Authors Note (Long): Sorry this took so long. It was actually going to be a longer chapter too but I cut it in half. The reason I took so long uploading this is namely because I am graduating in five days, also finishing up dark souls 2 and playing a lot more league than usual. But no more excuses, I'll have the chapters out much quicker for now on. Oh and warning, this chapter is gruesome (but I wouldn't skip it unless you want to be really confused the rest of the fan fiction).
Chapter 4:
Everything was that deep, cloudy black that Nocturne shrouded himself in. I could feel it enveloping me. I was no longer in the same plain of existence, but in my own mind, drifting back into times long forgotten.
After what seemed like an eternity, the sensation of moving stopped, and I was still. My surroundings were a blur, but I could hear sound. The sound of children playing, laughing. My visioin cleared and I could see I was in a house. A small cottages living room, where two children ran together, around in circles. Both sharing curly black hair and pale skin, their figure small and frail. I smiled at them. They looked so happy. Staring at them I felt a sense of warmth and remberence. One of them turned around. Although I know she couldn't see me, yet she stared at me. With those crimson eyes. That girl was me. The other…
She was exactly alike my childhood self in every way, other than two pale blue eyes, that shown with a hope that could never be broken. She was my identical twin.
"Mera!" I heard myself yell. Mera, my identical twin. How could I not remember her? We seemed so happy, so alike. I watched myself draw small magical signs on the ground, shifting the wooden planks of our cabin into a tiny flower.
"Mei that was amazing!" She cheered in an adorable voice. I watched as the two played with the wooden flower, laughing, smiling…I don't understand what happened to me. How could I not remember this? I could tell that at this time I wasn't much older than ten, so it was only eight years ago, yet, I have no memory of this place. All that I know is that my parents are dead.
I decided to look for them. I walked through the house and into a dark bedroom. There, my mother lied. She was alive, breathing, but her eyes were void of all life. Her arm was dotted with needle pricks, and blood trickled out of her nose, used needles littering her bedside. She was a drug addict, to say the least. She was completely out of it, and my father was nowhere to be found.
I couldn't stand that room, the smell, the mood, absolutely repulsive. It was completely opposite to the living room that sang with the joy of two children. I sat down and enjoyed the moment, taking in the happy memories. I wondered why Nocturne had sent me here, this memory depicts nothing but joy.
Finally, a knock at the door. My childhood self, and Mera, both ran, not to the door, but under a table. I was confused, and walked towards the door, which was now being beaten violently. I peered through, and on the outside, nothing but Nocturnes darkness. Finally, the door flew off of its hinges revealing a man with an axe. His hair was messy, disgusting even, and his stomach hung over a stained belt. His face was covered in dried spit, topped off with a dirty five o'clock shadow. He was my father. I stared into his faded blue eyes, which were bloodshot with hate. He was breathing heavily in rage.
"Where is your mother!" He screamed in a terrifying, horse voice. Mera shivered, while my childhood self kept a calm demeanor, similar to the one I display everyday.
"No father you're drunk! Leave!" A bold, ten year old version of myself yelled.
"Shut the fuck up Mei!" He said in a disoriented dialect, while storming towards us. "Meraaa." He sung. "Tell me where your mother is and I promise I won't hurt you again."
'So this isn't his first time abusing us.' I thought to myself.
Mera now whimpering like a poor helpless puppy pointed a shaking finger towards the bedroom. He stormed in, and came out only a few minutes later holding my mother by her hair.
"You see this! This is what your mother has become! A cheating, drug abusing whore!" He yelled gesturing the axe towards my mother's neck. My mother however, showed no expression…Completely apathetic.
"Daddy please!" Mera yelled running towards him. He kicked Mera to the ground, and stomped her stomach. My past self, followed by me, ran towards Mera on the ground and comforted her.
Finally, my mother coughed up blood and croaked. "Jon, I fucked the next door neighbor you disgusting pig of a father." She looked up to him and smiled. Jon screamed in anger and swung the axe at my mother's neck, cleaving her head off her body. Mera screeched in terror and kicked her father in the testacies. My father screamed in pain. "You bitch!" She took Mera by her tiny frail legs and yelled. "You see this Mei! This is you and your pathetic mothers fault!" He brought the axe into Mera's chest and dropped her to the floor, blood trickling on my childhood self's face.
I stood there and awe, watching the events of the past unfold, accompanied by the whispers of Nocturne, saying "It's your fault."
I watched my past self get up and charge her father. Jon kicked me to the ground and positioned himself over me. "I will make you suffer!" He yelled as he ripping off a small, tattered blouse.
I looked into her eyes, unable to save her. Her eyes didn't display fear, but a seething hatred. I noticed that her hand was covered in the blood of her sister, and she was drawing a magic seal on the ground. After completing she let out a yell, as a thin wooden spike pierced my father's shoulder. He screamed, dropping his axe. She arose from the ground, picking up the weapon.
She looked into my father's eyes, with a hate that would shape her life forever. "Humans." She muttered lifting the axe above her head.
"Please!" My father yelled.
"Humans!" She yelled even louder, the Axe now lifted fully above her head.
"Humans!" She screamed, bringing the Axe down into my father's skull. Blood exploded from his head. She continued to swing, over, over, and over again, yelling "Humans!" in that same, hateful tone.
I watched as I dropped the axe covered in my father's blood, staring at his what was left of his head. My past self ran, dropped to the floor, kneeling over the dead body of her twin sister. I watched as I sobbed over the body of my twin sister. I've never cried before, or so I thought, and here I was weeping. I couldn't help shedding a tear.
It all made sense now. The reason I held such a strong resentment towards my own race, was how they treated me. Seeing this memory reminded me of how the town treated our family. They shunned us for our poverty, and alienated us for my parents. And then, the way my mother neglected us, and our father abused us…
"But it's all your fault. You thought you could protect Mera and you were wrong." Nocturne whispered in my ears. The memories of my arrogance came flowing back. I remembered telling her the night after my father had beat me: "I can protect you Mera. I know I can. I'm strong, I know magic!" And I said it with such enthusiasm. And instead, I sat there watching as my twin sister died in front of me. But…
"But humans…They're the reason my sister is dead. They're the reason I'm like this. They're the ones who ruined everything!" I fell to my knees similar to my past self, both of us weeping softly.
"Really? Or is that just the excuse you tell yourself. Does it ease the pain Mei?" He said stroking my cheek.
"No…Nothing will ease this pain. You've shown me my past, now please let me go….Please…"
"Hahaha… As much as I enjoy this, we must move on. Your tragedy of a life isn't over yet." Nocturne whispered stroking my hair as the room became shrouded with darkness.
The air became still, and I felt myself floating through the darkness. It felt like an eternity, as I pondered over the memories that had just been returned to me. I closed my eyes hoping that they would go away, but the deep darkness that encompassed me only amplified the pain that the memories brought. Memories of me walking in on my father's affair, of my mother nearly over dosing on an assortment of drugs, my father beating my sister and I, the towns council ignoring our troubles, the village people shunning my poor sister and I. The only human I had truly loved, was cleaved in front of my eyes. Knowing this…furthered my hatred for humans, all the while, intensifying my lust for power. Immortality can be achieved, and perhaps these memories I blocked from my mind would give me answers.
"Your next stop is here…Heheheh…" Nocturne said, his voice fading.
I looked upon myself once again, with the same feeling of being there in my past self. I watched as I walked through the Shurima desert, with a look in my eye, signifying an absence of hope…or any other emotion for that matter. I could see the approaching ruins of long lost civilization, standing tall, reaching high in to the blue cloudless skies of the desert. The land was an all too perfect metaphor for myself at the time. Void of anything other than what used to be.
As I, or my past self, sat on the head of a demolished statue, whose face was unrecognizable due to the sand's erosion, I could hear the screams of some poor soul in the distance. Although I was curious to whom those yells may have belonged too, my past self sat in solemn silence, staring into the sand.
Out of a nearby building, a figure emerged, that of something non-human. It hovered above the sand, casting a malformed shadow, writhing beneath it. As it approached me, it stared into those forlorn eyes, with three violet ones, each nearly the size of my head. Its body consisted of three tentacles, one on its behind, and two on its sides. Two massive purple eyelids, the size of my body, lifted revealing a terrifying deep purple eye, which gazed deep into my past self's two red ones.
"Hmm..." He groaned rubbing the bottom of his golden head. "You aren't like most of the subjects who arrive here."
I answered with silence.
"There's nothing to learn from you. You are pitiful, meaningless. I should end your life only to do you a kindness. However, I strongly believe that is not worth the little amount of time it would take to do so." He looked at me a moment more, and then gently, putting a tendril under my chin, lifted my head up, so that my pained eyes gazed into his curious four.
The dry lips of my past self began to move, slowly letting out the same, disgusting word: "Humans…" I croaked the phrase several times, before passing out on the sand.
For a moment the world painted before me went black, and then, I woke up, but not as the observer, but as the actress in the play. I was now in the body of my past self, laying on a cold stone ground, lit by a glowing torch. However, I could not control my movements, nor my words, I could only see through the eyes of my past self, as she endured her unfortunate life. I arose from the floor, my vision blurry, seeing once again, those curious eyes staring into my own.
"There are some things in this world, which cannot be learned through disintegration. Like you pathetic humans, I must experience to learn. And if I truly desire to learn everything there is to know in this wretched universe, I must learn what it is like to have a daughter…The thought disgusts me, but I will raise you like the humans whom I have disintegrated have, but of course in my own way." The creature said stroking my hair clumsily.
He floated around the room, repeatedly staring back at me. "Why is it that you desire immorality? Some desire it to escape their impending doom, others, like myself, to have the time to uncover this worlds secrets. But you. You are different."
"How did you know…?"
"I can see it through your brain waves. Normally I would have to disintegrate you to find out such a desire, but I happened upon a man who could use magic to see such desires through the interaction of neurons in the brain. A helpful trait, however I still strongly prefer disintegration. The brains activity does not define the human." He paused. "I plan to teach you the ways of magic. More particularly summoning. You have the potential for excellency, especially with me as your mentor."
"But why…why am I alive right now? Why would you save me…?" I uttered without control.
"Like I said, some things can't be learned through physical breakdown to the purest forms. Others must be learned through experience, and it seems happening on you was a happy coincidence to learn what humans call, being a father." He said lifting me up to my feet. "Now. I have made roasted hare with scrambled eggs. The protein will revitalize you. You have a lot of work to do child. I will train you to be powerful, self-sufficient, and above all, a master in the art of magic."
"To let you know, fathers don't generally teach their children things like that." I said, between bites of an overcooked hare.
"Ha, ironic you would say that. Anyhow, you are weak. Your training starts tomorrow at the break of dawn."