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Looking In

By Ultima66

I felt my pace slowing down. Running was always torture to me. One more time, I asked myself why, and then pressed onwards. How, how did it end up like this?

Past dozens of doors I went, all of them suspended in the air, frozen in the depths of time itself. They were strange, twisted doors, that emanated an aura of uneasiness. I could hear the beast's armor behind me as it gave chase. It closed in on me slowly but surely. As it approached, I heard the loud grinding of its heavy armor as it lifted its arm, white light surging through its axe. I could run no more. I turned around.

I swung at it with all my strength. I felt the damage I was causing as the blade of my Heaven's Gate tore through the armor, the force pushing back at my arms caused by the friction of metal on rough metal. Still, the glowing wispy body remained, and in an instant, the axe fell. I saw light everwhere, and I felt pain surging through my entire body as an eruption of light engulfed my body. In an instant, I knew my body was no more.

Ludibrium appeared in front of me. The huge blocks all around felt cold and uncaring this time. I had to admit, there was no way I would have killed that thing alone anyways, but I was far more upset that I ended up in that situation in the first place.

What could I do? I sat down on a bench made of blocks. I asked myself again why I was in that situation in the first place, and I had no answer. All I could remember through all the adrenaline and pain was that I went down there with 2 others, and I left that place alone. I slowly got off the bench and walked to the entrance of the clock tower.

Stepping inside, I saw many people killing large animate teddy bears. My boots made a loud noise in the plastic floor made of blocks, and many in the room instantly turned to see me.

"Wow, you look strong," said a bowman on the opposite side of the room. A few others made similar remarks. I stared down, a signal that I was not conceited about my own strength but also a sign that I felt bad about myself. I walked to the escalator that led further into the tower with my head down.

"Hmph. He thinks he's too good to talk to us. I hope I don't end up like him when I'm stronger," I heard a warrior say.

As I went down that escalator, I felt myself wanting to turn around and tell them that they wouldn't want to be me, but I didn't see the use. More and more flights down I went, a few people here and there stared and tried to tell me something, but I ran past them without a thought. What did they all know? They didn't care about me at all. They saw me as something beyond themselves, as an idol almost. Did they not know? I didn't need followers; I needed something much more.

I saw the colored entrance to the depths of the clock tower. I stared inside, where I felt the chilling atmosphere overtake me. It was cold, as rifts of time slowed and sped up the air, constantly creating chilling breezes, and because there simply was no heat. What little light reached this deep into the heart of the clock tower became trapped in the webbings of time itself, leaving particles of light fluttering idly about, the illuminating light twisted into something supernatural.

I stepped inside. There were no walls. The floor was suspended in the middle of nowhere, and all around there were chilling images of clocks twisted out of shape, floating in the middle of black space. I looked down. A few ladders went down to a few more platforms floating in space, and then it was a good 100-foot ladder to the purple floor, rough and made out of blocks. Then I saw them: the two people I went down there with.

"You think he's okay? It's a good thing I told you to get away, or else you'd be toast."

"Who cares. As long as we're fine what does it matter to us if someone else made it alright or not. It's not like we even really knew him in the first place."

"Still, a person is a person. Just because you don't know him doesn't mean you should just leave him. I mean, it didn't really matter too much to me, but I'd be hurt if something like that happened to me."

"I'm telling you, no one cares. He's not our friend. Is he yours? He agreed to go with us anyways. It's not like we forced him to go."

"I guess you're right. Where should we go now?"

"Let's go to Thanatos. As long as you don't chicken out and try to run we'll be fine there. I'm telling you, we had that thing if you didn't run away and you actually stayed to fight."

The two walked off into the distance. Was this what it came down to? Was it too much to ask for someone to be my friend? For someone to give me respect outside of just blindly idolizing me? I had no one to talk to, and perhaps I simply never would.

Without anything to say, I climbed down the ladder and followed the two. I asked myself, why was everything different with me life? How could people just leave me there without showing at least some kind of respect towards me? I saw communities everywhere, friendships firming between people, but it just didn't happen with me. I was simply alone in this world, whether I liked it or not.

I had to see what they were up to, however. Going through the endless mysteries of the deep clock tower, I followed them, and even though my boots were loud on the block floor, they did not turn around, even if they noticed. I walked through the doors of this place, little more than doors erected in the middle of nowhere, under layers and layers of unexplainable floating blocks. The doors seemed to go nowhere, a "room" composed of dozens of floating blocks and two doors that led to the same place. However, as I stepped through, I appreared in a different room. I followed all the way down to near where Thanatos was located.

Enormous phantoms chained to watches were everywhere. I did my best to avoid them, and they simply kept to themselves. They were menacing: blank white eyes on a blue translucent body, they each had a jagged mouth and horns on top of their heads. They were chilling to be around, not only from their appearance, but the freezing cold temperatures I felt emanate through their ghostly forms. As I saw the two disappear through the last door, I followed.

As I stepped through the door, the tall dark form of Thanatos came into view. Its single eye pierced my soul and sent chills down my spine. More floating doors were everywhere, these more eerie than the ones on the other side. I saw the two: a mage and a priest, trying to fight it. Dark wings erupted from inside of it as it sent out a curse. Glowing white wings then appeared above the priest's head as he dispelled the dark magic.

The mage summoned a cube above his head and cast his own dark sealing spell on Thanatos. The priest was using his holy magic to heal the undead form of Thanatos, but it wasn't harming it much. The mage attempted to attack it with a beam of ice, but seeing it do nothing, resorted to using his magic claw attack to attack the monster.

Seeing the two could not really harm it, I quickly ran towards the two. I dashed past them and jumped with my sword in front. It sank right into the core of Thanatos, and I felt its energy spilling out of its body and surging everywhere, freezing cold blasts of wind hitting the three people around. Suddenly, Thanatos vaporized into the air and I fell down.

"What are you doing here?" the priest asked, who I had noted was the one who was rude to me previously.

"You guys would have been screwed if I hadn't jumped in. And you left me for dead earlier," I told them in anger.

"Whatever the hell it is you do, go do it alone," he said to me, "No one cares about you."

I knew at that moment my whole life I'd been alone. No one really had ever cared about me. I was always just looking at the fortunes of those around me, without a friend in the world. It had always been like that. As I looked into his angry stare, I felt sadness finally pierce through my heart, and wanted to just go. There were no friends in my world. I was always an outsider, just sitting there looking in.

I looked down and tried to speak, but I couldn't. I simply started walking away. I felt one of my feet quickly freezing, the warmth draining out of it. I looked down to see a icy blue glow on the ground, and realizing what it was, jumped away as quickly as possible. An icicle erupted from the ground, knocking me down. I looked up, and a second Thanatos had appeared near me. Looking the other way, the other two people were leaving, not even looking at me, though I had been knocked down.

"Help! I'm not gonna make it out without you guys!" I yelled, knowing very well I couldn't take on the Thanatos alone, and I was already struggling just to get on my feet.

As I tried to get up, I felt my arms and legs freezing up, and saw the blue aura on the ground. I saw the two simply walk away, not even caring that I had yelled for help. Stiffness overtook my limbs from the cold, and I knew what would happen next. As I sat there bent over, that feeling finally overtook me.

It was the chill of being alone. The freezing temperatures down here, the absolute fear it instilled in me, it was nothing. The chill of loneliness tore deep into my heart, and I let myself untense my muscles and fall to the floor, more and more of my body being frozen by the strengthening cold spot on the floor. I was alone, with no one in the world to be there for me. The cold grip of all the horrors down here, they were nothing to me now. I felt the horrid cold grip of humanity tossing me aside, never caring. In those last few moments, I finally gave up.

The icicle surged upwards.