest of achieving true futility. I ignored them, knowing that they were merely illusions conjured by my own brain. The treacherous rebels that were once my most trusted tools, my fingers, they tried to pick up the mermaids as if they were professional gigolos at some bars.

You insane moronic bastards

I cursed them furiously without stopping for hours, foiling their effort and cock-blocking them as hard as I could. After that, we fought each other. I used my silver tongue, tricking those bastards into plotting and backstabbing the hell out of each other. I won back their loyalty, for… maybe a year or two…. I was not sure if it was a year or a month or day…  Time was already lost to me in an eternity ago.

You can’t trust anything, not even your fingers

However, if there were one thing that I liked about the design of this dream, it would be the fact that I was made to swim in an endless ocean of perpetual darkness. Thus, I can dive beneath the waves, knowing that I did not give Death the satisfaction of watching me cry. Was this ocean a desert instead, I burrowed my head into the sand like an ostrich.

Then, I remembered about those unread messages. I tried to summon that notification screen. My eyes wrestled against endless rows of texts of all sorts of nature, emails, reminders, cosmetic loot-boxes, news…

I tried to sort them by their nature and then my eyes were hit by a news title “The end of a dynasty, The Alliance disbanded.” I stopped sorting my unread message and forcefully closed the notification window.

Then I swam like there was no tomorrow while singing like a madman. I swam like I was an instrument created to swim and nothing else. Never would I touch that notification screen again.

There were moments that felt like days and the darkness around me seemed brighter. In those moments, I saw The Alliance appeared in small glows of light.

I had no idea what I was thinking in those moments. I put even more force into my strokes and I yelled at my rebellious fingers like a ship captain to his crewmembers. I chased after the lights as if I was a foolish night moth to a flame, however, unlike the stupid moth, my futility would not end the moment I touched the lights. With my fingers, I grabbed the lights, using them to tear away the darkness around me.

I was there, thirty-three years of age in that special day three years after I announced my retirement with The Alliance together as a team.

It was not just me. No longer me, no longer I, we. In our special seats, we sat on the stage of the Golden Era Arena, the holy Jerusalem of the ROC pro-league, watching a video playing on the great screen.

There was a time, I almost got the entire team disqualified in a Major Tournament since my visa was not approved because of age restrictions. That hit clip where Fantasy burned our fake passports as a prank and accidentally set off the fire alarm in the hotel room. Merleon was made to sit in the most uncomfortable seat for hours in one of the minor tournaments. Misery was so nervous when he was interviewed for the first time that he hiccupped like a moron. 

Together, we laughed at our younger selves, our silliness. Not even FY was spared from such silliness. He got to watch the moment when he led our team to enter the wrong booth for no reason. His reaction when he tried to shake off his embarrassment at that moment only made the clip more laughable.

The video playing on the great screen made us realized that we stuck with each other as a team for so long that we just took that for granted. 16 years, no team has ever stuck with each other that long. We were like no one else. We were not just a team. We were like a family, no, we are a family.

Small stages, big stages, off-stage, we were together like brothers despite our differences and the distance between us. Barely survived with little successes, we fought and struggled mightily.

We relived our defeats and worst moments as we watched the great screen, bitter moments when it felt like the whole world was against us, terrible moments when even our fans were actually booing us on our home ground, painful moments that made us cursed what a terrible rollercoaster that ROC was, moments that put our bonds to the test.

The crownless king

The (LOL) prince of promise

Selfish, does not know how to play as a team.

A clown

A Thug

My eyes boiled when that moment flashed on the screen, that year when I disappeared completely for a whole ten months without a trace and the entire team butted their head against our team owner, refusing to play with a newly recruited player in my absence and got the entire squad disqualified for their state of inactivity in that year.

Looking at those moments, we realized that how far we had come as a team and family. FY brought us together because of his belief in our potential and ability. Yet, we tasted more defeats than successes. We forged our bonds through our defeats and failures, together as a team.

I cried a bit. Everyone was crying, FY, Merleon, Fantasy, the broadcasters, even the fans. Misery was the one crying the hardest. It’s hard to be strong in such a moment.

Then slowly, the music swelled up in the background, all of us knew what to expect.

We were The Alliance. The league and the fans have given us many names. The well-oiled machine, the unstoppable, the first dynasty, the phoenix reborn from its ashes, the snap that wiped out the league… many and many more.

When the flag of black and gold flew upon the rafter, we would come and we would conquer.

We made the fans of our opponent tasted bitter tears and despair, year after year.

We did not just simply win. We crushed. We humiliated our opponents even when we did not mean to.

We had many strong rivals. We faced the strongest team that the league has ever assembled to crush us.

We showed everyone that we are the undisputed strongest team in history.

Better than anyone, we knew our identity. We knew who we are.

“Greatness does not discriminate” was our maxim.  One sentence, one maxim, five meanings for each and every single individual. Black and gold was our royal flag.

We are The Alliance.

“We are The Alliance,” meaningless words to billions of people, a curse to the ears of our opponents, just a bit meaningful to the fans to make them shed a few drops of tear and clapped their hands. Their tears were not the same ours. Theirs was the realization of an end of an era. Ours were so much more. We cried because we heard “We are The Alliance.”

Those words meant everything to us. We are The Alliance. They are our pride, our identity, our defeats, our bonds, our glories, and so much more.

We are The Alliance.

Those words made me realized that this small glow of light, this little happiness, this disillusion could have been my future if only I did not screw up. This glow of light made me realized that I was without a question the best Ender in the league history and probably in the future as well.

I did not just end games and conflicts.

“I ended The Alliance.” How many Enders in the league can say that? In the most twisted of irony, I ended The Alliance. I ended the longest dynasty in the world of ROC, the longest, the strongest and the best. I ended it.

So I laughed like I had never laughed before. I dove beneath the dark water, running away from the light like an aquatic vampire of the dark, a true edgelord, the being that I have always hated the most. I dove, deeper and deeper into the cold abyss until the lights were no more.  My magmatic piercing scream boiled the boundless ocean with fury and the entire ocean turned into the salty flavor of my tears. Boiling water entered my lungs, burned me like liquid nitrogen from the inside.

How much more pain I must take? How long must I suffer before Death takes me?

In my scattered thought, I welcomed the worst pain in the world to torment me. I wished the entire ocean was made of Dragon Bane, pure and undiluted, to let me have a taste of my poison.

My chest felt like it was about to burst to the pressure of the abyss, my mind torched by a thousand beams of iridescent from within my creaking skull. However, this level of pain was not enough.

More

I kicked my legs, faster and harder, diving deeper.

I felt the sound of my innards exploded from the inside of my stomach. After that, my chest burst, for sure this time, painfully and roaringly.

Has it always been this hard to kill a man?

I heard a sick popping sound that ran across my entire body. Did not know what it was in neither the first time nor the second because the searing pains that burn my entire body. When I heard that horrific popping sound for the third time, I realized that it came from my eyeballs.

Should have realized back then what fate has stored for me at the deepest depth of the abyss.

The moment, I felt the solidness of the abyss with my palms, the end, the deepest depth, I was struck with a realization that I could not die, never in this dream, never in a Divine Dream.

I laughed if the sounds that escaped my throat at that depth could be called a laugher. I mocked Clariciel about this once, now it came back to bite me in the ass. This is karma.

“Let time punish your ignorance. Let time convince you that your fate should be with me and not someone else. Let time make you feel like you want me as much as I want you.”

I remembered Death’s words. I laughed at myself.

What else but to laugh?  This is hilarious. Don’t you agree?

I laughed as my understanding of the futility that I pursued deepened. This was the stupidity of stupidity, the insanity among the most epic moments of insanity, the futility of trying to go against the immortals of Escana.

This is the futility of the human who tried to go out of the Mangora forest against his better judgment.

This is the fate of the human whose arrogance let him into thinking that banging a woman on the altar of Eogaill was a good idea.

This is the natural consequence of the moron who believed that he could outsmart the beings who have lived an endless time.

Laugh, motherfuckers, I told you to laugh.

My fingers laughed as they were commanded. I laughed so much in that deepest watery abyss. I doubted that the pain I felt was even real at that moment.

I suddenly remembered a line from a song that my father wrote for my mother, “I have sunk so low that I have no other way to go but up.”

I knew which way was up and which was down. However, I wasn’t sure which direction was the correct one to take. And then, I just knew it somehow. I laughed in the watery abyss like the insane moron that I was, flapping my legs and heading toward the wrong direction, again.

Get it done. I did not know whose voice that was, mine or Thùy Dương’s, but that changed nothing.

Feel the futility of trying to make me feel the futility of my stupid decision.

I declared the very moment that my head popped out of the water surface singing songs. Thus, I continued to swim toward a goal that never existed in the first place and will never be.

You think this would break me. Good luck. Let me tell you that thought is futility itself. You can never break an already broken man.

I swam and kept on swimming to prove my commitment to achieving true futility and stupidity. That was my burning purpose, the only thing that kept me going.

You cannot make an insane man insane.

There was a day that one of my fingers mentioned a familiar name. I had no idea whose name that was. My body dethroned me without warning and took a quick dive into the black water, now neither cold nor hot nor felt like water.

Alice

I started to remember who she was. The darker the watery abyss, the brighter the memory of Alice became. I did not just remember about Alice. I remembered her birthday. I remembered her phone number. I remembered her touch, her voice and everything about her that is precious and important inside my heart.

She was my sun, the sun that rises at dawn and set at dusk, the sun that people just take for granted.

I missed the taste of her lips, their sweetness, and bitterness. Her passionate kisses, her playful kisses, her awkward kisses, her reluctant kisses, her angry kisses, I remembered them all as if it was only yesterday.

The thought of Alice brought smiles to my lips before I took some ridiculous deep dives beneath the waves.

Whenever I was around her, I did not have to speak in a riddle, play mind game, scheme or lie. I can be a normal person whenever I am around her.

Don’t have to smile like a prince, don’t have to act like a celebrity, don’t have the urge to hunt demon, don’t have to be extraordinary, don’t even have to be Fearless…  

I wanted to hear her shouting at me again. I wanted to be slapped by her again. Nobody can slap me like she did. Nobody can make a slap hot like she did. But above everything, I wanted to hear her beautiful chuckles that brimmed with pure happiness the most.

There were moments I saw Alice’s phantom and hear the echo of her voice beneath the pitch-black water, in a place where not even the light of the wisps could reach. She was there in the deepest part of the watery abyss, speaking to me, waiting for me. However, the moment I touched the abyss, Alice was no longer there. I resurfaced and dove back to the abyss again because I heard her voice and saw her phantom. I kept trying to return to that place, chasing after her phantom like a fish chasing after its tail fin.

It was one seemingly endless dive after another, each trip became harder than the one before. However, I kept diving until my eyes could no longer find her phantom anywhere. The taste of her kisses was lost to me within the blandness of the black water. It was then that I understood that Alice was lost to me forever, just like Thùy Dương and Mrs. Hạ Đông did.

I had no idea why I was swimming still. Without a purpose, I swam for the sake of swimming alone. I swam because I simply could. I swam so much that I perhaps had left my brain somewhere in the deepest depth of the black water.

There were scattered moments that I thought about my father. As I dove into the black water, I asked him the secret of his strength, how he could love my mother for so long even after she has rested beneath her grave for more than a decade. I longed to understand him and his love. I have never understood how he could love my mother wholeheartedly like that, being alone for years even when she has already gone. I never could and probably never would.

Just like that, I kept on swimming. Because there was no purpose in swimming, there was no joy or resentment in doing so or any sense of accomplishment. I cannot even pat myself in my own back to tell me that “I have tried really really hard” and “It was only natural that I would give up.” However, even if I could do that now, I would not do it. I did not turn back, out of pure stupidity and insanity.

Why am I suffering this shit? There were moments that I asked myself that question. What am I doing? Or that question. What is the purpose of this futility? Or that What am I trying to prove?

Then, I realized that I have forgotten my purpose. What is a man without a purpose? A beast.

Fuck you all

I cursed, and still, I kept forging ahead. I rested whenever I felt like resting. I sang when I felt like singing. I took some deep dives whenever I felt like it. And then, I swam toward the goal that I would never reach, knowing that I only needed to end my misery by turning back. The more I swam, the bigger the desire to turn back became. The longer I stayed in this dream, the more I lost, that I have come to realize. I could no longer feel the coldness of the water. Or the pain that I needed to keep myself from going insane. Everything became murkier and murkier and murkier. I started to forget what everyone looked like. I knew what they sounded like, but their face blurred away from my mind the more I swam. And still, I swam like a fucking insane moron that I was. I wanted to stop and turned back. But I never did.

Get it done. Sometimes, I heard Thùy Dương’s phantom whispers but I did not even realize that it was her voice.

I swam and swam and swam and swam until I could not find the strength to take a dive to beneath waves to cry. I just did. I was exhaust, and yet I had the strength to cry somehow. I have forgotten many things. I have lost so many things. I could not even remember why I was doing something so stupid. I cried.

I’m done. I’m fucking done with this shit.

When I stopped crying, I swam again, faithfully. Sometimes, I saw an exit behind me, bright dreams they were. I cried, closed my eyes and forged ahead. I had no idea how much further must I swim. I would continue to swim no matter the length.

Then, at one point, I stopped swimming. No longer had I remembered anyone’s face, not FY, not Alice, not even my own.

I floated, just floated, letting the waves carry me toward the unreachable goal, doing nothing. My arms and legs were chunks of concrete, but they floated, somehow. I could not feel the pain of muscle-ache a long time ago, not I could feel that my limbs have given up on me. I was exhausted at everything. I was exhausted, too exhausted to cry, too exhausted to swim, too exhausted to think, too exhausted to gouge out my own eyes again. I welcomed the searing lights. I welcomed the perpetual darkness. I welcomed my exhaustion. I welcomed everything.

“I’m tired,” I sunk, let gravity take me deep into the pitch-black of the watery abyss, beaten.