The bones used to be eternal, before I ascended. I would strip away certain caches of fat, I would go and add some muscle here and there, but it was never enough. I’d chop myself up like chicken (wings, legs, breast, thighs, wings, wings, wings) and get dinner ready for the ‘family’. And then I’d regrow my body later on and no one would notice a thing because I’d keep my unhappy form the same way it always was. And truly it was– I could eat myself away. I could. But such a thing would be selfish, eating myself and never giving it away. And I thought the bones would always be eternal.
Why? Because there was a parasite eating away at my muscles. The parasite brought the skeleton's growth to a shrieking halt too early, too. The parasite seemed indestructible.
It made my skin so soft and smooth, so I used it as a carpet after making dinner for the ‘family’. Before cutting out the fat, I made sure to put the skin I stripped into neat bundles. Neat piles of pretty fabric. Carpet on the floor. Curtains to hide from outdoors. Gags to shut my mouth and close my windpipe.
In spite of this, "HALT!" the larynx shrieked. Every day it made me shriek. My breathing never sounded like my own. And, “the bones are eternal,” it said.
“Perhaps,” I replied, with a new idea sprouting in my head. “Unless I get cremated.”
“But you won’t,” it shot back, “Because you won’t die.”
But my larynx was wrong. I did die after all. And not in the way it thought I would.
I cremated myself (with willpower, you can do anything) and I came back in a superior form (and I replaced the larynx, useless as it was), because I really do have too much to do on this earth.
The parasite died in the funeral pyre. It will never atrophy my muscles again. There’s dust of it still in my blood, but it reduces more and more with each subsequent regeneration. Point is, it’s dead. And I’m still alive, because I have too many things to do.
Look at all these fires, for instance. So many people burning in there. I don’t know if they’ll die or not, since I’ve never failed to save someone from the fires.
I leap into the fires and bring my people out, not worrying about my own burns or injuries since it will all grow back soon enough. I take out a friend and set him down on a patch of soft dirt. It’s cool and comforting, because it rained earlier. The weather varies wildly from square meter to square meter in here. It wasn’t always like this, the summers were only a couple months (and spring still existed) and the heat didn’t cause these constant fires, but these days? It’s been getting worse with each year. I told the ‘family’ I had about it too, but they didn’t notice (perhaps they never will; I’m far away from them (sorry) but I hope they’re happy).
Every time I lift up someone’s body out of the ashes, my regenerating/regenerated muscles work and get micro-tears and grow larger. And larger. And stronger. Perhaps someday I will stop regenerating my skin, stop regenerating my bones (because even when regenerated they come out a little wrong, a little like the way they were when I was a teenager), I’ll stop regenerating my fat and my cartilage and my blood, I’ll just be a being of pure muscle and strength.
But of course, muscle can’t work without bones. You can’t be strong without all those components. What even is strength, would it be enough if I had mental strength and nothing else, the way I did a long (pathetic) time ago? What if I hadn’t made myself physically invincible through sheer willpower? I suppose the willpower is mental strength. The ability to see all my friends burn and scoop them out of the flames and be patient as I get them all to safety… the ability to tear out my own tissue once everyone is safe and use said tissue to heal them up (it’ll grow once it’s in their wounds & they’ll be stronger (you’re welcome!)), the ability to stomach all that is mental strength. But it wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t have my physical ability. And my regenerative abilities could stop any moment, I don’t have much time left on this world (for I have sinned & must cleanse & cleanse & cleanse), so what will I be once I stop being invincible? If I collapse physically, will I also collapse mentally? I can’t. I won’t.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The buildings around here have quite beautiful architecture. I can’t describe them because they twist and dance in my vision, my vision is filled with static and I often see my RBCs and muscle cells cast shadows on my retinas (more muscle with each and every day, I need every cell I can make before I die/deteriorate), it’s quite sad to see when these beautiful buildings deteriorate and set themselves on fire in an act of self-destruction & remorse when they themselves aren’t responsible for the sins committed within them — that’s the people who desecrated them! It’s not the buildings’ fault! And yet they burn!
I go in to find more people in the building. They’re charred and crumbling, some of them, while others are waxifying. It’s fine because they’ll be healed once I help them. It only takes willpower (I’ll be dead soon). It only takes willpower. These people will feed on my flesh (wings, legs, breast, thighs, wings, dead parasite ashes, wings wings wings) and they will feel my energy coursing through them. Maybe some of them died in the fires, who knows, but they’ll rise up again the same way I did. Cleansed like me, guilty like me (because if it wasn’t the buildings’ fault that they were filled with sin…).
The burning of buildings is just another form of bodily collapse. The fat under her skin is melting. Mine isn't, though. I am indestructible. I will never die. I will keep leaping into the fires, my nerves were burned out already (and I refused to regenerate them) and I melted my brain into wax. And then I used the wax to make some scented candles. They are very calming, they will help the half-dead people recover both mentally and physically.
I have been said to have kindness in my eyes, but maybe the people who said that mistook a piece of shoddy regeneration of a melted eye as ‘kindness’. Mistook damage & a botched recovery as being ‘kindness’. What if they said that and it turned out I was deceiving them? Deception without even knowing it was deception? What if my deception in terms of larynx-molding and bone-molding and pheromone-molding became second nature and I extended the deception to kindness too? Of course, I loathe those who would even consider doing that (all I have is my morals & my invincibility, the latter may be false but shut up shut up) but what if, what if I have done it? Kindness is in actions, I know this, but kindness can be faked, there can be appearances of false kindness (like in one’s eyes) and I must avoid this falseness, I must, I must, I need to purify my sin of deception (sin of daring to make myself into a form I’m happy in; no one from my old life would recognise me, karma will get me)– I’m leaping into more and more fires.
Willpower is all it takes, willpower is all it takes, I might’ve been dead much later if I hadn’t forced my invincibility but there was no way to seek any ‘natural’ happiness and so here I am, and I will die much earlier than expected BUT UNTIL THEN, UNTIL I CRASH AND BURN I will embrace my invincibility and I will do EVERYTHING I can, I will repent (and stay guilty in spite of this) and I will regret it all and I will drink in my power until it’s gone. I’m so happy I can help everyone else, I’m SO happy about this I could die! And I will! And I HAVE, otherwise I wouldn’t BE in this form, because it’s forbidden and YET I’M HERE ANYWAY! It was and wasn’t a mistake! I’m sorry, I have sinned by becoming this, and I’ll repent and I regret it but I’m so powerful and the growth of every muscular cell is a beautiful taste on my tongue, phantom cells send the taste to a phantom brain and the collapse is inevitable but I was WONDERFUL in the short time I was alive! Willpower is all it takes to come back from the dead, I died EVERY SINGLE BREATH in the whole life and now I will keep on living and living and living and face just ONE more death, I’m ALIVE in the meantime, I’m TRULY ALIVE!
Come along with me (I’ll never ask for help), my friend, come along with me, I'll build my strength so greatly that in the end, I’ll collapse beneath my own muscle.
You are safe with me until I die.