The rain had stopped long ago, and only darkness existed in this plane of conflict, the in-between state of separation. Its first, gentle, and soon overwhelming sound had subdued; silence ruled over all else; even in this darkness, silence was what haunted, what caused more fear, more uncertainty.
Empty. This darkness is so empty without you. Separation... how can one survive without the other? What is this freedom he had been forced to experience? Why was there no longer a hand to force him to take a path and make his way toward a destination, any destination?
The pain was still there. A feeling in this lonesome darkness that echoed through time and space in this endless void. This something that pulled him toward it, as if in a locked orbit, facing toward just it, but not in a physical sense. It feels... wrong.
This ought not to be.
He tries to pull away from this feeling... this invasive thought that presents itself at the forefront of his mind, of his stage, one shared with another; a monologue spoken in unison. But whose is it? Is it his or... his?
But each thought that he tries to distract himself with fails. He is pulled back toward his sun. Locked in orbit. There is no life unless it exists. If he strays too far from it, there is just the cold; if he finds himself any closer than this, then there is only the indulgence of this thought; there is only the fog; there is only suffering; there is only the fire that burns you from within. Guilt is all there is.
"But what if... I was to simply forget?"
Wasn't that exactly what he wanted? Wasn't that what he had thought before taking the first steps into the Veil? That he would no longer live just in the past, not just in the future, but now.
It's... funny. You try to get past it. You try so hard to break free from its grasp. And, perhaps, for a while, you find yourself free from doubts, from memories that present themselves as regrets. And you think that you've made it out. You've found the right door; you've left behind the house where every door leads to the same room. You've broken orbit.
You close this door behind you. You close your eyes, breathe out, and smile.
For a moment, you relax. You are free, are you not?
And you think that you can face every disappointment, every future mistake, and regret with grace and without fear, without falling into a previous version of yourself. But then you open your eyes…
Before you, there is a mirror. And in that mirror is someone like you.
The room is the same one you've tried to escape from. You never truly got out. You never escaped in the first place. You only convinced yourself that you had.
Everything has always led here…
You can't run from your past; you can't break your orbit. There are just two options for a traveler on his voyage through space and time: either a greater star, a larger attractor, becomes your anchor. Or... the sun devours you, only growing larger.
How long had it been? For how long had he tried? Hours? Days? Years? What was the point in trying if one is so used to, so ready, to give up? And just because he comes face-to-face with his own reflection, with his own deeds.
Locked in orbit, the two travelers went around their sun for a time impossible to define.
It swells. Something emerges from the darkness... a sound? The hum of a bell, a dissonance bouncing within the darkness, ricocheting continuously and without stopping, until the silence subdued itself, the darkness waned, the notion of orbit stopped, or rather it became less clear; now he was not the planet-bound to his orbit; now he was someone on that planet, someone unable to notice that there was such a thing in the first place.
Although it began as so distant and alien, it soon became a familiar tone. The hum and its pulse shifted and found a new form as reality—no, as another memory formed itself around him: a circular room with couches running along its edge; four people, all too familiar... Kanrel sat in the middle of the room, on a low platform covered with pillows... There seemed to be a heated exchange going on; an Atheian, Lou'Deu'n, seemed agitated, his voice shivered, and his eyes wavered. Then a silence.
Everyone looked at him, some with open shock, like Y'Kraun, others veiling it behind amusement, like A'Trou'n. A clear mistake. It had been a clear mistake. To demand something from someone far greater than yourself.
The rain had been too warm…
A mistake the scholar had realized far too late... his eyes widened, and he went to his knees, offering his hands toward the lord of the City of Creation in submission, and he begged for forgiveness…
A'Daur'Kra tapped his fingers on the surface of the couch. The only thing Kanrel could focus on. Arrhythmic, slow tapping. An unnerving pattern, or rather, a lack thereof. On his face, a gaze of profound amusement. Pleasure, he thrived in this moment. A'Daur'Kra sought and lived for moments like this.
"You dare to make demands—to me?" He asked, and a shiver ran through Kanrel's spine; the way he spoke had been too... leisurely, too relaxed, even when tension made everything unable to move.
"For how long can a fool remain amusing?" He stopped tapping his fingers—a conclusion had been reached. He got up from the couch and looked further down at the scholar.
"Tell me, Kanrel... What is the value of a single man?" He had asked back then. The same thing that he asked now.
Kanrel swallowed. He didn't have to do this again, did he? This time... this time he could say the correct words, could he not? This time, there would be no rain…
"His... his value is the same as yours; his life is... is as valuable as any life would be..." He floundered out what he thought to be a better conclusion. It was the other possible explanation that he had wanted to share back then, but A'Daur'Kra had stopped him.
The lord of the City of Creation scoffed. "Then it has no value." He declared.
His hand rose in a sudden, aggressive motion, pointing it up. The scholar burst toward the ceiling at the speed of an arrow flung from a bow. Up it went. Only to come in contact with the ceiling.
Squished against the gray stone, blood and guts gushing out. Too warm... too sticky... a heavy downpour. He felt so sick. The blood stuck to his clothes; it stuck to his hair; it stuck to his face, his hands, his legs, and his mind... so dirty; he was so dirty.
The rain continued, and no one moved. The grin on A'Daur'Kra's face remained there, frozen. Y'Kraun's paler-than-usual face, the shock and fear that had conquered his expression, became a more defined memory. The seemingly uninterested faces of Vaur'Kou'n and A'Trou'n, but deep within them, disgust.
The question was never asked, yet Kanrel still answered it: "Red... warm…"
"It... it isn't supposed to be like this."
It rains, and warmth covers all. The mangled, squished corpse of Lou'Deu'n baptized the room with blood. There is no thunder, only dripping. Droplets, these tears that place themselves over him. Warm and sticky... far too red.
"We all have our own rain, don't we?"
Ignar's voice was the only other sound that emerged, but he was not here, for it came from within, "Something we caused, be it directly or not." His voice was not a whisper but as if the rain itself were present, penetrating, impossible to ignore.
Kanrel paid no heed to his words; he couldn't quite yet. The world was soaked for him. The memory pooled around him, red and warm. The scholar's blood, his words, and his desperation. The silent tap of A'Daur'Kra's fingers. The ceiling. The body. The downpour.
Rain, not from the sky, but from a mind that could not forget. It shouldn't.
"You have perceived them as they are," Ignar said, his voice drenched with pity. "But they aren't so different from you and I."
"For what really is the difference between a Sharan and a Darshi? A Darshi and an Atheian? Or an Atheian and a Sharan? What is that which makes us so different from one another, Kanrel?"
No answer came.
"There is no difference," Ignar sighed. "Our sins are the same; yours and theirs are just of a lesser magnitude than mine and my people's…"
The bell rings again. Louder. Closer. It is like a heartbeat echoing from the corners of his mind. The blood dissolves into light, the room disappears, and so do the sinners that fill it. He was forced from his knees, forced to stumble to the next memory, to the next vision.
A smoldering darkness... a wall of ants or black worms traversing on its own surface without logic or reason. Shrieks of unimaginable fear and discontent for the man who stands at the edge, at the entrance to their domain. All of it is kept only at bay by the lanterns that work as the border between the light and the darkness.
Eyes... so many eyes somewhere, all around, within the Veil... they watch you; they wish for you to forget what you yourself are, the only absolution from sin that there is, but to be absolved, one must accept sins much heavier than your own. They had died for nothing…
"You've seen it, haven't you? What *we* did to them." Ignar's voice returned, this time as a whisper.
"You've heard their call, their pleas, and they have shown you the injustice that they went through, yet..." Ignar scoffed, "You still harnessed the very nature of magic itself... You burned a part of it as if forgiving a sin, a crime, one you have no right to forgive or absolve…"
"All they had wished was not to be forgotten, and still you chose to impose yourself upon it... Why?" He asked.
Kanrel shook his head. "I didn't know."
"Yes. You didn't know," Ignar agreed, but soon scoffed, "Neither did I, neither did my kin... no one did."
"Is not knowing enough of a reason to be forgiven? Does blissful ignorance absolve us of our sins?"
He shook his head. It wasn't right. He wanted to deny Ignar and his words. He wanted to fight against this thought, his belief, but... He could not; he could not fight it, for he believed as he did.
Kanrel hadn't known that his words would cause Lou'Deu'n's death, yet he still blamed himself for the fact that it did happen, even if A'Daur'Kra had planned to do so from the moment of Lou'Deu'n's transgression…
"Then let them show you, once more, the evils that they went through..." Ignar whispered; his voice was hollow.
"Let them show you what *we* did to them..." His bitter guilt is ever-present.
"Close your eyes... accept their suffering." His voice faded, and Kanrel was left alone, again.
He stood at the edge of the same darkness that he had stepped into before, but this time, he held no lantern in his own hands. In his mind, only doubt and fear... What would happen? Would everything happen again, all of this, would it all happen again? Would he have to bear witness to his own crimes once more?
No. He shook his head. It wouldn't be his crimes, not this time. It would be theirs... It had to be.
But would he want to see it all? Would he... survive if he saw it all? He swallowed; it was the only sound present. His heart palpitated, and anxious shivers ran through his mind, becoming physical, or at least presenting themselves as such. He stepped into the Veil... past the embrace of the blue lanterns, without protection, without anything that was certain. He knew not what would happen, nor even what could happen…
A violent rush of darkness assaulted him instantly as he left the presence of the lanterns; a wave of shadows rushed at him, and they covered him from all around. Wavering, quivering, smoldering—a physical touch of sorts. Just darkness; it was just cold. He could hear them, their voices loud and quiet, a chorus of pain and suffering. He took a few steps, only to find himself on his knees again. He couldn't breathe; he couldn't see, even when his eyes were forced more open than before. As new light entered him, it struck through him. He could see. He could see the darkness; he could see what they wanted him to see... but there was just pain; there was just torment. There was loss. They had lost so much. Why? Why did they have to suffer so much? Their god... their god had betrayed them…
His reopened eyes were so heavy, but through them, he could see, at last.
A field spreads itself as far as the eye can see. The cold wind touches his face and runs through his hair. The smell of summer in bloom blesses this moment and makes it oh-so-beautiful. A shiver rushes through him, and tears wet his eyes; they surge out, falling down his cheeks, against the skin and the scales that cover parts of his face. The sun is golden, and it glitters on the horizon; it pushes its light past the clouds that gather above it. It is beautiful. Yet he falls to his knees. His gaze was not placed on the beauty of the world but on the sight before him. A field where burned bodies grow. They are spread and blackened. This is the bloom that he had smelled. His stomach turns, and vomit spreads on the ground as he gags and gasps for air. They were his family. They were his friends. They were the people that he knew, that he had spent his life with. Who? Why? When? How?
He blinks, and a figure arises from the ashes. Tall and grand. Their existence is greater than the tallest mountains in the north. Their power is as great as the sun that sets behind them. They arose and walked toward him. A man more like a dragon than a man—a god. But their face shifts... a dragon, a Sharan, a man... Kalma, Ignar, Kanrel... someone who was he?
The god stopped before him and looked down at the pitiful creature who had lost all that made life worth living just moments before. "Why cry?" The god asked. "Is it not a great honor to be blessed in such a way?"
The man looked up, his teary eyes red. One would expect fear in such a moment. But it did not exist in his eyes. He did not shake, not with fear, not even with tears. He was so still. And slowly they replied with a simple motion. He shook his head, yet he said nothing.
The god stared at the creature beneath him. "No?" The god asked. That simple word is a slice that cuts through silence and sounds alike. There was no sound at that moment. There was no silence. There was just pain as the flames consumed the pitiful creature that had dared to shake his head to a god…
His eyes were forced to remain open, and he burned; afire, he was afire. He screamed, but there was no sound. There was just pain. It spread around his body; it consumed everything that he was—his body, his mind, and his soul—all in flames. It lasted for what felt like an eternity; it ran through him over and over again until the grips loosened and fully departed. He could see, he could hear, he could breathe…
The world was consumed by the flames, and from it, only ash was born. A wall of falling white. No fire. No field. No bodies. Only a sound, as if rain or the sound of a cascading waterfall, fills the world. No more pain or death to fill the air.
Formless. A rain without form, only sound. Rain, again—but this time it is not water. It is not blood. Just static. It pours from each direction, a wall of sound. It is raining, but it is not. It is sound, but it is not.
It is the deafening sound of absolute silence.
He floats in it. No physical sensations. No sensory illusions, other than the static, to uphold the illusion of existence. No pleasure. No joy. Nothing. This… is where memory dies and the sense of self dissolves. Absolute dissolution, or... transcendence... Numb clarity.
"Who was I? Really?"
"Is this... is this death?"
Just static and formless thoughts, presented as questions, not by himself but perhaps... by inexistence itself?
There could be thought... Perhaps, not even regrets. If so, could this then be freedom? At last?
"Nothing? Was I nothing? All this time? Then why was I ever?"
The static breaks, like a frozen ocean suddenly cracked in half by something... Through this formed crack in this deafening silence, a sensory illusion presents itself, another sound. A bell tolls for the final time. It echoes in the silence, ricocheting endlessly within it until there is no more static.
He gasps, and his eyes burst open. The Veil swells around him but parts away as if a gust of wind had pierced through it, allowing him a moment of something claiming to be reality.
The sound had torn through the silence, rasping and alive. Who is he? He searched for the answer from within, and so a thousand and thousands more images flickered through his mind; memories pushed themselves onto him; they forced themselves to be remembered so that he could become one with them. Everything that he has done, that he has ever witnessed, that he has ever felt, and that he has ever thought. Only to end in stillness and disappointment that culminates in a realization left unvoiced: "This is what I really am."
You think you can run from it; you think you can just live without its effects. But it will always surge at you; it will always come from you; it will always remind you of itself. Even when you think you've broken free from its oppressive grip, it grips harder; it squeezes you till you can barely breathe.
Then you must realize that you are your past. You realize that you are nothing without it—you have nothing without it. And it isn't just your own past; it is always the past of others as well. Everything is built atop it; the culture you're a part of, the cultures of others, your family and your friends, individuals and groups, they form collections of pasts that then become unified in some sense.
For what else is a man?
Kanrel lay on the ground for a while, dealing with what he could not unbecome. Yet even when he wished to stay here, to let the reapproaching fog of his mind dull him down, to make him stay put and without action, Kanrel still got up.
He found himself a location surrounded by the Veil, one free from its touch, and at the center of it stood a large globe... Not glowing, not turning, not humming. Metallic and vast, yet it did not dominate the cavern. It defined it. The darkness around it existed only to frame its presence as if the world itself bent inward to witness…
It hovered, held in place by chains that stretched outward in all directions—above, below, across unseen distances. They glinted faintly in the darkness, vanishing into the void beyond sight.
He had... he had seen this before. Felt it in visions—like a memory he was never meant to carry.
A sphere extends in each direction... and I am chained in the middle.
The words came to him uninvited, remembered from a dream that was not a dream. The voice, the whispering call. The hundred chains, taut with divine purpose, bind something—someone—inside.
His breath slowed. His feet moved on their own...