[Unitopia, Eastern Continent]
The stars seemed apathetic as they watched above the remnants of the battle below. Millions of bodies, millions of lives thrown away. And for what. Their cause is meaningless. Their purpose is meaningless. They fight for a better life for those who come after, for a sunrise on a world they shall never witness. That's what they tell themselves, that's what their generals tell their COs to tell them.
They lie. In those short yet long seconds as they lie bleeding out, the harsh sounds of gunfire and explosions all around them, there is no peace in their hearts. No fulfilment. They die with grievances, with anger, with hatred. Against the world, against their comrades who left them behind, against the faceless enemy. It is a piteous anger, a powerless anger. A useless anger.
They die all the same. Along with millions of their comrades. The battle is over, only the wreckage remains. Under charred corpses and shattered vehicles, a finger twitches. Two eyes open on a soot-blackened face, but the eyes that stare look blankly. The stars above, so beautiful. So untouchable.
They do not care for his plight. People extol their beauty as though it were something worthy of praise. They said the same about him. That to fight was his duty, something to be proud of, something to be rewarded for.
Only bitterness remains in his heart. But bitterness, as is inevitable, sublimates into rage within the cauldron of one's mind. Bitterness is directed inwards, but rage faces outwards. It is both a ward and a spear against a cruel, unfeeling world. They would say to temper it, to quell it, to quench it, to suppress it in the name of what's 'good'.
What do they know of 'good', those who send men to kill and die. The man's finger twitched. His rage was all-encompassing now. Not only his enemy, his fellow soldiers, his generals. Those at home who he once fought for, why should they sleep on soft beds? Safe under a roof? When he lies chilled to the bone, crushed under the weight of his friends?
It is not fair. At last the man came to a realisation and his rage evaporated, leaving behind something pure and distilled from contaminants. Something concentrated. This was beyond rage, beyond hatred, beyond fury. It was peaceful and serene. It elevated his mind beyond such mortal inclinations. But as quick as it came, it left. Taking with it the tranquility it bestowed, leaving behind only hollowness.
And that realisation.
The world itself, is malevolent. The stars were not apathetic. No. So close to passing through the Pale into death's domain, the mortal veil had been lifted from his ignorant eyes. The stars mocked him. They looked down at the mortal ants scurrying with nothing more than amusement. He could hear their piercing laughter, it burrowed and ate away at his reason, at his thought. But it reached something it could not eat through.
Something...of steel.
That simple realisation, one that boiled away his despair, replacing it with something...harder. Too long had he blamed himself, others, circumstance, chance. No longer. The world was not simply an apathetic collection of events occurring and colliding to create the strings of causality.
There was a force that controlled it. And that force was undeniably, absolutely malevolent in nature. It hated him and wished him suffer.
And so, like a switch in his brain, the man was enveloped by the warm cushion of glorious purpose. Seconds ago, he was apathetic towards it all, content to wither away among the countless brothers around him. He was nothing special, after all. Mediocre as a child, mediocre as a friend, mediocre as a soldier. There was no reason he of all those around him should have survived. Nothing but a stroke of golden stroke of luck in a life of dull greys and blacks.
But now, his purpose drove him like a fire burning in his stomach. The malevolence in this world. He must know what it is, he must find it, he must understand it. Whether it exists within the people that inhabit it, in the trees and the insects and the animals. He will find the source of it and cleanse it -
No, he laughed self-deprecatingly. He had no need for such a noble pursuit. It would be hypocritical of him to claim such a thing when it was those sweet lies that led him to the pits of hell that surrounded him. The ever-present stench of rotting meat, the squelch of something he knew yet wished he didn't crushing him from above. The cries of his brothers as they killed, as they died, as they left him to die.
Those cries would not let him. They clawed at him from below, as though consigning his soul to the depths of Tartarus for the crime of living.
No, he was not alive. The man he was before had died on this battlefield. He was nothing more than a spectre, a ghost clinging on pathetically with the sheer strength of resentment. It would not be fitting for such a despicable person to pursue something pure. His goal would reflect him and his path. And he would be content.
He glared hatefully at the glittering stars that mocked from their hideous thrones. They flashed with fury, that an insect had dared to fight against them. They had noticed him and they warned him, not in words but in a deluge of raw meaning:
Bow to us. You are nothing. Fear us.
Be Afraid.
His soot-blackened face twitched into a rictus grin.
"Afraid?", his parched throat seemed to tear with every syllable, but the pain had long since faded into a constant background. His black eyes reflected the starlight back against them like a challenge against their superiority.
"I shall carve the meaning of that word into your very core."
The stars flashed and the man felt their inhuman shock breaking through their amusement.
'So they too are fallible'
His grin grew even wider.
'If it bleeds, it dies'
"By my own decree, I hereby vow. I shall claw you from the firmament and consign you to the very depths of hell."
His voice was hoarse yet the man seemed to see the ghosts of his fellow soldiers rise around him in his death-addled mind. They added their own spectral voice to his declaration, layering it deep onto his soul. Whether he would succeed or not, his action had transcended him from the ranks of the ordinary into those who lived forever in the annals of Myth.
He who dared to pit his Fate against that of the Stars.
***
[Unitopia, Western Continent]
Ziriothrax and Jeffbob appeared at the outskirts of that forest, just before the gates to a small town. A rickety sign had some symbols scrawled on it.
"The Town of Endings", Ziriothrax mused. "What an odd name".
"Odd? I suppose so", a voice barked a laugh. "Though at the same time, it is so perfectly fitting."
Jeffbob and Ziriothrax turned to the newcomer. A ranger-looking fellow lounged on a chair outside the gates to the town, seemingly unfazed by the fact that a cricket was speaking and also had appeared from thin air in a flash of purple light along with some mythical creature his brain refused to comprehend. He had a rabbit head, complete with the floppy ears and evil red eyes, atop his body (complete with two arms and legs).
He had no view of behind him but Ziriothrax would hedge his bets he'd see a small, fluffy ball of a tail. The obvious sheaths on his waists and narrowed red eyes belied his 'cute' appearance, however. This man was dangerous, no doubt.
'But 'dangerous' is far from enough to deal with me', Ziriothrax thought menacingly.
"Perfectly fitting, you say...", Jeffbob rumbled amusedly. "You may be right about that."
The ranger fellow looked stunned for a few seconds before keeling over in laughter.
"Oh man, it's never a boring day here, let me tell you that", he wiped tears from his eyes as he continued. "But I have a sneaking feeling it's gonna get a hell of a lot more interesting with you two".