Interlude: The End.

Interlude: The End.

…

Commissioned by Patreon Special

Word count: 2525

…

I walked upon a world that was once happy.

The Chimera scoured worlds of life, resources, and power. Many that they claimed were barren and depleted. However, those were dealt with by Great Red and another whom I’d never met, but there were a few that they did not touch.

They were worlds like this one.

The skies were filled with ash, a sea of toxic vapors roiled across the land, and the survivors lived within the corpses of mountains. The people lived within cities which never saw the sun. Inside their sealed homes, they took off heavy suits decades old, but scrupulously maintained, and looked upon us with gaunt faces, sunken eyes, and skin taut against limbs far too slim.

They stared upon me and my fellows like we were not human.

This planet has waged war against the Chimera for four hundred years. It is an Earth wreathed in toxins so potent that no life can exist upon its surface. No natural life. The Chimera adapt to it, so more toxins need to be made, and from massive factories in which tens of thousands work, the poison is pumped forth from the mountains to drown and poison what the Chimera bring.

They believe that they are winning.

That someday they would be victorious.

Even living within a planet that is covered in a sea of toxins made from the corpses of their enemies, they would persist, strive, and someday breach the dark skies of Earth and enter space.

However, that is a lie they believe, due to their inability to find the truth.

The invasions sent their way are merely drones sent to test the resiliency of the most basic Chimera against poisons. The hordes they fight every few decades, to which hundreds of thousands die fighting upon seas of poison to ensure none reach their strongholds, are calculated sacrifices that test the strength of the Chimera.

Beyond the blanket of smoke that covers the sky, which prevents the Chimera from taking flight, the solar system has been subsumed. They gaze upon the Earth with a thousand eyes greater than the size of mountains. Chimera take flight between planets to ferry resources across the void of space as cadres of gliding flesh.

All around them, through the parallel worlds that surround them, are only more Earths and systems that have fallen to the Chimera.

They live because they are allowed to live.

They are within the depths of Chimera lands, used as shields against Aspects, and they strengthen their most hated foe with every battle while reaching for a dream that they will never reach.

I do not tell them these things, whilst I speak to them and they ridicule me, because I wanted to be accepted with understanding… rather than terror.

But, some of the stones cast my way still hurt.

…

“What a bunch of bloody bastards these folk are. We go ahead and slave through a buncha infested worlds with metric tons of food for‘em and they cast stones at you the moment you start offering them the chance to go peaceably.” Alyss’s words are rough, but her fingers are soft while touching against where skin broke above bruises. It was not painful, and I would heal from it quickly, but Alyss insisted on caring for me nonetheless.  She’s always kind when she can be. “I get that they don’t like your nagging about the end, especially after everything they’ve gone through, but those blokes crossed the line when they started chuckin’ shite at you, Coda. You should’ve  let me and Cammy at ‘em when they started.”

“And, I suppose you could’ve intimidated them to run away? Or, flashed your gallery of Song photos at them and told them he’d be very displeased with them if they kept being mean?”  Camille has a good heart too, but it’s more tempered and subtle. You noticed that she threw a pebbles at the crowd’s way, intercepting a few larger rocks, and hitting a few wrists. However, while in the shadows and with a limited supply of pebbles, she was unable to do much beyond divert the worst and strongest of the cast stones. Though she smirks at Alyss, you can tell that she’s just as displeased about your actions as Alyss is. She’s biting her lip ever-so-slightly. “Face it, Alyss, you’re not exactly subtle. Whatever you wanted to happen to the crowd, you’d have had to use force to make it real.”

“Y-yeah, but I would’ve been in the right! Stoning people for just speaking their mind is wrong!”

“That’s obvious, but you can’t exactly trample over cultural values and ask a people to just lay down and die without getting hurt.”

“Hey, that’s a bitch of a thing to say! Take that back! Coda’s just trying her best to get these bastards out of trouble!”

“You and I both know that we’d never take the offer ourselves.”

“Y-yeah, but we wouldn’t throw stones at her!”

“Just vehemently mock her when her back’s turned and she’s out of sight, if we didn’t know her at all,  right?”

“T-that’s… that’s a low blow, Cammy.”

“It’s true and Coda needs to hear it.”

Camille was correct.

My approach was incorrect. I’d offered what I could without using any leverage. I’d hoped that being plain, lacking subterfuge, and only offering a choice was the correct way. Many of the elderly back on Earth, or those gravely wounded and beyond saving, accepted my offer of peace. Some chose to rest for all of eternity instead of traversing the cycle again, while others accepted a peaceful, painless death to continue their journeys to the destination they wished. I’d given all those who would hear me the same offer, without instilling any fear in their hearts or persuading them with promises of rest or paradise, and the result was jeers and stones.

And, I didn’t know how to approach them again without meeting the same results and not manipulating them through unseemly means.

I wanted to free this planet of the unnecessary suffering it was withstanding, yet I could not.

I understood what they wanted and wished for. They wanted Li Song while I was merely myself. Perhaps, I could decide to be different and try to save this one Earth of their circumstances, but what would happen then? How many years would such an endeavor take for my powers, which is greatest when people have accepted their fate? Should all the peoples of this world desire and accept peace, I could wipe apart the system of Chimera, along with the systems of the neighboring parallels. I could give them retribution, if they accepted either passing on to their next life or the peace I offered, but each one of them wanted to fight, to win, and to contribute to an impossible dream.

And, I loved them for that choice.

Tearing down the Chimera planets was easy in comparison to saving the people I wanted to save the most. Those who would fight to the most bitter of defeats, who would strive for paradise, and they who would try to save everyone… I wanted them to be at peace or happy. Yet, they naturally refused any of my offers, reviled my existence, and would cast me out the moment they’re able.

Li Song had suffered just to stay by my side and see me as a person instead of an Aspect. Alyss and Camille followed me out of concern and care, since they were wonderful people who deserved nothing besides paradise.

Yet, I can never give them what I wanted to give them.

Not unless I became what I hated.

…

I understood how the Ebony Emperor came to be. How could I not when she and I are the same? How different would I be if I were not given purpose, but only found myself empowered after the life I had lived? From birth, I had every dream, hope, and want taken from me. All that mattered was acceptance. Pain, suffering, and a multitude of other things can be avoided by simple compliance.

Rebellion meant lashings that would never cease, since I could be healed until no scars remained. Refusing food and attempting to die would only result in being forced to eat. Compliance would be ascertained through pain.

Death was out of my reach.

Nothing could be done.

Struggling was not possible.  

I knew how to enact such things upon others, because they were enacted upon me, taught to me, and explained to me each time they were wrought upon me.

The Ebony Emperor is an individual who came to power whilst Li Song carved a nation from nothing. As the world threw weapons beyond reckoning upon the Chimera, she would gain power and purpose. Then, once she became unstoppable due to the untold number of deaths rendered upon Chimera that left them excised from the cycle, she would release herself and set upon removing all the suffering in the world.

If she were here now, this Earth’s denizens would be tortured, slaughtered, and forced to accept peace.

Then, she would do as I would and wipe away billions of Chimera from the power that came from such acceptance.

I could do the same.

However, she was not I, nor was I her.

But, that did not change the fact that I had a dilemma that I could not easily solve

Alyss and Camille were close, but I wandered through the city nestled within the mountain on my own. Many stared at us through thick masks, while we strode merely annoyed by the foul smell and darkness of the city. The inhabitants of this Earth are lanky, underfed, and sickly, but they walked and lived with purpose. Was their jealousy in their eyes at us? Yes. Did they wonder about us? They did. But, they most passed us by with straight backs towards their shifts, their homes, and their goals.

This was not a broken people.

Among their number many would reach paradise.

After lives of great sorrow, tragedy, and pain, their virtues would grant them joy while I could only give them peace.

I didn’t want them to pay such a high price for such low a reward.

They were good people who shouldn’t have to suffer. The children needn’t have to become gaunt figures. I did not want them to be unbowed and unbroken by the challenges that they faced all their lives. The straight backs that walked past mysteries and miracles, intent on working another day or resting for their next shift, ought to be less burdened and challenged.

This is a place where the weak die, where the infirm cannot exist, and where the elderly never come to be. No one has a choice whether they can suffer or not. All must work for a future that they cannot see. Their reward comes after short, brutal lives in which their bodies fail them, or they drown alongside monsters in what they worked all their lives to create. Overwork or death in combat. That is how all here die.

Their courage is undeniable.

Their worth is without question.

They are truly to be loved, respected, and honored.

Yet, they still suffer.

A person shouldn’t be mandated to suffer for the chance at  paradise.

They ought to have the choice to lay down, disappear, and fade out of the cycle. If one can choose to be virtuous or evil, can they not choose to simply be undone, and not be bound by the writ of fate? Why must those not good enough for paradise be reborn to try again? Why must those who are evil be punished and cleansed until they are stripped entirely of their lives and sent back with hopes that they are better in the next?

Why do people defend the chance to be happy, yet spit upon the choice to simply rest and leave the cycle?

I walked through a city of heroes, looking for the answer to that question, despite the fact I did not know if I could ever find it.

…

The only one willing to accept my offer was a man sentenced to death for the creation of a smuggling ring. He was a criminal, one who stole from the people for his own wealth, and he did so with a smile on his face, even as he sat in a cell lacking hands and an eye. He’d fought until the last moment, until he could no longer hold his weapons, and he was being held in a dark cell until he died of starvation.

Nothing could be wasted in this place.

Not rope.

Nor the power it would take to open the doors to the stronghold see him cast in the oceans of poison.

“Ohoho, what’s this? They told me there was a girl willing to put me to rest, but I thought they were joking! Damn, you look good! I can’t imagine why people would turn down being given a sendoff by you!” He was making me disgusted on purpose. The way he held himself, with that leer on his face, and his heavy panting… he was trying to make this less difficult. “Ah, what the heck? You a mute, girlie? That’s gotta be something you get paid extra for, right? That has to translate to some skills, huh?”

He didn’t need to.

With a touch, I took away all his aches, pains, and worries, so that he had clarity of mind.

He was starving, but I’d starved more.

His suffering was something I could easily endure.

Then, I told him that he could choose where he went after I took him from reality.

The place where he could rest and sleep for the rest of time, perhaps dreaming and perhaps not, until the universe is nothing. Or, he could continue… he could continue to try and reach for paradise. Some might have been afraid, but to have the ability to remain sane through his hunger, and to create a criminal empire in this world?

No, this man understood what I offered immediately.

And, he wasn’t someone who hesitated.

“Out. I want out. From here and everywhere.”

Thus, he faded away from the cycle. His body was undone like strings being unraveled into nothing. His eyes closed, he took his last breath, and then so did all the pain that I took from him.

It wasn’t the triumphant moment of acceptance that I wanted to see.

He was not a hero.

Nor was he a normal individual who was suffering.

He was a coward, a thief, and in the end he wanted to ensure that he died instead of suffering.

However, an act of mercy remains an act of mercy.

No joy is worth suffering for eons and eons, nor is there crime that deserves an eternal cycle punishment.

Should someone choose to sleep, to rest, and to never awaken again… who was I to decide that they ought to suffer instead?

If I would not pull people away from Paradise, would I not be a monster if I chose to send people to Hell?