Hurt
A song up front this time. If you listen to it first, then read the story you'll see why.
https://youtu.be/8AHCfZTRGiI
A nightmare, given form.
That was what life had become. I tried so hard to hold things together, but no matter what I did, it all fell apart. I lost friends and lovers, one after another.
There was no one else to blame. I missed the signs, big and small. The little things that mattered so much. Each shallow victory, moving me ever closer to ultimate loss. Somehow, I had convinced myself I was unbeatable, but I had already defeated myself through carelessness.
Millie. That was what I used to call her. Back in those days, she was such a happy, nurturing, loving person. I didn't recognize the hurt buried underneath. None of us did. None of us could imagine what she would become. A nightmare that was a far larger threat than the Demon Lords could have ever hoped to be.
Thinking back on it, I still wonder how I could have been so naive. The Demon Lords created the monster she became, but she was far more monstrous than they could have ever imagined. In the end, she swallowed their empire whole and found herself hungry for more.
What I'd learned over the long years since is how much pain begets pain. When I had finally killed her, I could see it in her eyes. The accusation. She couldn't speak anymore, but her eyes said everything that ever needed to be said between us.
Now, at the end of it all, with my life slipping away, I felt nothing at all but regret. Haunted by all the things I couldn't save. Every dream was destroyed. Whole planets left desolate wastelands... because of me.
I was supposed to be a hero. Gilda, bless her heart, had good intentions when she took me. But she had no idea what type of hell she was unleashing on the universe. She worked harder than anyone to save us all, but in the end, she was no match for the thing Millie became. I figured maybe a version of her still existed. Somewhere outside the edge of the galaxy, along with what was left of her people. That thought was the only thing that gave me any comfort.
I'd managed to drag myself over to a wall and sat myself up against it. Coughing blood every once in a while, I slowly took in shallow, rattling breaths. Surrounded by death, I felt out of place because I still clung to life. My dying on the other hand, was taking a long time.
Time.
I was so happy when I first found out I could travel through time. I was such a naive kid. I thought I could fix anything with that power, could beat anybody. What I didn't understand is how that would affect me. It made me careless, sloppy. If I made a mistake, I could just fix it. At least that was what I thought. I didn't understand anything.
Cordelia tried to warn me. Over the years, I realized I missed her the most. If you had told me that in the beginning, I would've said you were crazy. Maybe it was only the time apart that made the memories sweeter. After all, she died first. Devoured by the nightmare, giving birth to ever greater monstrosities.
Cordelia, everyone... I'm so sorry. I finished it. For what it's worth, I finally finished it.
There was nothing left alive, either inside the dream or out of it. I had killed everything. I was supposed to be a hero, but all I became in the end was a butcher. To stop a nightmare, I had destroyed what little was left. Dreams once were beautiful things. They inspired, made us feel, drove us forward. A world without dreams wasn't worth living in.
The only reason I stubbornly stayed alive was to make amends. To try to clean up the mess I had made. There was no reason future civilizations should bear the pain of my failures.
I could feel my body growing cold. There wasn't any reason to cling to life, not anymore. I wanted to let it go. I would become just one more relic of a past better off forgotten.
There was only one thing my weary brain wouldn't let go of: "What if?"
What if it could've been different? If I could have saved them all, like I was supposed to?
Was there ever a version of me that could do that? What would that look like? I couldn't dream anymore, so I had no idea, but my fading mind couldn't let go of that thought. It kept me taking in one painful, raspy breath after another.
The obsession grew so large in my mind that it blocked out everything else. There wasn't really anything else left to think about, but I still didn't have any wish more dearly held than to see that thought come true.
While I was alone with these last thoughts, a soft, glowing spark rose from the corpse of the nightmare. It slowly fluttered over to me. When it entered my forehead, I felt so warm, so comforted. I knew that this was the last dream. The one even the nightmare couldn't kill. Wouldn't let be killed.
The last dream showed me the way to hope. With the last burning embers of my life, I brought the residue of what was left back into myself and exploded like a supernova across time and space. Becoming nothing more than an echo of that dream.
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I woke up screaming. I had jerked upright in bed, covered in sweat. That was a hell of a nightmare.
I tried to calm down. I hadn't been asleep for too long. Gilda was probably still working on moving the Earth sample creatures to the core.
I shivered as a chill ran down my spine. The feeling of that nightmare stayed with me, even as the details became fuzzy.
I realized that I wasn't going to be sleeping again anytime soon, so I figured I might as well be doing something useful.
As I stepped out of my quarters, I ran into Millie. I stopped dead in my tracks, frozen in fear for a second.
"Hey, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I tried to answer her, but nothing came out. Instead, I just grabbed her and pulled her into a desperate embrace. I could barely remember the nightmare now, but I found myself crying.
She embraced me back. Her warmth was something I felt like I had waited a lifetime to experience. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw a dimly glowing flicker move from me to her. She pulled away slightly, looking me in the eye.
"I will protect you, William. Always."
Somehow... that made me feel better.
