The Shadow Over my Soul

    Natasha Weber

    The manacle dug ever deeper into Dagonet’s wrist as he waited for Sarah to return. By the slight change in light, he could tell that the sun was setting. His legs were getting tired, so he shifted into a different sitting position—stretching his legs out rather than crossing them.

    His stomach was beginning to growl at him and he began to worry myself silly that Sarah was not coming at all. It just seemed to Dagonet that she was late!

    The door thankfully clicked open and he heard Sarah pad over to him. “Sorry I’m late, Dagonet—I know how worried you get.”

    He felt her place a plate of food on his lap and he said to her, “thank you, Sarah. You know I depend on you for everything at the moment.”

    “I know you do.” She replied. “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe and well taken care of so long as you stay here.”

    “I’m glad I’m staying here forever, then. Life was so unpredictable outside.” Dagonet said with a contented smile.

    “I’m glad you like it here, Dagonet. But your eyes have to go soon in order for this paradise to be complete. I will give you the clearest set of glass eyes so things will no longer be unclear to you.” Sarah said cheerfully.

    “Will it hurt? I’m tired of things hurting…” Dagonet wondered worriedly.

    “No Dagonet. But you still need to give me the word to do it.” Sarah put her glass lips to his flesh ones. They were cold to the touch, but he desired them greatly. He wished he could see them clearly and he wish he could see her lovely face clearly.

    “Very well, you may replace my eyes.” Dagonet finally decided when a smile.

    Sarah sighed happily. “Good. I’ll bring the tools to make it happen tomorrow then. And slowly, one-by-one, we can do the same to the rest of your body so that we can have eternity together.”

    “I can’t wait,” Dagonet said excitedly.

    He heard Sarah climb to her feet as she made to leave, but he protested, “the manacle is a little tight… Can you loosen it a little?”

    “But you asked to be tied up like that…” Sarah replied.

    “I know… I just don’t want it to hurt.” Dagonet answered.

    Sarah did as he asked and graced him with one more long kiss before leaving.

    Dagonet looked toward the window where a change in light was happening; day was turning to night.

    Dagonet did not like the night. He found it too hard to see with his decaying eyes. He took a deep breath and shifted into a different sitting position.

    You have a destiny to fulfill.

    Dagonet sweated profusely as the voice of the lovely witch echoed in his mind.

    You cannot hide in that room and cower! You have people who need to laugh. You know you were destined to become a legend.

    Dagonet nervously pulled his knees up to his chest and wiggled the chain that was tied to the bed post.

    I must run away so these phantoms can no longer haunt me.

    After a moment, the voices stopped and Dagonet was able to relax. “I will not go back to you, witch. I have my lovely porcelain doll, food and water, and that is all a human needs. I have chained myself to paradise and I cannot be turned from it.”

    He heard the door click again and he gasped in fear.

    Will you choose that witch every time?  The shadows of his mind asked him as he heard whatever had entered the room creak closer and closer. The whole room seemed to rumble as it did.

    Through his foggy eyesight, it looked like a large creature and smelled like Sulphur but was otherwise a menacing and silent blur.

     It moved slowly—the house shaking with every step. It moaned and growled as it trudged closer and closer.

    The creature stopped right in front of him and he saw, through his dying eyes, its claws dripping with blood. It whispered to him, “do you fear the flames?”

    Dagonet was set to screaming in fear until the creature was gone and he realized he was imagining things.

    I am safe here. I need no longer fear these demons who would chase me to the ends of the earth.

    __

    Sarah arrived the next day with his glass eyes in hand. “Are you ready, darling?”

    Dagonet nodded. “I’m ready…”

    Sarah sat on him very provocatively—her porcelain thighs were gripping his hips as she faced him. “You’ll be so happy with the glass eyes I’ve chosen. They’re a beautiful shade of red.”

    Dagonet, being young, was filled with a desire for her as she seemed to tease him by sitting on him. He breathed more harshly and struggled under her body. Being the extremely neurotic type, he had never been confident with women and sweated nervously.

    Sarah giggled. “Once we get these eyes in, we can make love forever if you’d like.”

    Dagonet nodded aggressively. “That is what I want; to trade a lifetime of misery for a lifetime of pleasure.”

    Sarah looked at his eyes that were clouded over and nearly blinded from a previous incident. “I’m glad I got to you before you had to go through the rest of your trials.”

    Dagonet looked back at her and said passionately, “you saved me for sure…”

    Sarah then lifted the nail she had placed beside her and, before Dagonet could protest, stabbed it ruthlessly into both his eyes. His screams pierced the heavens and he struggled and tried to get the doll off of him but she would not budge. Warm blood ran down from his ruined eyes as he panted with fear and exertion.

    “There there, my love. You knew it would be painful. Let me clean you up.” His faced stung with pain as she dabbed his blood up with a rag that felt otherworldly and then tossed it aside.

    “Now, let’s get these into your head, shall we?” Sarah said, plunking the two glass eyes into his empty sockets and pushing them in until his body accepted them.

    “I… I cannot see.” Dagonet said fearfully. “What is wrong with these eyes?”

    “The best way to see clearly,” Sarah explained. “Is not to see at all.”

    Dagonet was furious. He wriggled the chain attached to the bed and swung at the doll with his free arm—it contacted and a newly formed crack ran up the doll’s arm.

    Sarah kissed him to calm him and make him forget all bitterness, duties, and attachments and think only of sweet and desirable things. “What happened to the sweet and funny clown I fell in love with? The one I wanted to spend eternity with? Tell me a joke, jester.”

    Dagonet calmed down after a moment of sheer fury and smiled a little, remembering a time in his life when he was not to be a legend and was instead a comedian and a jester. “A king, a president, and an emperor all walk into a bar. What’s the one thing they have in common?”

    “I don’t know. What do they?” Sarah asked with anticipation.

    “Mutual abuse of the common folk!”

    Sarah was set to giggling for as long as she needed to make Dagonet happy.

    And he was happy—for a moment… Until he remembered the witch’s laugh. That lovely and real cackle.

    But he must not think of her! She was attached to his destiny—to his legend.

    “What are you thinking about?” Sarah asked as she kissed his forehead over and over again.

    He said nothing for a moment as his thoughts were turned by the witch with the ugly wart on her green face, her ugly, large nose, and her voluptuous size. Her breasts sagged but were soft and a and a joy to lean his head against. Sarah was beautiful as all dolls were—more beautiful than the witch could ever hope to be—but her breasts were made of glass.

    I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss those breasts… Dagonet thought to himself with a wistful smile.

    Dagonet pushed Sarah off of him gently. “I want my eyes back…”

    “There is no replacing them. They were useless anyway.” Sarah murmured with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “Are you thinking of your old life again? You wanted me to lock you up in here for a reason, remember?”

    Dagonet was silent for a moment, and then he replied, “I know…”

    Dagonet was incredibly angry at the doll for getting rid of what was left of his eyes—but he forgave her because she was keeping him safe. But, he needed a moment to mourn.

    “Please leave, I need to be alone… We humans like to grieve silly things like our eyes.”

    Sarah was silent for a moment before saying huffily, “fine.”

    __

    And Dagonet was left alone to think about his lost eyes. He sighed. “What use is a woman made of glass if I can’t delight in her unreal looks…”

    Dagonet thought about the many things he would never see again and was dragged by the white arm of fear into an unfamiliar place where the only thing he could think about was the certainty of losing everything.

    And Dagonet did what all nervous and neurotic people did—worried himself until he felt like he was withering away.

    He heard the window slide open with a quick motion and a horrid smell wafted into the room—he recognized that disgusting odor! It had all but ruined his sense of smell two times before.

    He heard something fluttering towards him in the darkness and could do nothing to stop its approach.

    “I can’t get the stench out of my nose!” Dagonet struggled as the fluttering noise and the stench drew ever closer.

    The stench was up his nose eternally with the fluttering creature grabbing Dagonet’s entire face with one of its clawed hands—until Dagonet reminded himself that he was safe from those events—so long as he let Sarah hold him in her arms.

    The stench was gone from his nose for a moment, but he couldn’t wash away the old memories that came with it.

    He could still remember the very first day the oracle had come to him and told him in his first lifetime, “you have a grand destiny ahead of you; a legend to fulfill. You must stitch up time. You must face an uncertain future with certainty or time will become unraveled and you will have to start all over.”

    He was jester to the king at the time and, despite his shyness, made the whole court roar with laughter.

    That was what he loved doing. Making people laugh. He had no patience and no confidence to become a legend!

    But that first time the king asked him to entertain his court, Dagonet was so unsure and worried about failure that he ran away.

    And that was when he met Brunhilde on his way out the castle—the king’s witch and healer—who encouraged him before he made it out of the castle.

    She asked, “are you running? Running from something you love that makes you happy?”

    Dagonet made a face. “I don’t wish to be laughed at… At least, I want them to laugh with me and not at me.”

    “And so you’d rather them not laugh at all? How silly. You can’t always fear the future you know.” Brunhilde stated plainly.

    And Dagonet knew she was right.

    He headed back to the dining hall and put on the show of a lifetime. They laughed so hard they spilled their beverages and spat out food. He had never been happier in his life. And it was all thanks to the witch—the only woman he was confident with.

    Dagonet had been with women before—not excessively, however. He had a funny nose, a slight frame and a boyish face, but he was not altogether bad-looking. He was often overlooked by women because he was simply unconfident when it came to anything but making people laugh and he was a sweaty mess around them. He knew they were judging him.

    That fear of being judged—of not knowing exactly where his actions would lead cuffed him to constant anxiety.

    But it was different with the ugly witch, Brunhilde. Maybe it was because she was ugly that he felt he could relax and feel like she was not judging him--or maybe it was because she just always knew exactly what to say. But regardless, he fell in love with her in every lifetime he lived.

    __

    Sarah arrived the next morning and Dagonet couldn’t be happier to be safe from his thoughts of returning to time and his fate.

    “Have your thoughts been turned from fate for good yet?” Sarah asked.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    Dagonet shook his head. “No…”

    “I wish I could unchain you so you could walk with me outside. What happens when I leave, my darling? Where do your thoughts lead you while I am gone?”

    “Fear and… Flesh.” Dagonet explained.

    “Flesh?” Sarah queried. She said darkly, “like that witch?”

    Dagonet was silent. He didn’t wish to think of that witch, but he always did.

    Sarah turned her back to him and he heard her sniffle. “Here I am, the perfect woman in both demeanor and looks, and you still want her over me! What does she have that I don’t?”

    Big tits and a personality, Dagonet thought to himself with an inward laugh. Aloud he answered, “nothing. You have no flaws. Thank you for getting rid of my dying eyes.”

     “What shall I replace next? Your ears?” Sarah clapped her hands together in anticipation.

    “Yes… My ears. You promised—I mean… This will help me escape my destiny, right? Because when I am glass, time will no longer affect me, right?” Dagonet said uncertainly.

    “Of course. Just you wait…” She answered provocatively and kissed his human ear. “I have the tools to replace it now, if you so wish.”

    “Very well, but…” Dagonet looked upward with his blind eyes, struggling under her suffocating kisses. “Maybe you should unmanacle me now after all.”

    She stopped kissing him and made a face. “Why? You told me not to release you until I had entirely made you into glass so you wouldn’t change your mind!”

    “I know, but—I just want to be sure! I don’t want to feel like I am chained to this decision!” Dagonet told her honestly.

    “That was the point though!” Sarah stood up angrily and had a furious look on her pretty glass face that would terrify a man with sight. “You wanted a certain future! You begged me never to free you until you were made of glass so that you could be certain you’d be safe from your destiny! Are you changing your mind again? Do you wish to live the same life over and over where the only thing that is certain is the pain you will go through? You fail everytime. What’s the point of going back when you know that?”

    Dagonet was silent and thoughtful for a moment before saying, “you’re right; I was being foolish. You can take my ears.”

    And she chopped them off, dabbed up the blood with her magic cloth, and attached glass ears instead.

    Dagonet panicked when he could no longer hear. He struggled against the chain and yelled as loud as he could and was unsure if anyone could hear him. “I can’t hear! Help me!”

    He felt Sarah grab his face with her glass hands and felt her lips on his as his heart thumped like crazy.

    Eventually, his heartbeat evened and he was forced to let Sarah paw him in the darkness of his rash decision. He reached out with his free hand and tried to push her off him to no avail. Eventually, Sarah stopped pawing him and he assumed she was gone.

    He felt violated. He felt like she had abused his trust. She had left him alone in uncertain darkness, and he realized there was a nice symmetry to that as he thought he had done the same thing. He was the only thing standing between humanity and a dark future.

    Dagonet could no longer hear or see, but he could feel. Yet another phantom had entered the room that matched the trials he always went through in his destiny.

    It was Sarah herself again.

    It was normally an easy thing in his trials to refuse lust and paradise, but he was exhausted and had finally given up on everything.

    He let Sarah, who tempted him with her beauty and told him what he wanted to hear and touched him where he wanted to be touched take him away to this incredibly clean, ivory white room and begged her to chain him to the bed so he would never go back to his destiny.

    “This isn’t what I want…” Dagonet cried.“I want Brunhilde. Even if I have to watch her die everytime I fail, I want to be with her as long as possible.”

    In his life of uncertainty, Brunhilde was one of the only certain things. Everytime he failed and time leapt forward and he had to try again, she was the only thing that was the same. He would meet her every time he went on stage in every lifetime to make people laugh.

    He was always a jester in the past, or a comedian in the present, or just a… Man to make people laugh in the desolate future. And she was always a witch. She may have been in the disguise of an herbalist doing natural medicine—or even the disguise of a doctor--but she always had magic and they always met in the same way.

    She gave him the courage to get up on stage in every lifetime. She would say, “you’ll become a legend with such a funny act!”

    Dagonet smiled in the darkness of his poor decision. “I shouldn’t have run from you. Any small amount of time I have with you is better than eternity with a glass doll.”

    The final terror was coming for him—the one that would always get him in the end no matter how far he got in his trials—death itself!

    It grabbed his face with its cold, glass hand and ripped his human skin off.

    __

    Sarah unmancled her glass man and helped him up. “What would you like to do first, my love?”

    Dagonet stared blankly forward—barely cognizant of anything that had happened. “B-b-br…”

    Sarah glowered. “Would you like to make love first? Or go on a lovely walk?”

    Dagonet stared forward blankly and said nothing.

    “Ah, I see. You have not come into consciousness yet. Perhaps you need to be reminded you are conscious.” And Sarah kissed him aggressively—trying to wake him up.

    Dagonet spluttered, “let’s go on a walk.”

    Sarah shackled his hand to hers and they left the white room together. She nearly danced down the stairs in happiness in their perfectly clean, white home, as she threw the front door open and dragged Dagonet out the door with her.

    It was a luscious green jungle next to a beach outside. The blue sea was as clear and reflective as glass—the sky was a shining, pristine sapphire, and the sand was as soft as a pillow.

    “Come here,” Sarah said giddily to Dagonet, dragging him to the soft sand and lying down on it.

    She yanked him down after her and he lay on top of her and made love to her in an utterly passionless way that was just as artificial as she was.

    Dagonet stood up after that and he let Sarah drag him around their beautiful island in a barely conscious state.

    __

    Months passed, and all they did was explore the picturesque island and make love. There was nothing else to do. They had no need to eat, drink, or sleep.

    And Dagonet, the quiet and pristine glass doll, did whatever Sarah asked him to. Whatever soul he had left was slipping away from him slowly but surely.

    But, there was always something that kept him awake and conscious… The crack he had made in Sarah’s arm before.

    Sarah was climbing the rocky face of a cliff on the little island one day, and Dagonet followed after her. When she made it to the top of the cliff, she lent a hand to Dagonet and helped him up as well.

    But Sarah noticed a live thing at the top of the rocky cliff—a small ant. She glowered and turned to Dagonet with a frightening face. “Get me a rock,”

    Dagonet searched the cliff until he found a rock. He looked at the ant, full of life, and began to remember something very important, but he still couldn’t remember fully what it was.

    “Give me the rock!” Sarah demanded, her pretty face turning ugly.

     And, upon seeing the crack in Sarah’s arm, he remembered everything.

    He looked at her perfect, clear face and tossed the rock at her right eye.

    Like lightning, a crack was formed in her skin in a zig-zag fashion. She stared furiously at Dagonet. Her gaze could frighten even the most brave of men and women.

    Dagonet ignored her and looked into the distance and noticed a crack in the glassy sky through which he could see a desolate and dark country with a cloud hanging over it.

    And life was breathed back into him and all the good and bad things that came with it.

    The first were two of his core traits—humor and anxiety—and then the rest of who he was.

    Dagonet could see again.

    “I see through you now! Any reality is better than this empty paradise!” And Dagonet wrestled with her furiously. Being made of glass, neither of the two was stronger than the other.

    Dagonet grabbed her by the shoulders and through force of will overcame her strength and pinned her to the ground.

    He grabbed another rock—ready to smash her with it—but was stayed by her beautiful, but lifeless emerald eyes and suddenly felt nothing but pity for a doll who had no goals, no worries, no friends, and who had no other purpose than to be his temptress. She always knew her purpose and her future everytime time reset itself and yet she was no happier than he was. She was as empty as this paradise she had made for him.

    Dagonet stood up, dropped the rock to the side, and said to her, “are you happy here, Sarah? Isn’t there anything else you love besides me?”

    Sarah shook her head.

    “Can you take me back to the country you hid from me? There are things for you there. Maybe you can find real love there and not this fake love that desire has foisted upon you. Dagonet suggested. “You know… we both just wanted to resist time. Desire has made a ripple in time that I just can’t get past… I wanted to spend my life with the woman I loved, and that desire ripped a hole in my duty to the point where I couldn’t complete it, and now I am stuck in this loop where I just can’t… I just can’t move on. God, I’m so afraid of the future. So afraid of what will happen if I succeed, and what I know will happen if I don’t.”

    Sarah silently looked at him with a consternated frown and they were both quiet for a moment. And then she said, “you don’t understand just how lonely eternity is by yourself. Desire had finally gifted me to you like she promised, and now you want to leave me?”

    “I know how lonely eternity is, Sarah… I know better than anyone. But time has bestowed this legend upon me, and I must complete it. Take me home. You can live there with happy human friends. You can watch over them forever.” Dagonet said with a grin.

    Sarah looked at him intently. It was not her usual plastic, pretty face—pursed just right so that she could look appealing. This was a real face with tired cracks and a face twisted in an unconscious fashion. She said, “I’ll take you home.”

    “Thank you, Sarah. It is time I faced my destiny.” Dagonet replied.

    __

    And Sarah grabbed his hand and ran across the water on their fake island. At some point, they crossed onto the real, filthy, and blackened water of the ugly country Dagonet had overlooked while on the cliff.

    Should he let go of her hand, her magic would stop and he would fall into that ocean, and so he let her hold his hand until they arrived at the country with the dark sky.

    The city they arrived at was a mess. Buildings were on their sides, there were humans killing each other in the streets, and everything smelled like Sulphur.

    The glass man said to the glass woman, “you can go where you please; I have to find Brunhilde.”

    Sarah didn’t have enough time to give an answer—he was gone before she could.

    Brunhilde was a nurse at the hospital in this lifetime, and he headed there to meet her.

    He sped through the streets where gunfire rang in his ears and bullets flew by his head. If he died, time would just reset back to medieval times. There was always comfort and discomfort in knowing that.

    He turned right at an abandoned four-way intersection and ran along the sidewalk until he came upon a hospital with shattered windows. He ran inside and tried to find--among the nurses and doctors attending to the dozens of patients on stretchers--the voluptuous Brunhilde.

    He smiled to himself. You can’t miss her with those tits.

    And sure enough, he found the witch-nosed, ugly woman tending to a man with a missing leg. She turned to him when she saw him with a look of shock on her face. “Dagonet, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in the midst of your trials and—”

    He silenced her with a kiss. She kissed him back and wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could muster.

    She cackled when he took it too far as he often did in public and groped her breast. She backed away and said affectionately, “thank God you’re alive…”

    Dagonet grinned ear-to-ear and took a moment to memorize every line of her face and then put his palm on her cheek as a budding frown overtook his smile. “God, you’re so beautiful.”

    She shook her head. “Come on, no lies. I know you just like my breasts. No man could look at this nose and wart and genuinely say I was pretty.”

    Dagonet had tears in his eyes as he replied and buried his head in her shoulder, “I like those too… But I fell in love with something intangible about you that not even time itself can touch…”

    She sighed lovingly and kissed his cheek, which cooled her flesh lips.

    “But Dagonet, why are you made of glass? What happened?” She wondered as she led him away from the stretchers of dying men and to the privacy of an empty office.

    “Temptation, cowardice and exhaustion happened. I couldn’t stand to see death grip your neck one more time so I ran away with a woman made of glass because she promised me paradise instead of misery.” Dagonet explained.

    “Death grip my neck…?” Brunhilde asked him. She grinned brightly—her face scrunching up in a smile—and wrapped her arms around him. “This is why you let time repeat over and over like you told me it did? Because you don’t want to see a future without me? How silly you have been! I will one day be ash the same as anybody else and you fixate on one life and one life only?”

    Dagonet sighed and turned away. “No more of your cryptic, wise, witch sayings. Can’t you see what it does to me to see the woman I love die over and over again? And yet, anything is better than an unsure future without you in it. I… I haven’t been giving it my all when it comes to the final challenge because… Because I don’t want to see a future without you in it.”

    She poked his nose playfully. “You’re no fun when you let your neuroticism overtake your humor. Can’t you see the ultimate challenge time has put before you? You must choose between me and your duty, and you choose wrong everytime. You have come to me to tell you what to do, but you know this has ever been your legend to fulfill.”

    “I.. I want you to be apart of it.” Tears sprang from Dagonet’s glass eyes.

    “And so I will be when your legend is told to future generations over and over again. How romantic a thing it is that you should reset time for me and me only over and over again… But I never asked you to. I am willing to die to let time and humanity continue: Are you?”

    Dagonet looked at her longingly, but he gulped and nodded, inspired by her fearlessness. “For you, I will.”

    “Tell me a joke, one last time.” Brunhilde asked.

    Dagonet grinned and chuckled. “There once was a man who chose tits over humanity. But, they weren’t just tits, they were the softest, most comfortable tits in the world and they were always there for the man when his head was tired.”

    Brunhilde laughed uproariously and gave him the kisses he needed to last for eternity.

    __

    Dagonet stood in the barren desert just outside of the city where wind blew the sand about aggressively around him and said to time, “I am ready now. I have conquered your third challenge, now give me the next.”

    And everything stopped as it always did when he beckoned time in the holy desert.

    The sound cut out. The wind stopped blowing. Heat and cold alike evaporated. From the sky, a bridge made of sparkling rainbow light shot down and landed before Dagonet’s feet.

    He took a deep breath and ran up the bridge of light in silence.

    What a horrifying moment in time it was—this horrifying world where time was ever stopped and Dagonet was alone.

    He ran for minutes.

    And he ran for more, until he came to the top of the bridge of light where he jumped atop a bed of clouds and the fourth trial after Sarah came to greet him.

    The sky was so clear in these clouds that it was reflective. All was silent and clear as Dagonet waited for the fourth terror to emerge.

    And, as it had done many times, Dagonet’s reflection stepped out from the glassy sky and stood before him. It was not made of glass as he was at the moment, it was made of flesh like a human. The reflective Dagonet asked himself, “you are prepared now?”

    Dagonet nodded with a confident smile. He was silent for a moment before he asked, “answer me one question first. Why me? Why did time choose me to fulfill this destiny?”

    “You know the answer.”

    Dagonet thought about it, and his mind was as clear as his glass skin. “Because I have loved deeply, and it never went away. That is what time wants its message to humanity to be.”

    The reflective Dagonet nodded, and with a snap of his finger, he brought Brunhilde to his side who was still stopped in time. He held out a knife and killed her swiftly. “Know that you killed her with your own hand, but you did it for humanity.”

    Dagonet would never be unable to weep when she died. She was his everything.

    The reflective Dagonet disappeared and the real one knelt at Brunhilde’s side and allowed himself a moment to hold her close and kiss her goodbye. He closed his teary glass eyes with a loving smile. “I’ll never stop loving you…”

    And, as he held her in silence, everything around him began to be colored gray.

    The final terror came for Dagonet. A clawed, black hand of death that enshrouded his surroundings in blackness and came closer and closer to him until he said aloud, “I am not afraid of the future any more. I do not wish to die, and will not die here another time. Brunhilde was willing to die for the future and so am I.”

    And, as death reached out for him, he reached back and took its hand and he let it pull him into the future rather than push him into the past.

    __

    The future would never be clear and bright. Dagonet had found the courage to let time roll on, but he would always be afraid of the future.

    He had made it past that block in time desire had fashioned for him, but the world he came back to was just as bleak as ever, and there was no Brunhilde to brighten it.

    He remained a glass man, and he found the glass doll, Sarah, again, and the two became the best of friends as they made a pact to watch over humanity forever and spread Dagonet’s tale of love, humor, and anxiety.

    Far, far into the future when everything was made of metal but for Dagonet who was ever made of glass, he looked up at the sky and thought about Brunhilde and his repeating lifetimes with a fierce longing to go back to a time he considered to be paradise.

    “I suppose desire will ever be the shadow over my soul… But it will ever lose out to time and duty.”

    His love for Brunhilde was as eternal as time, however, and would always be a beacon of hope for human generations far into the dark and unclear future.

    You’ll become a legend with that act. Her voice ever echoed in his mind.

    “And you did, too.” Dagonet said with a smile.