903. Obscurity, 8
(Selya)
I had been thrown away recklessly and landed painfully in the nearby valley. The train continued a few hundred metres longer on its course as it derailed and crashed. A fire was spread and slowly grew. The wolfram wolf train was dead and burning in the distance and near to me. I think I passed out for a minute or two.
I found myself lying around in shock, my ears ringing, drums echoing inside my head. I had been thrown away along some rubbles and landed in a dump. I wasn’t really hurt surprisingly. I just found myself there, breathing and in daze.
My trembling hand was still holding on the sword. As I used it to stand up, I eventually then let go of it.
I had felt the return of flame and guilt suddenly.
I tried to kill them... I couldn’t bear it right now.
S - Melenna... Melenna! Where are you?
She wasn’t around. I clenched my fists, unable to bear these feelings.
I did my best to focus, wishing to see her again.
I kneeled on trembling knees and brought my hands to the ground and its decaying rubbish everywhere. I took hold of this ground and made my wish.
The flow of light escaping me took form immediately through my hands into the ground. I materialised her in this earth, and pulled her out right away as if she had been lying there all along.
The woman was simply there again, holding back my hands.
Mel - I’m sorry Selya...
S - Why... What should I do with myself now? What I did, and again... Doc knew, that I was the monster... He lied...
Mel - It wasn’t your choice in Mirabella. Not even as an unspoken dream. It was an accident. Just an unfortunate accident.
S - Because of them... Because of that weapon of Aïsshea...
Mel - Not exactly Selya. Their powers were passed on, along their wills. It’s still useful, but they’re no longer people responsible for their doings.
S - So that does make me responsible... Not controlling what bucket of shit they’ve thrown over me... Dad...
Mel - It’s not on you Selya. They should have taught you. They should have told you. But now rightfully and bitterly, it is your freedom to choose what to make of it next.
S - Then I never want to see nor hear about anything related to Aïsshea ever again!
Mel - You can melt this sword then, or simply throw it away. You don’t direly need it with you.
S - What about the gathering storm out there? Won’t I need a weapon against it? Or against them? How many monsters will rise along the way?
Mel - Not many probably. And as you can already tell, your highest strength isn’t in swordsmanship but what you’d call magic. As for the tempest, it is indubitably growing over time, but I wouldn’t envision a rupture or end in sight from here. It would be cautious not to wander obviously, but I wouldn’t estimate that the situation is critical. I think you have the time to make your enlightened choices Selya.
I sighed. Again and again.
I gazed at the sword I had dropped there unceremoniously, along rubbish from another day. Around us the landscape was still smoky from the fire and damaged grounds.
Let it be then.
I stepped away from that thing that now brought more bitter memories than reassuring identity. Fade away.
It will disappear along with the leftovers of this train, under ashes and rain.
Disappear here from living sight in the upcoming days, remain in this ground from now on, and forever after.
~
Melenna kept me warm along the day and while trying to fall asleep at night.
Unfortunately the bad dreams continued to flow within.
She helped me hold on, she prevented continuously some form of erosion.
But step by step and day by day, I could tell the efficiency of her presence was dimming. I was getting used to her and her repeated words or smiles didn’t have the usual effect on me anymore.
I think I was beginning to outgrow her in a slightly sad way.
I treaded the road heading toward that distant light that brightened the darkness otherwise, more like a moon in the night than the sun during the day.
Again, despite the warmth in my flesh that had given me some relief, I felt again my entire self slowing down under the weight of my solitude.
Each heartbeat felt a little worse and I even lost some of my affection for Melenna.
I still used her to guide me for a while, but it took me longer and longer time each day just to summon her. The efficiency of her comfort has been dwindling away for me.
I just continued to grow colder.
One day I summoned Melenna. She pointed the way, albeit I could also see rather clearly the source in the distance.
I raised a hand. Melenna smiled simply at me, with that look of kind and charming confidence. A small movement from my hand ordered her banishment, and she evaporated like a mirage against the blue sky.
I ached a little more.
~
I walked alone, my main joy being in the everchanging landscapes and sensations. My body and power making me real, they absorbed these sensations as nice stimuli. My step was more firm and confident, thanks to this invisible T.I. flowing and accumulating through. Spilling over even sometimes, but I noticed its influxes better and better.
It was my mind that grew weaker and tired, as if not resting through the nights and not properly healed from the past traumatisms.
I noticed I could just amend any weakness or failure from my body using that energy. But the other way around wasn’t so true. My mind remained trapped in that painful paradox that it handled both aspects and reacted differently, unable to heal properly. The impulses that would heal a cut in my flesh didn’t make me feel better when aimed at my head. And the way my body could decorporate and restructure to bypass any weakness or damage, it only made me feel sluggish and depressed when aimed at my brain.
My magic made me possibly invincible and immortal, but my psyche remained frail to everything and prone to decompose in newer ways unforeseen.
It felt like having a bleeding that nothing could stop. A strain or rip deep inside my mind that continued to evacuate my heat and life away...
Although that sensation of mortality wasn’t exactly a new perception for me, it was painful to endure.
I held myself firmly, holding the sadness, nihilism and vanity away.
Because as much as I felt ambivalent toward my duty, it was also an opportunity, to change even me.
A power to grant all wishes lied there after all. So whatever I could feel could meet its answer and satisfaction, far beyond what Melenna could give me. That was a thin and delusional hope, but hope nonetheless.
That reaching the source of all power could also meet all physical and emotional needs to reach a form of bliss, away from this cold drain.
There’s a meaning to life awaiting there. A sense fallen like a curse upon me. Maybe like a droplet of rain dating from the cataclysm, fiery but frozen in time, dancing in the winds for years before it landed. That flake, innocent and guilty whilst dancing in the skies, would have randomly been led toward our region, and then focused by the human monsters of Aïsshea toward me.
That flake of oxidative snow itched my head and forehead, making its indentation. It melted through me, melting me away.
From that tiny interaction, a calamity exploded, razing everything around in repercussion. They turned me in an icon of desolation. And since then, I’ve been guided back toward the source of these droplets of monstrosities.
Toward a rising storm that could spread far more someday...
We’re heading back home... To end it all.
~
