My chest seized as blood painted the grass below. My legs buckled, trembling with pain as I wheezed in and out.
I pushed my hand against a tree and sighed. "Fuck, these bastards are really persistent, aren't they?"
Hunting me down like some mutt, like some plague on this world, was it warranted?
Well, maybe. It was my fault. I had placed my belief into something, and I was careless.
Careless to believe in something beyond my weakness, something beyond my own humanity.
Humanity is evil. We're born innocent, and yet we find it just to defile ourselves with ideals. I'm no different.
There is nothing I stand for that is just. I'm only another human, vile and filled with sin. The sin I committed was grave. It cost lives.
It cost the very humanity I sought to protect. And for that, how could I reject it?
It was my laziness, my lack of compassion, my refusal to push forward that burdened me with this ruin.
Arrows blurred past me as I stumbled forward. I looked back to see men clad in black armor charging toward me.
They bore that damn seal, painted with a gold so fake, so unholy, I could be damned to Hell.
The Golden Authority.
The most vile, self-righteous pieces of humanity, masquerading as if they were pure.
And yet they commit the most heinous acts. Anstalionah has gone to ruin forever because we let them in.
I spun around, my long black hair sweeping across my face. I cursed, brushed it aside, then ducked.
A sword sliced over my head as a man stepped forward. I leapt back and landed hard on my spine, coughing as they surrounded me.
I laughed. "It's the way you look at me that really gets me going. It's almost like I'm a monster to you people."
The one in the most elaborate armor stepped forward, exuding a terrible, suffocating aura.
He removed his helm, revealing short, scruffy silver hair, black eyes, and pale pink lips.
His skin was like snow, and yet his words fell like ashen rain. "Nothing. It's the act of doing nothing I despise most."
He drew his sword and handed his helm to the man on his left.
"And you, Nicholas. Well, fuck. You're the most vile of them all, masquerading as some hero."
He pressed the blade against my neck. "You're a monster, and the Heavens will never accept you."
I laughed again, a sound teetering between bitterness and exhaustion. It wasn't his fault. I am nothing.
That's why I wanted it so badly. That's why I needed it to work.
Humans cherish life. We praise it as sacred, a miracle wrapped in flesh. But in the end, it always leads here. To this unraveling. To death.
We dress that truth in pageantry. We invent false idols. Build nations. Craft justice. Ignite wars.
Glorify vengeance. Romanticize love. And we smother pain with ritual.
All to shield ourselves from the unblinking truth that death is not the opposite of life, it's its dictator.
We are creatures of paradox. We injure to feel. We lie to endure.
We fabricate meaning like architects building towers on the sand, pretending the tide won't rise.
Me? I was the most delusional of them all. Because despite that truth, despite that fact... I continued.
Even after my parents' death, I found a way to gain control over my illness. I became something. I fought to become something more.
Now I was in rags, wounded, dying from a cough I've had since birth.
My lips quivered as a smile shifted across them. "Heaven is a city of innocence. It's a city of joy and continuous peace. Not even I would dare dream of it."
He sighed, and shook his head solemnly. "Nicholas, with that power, you could have been everything. You are something."
He looked away as the soldiers began to move. "Mirabel would have wanted better. We all did."
[His nightmare was finally beginning.]
I heard a voice. It was loud.
[He would soon come to realize he was nothing.]
My body began to shiver. Blood splashed. I collapsed, my head rolling across the bloodstained grass.
[Wake, O beacon of nothing. Your dream is over.]
There was an eternal darkness within me. But it was filled with the seed of humility, and I was brought back to the light.
That light has since faded, along with my foolish ambition. Along with that ambition was my life.
Floating in the expanse of nothing, I rested in a place of death and life, a duality I accepted as my coffin.
Yet from that acceptance came revelation.
I saw it: my long black hair, now streaked with white, dancing. My skin shone like caramelized bark.
Then my eyes, once sealed in death, opened, blank and white like untouched canvas.
From that sight, I sprouted wings.
Black and burning like a phoenix of darkness.
And I flew, flew until I reached a grand sea. From that sea, I ascended toward the surface.
Water splashed.
At first, pain. Searing pain through my chest, my arms, my legs, my head. Then came the awakening. The revitalization of my ability.
Was this it? After everything, after exhausting all possibilities, was it truly death?
Clarity struck, no longer distant. No longer vague. I was holding a wooden sword.
I looked up, dazed, and saw her.
"Nicholas! I told you, stop daydreaming and keep your stance tight!"
A pale blue sky. Rough dirt underfoot. Guards in white armor bearing black roses on their backs. The scent of bread and wine. And her.
Long silver-red hair. Dark ruby eyes. Skin like a goddess, smooth, clean, and colored like sand.
She wore a loose black shirt and tight black pants hugging her legs. Her tall brown boots slammed into the dirt as she scowled.
A face I had seen in every possible condition.
Mirabel, my future wife.
I slowly raised my sword, hand trembling as the world spun around me. The memory lingered like smoke behind my eyes, flickering, then gone.
Then I tasted it. Blood. Warm, metallic, sliding from my lips.
[Nicholas finally came to a conclusion. But oddly, he seemed to reject death. And like a phoenix, he rose.]
"Shit. Nick, it's blood! You're bleeding again!"
Mirabel rushed to me without hesitation, wrapping a towel around my face. Her hands trembled even more than mine.
"I didn't realize the medicine wore off already. I thought we had more time."
She pressed the fabric harder, frustration on the edge of panic.
"Why aren't you saying anything? Are you mad? I hate when you go quiet like this…"
People were watching. Some with concern. Some with fear. Others with that familiar look of veiled disgust.
[Nicholas was starting to come to terms. He was... bewildered.]
I was alive. Still standing. Still breathing. So this was it, the accumulation of all my effort.
Blood ran down my chin, a sword in hand, training beside my young fiancée, while the world looked at me like I didn't belong in it.
She kept wiping, muttering under her breath. "Please don't lash out again. Last time…"
Her voice faltered. She hesitated. "Nick?"
[He finally realized something. All his actions, his goals, his ideals, they weren't without cause. They weren't without meaning.]
So it worked. I died... and came back.
The illness I've carried since birth, the weakness they all pitied, wasn't just sickness.
It was my Regalia. My intrinsic power. Embroidered into my being. A truth stitched into the core of who I am.
A gift that brought me back from the end.
I looked back at Mirable and reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Mirabel," I said, calmer than I felt. "Let's keep going."
"Next time, don't go easy on me. I'm going to be king. I need to be strong enough to carry that weight."
She blinked, caught between confusion and concern, but I didn't stop.
She slowly snapped back into position and raised her sword.
I chuckled softly, then tossed the towel to the ground and stepped back into position just as she did.
This was it.
My resurrection. My victory.