None of this is real.
The room, the place, the visitors...none of this is real.
Of course...why did I not realize this before? This was all a figment of my imagination, self made to entertain existence itself.
The nerubians turned me into a monster, and then left me here. I could not even get a proper look at them.
The ice trolls worshipped me, calling me a cat goddess, yet I could do no more than stoke their superstitious backwardness.
The small vrykul that were not really vrykul came, lived and died entirely beyond my control.
Because none of this is real. How could I not see it before? There is no smell, no taste...well, I physically felt the ice troll hit me with her harpoon, but I am sure that there must be an explanation for that.
There has to be. There is. Because if there is not, then I truly am just a damned, forgotten statue cursed to live alone. And that prospect is so utterly soul crushing, so oppressive, that my still heart can not bear such an existence.
And so...I will not believe in it all. I will believe what I want to. I am the cat goddess, the one true being who creates these nightmares in a lonely, empty vacuum of anti universe. I am a monster; I am sick. Perhaps the fact that none of this is real is a mercy to the beings that have never truly been...because this world is so ugly, so cruel, so barren of love that I would never condemn anyone to live in it. Not even a theoretical being.
Perhaps even I am theoretical. I can not, technically, prove that even I am real.
Let me sleep; let me cease. Reaching down into my core, I tug and pull until I extract a deep, blissful hibernation. It is a slumber that will not be woken until something real reaches out to me; something that isn't as hateful and cruel as this despicable world which I want no part of.
Sleep...forever sleep...please...do not wake me...just let me be the statue. Alone, lifeless and waiting for nothing.
Because I am nothing...and that is all that exists.
A/N: and so ends the fourth arc of our story, on exactly the note I wanted. Next begins the fifth, the final, and the longest arc. Due to narrative, I've divided the fifth arc into two halves: the Zeppelin, and the Frost Wyrm. Make of that what you will.