"Time is nothing but an illusion…
A pale, moving mirage of eternity…
The world you see is but a passing thought…
A fleeing shadow of the infinity beyond…
You cannot understand…
Like children in the sand, just recently arrived…
That there always is an order…
Impossibly Old, and Unconceivably Wise…"
-[Unknown]
XXXXXX
The sounds of an old-school train filled my ears.
And blue filled my eyes.
Why did they hurt?
Where am I?
"Oh? Such an intriguing guest… my, what an uncertain future!"
Who said that?
"Welcome… to the Velvet Room… Young Guest." A man with an almost cartoonish face spoke, his voice just his dace, was weird. "My name… is Igor; I am delighted to make your acquaintance. This is Justine, a resident here, like myself." The man pointed towards a lady. Her long white hair cascaded towards her hips, yellow eyes behind reading glasses looked at me with a subdued curiosity.
"I am very pleased to meet you" her voice, soft and melodious, reminded me of… of who?
The man, Mr. Igor was it? He kept talking.
"This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter.
Only those bound by the contract may enter this place. It might be that such fate awaits you in the future.
Why don't you introduce yourself?"
Is he asking for my name…?
My name?
…What is my name…?
"It seems like you are yet to be ready for your fate, Young Guest, but worry not. While your future is too chaotic for the cards to be properly read, I can tell you this.
When the time comes, your shall take responsibility of your actions…
Until then, I bid you fare well…"
Wait! Please!
Just who am I…?
XXXXXX
A certain building, on an artificial island far enough from the coast of Japan…
"Damn that Kouetsu, him and the rest of Ikutsuki's lot!" the rant of one scientist was interrupted by the beep of his lab door opening.
"Had i known it would come to this…" the door opened and he immediately went to the back of the room, using his code to open one hidden door.
"I wonder if he will ever forgive me…" he eyed the most prominent thing on the room, a purple-glowing tube, containing the one thing he joined this mad project for.
Turning on one computer, he set various systems on a quite long countdown; stolen equipment from the facilities in Yakushima Island filled a dozen of cabinets next to the tube. Fruits of his work filled the other cabinets littered around the room, a system designed to the betterment of mankind, turned into weapons, which would now be turned against their creators.
The man regretted not having listened to Takeba, guy had been honest from the beginning, but he'd been completely enamored by the Kijiro's bastard promises to notice.
Now they were all dead.
They had put all the blame on Eiichiro, god bless his soul. The bastards had the gall to blame him for all the sick experiments they performed.
He'd managed to stay under the radar, thanking whatever god was out there his car had broken on the road the day the experiment was performed. That gave him enough time to find out what happened.
And what had come out as a result.
He was supposed to set up the containment fields for the storage of those 'things', after he'd accidentally built a weapon capable of harming on of 'them' by sheer accident.
They'd come the next week, as sweet talked him into joining.
And now he regretted it.
He knew his time was running out, it wouldn't take long for someone to look at the facility's personnel record and notice he hadn't been the night everything went to hell, or created a way to it.
The Computers surrounding him finished their tasks, and went to sleep mode, a timer showed simple white numbers that would mark the time of his comeback.
If the world still stood by then.
The lights began shutting down, and the link was stablished. The little wireless station connected to a backdoor he'd found on the Kijiro's Network, guaranteeing his payback would work when the time came.
Setting down the final touches, he'd began packing everything he had. But he'd left a box, a box that made him cry when he'd opened it to check its contents. There laid part of the reason he'd joined the madhouse in the first place.
Before shutting down the final console, he set up the camera, recording one last message for the time it began.
"Son… I hope the by the time you hear this…"
…
…
The message was saved and set into a timer that matched the one in the other computers, leaving the final box close to it. Grabbing a handgun he'd hidden below one of the consoles, he went through the exit. Giving the glowing tube a final look filled with sorrow, he left to face the monsters that spawned more for the sole purpose of ending the world…
And so, the last legacy of one Matthias Altman was buried and forgotten for more than tenyears…
XXXXX
I am the wanderer soul…
With the steel of my hands, with a heart of glass…
I am created to hold infinite sorrow.
Not once knowing life, not once holding one's heart.
Have withhold the pain of countless souls, waiting for end's arrival
These hands shall never hold anything…
So I Pray! Give me…
Sixth Ranger presents:
A SMT:Persona fanfic.
Persona: Wanderer Soul
Prologue: Visions