By now, I've had many lives. Or, it feels like it.
I've died, and I've lived.
I've been resurrected.
I've lived far longer than any one man should.
This life, this is my curse now.
I've had many names. I've answered to many names. At first it was a simple name, Charles. It was the one I answered to most, before I died. After that, I was known as the prophecy wanted to know me as: The Dead Man. I was known as a ghost. I was known as more than just the name I had been born with. I had died as one man, and came back as another. They called me many things, you call me many things: The Dead Man, Charles, Sire, Master, His Holiness, Father…
I was even Charlie once.
That was years ago.
It was after the dethlights had awoken them, but before the final war. We didn't know it was a war then, you see. We didn't know, because even I couldn't see it. I hadn't reached my potential. None of us had.
We had done all we could to prepare for the coming end. Even the prophecy didn't say that what happened would happen…
We were all so young then. Younger, I suppose.
I've been the same since that year.
I look back now, and I wish that I had seen the signs. But I wasn't around. I had listened to the man who came before me, and took his words to be gospel. I had taken it upon myself to take over this Church, to care for it as if it were my own, to use every resource and power to help them.
It hadn't been enough. One of them had betrayed us, one of them…
Well.
You know the story by now.
Or, you should.
The traitor had finished what Magnus could not, and Toki had been the first to go. The traitor, he had become surprisingly strong-willed by then, and no matter what we threw at him, he would not fall.
The war started then, you see, and what we hadn't realized was that it had been bubbling underneath the surface for almost a year before any action was taken. They had been waiting for the perfect moment, and when the traitor revealed himself, even he didn't know what was wrong.
For months, they fought us. The Tribunal, the Half Man, the Traitor, they all fought us and we fought back. We fought with everything that we had, but it didn't seem to be enough.
As I said, Toki had been the first to fall, after the traitor, of course. The traitor, his true self had died the moment he had been activated.
We never got to say goodbye to him.
To be honest, I never really got to say goodbye to any of them. Not really.
Three years into the war, we lost another. Without the combined power of all five of them, our side was weak. We didn't have all the power and strength we needed, despite having the guns, the weapons, and the passion to fight.
How do you kill what is already above life and death?
The answer, my friend, is that you can't kill it. I know this, because I have tried. I have tried for years.
Where was I?
Oh, right.
Three years into the war, Skwisgaar was the next who was taken. He had managed to somehow take out the traitor though in the process. Sword right through the heart. Skwisgaar, he had sworn revenge, and had never been the same once Toki died. He took out the traitor in one of our rushes to their compound, but as the traitor fell, he did too.
Gun shot. Right through the eye, from the gun of the General.
I tried to stop it, but I was too late.
I wasn't too late to take out the General.
How did you do it, your Holiness?
Even I am not too sure about that. But this is not about me. There is a point to this story.
Pay attention.
Where was I?
The General, your Holiness.
Right.
Myself, the remaining two, and the army that we had, we lasted longer than the rest. Three more years before we took another casualty. But by then, we all felt like we were all war veterans.
The world wasn't the same world we once knew. Half the population was under the Half Man's control. The other half, well if they weren't being tortured, they were dead. A few escaped the prisons to join our resistance.
We had set up a strong army. We trained for a year, stayed hidden underground. When we heard they might have gotten wind of our position, we moved.
You see, the Church is far bigger than you think it is. We have places all over the world, sacred places that we used as war rooms. Some of have been destroyed. Some have not been touched.
We hid in those places until it was time for us to make our move. This time, it had been Pickles' idea. It was a strong idea, I stood behind it fully. There wasn't a thing that could go wrong, but of course all best laid plans…
You know the saying.
Right?
If you don't…it doesn't matter now.
We attacked at night, in what was once a vast forest. It had been turned into a desolate land, more of a desert than the forest it once was. We took a lot of their men that night.
They took one of ours.
The three of us had been fighting side by side. Nathan had his guns, he grew fond of them in the later years, and turned out to be a crack shot. He could hit a bulls-eye from 100 miles away. Pickles, he had grown fond of swords. Two at a time, reminded him a bit of his sticks. "Only pointier," he said.
We had been surrounded. Nathan took the east, Pickles took the west, the north and south were up to me. I could handle it.
See, you can't kill a dead man.
I could handle it. They could not. Nathan was wounded. Pickles, mortally so. We managed to flee, but not before I managed to take the rest of the attackers out.
How did you do it? Did you use your-
I told you. This is not about me.
Sorry. Please continue.
Right.
We managed to get back to our camp, and it was there that I held onto Pickles, lying to him that things would be alright, but he was losing a lot of blood. They were much older then. I was the only one who stayed the same.
He called me Charlie one last time before he died. A few hours later, Nathan and I, the two of us dug a grave and placed Pickles in it, burying him with his swords for the afterlife. He always said he'd need them there.
I never asked why.
I…
Can we…take a moment?
Of course, your Holiness. Take all the time you need.
Thanks.
Alright.
I'm okay.
Shall I continue?
If you'd like.
Okay.
Five years passed.
We lead the armies into Hell and back, and each time we lost a little more. They were losing men, but not as fast as we were.
Nathan lost his right eye in one of the battles, and wore an eye-patch for the rest of his days. It was made out of pieces of an old piece of clothing I had on me still, a tie. When he made the eye-patch, he drew a gear on it with a marker. It was the only reminder of what we used to be.
When we were younger.
When there was hope.
We kept tallies of the days. He kept getting older. I stayed the same. He'd joke about this, sometimes. He'd say that it wasn't fair; that I'd never look as good as he did at his age.
I reminded him that I was older, but that joke never landed right.
I was…never really good at telling jokes.
He was the only one of the original five to die outside of the battle field. We had been planning for the next battle, and he had said he was growing tired.
I sensed something then, but I didn't say anything. Not then.
Late in the night, he called out for me, and I remember…
I remember I went to his bedside. I held his hand. He told me a story of when he first…
I...he...
Are you alright?
…ah, yes. I apologize. These things…they're not good to remember. You would think that I would forget them, but I can't. I see them as clear as the day they happened.
I…yes. We…spoke. For a few hours, and he asked me to stay with him until he fell asleep. He said…
He said the next battle would be our biggest one, and our most important one.
He said he had a good feeling we would finally win.
He said he couldn't wait to see the smile on my face when we finally won.
Three hours later, he had passed away. His heart just gave out, his body was done fighting.
I was the only one left.
How long ago was this, your Holiness?
Decades ago. Long before you were even born.
That's the problem with coming back from the dead.
That's the problem with being resurrected by something as powerful as this Church.
Nothing can kill a man who is above life and death. Not even his own memories, playing out in front of him every time he closes his eyes.
It's been years, but I remember everything so clearly.
Being cursed, it gave me the best years and the worst years of my life. The best involved those five, up there on that wall. Before everything dissolved into madness, they were the only family that I had. The only ones I cared for.
I hid it well, but I loved every day I had with them.
The worst years, was watching it all fall apart. The worst years…are now reliving each and every death every day. It constantly repeats.
I've been cursed by the Church that I swore to help lead, and I've been cursed by the man I have been fighting my whole life to destroy.
Do you have any regrets?
Yes.
Have you not been listening?
I have more than one, more than I care to acknowledge.
Why are you telling me all of this?
Because when I get too tired to continue this fight, and I will, I will need you to take over for me.
When you do, you need to remember a few things:
One, do not lose focus on the task at hand. Distractions can give you hope, and hope is what causes you to lose everything you love.
Two, remember that you are mortal, and you will bleed, but you will have more passion than I can have now. I lost my humanity years ago. Hold onto that.
Three, nothing can kill a man who is above life and death. And if you ever happen upon something that does, you use it to kill the Half Man, and then you bring that thing to me.
Why?
Because nothing, nothing has been able to kill me.
And trust me, I've tried.