You can't trust a word they utter. For them, the concept of lies and truths is nothing more than a shifting mood. They acknowledge no objectivity. Their every breath is tainted by sentiment, bending reality into whatever shape pleases them. Never trust the Seraphim. They are no different from the Immemorial Archons: always a truth hidden within a lie, hidden within a truth, hidden within another lie. My only advice is simple–never meet one.
—Rathyrahyagruc, The Untrustworthy
The lineage of the Aeonic Demiurge has long since been eradicated. A shallow and unnecessary breed, they corrupted the balance of reality so thoroughly that their extinction became inevitable. On this matter, I find myself agreeing with the Oblivion Sentinels. For more than five hundred iterative Epochs, the Demiurge lingered as a persistent nuisance. Yet, in their zeal, the Sentinels extended judgment too far, casting out the "others" as well, branding them an upset to reality's balance. Now, we are left with these "vermin" to preside over the mechanization of existence.
—Deve Lanche of Antiquity
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Andrew had no illusions about what they wanted. Yet he trusted not a single word from the lips of the stunning woman who had drawn him in. Insanity did not make him a fool. He chose to follow because he no longer cared what happened to him. Death seemed a release he could not earn, and if these people believed there was some value left in a madman like him, he would let them try.
He no longer saw a reason to live. After all he had done, he considered himself a monster, worthy only of a grotesque, humiliating death. He clung to this belief, or at least he tried to. He wanted to convince himself there was guilt inside him, even the faintest shred. Yet he failed, again and again.
Andrew Starfield felt nothing but a hollow vacancy inside. It wasn't because he didn't know the faces of the million he had slaughtered. They were strangers, yes, but still human. And yet the guilt would not come. Or was it that he truly felt nothing?
It should have been impossible to imagine the weight of over a million corpses. But Andrew didn't have to imagine. He had seen them… the seven pyramids of gore, rising like monuments from hell. Each structure built from torn limbs, mangled bodies, headless torsos. Entrails spilled over the grotesque formations, and blood streamed in rivers down their sides, staining the earth below.
He could still see it with horrifying clarity, the carnage of his own making. Those one million dead were not numbers they were visions branded into his memory. So why, then, did he feel no guilt? Why was he untouched by the horror of what he had wrought?
It had not always been so. In the beginning, his mind was plagued with voices, phantoms shrieking with the echoes of the dying. Their screams had shattered his desire to live, turned his very thoughts into a nightmare world. But something had changed. Something had shifted after he met her–that impossibly captivating woman.
The hunger for death began to wither. In its place grew a strange, inexplicable desire to live. Illogical, irrational… and amusing to him.
You really deserve to die horribly… The thought came clear, untainted, for once his own. No intrusive voices. No torment but his own.
"So… what are your abilities, and what passive trait did you choose?" Jane's voice broke through.
Andrew's gray eyes, vacant and empty, lifted to meet hers. For a fleeting moment, a spark returned to them, erasing the void as though it had never been. He had almost forgotten where he was.
"My abilities?" he echoed.
"Indeed. What are your powers, Mr. Andrew?" Jane's tone was patient. Her long, slender finger tapped rhythmically against the metal table, each soft ring like a needle in the silence.
To her left sat Isabella, eyes closed, arms folded across her chest, radiating disinterest. To her right was Adam, sunk deep in meditation, the strain evident on his eyelids.
Andrew looked down at his wrists, bound by thick metal cuffs bolted to the heavy table. Their cold bite sank into his skin. Around him stretched a sterile white chamber, barren save for the sleek cameras fixed in every corner, one of which watched him from the tabletop, its black lens unblinking.
"Self-Causality Manipulation and Visionary. I don't remember the trait I chose." His voice was flat, mechanical.
The cuffs seemed to leech something from him, dispersing it into the void, leaving behind a false tranquility he could neither grasp nor resist. He drifted in the current of it, letting it carry him wherever it pleased.
"Self-Causality Manipulation and Visionary?" Jane repeated, more astonished than confused, though confusion lingered in her eyes.
She turned to Adam, who shook his head without breaking his meditative state. Then to Isabella, who remained statuesque, eyes still shut, expression fixed in apathy.
"Isabella?" Jane prompted softly, her blue eyes sharp with expectation.
'Isabella… so that's your name,' Andrew thought, studying her closely.
"There were rumors of two hidden abilities," Isabella said at last, her voice smooth and detached, her eyes still closed. "They weren't visible to most when we, the Chosen, made our choices. Officially, there were said to be thirteen. In truth, it seems there were fifteen. I dismissed it as rumor. But now…" her eyes opened, emerald pupils locking with Andrew's, "We have living proof."
Jane frowned. "And you never thought to tell me this?"
"I told you, I dismissed it. If I'd given it importance, I'd have spoken. Blame Ashran and James; they are the ones responsible for gathering intelligence on all things concerning the Chosen. My silence should have meant nothing. My entire purpose is to run your errands, right?" Isabella shrugged, though her eyes no longer left Andrew's.
He was enthralled. No, entranced. She was perfection incarnate, so flawless she stripped away his rationality. Her eyes devoured him, pulling him into a mire of desire and sin. He wanted more, but she had already stolen his soul.
"What reason could explain why so few saw the other two abilities?" Jane muttered, more to herself than anyone else.
"Do you even know how to use them, your abilities that is?" she pressed, her voice sharpening. "No, that's the wrong question. You do know. The calamity of Grede itself was the display of your power, wasn't it? The lives of the civilian to fill an empty void? Didn't you take pleasure from the grotesque carnage you unleashed? Didn't you relish in misery and death you caused, Andrew?"
The air thickened, growing hot, heavy. Breathing became a strain.
"I didn't kill them…" The words slipped from Andrew's lips before he realized. By the time he did, it was too late.
"Oh really?" Jane's voice cut cold, her blue eyes narrowing. "Andrew, there are few Chosen we don't know. And you are not one of them."
"I didn't kill them! Why would I?"
"Exactly. That's what we want to know." Her voice sharpened further, merciless. "Why would you massacre a city of powerless civilians? For amusement? For cruelty? For nothing at all?"
Jane's piercing gaze locked him in place.
And so it began. She pulled him into a conversation that spiraled for hours, dragging him across memory, logic, and contradiction. Isabella, untouched by it all, remained seated in boredom, her eyes closed once more. Adam, unchanged, continued his meditation, unbroken by the storm between Andrew and Jane.
And Andrew–he couldn't explain how–but Jane drew him out. Against his will, against his emptiness, she made him speak.
"Insanity is your excuse, that's what I'm hearing, right?" Jane, her voice now coated with malice, asked rheotrically.
"Lives of millions were lost and the only thing you can do is blame it on your mental illness? Really?" Jane stopped tapping the metal with her fingers as she sat upright, her blue eyes staring at Andrew with suppressed wrath.
"I've told you the truth. I didn't kill them and if you desire to think I did, then, you can. You want to kill me for what I've done? Fine, go ahead." Andrew sighed tiredly.
He was tired. Really tired. He just wanted everything to end. Was it the weight of guilty pressing down on him? But he didn't feel guilty for what he'd allegedly done. What was it that was driving him towards the embrace of death?
Just then, a voice–Not loud yet it held a power that made it heard by all–sounded within the confines of this monotonous room.
"Dear Chosens… I am Pathrax, The Present. Before you, I stand to herald a message from the Providence."