Don't you dare leave us.
I'm here.
He knew what boredom felt like. A dull buzz in the back of your skull, and the unrelenting urge to do something, despite the lack of will to act on it. He, as any other sentient being, had experienced it before, and he knew it all too well. Soft voices hushed his every thought, convincing him that he was only bored, only restless… that his time would come again, and soon. They rocked him to sleep with arms that never were, and he accepted it.
When he awoke the first time, he knew that it wasn't simply boredom.
A single scream, echoing off the walls of his glorified prison. For a moment, the voice, the comfort… it wasn't there to numb him, and he had seconds to think for himself. His train of thought was broken, twisted, but present all the same. He wasn't bored; the realization came to him easily. It wasn't hard to accept, and easily explained away without the aid of the Goddess. He was excited, to some extent, kept at the ready for battles to come. He couldn't possibly be bored, with such events in his future. Still, there was something amiss, something that made him almost want to stay awake, stay aware to ponder. The explanation for it was there, in his mind; he had words for it, but couldn't grasp them within the time that he was given.
As suddenly as his eyes had opened, they were shut once again by dulcet tones. Genesis allowed himself to give in to the feeling of a cool hand on his back, slipping back into his seemingly-eternal slumber with ease. The next words that he received were equally convincing as the first. Their purpose was to keep him stable as he was, without any sort of mental pause.
Calm down, now. It's only regret.
Had he been capable of nodding through unconsciousness, he surely would have. Of course it was regret- it was so simple, and so comforting. Regret, he could live with. It wasn't debilitating at all, not when he had such support figuratively at his side. There were many things that supported the explanation, unlike the theory of boredom, many things that he supposed he could regret.
His birth, his life, the lives of his friends. Coldly, he accepted that these things had never been meant to be. He tossed them from his mind as easily as a child discards a broken toy, and slipped quietly back into contentment.
Don't you dare harm us.
I'm here.
The second time he awoke, it was with a cough, rather than a scream… and he was undeniably certain that he did not feel regret.
As before, he was allowed a moment of contemplation all his own. It was nearly impossible to fathom, the concept of thinking without assistance… but he accepted it nonetheless, and set upon useless wondering for the second time.
No, that strange feeling was not regret. How could he possibly regret his life, when it had been meant to serve the greatest good that there was? His friends had existed to help protect him while he waited for the coming times, keep him strong and ready to serve. Every action that he had taken, even the ones that he thought back on with disdain… they were not worth regretting. They had lead him to where he was now, and he wouldn't change any of them for the world. What, then, nagged at the back of his mind?
The chilly hand pressed itself to his forehead, and Genesis could almost see the frown above him. He was feverish, and his lungs exclaimed their protests with haggard fits of coughing that managed to keep him awake for nearly an hour. A second hand rubbed at the tender space between his shoulders, and despite the sickness, his muscles at last managed to relax. For the thousandth time, he fell into the endless comfort of the voice's soft whisperings, and believed every word, no matter how many excuses he had to make in order to do so.
Quiet, now. It's only sadness.
It was shocking, how he hadn't been able to come up with such an explanation himself. Even if he regretted nothing, that didn't stop him from feeling negatively about it. This word- sadness- came with even more associations than regret did. There was the degradation, for starters. Dying slowly was enough to jerk tears from anyone, no matter how hardened. The deaths of his friends was another. He'd only had two true friends, and they'd both died far before their time had begun to pass. The fact that none of them had truly understood him… that, he supposed, was the final nail in the coffin.
Sadness made sense. It was tangible, acceptable. Before he had the chance to shed tears over such trivial matters as the past, Genesis found himself drifting off to merciful sleep once more, guided into the action by sweet nothings that he'd built his life upon.
Don't you dare doubt us.
I'm here.
The third awakening needed no physical stimulus to occur. One day, he simply woke up, a phenomenon that had become foreign to him throughout the ages of sleep. The voice, apparently, had heard nothing, and this Genesis was left to his own devices for longer than he'd previously been allowed. It was with a sense of curiosity that he stood, a grimace breaking across his previously-peaceful face as he did so. He felt like some manner of spread-legged ungulate, taking its first steps on legs made of water and sinew. That first step was an endeavor, but as it was taken something in his mind seemed to click, and the ones that followed came with much greater ease.
It took him a full fifteen minutes to traverse the seven feet leading to the water's edge, but he made it there nonetheless. Acting on instinct, he knelt beside it, eyes widening slightly at the sight of his own face in its mirrored surface. The auburn in his hair had returned, the only remnants of his slow degrading a few hints of white near the tips. He touched it in disbelief, and found himself shocked by how soft it was. Each sensation that he experienced now was new, foreign. Though he remembered them from ages past, he was no longer accustomed to them.
As he thought on this, another revelation- What he felt was not sadness.
A moment of hesitation was taken before he dipped a hand into the cool water before him. It was cold, colder than the hands that had guided him through his time of sleep until now. When it was withdrawn, the resulting ripples were enough to stir that voice and those hands to action.
What are you doing?
"Thinking." The answer was spoken in a clear, matter-of-fact tone of voice. Genesis would have offered the voice a faint smile, if only he'd known where to direct it. One hand pressed against his shoulder, unusually firm in its actions. He followed its guidance immediately, and soon found himself back on the floor, and unbelievably drowsy. For a while, he simply lay there, doing nothing but revel as icy fingers ran their way through his hair.
Don't do such silly things.
At one time, the words might have chilled him to the bone, perhaps even invoked anger. Now, he doubted that he was capable of feeling such things for the nurturing voice. Doubted, not knew- this was a startling realization in and of itself. There was a possibility that he would be angry at the voice, wasn't there? The oh-so-reassuring answers that it had given him so far had been entirely false, and he supposed that he was allowed some measure of frustration for that.
Thankfully, he felt none. In fact, he felt nothing but that strange, nameless emotion as he nodded, and closed his eyes obediently.
You shouldn't worry on these things. It's only love.
Somehow, that answer was more enigmatic than the rest. He was permitted a moment of thought, such was its puzzling grip, and he found that it was true. It sounded ridiculous- love! How was one such as himself supposed to love? Sure, he supposed that to some extent, he loved the voice that calmed him even now, but he could not recall any of the emotion in his former life.
He consoled himself with forbidden thoughts as he drifted off to sleep. Perhaps he had loved in the past, but simply couldn't recall it. Of course, that had to be it.
The voice wouldn't lie to him, after all.
You're doubting. Don't.
…I'm still here.
The fourth awakening was explosive, more so than even the first. Suddenly and forcefully, Genesis wanted to get up, something that he'd never even dreamt of before. As soon as the will was there, his eyes opened, and before he could ponder the action, he was sitting by the water's edge once more. His reflection showed no signs of white, now, but that was hardly enough to calm the sudden bout of restlessness that gripped him.
"It's not love." The words were cold, almost tangibly so. He had never loved, and he had known so all along. Why, he wondered, had he given in to such an explanation, after the third awakening? Such things were absurd. Love wasn't something that would get him riled up, and he was dead certain now that he did not love the voice. It had lied to him too many times, given him false comfort… he wanted answers, and he was going to get them.
His eyes narrowed in concentration, and Genesis glared at nothing in particular as he struggled more than ever to find the word that insisted on being so elusive. A wing that had been thus far ignored curled delicately around his side, a few gray-black primary feathers falling to the water's surface. Once his frustration was vocalized with a low-pitched, wordless growl, the voice sprang to life once more.
Stop that.
It was the first true command that it had issued, and it prompted nothing but negativity from Genesis's newly-awakened mind. Stop what? He was doing nothing wrong, just thinking. Even monsters were permitted to do that much, were they not? With a struggle, he got to his feet once more, expression set in cold defiance.
"No."
The second that the word was uttered, every sliver of insubordination was physically knocked from him. The 'thud' as a hand drove him against a wall was final, decisive. Cold stone pressed against his cheek, rough edges biting into the sensitive skin there. A menagerie of whimpers and earnest apologies came from his lips immediately, and only when his voice quavered did the hand allow him to fall.
How much time he spent on the ground, he did not know. All that registered in his mind was that he hurt, all over. The hands had always been so gentle; why would they strike out at him, when he'd served them so unquestioningly?
A finger was pressed to his lips before tears could begin to form in his wide eyes, and a second hand laid itself delicately at the back of his neck. The actions were almost forcibly comforting, as if the hands wished nothing more than to strike out at him again, to break down their precious servant until he was reduced to nothing but a useless bundle of bones and feathers, as he had so nearly become.
See, now look what you've made us do.
There was no apology for the actions, merely false comfort. Dully, it registered in his mind that one hand had taken to stroking his side, and he near-forced himself to relax, just so that it wouldn't be inclined to hurt him again. He had never wanted to be rebellious, never wanted to give the voice and hands any reason to harm him. Apparently, the whimper that escaped him was enough to convince the voice of this as well.
Hush, now. Go back to sleep.
No explanation was offered, but before Genesis could express his disdain, his eyes had already closed in irrefutable compliance. As he fell into darkness, he had time for one last half-rational thought.
Perhaps, what he'd been feeling along was nothing but pain.
Blasphemer! Blasphemer!
I'm here, I'm here, I'm here! What more do you want from me?
When the urge to awake came to him again, no surprise came with it. As he had before, Genesis willed his eyes to open… only, this time, it took a while for his body to comply. Once his hearing began to work once more, the first thing that he registered was that he was no longer silent. His breathing was heavy, quickened past the point of calmness by the struggle for consciousness. He didn't dare move, simply laying there as he forced his sluggish mind into action before the voice could find him again.
A few silent hours of painstaking thought, and it occurred to him.
"It's not pain, either." The words came with a groan of immediate disdain, and a wince. Surely, the hands would come for him again, now. His defiance had become too much, and now he feared that the currently nonexistent pain would become a reality, and all too soon.
Nothing came to him. Nothing touched him. Nothing spoke.
It took another hour before Genesis decided that he was safe. With a puzzled frown, he hoisted himself to his knees, only to see that the water he'd been so fascinated with had frozen over. The area itself wasn't cold, yet somehow he now knelt before a small expanse of ice. He sat there, unable to comprehend it all, for countless hours… and still, the voice did not return to him.
A few minutes of attempts earned him back the use of his legs, and he found himself pacing, almost trying to invoke a reaction. The voice was his entire life; was it plotting against him, or brooding?
"I'm going back to sleep now. You don't have to hurt me." The announcement was loud and clear, but met with nothing. A shudder, and he slid down the wall that he'd taken to leaning against, drawing his knees up to his chest once he hit the floor.
So, this was what loneliness felt like.
Obediently, he closed his eyes, and as always sleep came to him, though it was not accompanied by a voice of any sort, and nor was he driven to it by comfort. Only exhaustion pushed him gently back into unconsciousness.
…I'm still here. Hello? Hello?
Naturally, he awoke again, though it was not of his own will. Nothing touched him, and nor did he react, initially; he'd almost forgotten what waking up after only a few hours felt like. Genesis stretched, wincing at the various complaints that his sore muscles made. For a while, he was covered by a veil of quiet contentment, all drowsiness at last gone from his mind.
Which was when it hit him that the voice had still not returned.
Again, he frowned, looking up as if he could see it suspended above him. Of course, he saw nothing, which only caused him more worry. Had his defiance truly been that great? Did it no longer want him anymore? Such thoughts were frightening, too much so for his taste.
"Hello? Hello!" He called out the words into the vague darkness, and paused in expectance of an answer. "Are you there?" Again, he was met with only silence. He began to tremble now, unbelievably shaken by the prospect of spending his time waiting alone. "Please, answer me!" His voice rose to an almost frantic pitch. "Please, I'm sorry! I'll go back to sleep again, and never, ever wake up, if that's what you want! Just talk to me!" The silence following his words consumed all, sending shivers down his spine.
It was then that the answer to his uncertainty was given to him, though his denial was sudden and fierce. The voice, the hands… they were real. They had to be. Pent-up tears began to stream openly down his cheeks once the word came to him, but he did not cease his imploring cries.
"Say something, I'm begging you! I can't be alone here… I can't. Just tell me what's wrong with me, I don't care if you lie anymore!" His eyes closed, so overcome was he by despondence. "Just make this okay! Let me sleep again!" Before long, the pleas subsided into the sobs that he'd been holding back for so long, and his mind filled itself with the word that he'd so carefully tucked away in his consciousness.
Madness.