I must not forget. I must remember. I recall what... Who I am

I am Salomon, human, 28 years old. White hair, mid-long. White skin, orange eyes. Well build, but not bulky. Was... a doctor, worked at school.

I was wise. That's what others respected me for and seeked my guidance because of it. I seemed to be nice and kind of funny. I was understanding. People could depend on me.

I must retrieve these traits. I must be who I was before. I must make her remember me. Recall the past.

She can't see me until I become a part of myself again. Now I'm just a stranger to her. And I can't exist.

Divinity Fatum

Life

Prologue

June 2nd, 2015

The sun beats down in hard, relentless heat on my skin as I make my way to my destination. Beads of sweat grace my pale skin under the shade that my hood provides. My steps are staggered as I walk over the shattered remains of a once great city. I kick a piece of rubble from the building above, sending it flying away. My feet shuffle over the cracked ground and kick up dust with every step.

Find her.

My thoughts nag at me in the intense heat, ordering my every move. Find her and protect her. That's all that is on my mind, and that's all that has ever been on my mind ever since I read my diary. Don't let another world end.

I stop when the world gets darker and cooler. I look up to see half of a vertical tower, that no doubt stretched into the clouds when it was in it's prime. I stare in awe, admiring the giant structure, but my goal snaps me out of it moments later. Find her.

I continue, stepping one foot in front of another, into the immense tower. Eventually, dust turns to rubble, which turn to giant stones that I must effectively climb over to reach it. Struggling, I pull myself atop a boulder. I shade my eyes and survey the area.

Eventually, I just barely make out a flash of white hair in the distance, directly in the center of the ground floor of the fallen tower. I jump from the rock, and hit the ground at and awkward angle. Pain shoots up my right leg, and is centered in my ankle. I can feel it immediately start to swell.

"Shit!" I cry out as I drop to the ground and hold at my ankle. I inspect the area, and just as I thought, the swelling has already started. I stand, shifting most of my weight to the left side of my body. I continue, limping pitifully towards her.

I spend hours searching the rubble of the great tower with no luck, and getting no help from my bum ankle. But when the sun just begins to dip under the distant mountains and I feel the cool, arid night slowly creeping up my skin, I hit pay dirt. The familiar glint of white hair makes my head whip around to it's source, a sizable rock to my right. It looks to be about my size, and probably twice as heavy.

Her pure white hair peeks out from under the rock. I limp around the stone, considering my options. There are no boards to use as a lever, so there is no easier was out of this: I am going to have to move it with brute strength. As I approach the massive rock, I pray to the god under it that my one leg will be enough to lift this much weight.

I clench my hands together, getting the blood flowing. I can already feel the cold fingers of night creeping up my back as I mentally prepare myself for the task I am about to grapple with. I squat, dig my fingers under the stone, and lift as much as I possibly can with my arms, then start to move out of my squatting position, using only one leg to do it.

All is well at first. My strength holds out, and I lift up the rock partway off the ground. But things take a turn when my center of gravity suddenly shifts, and I lose my balance. The only option, or perhaps the option that my brain picks first, is to throw out my right leg in an attempt to hold the weight. If my ankle wasn't broken before, it is now. I hear a sound that is similar to a tree branch snapping emanating from my left ankle. The pain feels worse than when it actually happened, and I grit my teeth so hard my entire head shakes.

I'm already too far involved in the lift to shift my weight back, so I push off the ground, this time with both legs, and my right ankle in agony. Finally, after all that trouble, I give it one last shove, and it topples over with a loud thud. Exhausted, injured, and tired, I fall backwards, landing on a rock that's surface is now cool and feel good on my heated skin.

I don't even need to check my ankle now; there's no doubt that it's broken.

After the sun drops under the horizon, I sit up and take in my new surroundings. I look to see what I uncovered with moving that rock. I notice the first white in a sea of black. I am close.

Refusing to stand but determined none the less, I begin to dig to uncover the white stone. I throw off rubble after rubble, unveiling more and more of the white symbol. Finally, the last rock is removed, and I stare straight into the center of a pure white bulls eye.

"Throne." I mutter under my breath. "I'm close." I keep descending, digging deeper and uncovering more of the large, black seat. I throw off a rock, and another silvery-white hair catches my eye. Now, more determined than ever, I jump off the rock and frantically chuck the useless rubble in random directions. The more rubble I throw, the more of her I begin to see. Outlines of fingers begin to appear, then her leg, then...

"I... I finally... found you." I say as I remove the last piece of the tower from her delicate, pale face.

June 3rd, 2015

"3/6/2015

By midnight, I completely removed all of the tower from her. There's just one problem: The sword. There's a sword stuck in her chest that's keeping her bound to the throne. The diary never goes into any detail about a sword, so I'm slightly worried. It also mentions how the researchers did something to her. Does it have something to do with that blade?

That doesn't matter. For now, my only goals are simple; protect her, and don't let others touch her, or the world will come to an end."

I clamp my fingers together, closing my diary. I let out a deep, heavy sigh, letting my shoulders go limp. After pausing for a moment, I glance back at her.

She sits, slumped on the throne. The only indication she isn't actually sleeping is that she has a blade stuck in her chest. She wears... well, I can't even fathom what they are, actually. They're more like black marks spotting over her entire body... Paint? Maybe, but when could she have been around that lately?

It's completely randomized, too. Like a patchwork of black that someone lazily slapped on her private areas- and they did a pretty awful job of it, because the area in between her legs is entirely neglected. An even bigger mystery is how she seems to be perfectly preserved, even though she's been practically crushed under tons of rocks for all those years.

I shake my head, wanting to just get the useless thoughts out of it. I need to focus. Focus! Protect her.

In the distance, I can hear rock crumbling, then hitting the ground with a loud, low crash. The sound echoes around the walls of the tower, hitting my ears over and over. It must have knocked some of the rocks inside the tower loose as well, because next I hear a cracking sound behind me. I turn to the source, and find a large section of wall has come loose, and teetering off it's place. I cringe, bracing myself for the loud noise.

The wall hits the floor with a mighty crash, throwing up dust and smaller rocks into the dry, heated air. Once again, the sound bounces around the tower, making the crash sound more like an explosion going off next to my ear. When the dust settles around me and the noise subsides, my mind jars to attention. What if that had been closer to me? To her?

That's when I decide: I must move her. She isn't safe here. I stand up, balancing my center of gravity to the left, and slowly make my way to her. My right leg screams at me as I limp to the throne. My head throbs with an impending headache. The heat of midday pounds on my back relentlessly, and my whole body tells me to stop and sit back down. But I can't. I have to protect her. I must move her.

Upon reaching the throne, I collapse, holding myself over her. I stare at the blade in her chest; the only thing keeping me from taking her from this crumbling wasteland and setting her somewhere safe... I have to pull it out.

In a rushed, heated decision, I decide I have to. If I want to keep her safe, I have to pull out the sword. I place my fingers over the handle, gripping it tightly. I wonder if she'll feel anything. Will it hurt? I stay my hand, as my thoughts bear down on me more and more. But once again, my resolve kicks in, and I grip the handle even tighter.

My heart pounds in my chest, so hard I fear it might just leap out of my body. I brace myself on the armrest. And tug.

Nothing. The sword doesn't even budge. I pull harder, using what little strength I have to pull and pull. Finally, I can feel it coming loose.

Right then, she makes the first move she has in years. She squirms in her chair and her face curls into a visage of discomfort. I want to stop, but it seems the sword has different plans. It moves completely on it's own, sliding out of her chest like a hot knife through butter. It clatters to the hard, cracked ground, and each sound it make sounds somehow... happy.

She squirms even more on her seat, but has started to do so more violently, so it now seems more like thrashing around. Like when you're having a horrible nightmare that someone is about to wake you up from...

The ground beneath me shakes so viciously, I think the whole earth just might split open, trapping us both in a huge crack in the ground. I wobble and fall, looking up at her. She grasps at the seat and moans. What have I done?

She moves her hands to her chest, clenches where the sword was, and collapses out of her throne. My thoughts race, but my body stiffens as I watch her writhe in agony. What's going on? Why is this happening? Is this... No! No!

I tense up when I realize what is happening. I had just done the one thing I was trying to prevent. I had done it! I single-handedly doomed the entire world! The ground shakes with greater intensity. Instead of falling, all the rocks seem to right themselves, like the tower is reconstructing itself. I grab my diary, knowing it will be my only lifeline in the next life. I hold onto it, and get one last look at her as her eyes blink open. Out of desperation, I call out her name as my body begins to dissolve away.

"SOPH-!"

I'm too late. The last of my body fades away into the oblivion. Into Void. Along with the rest of the world. I feel the emptiness around me as my consciousness drifts around in Void. Then, others start to fill in the spaces. Their thoughts ripple through the silence. The constant noise of everybody's frantic, dying thoughts is too much to handle, so I don't waste any time setting myself apart from them. I sigh in relief when I find a room in the now very majestic, very rainy city. I set my diary on the table and write more under today's date:

"3/6/2015

I managed to find her this time. Instead of searching in deserts, I've started to search for ancient towers and their ruins. I wanted to take her somewhere safe, somewhere nobody would find her. I've pulled out Blade from her chest and... here I am.

"I am the one who destroyed World this time."