TRUTH
Ousted, defeated, he retreated to a series of caves not far from the shores of Cape Claw. Days crawled by. Weeks. He withered to a former shadow of himself. Once proud, once noble in his own twisted way, he retreated to the darkness, robbed of the glory he still believed was owed. The weeks become months. A ghost to his tribe. A bad memory. Yet his defeat burns him every day. He never forgets; its sting is as fresh as it was the day he fell. He hungered in primal ways. He loathed in unfathomable ways. Mostly forgotten, a phantom. The ones he had led spoke of him in past tense. As though he was dead. Over time, he begun to believe he might be.
The months became a year. A year of hiding, a year of scavenging. Disgraced. Often, he thought of what could have been the night the stars began to fall from the sky. Beautiful, magnificent, striking Sauria's surface with indiscriminate grace. They glowed a peculiar violet and one falls into the shore near his cave. It is curiosity that took him from the shadows and into the moonlight. The crater made from the starfall still burned but through the smoke, he beheld what has fallen with silent awe.
It moved amid the small flames, unfurling itself from a ball. Its size was impressive, its body made of the blackest steel, forged with a purple hue when the light strikes it at certain angles. As it uncoiled, a single eye emerges– light blue, unnatural and yet alluring as a diamond. A limb clicked out– one then another, then another. Resonating its unnatural, metallic face, there are more clicks… and he was reminded of the machines of Dragon Rock. But there was something about this creature that lives. He could sense it, in a way that he could not describe.
It studied him with its single eye. He stared back at it with his own dead gaze, robbed of its spark long ago. They shared a moment before it clicked words to him. Mechanical. Harsh. But they were the first words he heard for many rises and falls of the sun.
He did not understand the tongue it used, but it sounds like a question. He gave a grunt in reply. It repeats twice more. His stare did not waver at the creature. It scurried forward a few feet and his grunt evolved into a bestial growl. Choked at the words that clawed from his throat, voice cracking from evident lack of use, he sputtered out, "Stop."
It paused to take this into consideration. There was a moment, a whirring noise, and then it spoke in the language of the dinosaurs, "ASSIMILATE…?"
His scaled brow furrowed. "What?" He asked the creature from the sky, which glares him over with its cyclops gaze. The pupil widened and subsequently narrowed. He gave the thing a disdainful scoff.
"ASSIMILATE…?"
Its repetition irked him, but there was something nice about hearing another voice. Something nice about not being alone. The darkness was a fickle friend. It spoke things to him that drained his energy, spooked his mind.
"Who are you, beetle?" the once proud General Scales asks the metallic bug.
Click, click, whir.
"WE are the TRUTH," came the reply. "WE are the MEANING."
"What a humble opinion," remarked Scales. Around his belt was a scabbard, housing his cutlass which had shed the blood of countless victims. He toyed with the blade's hilt, looking down at the insect creature with that same destroyed look he had carried with him since his downfall. "The world is cruel. There is no transcending what lot you have been given."
"IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE," replieed the creature and the Sharpclaw hesitated, brows lifting with surprise at this unexpected answer. The insect studied his face, feelers about its mouth clicking together. "STRENGTH… IN UNITY."
"Ha!" scoffed the General, his lips curling to reveal his sharpened fangs. "Your confidence only proves your ignorance." He began to unsheathe his blade. His mind was made up, his heart was set. As the curved sword reflected the light of the full moon, he mused to himself about how beautiful the star shower looks. Scales began to stab downward at the creature, but four words halted him.
"WE CAN SHOW YOU."
He was cynical; he had been since the moment he began his conquest. The ashes of his dreams had only fueled his bitterness towards the world. But now, his cynicism was only outweighed by curiosity. It did fall from the heavens, after all. One might have considered it an omen…
"How?" retorted Scales the disgraced, the fallen, the ghost.
The insect reached out and Scales did not flinch from its touch. It is cold, lifeless against his flesh. It graced his bared kneecap, and for a moment, he saw nothing extraordinary. His lip curled to growl again at the creature for wasting his time, but when he opened his maw to speak, he began to see.
Myriads of colors. Ones that he had never seen before. They waved about like starlight, gorgeous beyond what words he could even think of. There was strength in his limbs that he had never felt before. His blood ran like fire, but in ways that make him feel alive. There were voices chiming together in conversation, but they moved with such unison that it sounds like a chorus to a song that he could sing to, the words coming to mind without effort or thought. He tried to retract from the song, the lights, the feeling… But it only drew him in deeper. It was a pool that he was drowning in and the further he sank, the more he realized he does not necessarily mind…
"What is this?" He breathed to the creature that came from the sky.
"Us," it said.
He saw planets, he saw the dark between the stars. It felt like he could reach and grasp it all in the one hand he had left. He felt the knowledge of a million pour into his brain– it was overwhelming but gratifying. He realized that this was transcendence, this was becoming a god. He did not even think of returning to the lonely cave on the shores of Cape Claw.
"ASSIMILATE…?"
"Yes…" he whispered with his newfound divinity, born from a mere touch. Something about his knee seemed to tighten, but there were still stars in his eyes. Cape Claw reappeared to him, the light reflecting off the water's surface brighter, the smells all around him stronger. He basked in the radiance as it begins to crawl over him. He could feel things happening. He felt himself becoming more. Greater. A faint whisper in his ear beckoned to him.
"WELCOME… TO TRUE EXISTENCE."
Something nagged at his heart. His eyes moved down to the creature and it is not there any longer. Somehow, it had become a part of him. It had molded into his flesh, reinforcing his legs with metal. It continued to crawl up him, metal piercing and fusing into his flesh. He felt a flicker of fear but it died at the next whisper.
"YOU ARE US NOW. YOU MUST OBEY."
"O-obey…!?" Something felt familiar about this sensation. It took him a moment to fight through the growing fog, but he remembered. The Krazoa Shrine. The voice that commanded him to let go. The one who had made him into a puppet. He grabbed at his chest without thinking, his will shrinking as the supposed divinity took over. Scales gasped for air but it is too late. What little fragments of his mind are left demanded him to walk a familiar path.
More stars fall over his journey. There were shrill screams in the night. He began to relish them because he knows what is happening. More were learning the sweet truth that had been shared with him. More were succumbing. He could feel them join their precious unity, contribute their strength. His grin spread wider and wider until the brush cleared and there was a familiar silhouette in the moonlight.
A hull rose above the treeline, its mast shattered long ago. Vegetation had begun to grow off of it, slowly reclaiming the wood that he stole from nature. Beneath the crashed galleon, there were fires. Campfires. Meat's scent clung to the air, an appetizing aroma. There were forms dancing. Some were feasting still, even as the night carried on and more purple stars fell. He heard familiar grunts and chants. His people had thrived without him. They thrived on the belief that he was rotted, dead. Their ignorance was blissful and endearing… but not enough to grant them salvation. As they danced, he bears his fangs in a delighted smile.
Soon, they too would know the Truth.