As I fell unconscious, I was not greeted by oblivion, as I had been every time before. Rather, I was greeted by the man I had just laid to rest. "Rest? Not quite yet, I'm here to make sure you remember all I can force upon you." His words were partnered with an angry expression, the first I had seen him pull with that face.
I looked around our surroundings and recognised it as a government interrogation room from my first life, a TV in the corner played a news report on one of my last attacks.
At the bottom of the screen a recurring banner scrolled right to left, "Anglian Isles, agricultural territory latest target to be annihilated".
"I remember planting the flowers where her grave stood mere moments before. A final farewell." After the war, what was once my homeland comprising juxtaposed urban and rural areas, steeped in history, was flattened and every inch repurposed for cultivation.
As I finished speaking, the door flung open as the memory started in earnest. "Idir. You told us it would happen and now we know you aren't lying." The Idir that accompanied me was gone, and only a beaten memory of him shackled in painful restraints remained, sitting at the mercy of the interrogators.
He was sobbing, and asking how they could let me destroy it, adding "How could you let him lose himself so completely?" Seeing him still so concerned over me was brutal but I had imagined him even more heartbroken, as kind-hearted as he was.
He told them where I would attack next, and begged them to stop me, but they said they didn't care about that target and demanded to know where I would attack after that.
He looked horrified, I know why, the target after that had the largest civilian population of any before or would after. He slumped, then mumbled the name, "The correctional continent of Africa." The words ripped his heart out, and it was likely the only time he had ever referred to his homeland as such.
The memory then seemed to replay much faster, stopping for me to be face to face with myself as I looked toward the sky as the sun grew dark.
Then Idir asked me why I smiled. "A friend cared enough to stop me, how could I not feel joy?" He spat at me, but it just disappeared before reaching me. Then the memory flicked back to him in the room again, screaming at the news I had been stopped after dropping a volley of nuclear weapons on the continent. Of course that wasn't my method, and he knew he was responsible for telling the governmental forces where to aim them, then it flicked again to us in a courtroom.
(Though no trial was ever held, the accused just received whatever twisted correction took the judges fancy, nothing was off the table.)
"Idir, or rather citizen two-eight-nine-four-seven-three-three- five. You are hereby sentenced to human experimentation for aiding in the destruction of the correctional continent and many government lands. May your suffering help those in power achieve even more." The trial had never been more than a subtle execution, but the scene shocked me. Then Idir explained that with me gone they didn't feel the need to worry about further dissidents and dropped any pretext of justice.
The memory sped up yet again. Days unfed in an iron coffin holding shell, then dropped from the rack, the sound of cracking bones echoed in the metal vessel, more screams, then dragged to a transport, a blood trail following the metallic casket. He was swapped between several different transports, then dragged through an underground entrance where he was stripped, shaved, beaten, injected with several different concoctions then shoved into a glass tube.
As the tank he was in slowly filled, a familiar face walked into view, the quintessential mad scientist. Name unknown, body count from human experimentation estimated at almost half a million, if including indirectly under his orders, over six decades. I thought I had killed him so many times I lost count, which would explain why he looked so pleased to have Idir. "I wish you were him, but you aren't, so just do what you can to help make the powerholders immortal."
I couldn't believe they were still attempting that, in my time I found hundreds of references to different failed immortality experiments.
Time sped up once more.
For years he had new concoctions injected into his tank on a daily basis, along with other experiments, then suddenly nothing. More years passed and the fluid around him began to crystallize, then completely fossilised him. Suddenly unimaginable heat passed through me, as the ceiling was ripped away as though it was that of a toy house belonging to an angry child, which let me see the sky burn.
The tank caught fire, then exploded, as time slowed down for me to see it sending shards of glass and the crystalised fluid in every direction, then the air filled with screams as Idir burst into flame.
Time sped up again, to show me how for years he was burned alive whilst perpetually regenerating. Then he began to mutate, and whilst his skin glowed from the heat, it no longer burned and he made his way elsewhere. He never ate, there wasn't anything to eat, nor drink, I could see rain falling, but the ground surface was so hot it evaporated well before touching it then everything faded away.
"You don't need to see so much of nothing." Idir explained, clearly both frustrated and enamoured by lack of suffering as it was overshadowed by curious contemplation.
"When do we get to you arriving in this world?" I asked casually, hoping to gleam some insight into all the strange additions of that incarnation.
"What do you mean this world? I've always been here, ever since I was born." His previous emotions and thoughts were visibly shattering as if he suddenly realised he was trying to drive a mad man mad, or drown a fish in water.
He said it so matter of factly I had to believe him, if he knew how much that crushing truth wounded me, he would have savoured it more. "When I died, I met a god between life and death, I insulted him and he made me his judge, I would be sent to every world he controlled one by one, make a judgement, carry it out."
"You poor mad fool, there is only this world, and you and I have been haunting it for far longer than the universe had existed at our first meeting. I, as its living memory and you the recurring nightmare." I slumped, and he cocked his head. "You truly don't understand, do you? Every time life evolves a clock starts until the day you return, almost exactly three-hundred thousand years from the first human steps, on occasion, you wipe them out, sometimes you leave them be. Using innocent life as fodder for your whims."
I asked if the one before me was truly Idir, or just my mind making sense of something he had done, and he confirmed it was truly him, his soul having dissipated before reforming immediately in me as one last assault. Knowing he was an actual being made things easier and so I stood and used magic to force my memories into his mind.
"Y-y-you were used, all that time, by a god, gods?" Idir's forced epiphany, left him deflated, his overwhelming delicate nature unable to truly hold hatred for someone who didn't understand the offences they committed.
"Do not forgive me. You must make me carry my sins, but understand, I was mad, sick, pointed in a direction and left to destroy all in my path, then God did the same to punish me for my insult it seems. I do not consider that an excuse however, my actions were, are and always will be my responsibility."
He stepped back, as the gentle nature I briefly recognised disappeared again, he nodded and demanded I fulfill my desire to kill the one who allowed us to suffer. As soon as I agreed he continued running through his memories, helping me understand the world and the multitude of cycles that orbited, interacted, intertwined and ruled over the world. With that knowledge, and an understanding of the incomprehensible timeline it spanned, the many "different worlds" I had explored were understandable.
"I don't understand, though I have to ask, where did the girl come from? She seems almost anomalous, a kind of self contained cycle."
"I don't know, but from what I know now, change is weakness, which means she is the key to ending things once and for all. I just need to find the answer she unlocks before the countless cycles are fully restored. I also can't let her achieve whatever goals she has, I fear that might stabilise the whole thing." He jerked his head to the side suddenly. Then demanded to know how I spotted the flaw, I shook my head and gestured to show my ignorance, then explained that for some reason it all felt like he was reminding me of something more than teaching me.
He asked if perhaps I held no memory, but remained a subconscious observer and I told him there was no point constructing hypotheses we could not prove. Then as the displayed illustration began to flux, I pointed and shouted abruptly. "There!" I shouted as I caught a glimpse of a break in the time cycle at the moment of my latest incarnation. "Time is vulnerable, I can end this."
Idir became confused and enraged, more so as I waved him off before using magic to illustrate the plan I had formulated.
"You're going to change the nature of time?" Idir asked as he continued to examine the illustration, as if to figure out how I spotted it first.
"Yes, it should be quite easy for the next ten years, then very quickly impossible, but I can't just do it, it will sterilize the world, curse every soul with a greater measure of immortality I endured and rob the world of change. A truly stagnant existence." Idir sighed, told me not to mistake the meaning of his next words, then asked if I had finally found someone who could teach me how to love.
Confused beyond all reason, I told him I hadn't, but only because in my own way I love almost everyone and then told him if he had time to stick around and process it, he should absorb the non essential memories I had partitioned.
He told me not to worry about time whilst this lasted, that from what he could sense, the world was at a standstill, or we were processing information countless times faster to make it appear that way. He couldn't be sure since he lacked whatever innate understanding of such things I seemed to possess. Heeding my words he opened the seal, dropping to his knees. "You remember them all so clearly, every name, every face. All except one I notice, the one that broke your mind." He sighed, before pulling a face. "Wait… No, there seems to be several large holes in your memory and… Alterations?"
I turned my head away then asked if I could leave.
He nodded and demanded I proceed with my plan regardless of the living's feelings on the matter. Judging by his response when I told him I would only ever do what I think is right, he was both content and expecting that response. Then my eyes began to flicker open, did true unconsciousness feel like that? I couldn't remember, nothing was right, but everything else was wrong.
I had never opened my eyes to it before, nor did I think or feel its embrace, it felt more like the oblivion cocoon spell the other me made when it took over. Suddenly fear set in, as I realised that there were likely others nearby, I didn't have the luxury of being left alone. I couldn't see them, but I was sure someone must be nearby and they were in danger. "Get away or you'll die!"
"There isn't anyone in danger, well, you are, but no You'll" The figure walked into view upside down. A white featureless figure walked into view upside down, though in the nothingness I had inhabited I guess up and down didn't exist in this place. The figure of white turned to reveal two pitch black orbs and what I can only describe as the silhouette of a mouth. "Are concepts of direction really your priority?"
I shrugged and took a step forward. "You just said they aren't in danger, I'm too worn out to win another fight, kill me or get out of my way."
"Why would I kill myself, I'm gonna need my body soon enough, I simply meant we are in danger until you figure out what that girl is." I told myself that it was obvious, but relics of the past should stay out of the present's affairs, making myself laugh as the white figure changed to resemble my old self.
After the other me had fully restored into our original body, it looked at his hands, admitting that he was surprised I accepted the truth before he spelt it out for me.
I asked what point there would be in denying myself, making him grumble about my being more pragmatic than I thought, then he offered me a chance to remain in control. Reminding us how much we used to value pragmatism, and seemed thankful that at least that remained unchanged, before explaining that he decided to let himself run on idealistic autopilot upon our first reincarnation.
Then continued to explain how an entirely new personality formed, in other words me. I pushed the original into my subconscious, with grief and sorrow the only things that could open the prison door enough for him to peer through.
It made sense in a way I couldn't explain, like when Idir was telling me of all he learned, it was more akin to being reminded than educated. I asked if I'm right in remembering it was the tenth reincarnation he had become fully sealed. He nodded as we placed our hands behind our heads as a cradle, the way we did when we entered deep thought.
(It was disorienting seeing another me do it before me.)
I asked when exactly then the door began to reopen, and he said it was hard to judge, it was mostly hazy, but he remembered a face. "I think it was that girl, you had judged a magicless world guilty, then you found the girl whilst you hunted, her wrists flowing freely."
The memory was one that had stuck with me. I found her and wanted to help, but I had judged them guilty and could only hasten her end. The old me then reminded me how I cradled her, preparing to end her pain. I apologised that it had to happen, then she put a hand on my cheek…
"Why are you sorry, I did this because I wanted to, I just couldn't stand this world anymore." The girls' words and expressions repeated as the scene flashed through my mind.
It was strange but it looked like two films layered and edited to appear as a different third film, but the moment was unmistakable.
"Do you know why it roused me?" His words hurt, and whilst I am not an easy man to offend, his implication succeeded. My temper rose, and I completely lost control of it.
After mocking me briefly on how proud he was I still bore a spine, his stance shifted and he resumed his stance of ignorance as he asked what angered me so.
I demanded he remember, he of all people had no right to forget why he did what he did, so I bluntly reminded him of his (Or rather, our sins) then how it all started. Yet still he looked confused. "I arrived in the world fully formed, with the singular purpose to destroy it all." I wanted to kill myself in the strangest way, but it helped clarify things for me at least, he was my madness and nothing but the broken shell that I became.
I apologised to him for being so weak, I had to create him just to fulfil a desire I wasn't prepared to fulfil myself, a scapegoat designed to take blame for another's crimes. The apology angered him as much as his ignorance had me a moment before. The difference in how he responded to that was surprising. He lunged at me, with more bloodlust than the monarclaw had the day I met Fala, his immaterial form simply passing through me in a way that would be comical if it weren't so pathetic.
"I was born and suffered, in fifteen short years I was broken, so I created you to endure it all in my place. A tool I used then discarded when I found a more palatable life." He screamed that he was the real me, but I shook my head and corrected him, explaining that we were the real me.
We had acted as two distinct consciousness vying for control of a single body, but it was time for me to do what I should have from the start and accept the weight of my past fully. I proposed a challenge, if he won I would relinquish control for good, and if I won the two shards rejoined.
He sneered at me, stating that he would get that if he just waited he would achieve victory anyway, but I reminded him as twisted as his means were his goal was to make suffering short lived and this was a means to do that. He agreed before he knew it at that point, before hearing my terms, and I grinned before sentencing myself to a fate I could scarcely believe I was suggesting.
"We both live and experience my memory in its entirety, until either of us ceases to exist." He pointed out the contradiction, given that it was essentially a competition of suffering endurance, but he was me and could not break an agreement. As I pointed out that maybe if he acted with a little more heart and less focus this could have ended in his lifetime, he had a quizzical look on his face.
I then began to work on a recollection glyph, essentially a far more complex version of what I had done for Idir, adding in the details necessary for our wager to begin, then he approached ready to touch the glyph. Before activating it however, he suggested that if I was capable of putting heart aside and focusing a little more, we wouldn't need to do this.
When he was talking, he grabbed my hand as if to shake on our deal, activating the glyph in the process. The next thing I knew, I was a toddler in a memory I didn't even know I had the thin faces of my parents looking down on me. Speaking silently as though I remembered their mouths moving but not the words, which was hardly surprising, most people had very little in the way of such memories by their teenage years and I was well past those to put it mildly.
My years with them were filled with so much love, they gave me all they had, I was so completely enshrouded by the peace and care they gave me I allowed myself to forget what I would have to re experience.
Walking down a street just days after my fifth birthday, between the two people who had bestowed such joy upon me, each holding one of my hands in one of their own, then my mother pulled me to the ground. I looked across to her as a pool of red formed beneath her head. I nudged her as I asked if she was ok, then looked to my father when I got no answer from her but heard his voice from somewhere behind me.
He was talking to a man, both holding a bag, then the stranger shouted, released the bag then pulled dad's head to one side as something shined in his hand. I blinked as something hit me in the eye, I wiped it and my hand came away red, looking over to dad he was on the ground. Red pooling beneath him like it was with my mother.
People walked the street like we were invisible as I tried to wake them up, then a loud repetitive noise came from a vehicle to my side, and someone pulled me by the hair. I didn't need to see the memory to remember what was happening, impoverished people like us were livestock, no one cared when we died.
I was left to watch as my parents were "prepared for disposal", the men doing it commented on my creepy silence and how they usually had to knock the kids out to stop the crying, but they didn't know I was silent because I could feel my head splitting in two.
Knowing that was when my mind first cracked was a revelation, but it made sense I supposed, then continued to endure the rest of the memory. I was dumped in one of the many personnel training facilities, shaved bald, stripped bare and redressed in a training uniform.
When I was processed, an automaton grabbed and dragged me to the room I had been assigned. I should have been dropped on one of the metal slabs but everything froze.
"You can't see this I'm afraid, both your fates depend on it." The voice was feminine, but was unmistakably similar to the god who dragged this out.
I reached for a weapon, but they told me not to bother, reminding me I was currently a projection rooting through my own mind and hadn't the ability to do harm.
When I threatened that one day I would see them dead, the voice asked why since it was neither of those responsible, simply a third party trying to clean up the mess of two fools. I then asked if it had also stopped my other self from bearing witness, but the voice only told me that the moment they experienced love for the first time they ceased to exist, which meant I had been suffering alone.
The god then declined to answer questions I had yet to ask. Before I could say anything else, the voice told me to fall unconscious properly, and everything faded as it should have done initially.