I woke up. I promptly refused and fell back to sleep.
This must have repeated at least a few times because eventually, a very worried looking Selve was what I saw when I first woke up. Unpleasant. He looked even more dirty than the first time I’d seen him. Which didn’t even make sense, he had to have showered or something to get the blood off.
Ah, oh right, blood.
Nope.
I turned over and went back to sleep.
“Derek?”
Or at least I wanted to.
“Sleep time.”
“Derek, it’s been three days.”
“Sleeeeepppppp time.”
“Please Derek! You have to at least eat something!”
“SLEEEEPPPP TIMMMMEEEE.”
I tried to go back to sleep. I really did. But now that I had been disturbed and could feel the worry radiating off Selve, I sighed and at least turned over in the bed I was in.
“Shoooo, go away. Sleep time. No thinking.”
“Please Derek. Please, I’ll even bring your food to you. Just please eat and drink something.”
God damn it. Now I was really going to have to wake up. I suddenly felt hungry, tired, and like I had to piss like a racehorse. Thank you oh so much Selve.
I ambled my way out of bed and took care of morning business, trying to ignore the pounding headache I felt from using a very non modern looking toilet. Curse you foul thoughts! You aren’t going to catch me today! I’m going to piss, and eat, and drink, and go back to bed, and not think about anything else! I refuse!
Oh, what a glorious plan it was. It was a perfect, nice, great plan. I even made it all the way from the bathroom to following Selve down the hall towards breakfast when I noticed he was limping. That brought me up short and the dam broke and I just, stopped.
I looked down, at what I had been ignoring. There were white bandages on my arms, chest, and legs. I looked like someone had carved up my front and cut up and down my arms.
Thump.
“Derek?!”
I fell. Or sat. Or whatever. I just, I couldn’t, my head was processing.
This wasn’t possible. It had to be said, I had to say it eventually. This was a fantasy world. With elves and magic and, I looked at the claws on my hands. I felt the wings on my back, the tail underneath me, even the tiny weight on my head from my horns. I had never felt so, vulnerable. Fragile.
The day before hand rushed back into me.
That shuttering hell that was blocked off from me.
That hell was a real place.
That souls were now a confirmed existence and there was an, or multiple, afterlives.
I had barely scratched the surface of what I had been through and yet I was already feeling the weight and the pressure on my mind. I had experienced something, awful. Something that defied what I understood as humanly possible. And it had well and truly broken me, broken my very soul. Something I knew intuitively was suppose to be near impossible. And how on earth was I suppose to know that?
I rubbed my temples, trying to work my mind through it all.
I had then arrived, a broken mess of a man, relying on logic alone. That period of time was, vague. It was only a small part of me, that was there. The rest of me was, scattered. I felt my heart beat racing.
How much had I broken, how much had happened to much in such a short amount of time?
Right after my destruction, my mind made itself up to save others. I latched onto that like a dying fish, marveling at myself. I was well and truly broken. I had no emotions, no deeper sense of self, no thoughts or worries or concerns. I was more like a statue or a robot. But down to the root of it at all, I was still a good person. I still wanted to help. Maybe part of it was selfish, not wanting my own mind to collapse and die, but I wouldn’t have imagined that was what I was like at the end of the road.
I felt awe and embarrassment that I felt awe. No person should be so impressed with themself for having a moral code they actually followed. I shook it off and followed the mental trail. There was a group of truly terrible, awful bastards that needed to die. And I had been the one to kill them.
My claws, digging into a chest. My tail, piercing a throat. I felt sweat start to pour over me, especially as I remembered the impending doom of over a dozen trained men coming at me at once. The pure chaos I had been in inwardly. The pure danger I had been in outwardly.
And I had killed them, slaughtered them all.
I felt… nothing.
No. No that was a lie.
I felt… I felt…
Furious.
They were worse than cockroaches, worse than parasites. They deserved eradi-fucking-cation. And I had done so. And I couldn’t even be happy about it, like I had done a good deed. It felt more like having to incinerate a house consumed by mold. Where’s the happiness in that? The house is gone. So what if the mold is too, it never should have happened in the first place and something was lost in the process. Something cared for had been corrupted, poisoned, and ruined. A net negative.
My mind did uncover its first mixed feelings though. I had expected to feel bad about murdering people. But no, those things were less than human in my eyes. They deserved it, and more.
No, what I felt conflicted on was hell.
Even filth didn’t deserve to go there. That place, I couldn’t even imagine an atrocity or crime that could be permitted where that was justified punishment. The idea that I might have sent people there… wrong. It was wrong.
‘A never ending plain of eternal torture. A trillion, trillion souls, endless, in perpetual torment. Screaming, screaming, Screaming’
I shook my head when I felt like I had run into a brick wall. Right, no thinking about hell. The fact that I can’t actually remember anything beyond feelings and tiny snippets is a blessing, let’s not try and break that.
It’d just be something I’d have to live with. No one deserved hell. Not rapists, not murderers, not even the most vile men I could think of. But it’s not like I controlled that. All I knew was that it existed. For all I knew all those men went to Valhalla or the greek Underworld. Seriously doubted Christians had a monopoly on being right about the afterlife. So, so I’d just have to ignore it for now.
That did not make me feel good. The idea of damning someone to, well, eternal damnation was a bit too much for the morning.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked over. I blinked. At some point, Selve had sat down with me in the middle of the hallway. He was looking at me, a look of understanding on his face. That, and gratitude.
“Thank you.”
I had heard the words before, and they hit me harder the second time. It was simple, but it carried so much weight. So much emotion. I swallowed thickly. Damn it Selve. I can see the bandages under your shirt you bastard. What do I even say? I was at a true loss for words. I wasn’t Selve, I hadn’t lost a damn thing in comparison.
I looked into his eyes and at his face, and saw a soul that had weathered a storm 10x my reckoning. That had lost more than I had ever had. There was nothing but gratitude there, on his rough worn face. Selve was around my age but he looked like an old man in my eyes at that moment. His sunken eyes, his cracked teeth, his face so use to being in a rictus of rage, the whites of his eyes more use to being bloodshot than any other color. I knew now, like I knew then, what I needed to say.
I put my own hand on his shoulder, looked into his eyes, and said simple words.
“We killed them all.”
I promised. And I keep my promises.
I’d never seen bloodlust mix with the pure joy of victory before, but I would engrave the sight I was seeing into my mind. This was my beginning, but it was your story Selve. You were the protagonist and me the weapon. Your village is saved. Your people freed and the dead avenged. May their souls rest in peace and your village be whole again.
We both took deep breaths and stood up, shaking off the serious atmosphere. There’d be time for the future in the future. Right now? Food sounded delicious.
We walked towards the heavenly smell, just happy to be alive.
I opened the doors with a smile, only to see almost two dozen women stop eating and look up at me. The room froze, growing silent as death itself. I froze too, not expecting or prepared.
In that small slice of time, a familiar elf wearing much more clothing walked in. She broke the silence and I immediately wished she hadn’t.
“Thank you for saving us!” She practically shouted at the top of her lungs, before doing a solid 90 degree bow.
The whole room exploded and a wave of women ran at me.
I woke up. I promptly refused and fell back to sleep.
This must have repeated at least a few times because eventually, a very worried looking Selve was what I saw when I first woke up. Unpleasant. He looked even more dirty than the first time I’d seen him. Which didn’t even make sense, he had to have showered or something to get the blood off.
Ah, oh right, blood.
Nope.
I turned over and went back to sleep.
“Derek?”
Or at least I wanted to.
“Sleep time.”
“Derek, it’s been three days.”
“Sleeeeepppppp time.”
“Please Derek! You have to at least eat something!”
“SLEEEEPPPP TIMMMMEEEE.”
I tried to go back to sleep. I really did. But now that I had been disturbed and could feel the worry radiating off Selve, I sighed and at least turned over in the bed I was in.
“Shoooo, go away. Sleep time. No thinking.”
“Please Derek. Please, I’ll even bring your food to you. Just please eat and drink something.”
God damn it. Now I was really going to have to wake up. I suddenly felt hungry, tired, and like I had to piss like a racehorse. Thank you oh so much Selve.
I ambled my way out of bed and took care of morning business, trying to ignore the pounding headache I felt from using a very non modern looking toilet. Curse you foul thoughts! You aren’t going to catch me today! I’m going to piss, and eat, and drink, and go back to bed, and not think about anything else! I refuse!
Oh, what a glorious plan it was. It was a perfect, nice, great plan. I even made it all the way from the bathroom to following Selve down the hall towards breakfast when I noticed he was limping. That brought me up short and the dam broke and I just, stopped.
I looked down, at what I had been ignoring. There were white bandages on my arms, chest, and legs. I looked like someone had carved up my front and cut up and down my arms.
Thump.
“Derek?!”
I fell. Or sat. Or whatever. I just, I couldn’t, my head was processing.
This wasn’t possible. It had to be said, I had to say it eventually. This was a fantasy world. With elves and magic and, I looked at the claws on my hands. I felt the wings on my back, the tail underneath me, even the tiny weight on my head from my horns. I had never felt so, vulnerable. Fragile.
The day before hand rushed back into me.
That shuttering hell that was blocked off from me.
That hell was a real place.
That souls were now a confirmed existence and there was an, or multiple, afterlives.
I had barely scratched the surface of what I had been through and yet I was already feeling the weight and the pressure on my mind. I had experienced something, awful. Something that defied what I understood as humanly possible. And it had well and truly broken me, broken my very soul. Something I knew intuitively was suppose to be near impossible. And how on earth was I suppose to know that?
I rubbed my temples, trying to work my mind through it all.
I had then arrived, a broken mess of a man, relying on logic alone. That period of time was, vague. It was only a small part of me, that was there. The rest of me was, scattered. I felt my heart beat racing.
How much had I broken, how much had happened to much in such a short amount of time?
Right after my destruction, my mind made itself up to save others. I latched onto that like a dying fish, marveling at myself. I was well and truly broken. I had no emotions, no deeper sense of self, no thoughts or worries or concerns. I was more like a statue or a robot. But down to the root of it at all, I was still a good person. I still wanted to help. Maybe part of it was selfish, not wanting my own mind to collapse and die, but I wouldn’t have imagined that was what I was like at the end of the road.
I felt awe and embarrassment that I felt awe. No person should be so impressed with themself for having a moral code they actually followed. I shook it off and followed the mental trail. There was a group of truly terrible, awful bastards that needed to die. And I had been the one to kill them.
My claws, digging into a chest. My tail, piercing a throat. I felt sweat start to pour over me, especially as I remembered the impending doom of over a dozen trained men coming at me at once. The pure chaos I had been in inwardly. The pure danger I had been in outwardly.
And I had killed them, slaughtered them all.
I felt… nothing.
No. No that was a lie.
I felt… I felt…
Furious.
They were worse than cockroaches, worse than parasites. They deserved eradi-fucking-cation. And I had done so. And I couldn’t even be happy about it, like I had done a good deed. It felt more like having to incinerate a house consumed by mold. Where’s the happiness in that? The house is gone. So what if the mold is too, it never should have happened in the first place and something was lost in the process. Something cared for had been corrupted, poisoned, and ruined. A net negative.
My mind did uncover its first mixed feelings though. I had expected to feel bad about murdering people. But no, those things were less than human in my eyes. They deserved it, and more.
No, what I felt conflicted on was hell.
Even filth didn’t deserve to go there. That place, I couldn’t even imagine an atrocity or crime that could be permitted where that was justified punishment. The idea that I might have sent people there… wrong. It was wrong.
‘A never ending plain of eternal torture. A trillion, trillion souls, endless, in perpetual torment. Screaming, screaming, Screaming’
I shook my head when I felt like I had run into a brick wall. Right, no thinking about hell. The fact that I can’t actually remember anything beyond feelings and tiny snippets is a blessing, let’s not try and break that.
It’d just be something I’d have to live with. No one deserved hell. Not rapists, not murderers, not even the most vile men I could think of. But it’s not like I controlled that. All I knew was that it existed. For all I knew all those men went to Valhalla or the greek Underworld. Seriously doubted Christians had a monopoly on being right about the afterlife. So, so I’d just have to ignore it for now.
That did not make me feel good. The idea of damning someone to, well, eternal damnation was a bit too much for the morning.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked over. I blinked. At some point, Selve had sat down with me in the middle of the hallway. He was looking at me, a look of understanding on his face. That, and gratitude.
“Thank you.”
I had heard the words before, and they hit me harder the second time. It was simple, but it carried so much weight. So much emotion. I swallowed thickly. Damn it Selve. I can see the bandages under your shirt you bastard. What do I even say? I was at a true loss for words. I wasn’t Selve, I hadn’t lost a damn thing in comparison.
I looked into his eyes and at his face, and saw a soul that had weathered a storm 10x my reckoning. That had lost more than I had ever had. There was nothing but gratitude there, on his rough worn face. Selve was around my age but he looked like an old man in my eyes at that moment. His sunken eyes, his cracked teeth, his face so use to being in a rictus of rage, the whites of his eyes more use to being bloodshot than any other color. I knew now, like I knew then, what I needed to say.
I put my own hand on his shoulder, looked into his eyes, and said simple words.
“We killed them all.”
I promised. And I keep my promises.
I’d never seen bloodlust mix with the pure joy of victory before, but I would engrave the sight I was seeing into my mind. This was my beginning, but it was your story Selve. You were the protagonist and me the weapon. Your village is saved. Your people freed and the dead avenged. May their souls rest in peace and your village be whole again.
We both took deep breaths and stood up, shaking off the serious atmosphere. There’d be time for the future in the future. Right now? Food sounded delicious.
We walked towards the heavenly smell, just happy to be alive.
I opened the doors with a smile, only to see almost two dozen women stop eating and look up at me. The room froze, growing silent as death itself. I froze too, not expecting or prepared.
In that small slice of time, a familiar elf wearing much more clothing walked in. She broke the silence and I immediately wished she hadn’t.
“Thank you for saving us!” She practically shouted at the top of her lungs, before doing a solid 90 degree bow.
The whole room exploded and a wave of women ran at me.
