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[>>Now replaying: Log 3.10.3 - Virtual Insanity]

Date: Error

Location: The Bunker at Progress’ Head // Zephyro’s Domain

//Ah, what a world we are living in.//

//Everyone handles loss and shock differently. There is a lot to be written about which hormones our body produces when, how it affects and is affected by our mental states, but in the end, we’re all human. In response to trauma, some people withdraw, some get angry, some cry and yes, some laugh. The only problem with that is when they don’t stop laughing, or start craving trauma so that they may laugh like that again, just one more time…

Ah, anyway, let’s break another finger, shall we? Ah! How fun!//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

E1 %Ah, so you admit they ignored it! And when the Saint confronted the Lords about these issues, they did not take it well.%

E2 %When the lords confronted her about these issues, she did not take it well.%

I giggled.

The quiet, short noise sounded crazy, even to me.

But I couldn’t help it. It was either that or crying.

It was my Wish. There was no room for doubt anymore. Logic was my Wish. I started laughing, not stopping even as Zephyro recoiled, not even as the moment the kid died in front of me replayed over and over in my head. Not even when everything hurt and I started sobbing.

I must have looked absolutely insane, crying from shock, disgust, horror, and grief, and laughing at the same time. And to be honest, I felt insane. The death of the kid had been so very real. It had broken something inside me, and now all the bullshit I had been holding back came pouring out.

My Republic. My people. My friends. All gone, except for Chris, who was so close yet so very far away.

The loss and grief were almost killing me, and at the same time, Zephyro and his people were expecting me to… to what? Save them? How? I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready to save anyone, not even myself, and I was as far as anyone could be from being ready to rule again.

The mere thought of carrying that burden, of facing the possibility of failing another entire nation ground my sense of self to dust.

And above and over all that, my Wish tolled, eternal and uncaring, just like on that first day on the clearing. The monsters were ready to devour me whole, defenseless as I was, with the Wish ringing in my ears.

It was bizarre. It tore at my insides. It made me act like a lunatic. It made Zephyro pull away from me as if I had suddenly grown a second head. It made me scared of disappointing even more people so that I would be alone forever and ever. It left nothing of me but the weak, powerless woman I had always been, pretending to be good at what she did until people fell for it, just so that she wasn’t alone.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

No. That wasn’t true. I was more than that. And yet, my fear held me in a stranglehold, forced me to sit by and watch as more injustice happened around me in a vain effort to keep my head down, to keep me safe.

It made me so fucking angry.

“WHAT?” I yelled, spreading my arms and taking a step toward Zephyro in challenge.

He took another step back, a hand on his sword. “Sultana…” his voice had an uncertain tremble in it, but no malice. It took the wind out of my sails immediately. The shame was just too strong.

My arms dropped to my side and I leaned against the wall, sliding down to slump on the floor. Even though I knew we had to keep moving, I couldn’t move a single muscle. All I wanted was to curl up and die as painlessly as possible, just to make the shame stop. That was why I liked anger. Anger kept me moving, it didn’t make me collapse in a dusty alleyway while rampaging mutant-wolf-machines were trying to kill me. It didn’t let me sit around idly while just a street away, children were getting shot to pieces.

To my surprise, Zephyro sat next to me.

He didn’t say anything, as lost in thought as I.

Silence stretched between us, measured in screams and explosions and plastic-ripping roars.

We could have sat there for ages, probably. We needed to keep going, something inside my heart told me. This couldn’t be the end. I had promises to keep. But I couldn’t stand, no matter how much I tried to muster the courage to get up and take another step.

“I wasn’t always like this,” I said, sniffling. Actually sniffling like a damn teenager.

“I have heard of that, Sultana. That ability to change.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, rubbing my eyes with the expensive cloth of my robes. “Everyone changes.”

“Not us, Sultana. We have a purpose, and will always follow that to the end.”

“That sounds like something I could use right about now,” I said with a brittle smile.

“Ah, Sultana, you misapprehend me. The scout will scout, the baker will bake, the mason will cut stone, and I will defend them, until my last thought. We do know doubt, and we know fear, but in the end, we will always march onward. I think humans do so as well, no?”

“I…don’t know,” I said, paused, and then explained, “I don’t know if I can do this, Zephyro. Not again. I’m just a scared, weak woman with too many regrets to carry.”

“Ah, but you weren’t always that, Sultana, were you? Otherwise, they would not call you Saint Samantha, or Salvatrix, Hailsbringer, or Torchbearer.”

“They also called me Dagger, Witch Queen, Tyrant Divine, Surgeon of Wexler, and many other things, Zephyro. I am just so tired of trying to be all the things people are trying to see in me.” I let my head fall against the wall, enjoying that brief amount of pain that reminded me I was alive enough to hurt.

God, I sounded like an Emo band front singer.

“Sultana, though I can never imagine the burden that rests on your shoulders, Allah would not have given it to you if He did not believe you to be the person to carry them.”

“If so, God can fuck right off and try to carry this shit himself,” I said with a tired sigh.

The Vizier looked more than slightly taken aback at that, and I shook my head in apology.

“Not a believer, Zephyro. Never have been. Sorry.”

“But have you not received your Blessing from one of His Angels? Are you not His Prophet, sent to this world to do His will?” he asked, incredulous. “How can you not believe in Him?”

I shook my head again, more vigorous this time. “I never said that. I think some people took some stuff out of context, and then the entire thing just… spread. As for the angel and receiving my powers from God, I might have, or I might not. For all I know, I ate the wrong kind of mushroom and dreamed the whole thing.” That however would mean I also dreamed my entire life on Earth, and that seemed a bit of a stretch. But I didn’t tell Zephyro that. It was something I would probably struggle with for the rest of my eternal life.

“Anyway,” I said to skip around the more problematic parts of this conversation, “I never did anything grand. All I did was find the right people at the right time and help them do stuff. Without meeting Chris, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve a fraction of the progress that we accomplished together. Without Stax, I wouldn’t have had an army, let alone been able to lead it. Without Patti and even fucking Olre, I would have been mired in politics and never gotten anything done. Without Lorelye, the people would never have loved me as they did, and without—“ I stopped as the memories became too painful.

“Ah, doesn’t matter. The point is I didn’t do shit, I just had friends who did great things and was along for the ride. I was just a bystander who got lucky. A pretty face people could project their dreams on.”

“Be that as it may, Sultana, but without you, these people would never have met. They would never have shared one dream, one vision for the future.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

He laughed. “There was never any doubt, but you are a leader, Sultana. Like me.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right.” I’d be lucky if I’d ever be half the leader Zephyro was.

“This role is not an easy burden to bear, oh Sultana if you permit my insolence. But from what I have read of your exploits, you are more than well suited for the task.”

“Perhaps. But that was a different woman, Zephyro. To risk sounding poetic as fuck, she didn’t know defeat.”

“This is true, Sultana, and not just because you have spoken it in your utmost wisdom. But if you are not this woman anymore, it means you have changed. And that means you can change again.”

My sinuses clogged up and I had to stare up at the sky to not cry again.

“Fuck you,” I mumbled, but without any heat. I could have sworn he chuckled. Smug bastard.