Atention: The first Volume is Experimental. Therefore, there might be things, like the prose of the text, that you won't like. If it gets to strange, jump to the 2 Volume. The redemption starts there. But... I would love it if you gave this a chance. (P.S: Zirinos is a monster...)
3rd World – Deransu, galaxy of S
I want to kill my emperor.
The cold air beat against the window of my chambers with the same force as a horse's hooves stumbling on the stone floor of an enemy monastery. The wind, in turn, followed the pattern and roared with the same intensity as the window thundered. The air was heavy and icy, reminding me of things I didn't want to remember, but which pursued me, no matter how much I tried to push such memories away.
I say it again: I couldn't forget. Screams of terror, the irises of eyes losing their vitality, and the warmth of bodies fading away—this was and is my life. I stop playing the wounded maiden and send a maid to heat water for my bath. Dalla Decarias's burial had left me dirty with earth and exhausted, which was why I hadn't bathed the day before. In a few minutes, I find myself scrubbing my hands as if I had touched a piece of manure. Scrubbing them meant cleansing them—that is, in the culture of galaxy F. I wasn't from F, but I loved their way of thinking—If you've done something wrong, admit it and live with it on your conscience. Cleanse your hands and your soul, but don't cleanse your life. Live and be sad. And when you have dinner with your family, don't forget to scrub your hands again until they bleed. Because that's what you deserve when you break what isn't yours...
The water in my marble bathtub begins, little by little, to grow cold. And there was no way to feel that. I get out, and a maid wraps a towel around me and prepares my change of clothes.
"Don't do that. It's not necessary," I tell her. "I didn't get where I got by having a maid take care of me." The tone with which I said that came out much ruder than I intended. I liked Ferla, but I liked my freedom even more.
"As you wish, my lady." She prepares to leave, not forgetting to grab the edge of the dirty dress and lean forward in a simple bow.
"Don't call me lady either, Ferla. You know I don't like that."
"Oh, my lady! I heard a guard say that you'll only have to command one more expedition to the ruins on the other continent, and the Dar... Emperor, I meant to say, will let you live your life peacefully." She smiles like a lily that doesn't know it's about to be trampled by a battalion of enraged horses. "How cute you are, Ferla. But things aren't as simple as you think. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to have your life and not mine."
"Believe what you want, Ferla. But be careful what you hear and how close you get to the guards. Have you never asked yourself why you're the only maid taking care of me?"
"Yes, my lady." She says, her voice dropping slightly.
"Then you must know about the maid who was raped, you must know about the other who was dismembered, and the other who was silenced for saying something wrong in front of the emperor. I love you as if you were a sister, Ferla." I approach her and give her a tight hug. "But I need you to be careful with everything in this filthy palace. I don't want to see you dead before ninety."
"Yes, my lady." A tear falls from her eye, and she leaves the room. I smile slightly. "I hope what you said is true, Ferla. Or we'll both suffer for longer."
I remove the towel from my body and put on the golden armor, with a coat of arms on the chest. On that coat of arms was the detailed drawing of a sun as black as the black hole of J. Before the birth of this sun, legends told of the existence of another. And that other one was black, and despite its visual darkness, it still illuminated. "Who believes in such things?" I think. To me, these prophecies and legends served nothing to feed the nation.
I leave the room and walk through the city looking for conflict to stop and people to help, knowing full well that I can do nothing besides kill and hide. As I wander through the winding streets of Daglar, receiving nods and bows from people I don't know, I come across, in an alley, a girl as thin as the skeleton of a tall, weak man. She reminded me of myself on the day my father had sold me to a pedophile and I had fled, only to be caught by him right after... I keep walking, and when I reach the market, I buy bread. The journey didn't last long. Walking from one end of the capital to the other took only a few hours. And that was exactly why I managed to return to the girl and give her bread to eat. I shouldn't be doing such a thing; I might even die for it, but as commander of the order of knights, my work and my values revolve around helping the weakest and most useless.
The return journey also didn't take more than an hour or two. Being under the sun, walking with heavy armor, watching the people was tiring and made me feel remorse for my values as a commander. Not to mention that the only place with a time-control dome was the palace of that son of a bitch. But whenever I remembered the other things Darius made me do...
+-+
I enter the great palace. But instead of going to my chambers, I go to the emperor's hall. As soon as I arrived at the "house," I was informed that Darius had woken up in a bad mood and wanted to see me. "As if I were his mother. Maybe I'll put poison in his bottle. That way he'd die, and I'd be executed and wouldn't have to hear the piercing screams of the people I killed when I go to sleep."
"Good morning, Your Majesty," I proclaim with feigned happiness.
"Oh!" He looks me in the eyes. A sad smile, very unusual for his insensitive character, wets his face. "I saw... things, Helena... Horrible things. People dying in a cruel way. Much crueler than the way you kill my enemies."
Fortunately, only he and I knew what he was referring to. The death of Dalla Decarias last night. Dalla, Darius's sister, the emperor. He pauses. A tear escapes from his right eye and falls from his chin to the marble floor. Seconds later, he resumes:
"Last night I had a dream. Not one of those where I turn into a god and kill all my enemies. But a dark nightmare that sucked useful time from my life. It felt like I'd been there an entire lifetime. Without happiness; only sadness. Without connection to what makes life life, you know? In that nightmare, I saw a monster with red and yellow hair, worse than me, who killed and raped everyone and everything, in another world. A lying monster who lies to himself, saying he loves his father, but spends the rest of his life without giving him any importance. And then there's this kid. A true hero. He believes in honor and respect. But unfortunately..."
The king begins to cry. For the first time in five hundred years of total drought, the first drop of water falls in the desert. But the desire to kill the king was still there...