Malise. Malice. Malformed. Magnifacent.

These words were woven through John's mind as he looked at the world around him.

~Sleep deprivation is supposed to cause hallucinations isn't it."

He knew for certain that what he was seeing now was assuredly one of those hallucinations.

It could never be reality.

Even in the more fantastical state that the world had been thrust into.

Below John was a tale of broken dreams. Every failure lay there. Those failures were the floor.

In the air around John were stitched-together half-truths. Half sucesses. Heros that are painted by evil.

The above John in the often forgotten but always present sky.

There were the successes. The idyllic dreams with now a hint of flaw or failure woven into them.

It was pretty to look at. But sometimes it felt like the sky was made from wax.

Because it was destined to melt in the light of truth.

Fluttering through that sky was a vague hodgepodge of agony. It warped and blocked the idyllic success stories that flew through the sky and instead exposed tales of true agony.

The ones who die under the weight of the pain. The horrible stories that are never told. Even if they were to be told they would never be heard. As they spoke only of agony without even the most infinitesimal flickers of light.

Of course. This horrible thing fluttering through the sky took the form of something disturbingly familiar to John.

It was an absolutely massive envelope.

The envelope fell through the sky in a downward swoop.

John didn't know why. But he felt in his soul that it would burn him.

His hands twitched.

~I need a shield to prevent the flame.~

And funnily enough. There was a shield on the hopeless ground just a few feet away from him.

John bent down and picked up the shield while squinting at the images that the hopeless ground showed him.

Just as the envelope was right above John, he swung his shield above himself and squatted down.

"Doesn't it deserve to suffer? For what it did you. DOESN'T IT DESERVE TO SUFFER?!?!?!?"

Floating next to John was a shadow. John did not detect his presence until now. But he felt as if it had always been there…

John couldn't help but think to himself. It does deserve to suffer for what it did.

It should do more than suffer. I should just die…

"Suffering isn't enough."

With a titanic heave of force, John sent his shield firing into the air.

The shield was unable to block all the flames, given its distance. So John was burned. The pain should have been mind-bending. Burning was supposed to be one of the worst types of pain one could endure.

But somehow, it felt familiar.

The sound of crunching bones filled the sky. John jumped to the side and avoided the shield as it fell towards him. Then he turned to look towards the envelope as it fell.

It emanated purple flames.

.....

[The end of flames.]

The blue. The red. The skeletons. The rat and the monster.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

All of those ideas that had shaped my hysteria fell away.

Instead, I saw the world as it truly was.

Below me was a land of ash and ruin. Standing in that land was a humanoid whose eyes looked but didn't see.

But all of that was inconsequential to me.

Because I was going to fall, my ribcage and spine had been shattered, and my wings had bent back until they were useless.

So, there was no hope for me.

I wrote this upon my soul so my children would one day read it and be inspired.

To do that, I allocated the majority of my lifespan space to this tale of me.

Yet now I, the creature of flight, was falling to my death.

Sick, isn't it?

So those leagues of life-space left over were useless to me.

But not to the eggs inside me.

They could survive the fall. If they were strong.

And I would give every last moment of me so they could be strong….

AND SO I IGNTE!

Purple flames surround me. The core of my being. My past. My place in history. My future. They all burn.

I know these flames will leave no ashes. They will leave behind only life.

I must admit. It's bittersweet.

But it's better than tragedy.

[Goodbye.]

.....

The envelope vanished in a puff of smoke an instant before it could hit the ground.

Left behind were three eggs. One took one a red hue, and the other took on a blue hue and the last one took on a green hue

In between these three eggs was a book.

"Go ahead. Read it." Said the wounded shadow.

John had to oblige.

He walked towards the book and picked it up.

John noted that it looked to be only a few pages long. That was good. John wasn't much of a reader.

He preferred to get his stories through sitcoms.

He opened the book and flipped through the pages.

Things flickered. The run hue of the world turned blue. Then green. Then finally it finished at a net nothing.

A sense of horror flooded through John. He knew the pages had revealed something. Something horrible.

Something he would never want to see.

~Don't look. Don't look.~

John looked.

The three eggs were babies. They were curled up into balls and sucking their thumbs.

And in between those three eggs. Was a woman.

She was a young woman. Late twenties at most or early thirties at least.

Her chest was caved in, and she was covered in blood. It dotted her lips like some kind of horrid lipstick. It ran down her face and drenched her torso. From there, the blood steppled down to her pants and painted them in red streaks.

She was dead. John realized with a building sense of horror.

"WHAT DID SHE EVER DO TO YOU?!?!?!?!"

John's head snapped in the direction of the voice.

Floating in the air near John was a young girl. She had her hair tied into twin tails and wore a small sun dress. She had a look of utter disgust on her face.

John could recognize that hairstyle anywhere.

It was the shadow.