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Prologue:
|| The End. ||
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The high of death was extraordinary.
It slowed time; the feeling of the air rushing past him, growing ever hotter and hotter around his plummeting form…ceased. All motion stilled. Weightless, frozen in the final moments of contemplation, the final moments of conscious existence, he remained fully aware of the fate charging at his back, of the catalyst that was far above him - looking down. Until now, he had neither noticed the wetness upon his face nor the sharp pain blossoming in his chest spreading throughout his ribcage. A similar wetness was seeping through his coat, flecks of red falling, falling, falling with him into the churning, boiling miasma of his creation below.
If, then.
And it was as if he was simply suspended in midair, pitched upside down, staring back up at the ledge from which he had fallen. From this position he could clearly observe the precious drops of his portended undoing, the fleeting, crimson trail that marked the end of his mortality. His mouth remained open in a cry, eyes wide in ultimate shock, yet he could hear no sound - for the silence of the moment's finality was commandeering his senses. Perhaps he was not screaming; perhaps there was no sound.
The gravity of it all was…overriding.
From that ledge the assailant peered down, an outstretched hand – an impulsive gesture, it seemed – extended in a foolish attempt to pluck him from the air. This, of course, was utterly futile. There was no ultimatum. He had destroyed himself long, long before this moment.
Had he not been about to die in a blazing inferno of energy, he may have even laughed.
It was just so. very. typical.
But in that moment he was reaching as well: futility, pride, station, all of that meaningless at Death's door.
And nothing, nothing could be done.
There was no checkmate, no victory on either side. After having so meticulously arranged all of his pieces, he had lost track of whose turn it was, of where he had placed the King. The pawns, the rooks, the knights…they had blended together, the specific players scattered across the board no longer holding individuality or sides but morphing into a conglomerate that was wholly and treasonously against him.
He had willfully clad himself in black and white and every color in between – a clandestine camouflage of deceit…and disillusionment.
His body was already growing numb, the searing heat of what was approaching dominating his finer senses of touch. Whether it was because of the pain in his chest or the extreme temperature behind him, he could not tell, but he could see tendrils of ashen smoke curling from the fingertips of his outstretched hand.
Flames and electricity licked at his back, and he made eye contact with the figure above. Though now far below, his hand, smeared with red, continued to reach and reach and reach, his vision straining to fixate on any form of detail… Then, very suddenly, it was as if a heavy fog was lifted from the murk and mire of his tortured mind, and an abrupt lucidity descended upon him, the likes of which he had not experienced for months, if not years.
You see, when the destruction of existence is impending, when the fall into oblivion is imminent…Mind and Determination have a way of facilitating a terminal attempt at broken, desperate clarity.
He breathed.
Life…is a hypothesis with multiple outcomes…
The heat intensified. His hand was disintegrating.
Determined by—
By—
….
No words would reach before…
A hot, white light seared the corners of his vision.
Hope is…is— I…
Dr. Gaster had learned…
He…had l
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