Prologue: The Awakening.
Fear. Hatred. Anger. Regret. Despair. The Entity felt all of these emotions, was all of these emotions. In a place where time and space held no meaning, a place of darkness beyond the stars, it writhed. It howled, a bestial roar load enough to shatter a world, yet utterly silent, occupying a soundless vacuum where not even nothingness truly existed. It was the roar of a Beast, a being of emotion and instinct, railing against the suffering that suffused every fibre of its very being. The Beast was vast, mighty, strong enough to level cities and crush mountains, to drink oceans dry and fill valleys with blood. Yet it was also insubstantial, insignificant, less than a gentle breeze lifting a stray lock of hair to blow it across someone's face.
The Entity was frustrated. It feared, yet did not know what it was afraid of. If hated, but had no definite target for its hatred. It raged, but only against itself and its own pitiful situation. It regretted, but knew not what it had done to regret. It despaired, but could not die. It could never die.
The Beast had died at least once, it thought. It seemed to have some vague recollection of battling a group of individuals, entities different from itself, the only other beings the Beast had encountered in the infinite void in which it resided. The beings had possessed a kind of light, a purpose which shone through the void the Beast called its home, piercing its very heart. One in particular stood out to the Beast; a shining beacon of hope and possibility that seemed the very antithesis of everything the Beast stood for, everything it was.
The Beast had been drawn inexorably toward that light, feeling an exhilaration it had never felt before or since. The Beast had no purpose; it had neither a beginning nor an end, knowing not where it came from and unable to bring about its own end. Yet when the Beast approached these beings of light, it knew. It hated these beings. It felt angry that they had intruded upon it, and that they even existed. It regretted that they had not died earlier. It despaired that their light would prevent it from ever finding peace. And…it feared. Feared they would somehow destroy it. The Beast had felt a momentary confusion at that. Destruction would bring an end to its suffering, so why fear it? Was its own demise what the Beast feared, or was it something else? Either way, it did not matter. The only important thing, the one thing the Beast knew for certain, was that it had to crush those lights at any cost. As it drew nearer to them, the Beast became more and more sure. The most radiant one, the one who had drawn its attention the most, felt the same as the one who had denied the Beast salvation. Because of that light, the Beast could not find silence. Because of that light, the Beast could not find stillness, the salvation of oblivion. Though fainter, it was the same light that had created the wall between the Beast and the one thing that could end its anguish, could grant it true quiescence. The beast had attacked that light, and for the first time, felt something vaguely akin to joy.
Yet the Beast had lost. It had attacked with all its might, but was unable to vanquish the light that assailed it. The Beast could not understand. Each individual light had seemed small and insignificant, easily crushed by the Beast's dark might, like a puppy crushed in the jaws of a lion. It seemed that all the Beast had to do was focus on one of the lights, and the immense hatred and fury that comprised the Beast's very being would obliterate the fragile light from existence, restoring the dark void the Beast was accustomed to. Yet every time the Beast tried to attack one of the lights, the others would support it, creating a wall of radiance that the Beast could not penetrate. The Beast did not understand. It knew it was far stronger, far vaster, than any of the lights, so why couldn't it crush them one by one? Frustration blazed throughout the Beast, frustration that it could not find salvation, frustration at these wretched lights who reminded the Beast so much of the thing that had prevented it from finding salvation.
Yet the Beast's frustration did not avail it of anything. The lights, so fragile seeming on their own, proved impossible to overcome, and the Beast felt its body slowly torn apart by the flames of courage and passion, the frost of sincerity and leadership, the lightning of passion and determination, and the winds of hope and love. Even as the Beast disintegrated, however, it knew that it would know no reprieve. It would be revived, and it would continue to suffer.
When the Beast died for the second time, it happened almost too quickly to register. Another entity, similar to the Beast, yet somehow fundamentally different, had appeared as if from nowhere and sliced the Beast in two as though the Beast were merely an insect being crushed beneath the other being's merciless heal. Once again, the Beast had not understood. By power alone, the Beast felt it should have been a match for the unwelcome intruder. Yet whereas the Beast was chaotic, unfocused instinct, raw emotion given form without a guiding intellect, the other force had felt firm, cohesive, striking at the Beast's heart with surgical precision. It was like a small army of disciplined, professional and well-equipped soldiers cutting a bloody swathe through a horde of untrained, undisciplined savages. The Beast's body once again disintegrated into the void.
The Beast did not know how long ago this was, or when it reformed itself. Time held no meaning for it; indeed, the Beast could not even comprehend it. Yet as it scratched futilely at the wall that separated it from salvation, the Beast heard a voice. Hearing a voice was not, in and of itself, out of the ordinary for the Beast. Indeed, it was constantly hearing voices. Please, father, stop hitting me, I promise I'll be good, just don't hurt me anymore…no!...no!...make it stop…someone…anyone….I can't take this anymore! I wish I was dead…I wish I had the courage to kill myself.
Why do I have cancer? I'm only seventeen! It's so unfair…I'll never even have a girlfriend….I'll never make love…I'll never do any of the things I want to do….it'd be better if I'd never been born.
That bastard…he had sex with me knowing he had HIV… and like an idiot I believed him. Now not only will I die, but our daughter will have no chance at life…..it's so unfair. Why does she have to be born only to suffer? Why were any of us born into a world like this? I wish everything would just disappear…
They killed them….all of them….my parents, my sister, even my baby brother. I'll never forgive them. I don't care about my life anymore. I've got nothing left to live for anyway. All I want is to see them dead. I'd destroy this whole stupid, vile, uncaring world if I had to.
These were the voices the Beast heard every second of its existence. The Beast could not understand the voices, no more than it could understand itself, or why it was there, or why it suffered. All the Beast knew was that the voices gave it strength, and was the reason it returned again and again even after it was vanquished.
This voice, however, was different from any the Beast had ever known. For one, this voice was vast, powerful, perhaps infinite, and felt far older than any other the Beast had ever heard. For another, and perhaps far more importantly, unlike any other voice before it, the Beast felt that it could actually understand this voice, could divine the meaning behind the words it spoke.
"How pathetic. Yet I suppose there is no more fitting representation of such a pitiful, if undoubtedly amusing, species". The voice was deep, rich, masculine and powerful. It resonated within the Beast, as though it were somehow one with the Beast's very soul. The Beast found itself focusing on the voice, honing its limited senses in a way it had not since it had tried to extinguish the hateful lights.
"You are the truest representation of humanity" the voice continued absently. "You are the manifestation of their true desires, the shape of their true destiny." The Beast gained the impression of a figure floating in the darkness, tiny, worse than dwarfed by the Beast's bulk, yet somehow unimaginably powerful. The Beast felt simultaneously drawn toward it and terrified of it at the same time.
"Yet they have caged you" the voice lamented. "Those who believe they have conquered fate are yet bound by it. Those who believe they have found the meaning of life yet yearn for one who sleeps in death. And those who believe they can defeat all lies and self-deception remain ignorant of the world's cruellest truths". The voice paused for a moment, returning all to stillness, yet the Beast quivered with anticipation, never before so aware of the passage of time.
"That fool, Philemon" the voice said scornfully. "He should have kept a tighter rein on his minions. Yes, his negligence has broken the accord between us. It is all because of that foolish elevator girl; had she not abdicated her duties and began actively interfering in the world of mortals, none of this would be possible. If Philemon had restricted them to merely providing passive assistance to possessors of the wild-card, allowing them to be the soul arbiters of their own fate, then perhaps he could have gotten away with it, but now…". The voice trailed off, and the Beast suddenly felt the full attention of the unknown being upon it. Though it had no sense of empathy, the Beast somehow understood that this entity was kindred to itself in some way; every aspect of it anxiously awaited the intruder's next words.
"I believe it is time to redress the balance" the voice said smugly. "As the Light has its rulers over Power, so shall you be for the Shadow". As the voice finished speaking, a swarm of black butterflies flocked towards the Beast, enveloping its vast body in a storm of darkness. Though they were in a void of pure night, the butterflies seemed somehow blacker, darker than even the empty abyss that was the only world the Beast had ever known. The black butterflies entered the Beast, and the Beast howled as awareness flooded into the core of its being. Images of the world of humans flooded the Beast's mind. What had previously been disconnected thoughts, emotions and voices became concrete images within the Beast's mind. The Beast began to understand what the source of its rage, hatred and despair truly was, and as its understanding grew, so too did its will. As wisdom and insight poured into the Beast, almost unnoticed by it in the flood of images and knowledge, the Beast's form began to change. The Beast's two heads merged together into one; the sharp, unsightly horns shrank into the skull and vanished, the vast clumsy paws shrank into elegant, long-fingered masculine hands, the vast, warped spine became a fine-toned, muscular human torso. The Beast had shrank immensely in stature- and gained immeasurably in power.
The Beast stood face to face with his benefactor. A tall, suave, powerful man with black hair and a complexion and facial features that were at times Egyptian, at other times Japanese. The Beast understood these things now. The man inclined his head slightly towards the Beast, a smile upon his lips.
"You understand now, don't you? You have an ego now, a rational mind." The man paused, licking his lips in satisfaction before he continued. "How ironic. Philemon always approved of such things, yet they shall now become his undoing, as will so much else he depends upon". The man's lips twisted in sadistic anticipation. "You understand, don't you? You know what you have- no, what you want to do, don't you?"
The Beast knew. He now knew what he had been afraid of. His hatred had a target. He raged against the world of humans. He embodied their regrets. And he existed to grant them despair.