Surrounded by a black forest, snow, and night. Marching towards the unknown, barely making any progress. Each step brings back painful memories.

Large pillars in a distance, they fall down, crashing against the snow. Any minute, one could crush me.

Blizzard intensifies.

I hear a laugh, it's the monster again. Is it here to mock me?

I hate that crooked smile. It tries to speak again, but all I do is close my ears and keep walking. I pass by, not hearing a word it has to say.

I think about the past again.

Who I was.

I lived many years, many tears, I stopped feeling altogether. Now, I'm just an actor, who does what it takes. To get there, to the center of this mess.

I would like to tell you a story of how I had started, of the journey, but memories are malleable. I've learned it the hard way. Regardless, maybe what I believe to know now, will serve you as a lesson, once I'm gone.

I remember how I've started, poor and forgotten. Miserable. I had no skills to get where I am in the first place, it was all down to rotten luck and people I've met along the way, people who used and abused me, but as long as I was of use to them, I could push just a little forward.

Why none of them managed to dispose of me in the end?

Why am I still alive?

At the very beginning, there were two people who would consider me as their friend, two companions. I didn't return the bond. I was incapable of doing so.

Yes, that was just the very beginning, all of the journeys afterward were quite a lone ones.

One of those who considered me as their friend, turned out to be jealous, killed the only person who ever wanted to live a normal life with me... and I thought it was a suicide.

I cried in my room afterward, alone, but I still don't know why, since I didn't feel anything. As it always was.

I've learned the truth later, after that person also killed the other companion after he wanted to rescue me from that person. After that person inflicted pain upon me, by bringing back trauma that I wished would be forever forgotten.

Then, I was enslaved by the very same person.

Then, I was forced to lose my memory and brainwashed.

Then, I was lied to and made a servant and lover.

I'm disgusted by these memories, by what we shared, while I was stripped of my past. I was made a happy person, but I had always felt that something was wrong.

I recovered my memories, by pure luck.

That's when I schemed, that's when I waited, that's when I have killed that person and my own child.

Then, I wanted to die. I stood in front of a creature that consumed my psyche, hoping it'll end me. Apparently, it didn't want to feed on any of my experiences. I was in a rage, I tore it apart with my bare hands, making sure it'll suffer.

Then, I met them, heretics. I've fallen to the lowest of lows. Nothing mattered, nothing was sacred. All I wanted was to forget, using any means necessary, until I've learned how far those despicable people were capable of going, just to mock gods, to mock humanity, to mock morality.

I used to be with them, but they've gone too far.

I made sure none of them would survive.

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That day, a single person received a new life, but that person couldn't live with what happened.

I don't know why I've pulled that dagger out of that person's hand.

I don't know why I forced that person to live, regardless of nightmares that had to be endured each night.

For forcing that person to live, I've become the object of their hatred.

At last, that person could live a life that was no different than mine.

Is it a life worth living?

I don't know, but it's better than what that person had to endure.

Then, many years passed, so many that a normal person would already forget all that happened, but during my journey, my body was changed by all the events that happened to me, it was toyed with by creatures and powers that weren't limited by mortal dogmas.

I had my memories erased and replaced over and over again, just to be supposedly restored again.

I no longer know, If what I remember really is true.

I lived countless lives in simulated realities, building bonds with creations that had no soul or life in them, yet they imitated life perfectly.

I no longer desire to risk knowing another human being.

I no longer know If the path I walk is a real or a simulated one.

I was desynchronized into countless copies of myself. We are all the original ones, yet our stories will differ. My identity no longer belongs only to me.

Many times, I had to endure endless years of torture or nothingness, just because I've walked into the wrong place.

The fear that it will happen again is abnormal. I don't wish it to the worst of my enemies.

I sacrificed countless lives, just to save a multitude of times the lives of others. The closer I get to my goal, the more lives it costs to live. It's all on your conscience. Every second, an immeasurable amount of people will die, just so you can breathe.

When I find another city, all I can think of is how many people will I save by becoming the villain.

I was a slave to nations, for the time that's better left unspoken, just to climb up the ranks and learn that nothing can be changed, and I have to die and restart in another body replacement and find another path.

I walked a path where even death was not an option.

I walked those paths, and they required me to be ultimately good or become ultimately evil.

If I couldn't meet the criteria, I had to gamble with my life.

I've learned to lie, I've learned to live many lives, I've worn many masks.

Even the poorest beggar, could turn out to be a person capable of razing down entire nations, with all of your replacement bodies included.

Even the wisest king, could turn out to be a mere speck of dust in your path.

All the data we had, turned out to be guesswork, there were ways to measure our powers and capabilities... but you never knew, If the sources of information were fake or tampered with. Even If you had the ability to probe full minds, after all, that could happen, it was meaningless... and my mind had been probed more than once.

Even when you had an advantage in numbers, your life was still on the line.

I'm tired.

All I want to do is to lie down here, in the snow... and forget... disappear... vanish.

Why do I keep walking, then? Is my hatred towards what's out there, towards the point of all the answers, that strong?

I don't think so. I don't hate it anymore.

I've just set that goal at the beginning of my journey and stick to it. For reasons unknown.

Perhaps, I'm bound to my past, I cling to it, to all the wrongs that happened. I tell myself that it's what defines me as a person, me as me. I don't want to lose it.

The monster is still following, observing me.

I can still hear its laugh.

I know that the monster is stronger than me, I know that I can't face it.

What would happen, If I turned my back, would it stop laughing?

I looked at the sky, but all I could see was countless, gleamy yellow eyes blinking and staring at me.

"Don't look at them!" - I heard a whisper behind me. It was the monster.

I wanted to turn my head, but it warned. - "Don't turn back, just walk!"

I'm tired.

I don't care what happens to me.

I don't know why, but its constant laugh irritates me. - "Why are you laughing?"

"It's not me! Don't speak!"

So, I kept walking. Followed by the monster, who knows for how long, until the daybreak.

I heard how the monster fell, so I turned.

The sight was horrific, beyond anything I could describe.

"Help..." - It uttered.

I didn't know how.

"...help..."

"I can't."

"...carry ..me... to..." - It lost consciousness.

I didn't want to touch that thing, but deep inside I knew, that it protected me. From dangers beyond my comprehension.

Should I carry it, or leave it in this forsaken place to die?

It's still, a monster.

But do I care anymore?