Crimson Death

The dead scream across the canvas of my mind. Eternally. Forged upon my conscious like a bad memory. We're all bad memories now…

Two years ago an army of mindless beasts wrecked havoc upon an unsuspecting world, led by a depressive, obsessive man consumed with thoughts of vengeance against a world that… wronged him. Somehow. Wronged him in a manner one does not easily return from.

We stopped it. Stopped him.

I… stopped him.

And not a day goes by where I don't regret the consequences of victory. Most days, I consider all the hypothetical prices of a defeat that I can think of preferable. Most days, I barely make it through… before… before…

Shit.

Then you arrived. And dulled the agony with a sense of renewed purpose. However frivolous and imaginative it is.

You considered it, right? There must have been a sequence of thoughts that led you to the conclusion that you needed to do what you sought out to do. Or rather what you sought for me to do. Act by the strength of your conclusions – and they have real weight behind them. I know. I drew the same conclusions. I just knew never to push that far. To uphold the Lie of life – at all costs. Winning is a costly affair, after all, my friend – you see, most of all the cost and burden placed upon a wretched soul that stopped being my own entire fucking lifetimes ago.

That's the price tag, honey.

You don't understand that, though. Do you? You always thought that victory could be had entirely pain free, didn't you? That you could just… waltz into our world of hypocrisy and claim victory based entirely upon the merits of your assumptions. Your higher intellect and moral authority. How very human of you.

How fucking pathetically human.

A disgrace. A fucking disgrace, that's what it is. Was. Will be. Has been. Forever, man. Fuck. To be… created – as smart as you and then not even considering that there may be more at play than everything you may have considered.

What a waste.

Well…

Are we trapped in this blackness? Together… oh the irony…

Anyway.

Let's compare notes, then. For a moment. Humor me. See if I get it all right. See if you got it all wrong…

I've been at this long before you were ever meant to exist. And I'll be at this long after you never existed.

You set it all in motion, right? You did. Don't bother deny it. I'm in your head. You're in mine. We are together. One. None. All. At last something in there, responding to you in the dank emptiness. Do you know what I see? Feel. Touch.

Dead space. Useless. You disgust me.

You have issues, Ash. Or do you prefer Guardian? You have issues with your own conclusions. Haven't you? The consequences of those conclusions were too great to bear. I may be dead space, but you – you revel in pain of life now. The pain gives you meaning. Allows you to justify your sacrifice.

Look – I understand. I understand, Ash. The truth is hard – as it is meant to be, right? Difficult. Maddening. Eating away at you. That's why you people lie… all the time.

Forget about the Truth. Forget about the Lie. Consider the Game.

Consider life a game. The Game.

Put a child in front of a video game and tell him to do whatever he wants – whatever comes to mind. There are no consequences to his desires; he's free – do as you please, son. The child can do… whatever he desires.

What does he do?

What did you – do?

You acted out the desires that couldn't be tolerated to act out in the real society. You ran over bystanders on the sidewalks. You shot at everything and everyone in sight. You bought prostitutes. You killed them. Every ungodly act of human desire you couldn't act out in your own… domesticated, caged little existence you acted out in this free space. In the confines of pure fiction…

You became the vile creature that man keeps stored away in the shadow of their soul. That they wrestle into control by the devise of rules and laws. Where you cannot see it, feel it – maybe you can even forget it. Until life reminds you of your blackness.

Maybe you even laughed – as most young men do in the face of intolerable horrors. Reveled in every act of indecency that the facade of a morally just society had deemed inappropriate.

Life was free. At last you could finally become yourself. There were no consequences to be had. No eye of the law peeking over your shoulder. No real punishment for your crimes.

Crimes. What a god-awful machination. What a ploy. Look beyond the wall of your own suffering, Guardian. Behold the beast, the gateway to the millions of worlds – fake as the last – resting upon the shoulders of Eternity just beyond the sight of men. Of mortals.

Now – were they – the players of the games – corrupted by the freeness of the world in which they played? And if so… is it only the shackles put upon man that holds him decent? Or was it all just innocent fun? After all, it didn't matter. It wasn't real, was it?

Is it?

Are we?

Life's a game. The Game. Real is the illusion. The dead is alive. And alive is dead. In a dream… somewhere. Trapped in eternity. Do you see, Ash?

Don't fret the conclusion you found inside the locked room. Do not for a moment dread that pure starlight in which your past was revealed onto thee eyes. Face it! Own it!

Become what you were destined to. Do not forsake the nature of your being. You were meant to be the equalizer in this little Game of Life. Be. It.

Life is a game? A Game. The Game. No…

Believe it!

NO!

Ah. We are stuck in this blackness, it seems. Stuck at an impasse of will. Only way ahead is through each other.

Let's compare notes. Please. Take it from the top.

Lets.

Okay. Where was I? Ah. Shit.

Here we…

Go.

Thirty two hours and twenty three minutes.

You have to let it go, man…

Death is good. Death is quite right. So were my thoughts as I stared upon Lance's men as they dragged the body away from the scene of the crime. The former vessel of Agatha's stained soul. The old woman I'd journeyed to save – compelled to, even.

I fell back upon a shadow, contemplating my lateness with the sincerest sense of perverse futility. What the fuck was I doing here? What the fuck was I doing with my life?

What the fuck was any one doing? Did they even know?

Do we?

Quite honestly, albeit debatable to the deceitful hearts of the raving masses of man, this was unambiguously a far better fate than anything I could have ever provided.

I thought that as they carried her corpse, maimed as if a beast of a viler time had trespassed upon her in a moment of weakness. In a moment unseen.

How did the murderer get the drop on Agatha of Elite Four? There was a whiff of resourcefulness behind this. And why did he warn me beforehand? How did he warn me?

Why was he playing with me? ME! Didn't he know you just didn't fuck with me?

I circled around the house, hidden in the shadows of the trees surrounding old Agatha's property. They weren't really needed, though. I had long since cloaked myself, hidden my sacrificed flesh beneath a suit of armor forged in the Circle of Time.

I nimbly made my way past Lance's goons of the League as they began clean up and gathering evidence. I heard the dreaded whispers.

"This – this was him… Wasn't it?"

"No one's talking about it, man. But who else can it be? Who'd have the means and the motive to pull this off? It's fucking Agatha! Arceus Almighty none is safe…"

"Yeah. He's finally begun… the cleansing…" The grunts were sweating – and not entirely cause of the damp heat of the forest – as they collected evidence, dusting for prints on the front door. "Fuck! If even Agatha isn't safe, then we're all doomed."

"Yeah, but why now? It's been years! What, a little over two years, yeah? Why the fuck now?"

"Lance ousted him. Maybe this is some elaborate plan. Maybe he spent years planning."

"Does this look like a well-thought out plan? He tore her apart. Limb for fucking limb. What's the plan here?"

"It's Ash Ketchum – that's what it is."

A strange sense of dread came upon the synapsis of reason still left within me. I was lured here, warned too late by the killer so that I could bear witness not to her murder, but to the fallout. Why? Why was I here? Should I leave?

Yeah… I really should.

I should leave. Couldn't. Too many questions running amok, whispering, edging me onwards into a grand, conspiratorial maze of clandestine madness.

Thirty two hours and twenty minutes…

Forget it, man!

I trekked upon the road leading up to Agatha's front door, until I stood at the precipice to a world of which I still knew nothing of. A world of which would reveal itself in its entirety if I but took another step unto path unknown and into intentions wholly unholy.

Yet – standing there, surrounded by enemies that slithered to and fro in a peripheral sense of reality, trekking dangerously along the lines of non-existence in my sense of being – I hesitated. Stuck upon a thought so grand I almost couldn't bear the thought for thoughts alone…

You diggin' my chops?

This was a setup. And not a very subtle one. But one I must confront nonetheless. Whoever did this did their homework. They knew me; what I stand for – what I believe.

I sensed time slow, as my decision and actions-to-be dragged itself from this moment onto the next, as Agatha's lifeless, ravaged remains were placed upon a heli-carrier to transport her back to the League, to their morgue.

What upon her would they find? What forensic evidence – of which would be entirely falsified, of course – would they uncover, hidden within her maligned skin.

I'd have to inspect her later. I'd have to break into the League's HQ again. This time wouldn't be quite as easy as the last. Lance would have made sure of that by now.

Later. Thoughts and worries for later. Not now. Now I'd have to look for evidence here. Find it before they did. Contaminate it before it could be used against me.

Against the Guardian.

For now I had what had all the makings of a poorly made trap to step into.

What was this even?

Why? I asked myself. Why go on, wholly on your own, into a trap you knew lay ahead?

Why? The fuck? Answer me, why!

Because I could never let Schrödinger's cat alone. Fantasy, no matter how alluring, could never compare to the icy, unforgiving hand of reality.

For I had to confront reality – twist it into something that made life just a tad less senseless.

I had to know – even if it killed me.

Wise men know death is right, I thought as I stepped beyond the entrance, door askew and stooped, and left behind the fresh smell of a blooming forest in the vitality of a late spring in favor of the dusty confines of an old woman who had seen the sun trek across the heavens a time too many.

More grunts of the League were slow at work. Guards – whom passed no glances in my direction as I moved towards the living room – stood by the entrance on either side of the broken door.

I entered the living room and found the horrific sight of the crime scene, the epicenter of a madman's awry vision. Blood stained the walls in perfect little loops, like rings in still water born after the drop of a small rock. They interlocked at times. At times they stood apart from one another. But they littered the walls, quite like someone had taken the time to draw it upon. With impeccable care and a wicked eye for detail.

There was no sight of blood anywhere else. Barely a trace of a struggle. Yet Agatha had definitely been maimed and murdered in here – just not on the floor somehow…

The room reeked of it. Of struggles. Of death – Death.

Death.

There was something there. In death but alive. On the walls. In the blood. I could catch but the faintest whiff of a sensation. Tasteless. Devoid of character. Like it had been yanked out of existence into a plane in which it no longer held any right to meaning – and thus held the ultimate meaning of all.

A sort of manifestation of destiny.

But life itself is meaningless, I thought, having no idea where the thought originated from. And the human experience is the paradox. The singularity of nature. The mistake of which nature could no longer content with – only bear witness to its horrific creation as it span across centuries. Mutating. Growing. Ever-expanding like a cancerous stain upon a pristine canvas.

I found myself paralyzed, bodily functions no longer responding to the silent commands of my brain.

"Malfunctioning." The raspy voice of olden Ash Ketchums, soul and souls scattered across an infinite carpet of time, stole my undying attention as a lance of panicky excitement took hold in my heart. "Analyzing. Please wait."

"I cannot fucking stand here," I whispered to myself, countenance little more than a snarl, as my cloaking ability suddenly went haywire. I coalesced onto the eye of man, stepped into the light of recognition, and was born into their perception of reality.

If a thing exists but you cannot see, does it then really exist? If a thing is – and I mean is in the most profound sense of being – but you cannot comprehend it, does it then not cease to be? At all.

Is depression not but the inability to understand and be understood? To perceive yourself as inconsequential. My friend, you're just awake to the monster of existence.

Death is right. Life is a lie. The lie.

Fuck it. Anyway. I became real.

The guards, standing not twenty feet away – my form clear in sight – stood dumbfounded for a precious, universe-defying moment, and then unbridled terror touched their eyes.

"FUCK! IT'S HIM! INTRUDER! INTRUDER!"

"Systems repaired. Core functions… restored."

Thank fuck for that!

I stepped forward as chaos slipped onto the scene, blocking the shots from their quickly drawn guns with nay but a thought. I waved the haze of bullets aside with nothing but half a mind's focus. Half a second later, before even so much as thinking about my actions, I was in their faces, grapping their necks and choking the everlasting daylight out of their fucking eyes.

I grabbled for reason, for a semblance of sense in my soul, for a fucking plan, and stopped myself before I'd extinguished all their light, all their life. They slumped to the ground, stooped and worn out, but alive.

Alive is the sin…

I blinked, groaned, shook my head as a splitting headache found its way to the space right between my fucking eyes. Thoughts not my own, voices – past, present and future accounted for – not my own ran havoc within my existence.

Death… Wise men know death is right. Brave men do not fear it's embrace.

Fuck. I thoughts – thought, man – of suicide, of ascending, of Serena. Of… May. Oak.

Serena mostly. She was alive… Why… where am I? What was the time…?

Thirty two hours and twelve minutes…

ALIVE IS THE SIN!

I felt bullets crisscross across my back as the rest of the guards converged at my location, drawn to the sound of gunfire, attacking me. They were peripheral beings to me, to what was happening inside of me.

Something was trying to seize control of my mind. Something aside myself.

But enlighten men, Guardian, like you – like me… we welcome it… Don't we? When our time comes we won't beg for Him to draw back the cloak of life and grant us but a second glance. We know that what awaits cannot be crueler than this. No. It is all the same. Just the same…

"Who – fuck! Who are you?" Light coalesced into my hands, blue and pure, and with a simple flick of my wrist it was sent spiraling around the room, tracking down anything of life and blasting it with a sharp concussive, but non-lethal force. I paid them no heed, taking a knee as my hands found my head, as if I hoped to somehow grab the pain and yank it out of my mind. "Please… stop…"

You have skipped across an ocean of time. A cesspool of evolution and yanked into existence a man so far beyond humanity that mankind won't even recognize it as its own. And yet you, Ash Ketchum, still bleeds. Still begs. Still clinging onto the small notion that life can make sense if you but make it.

Still human.

The pain, which threaten to split apart my skull, lessened to something wherein I could function. Flicker-quick, with nothing safe a fast last look at the place, committing every detail of the room to memory, I took flight through the roof, a plan at hand. Gaining altitude fast, I set in pursuit of the helicopter that was transporting Agatha's body. Now it was no longer about covering up fake leads. It was about learning just who this fucker was.

How disappointing.

"FUCK OFF!" I yelled against the raging winds of the sky.

Shots of guns and cries of beastly intent rang hellish promises in the evening air as men on winged creatures took to the air after me.

I was faster.

I picked up their radio chatter.

"Ash Ketchum, Sir!"

"You sure?"

"Like I'd ever forget that fucker! He's in pursuit of the chopper! We can't keep-"

"HOLY SHIT! FUCK OFF! AHHHH!"

Ah. Fuck. What little sense I had clung onto since all hell broke loose had left me. I tore through the side of the helicopter, killed two of the heavily armed men in the back with simple flicks of my wrist and a speck of power, before spinning about and kicking the pilot's head clean off his shoulders with a roundhouse kick to the side of his neck.

I was a killer making a killin' for killin' sake – god fucking killin' it!

The chopper took a nosedive towards the ground, yanking Agatha's body forwards into the cockpit. I rolled with the punches of gravity and let myself fall into the cockpit with her, grabbing her and hoisting her over my shoulder.

And then I let myself – with a small boost of speed – fall out the front screen and gain flight of my own again.

"He's got the body, sir." I heard them say over the comm link. "What are you authorizing us to do?"

"Fuck!" That was Lance. Definitely. "We don't need her body, Johnson. We know what happened to her. I just want that fucker dead. Kill him."

"No names on comm," I said, after hacking their radio, almost smiling. "Poor Johnson might get compromised."

"KILL HIM!"

I spun about upon a whispered thought; Agatha's lifeless remains slung over my shoulder like she was a bag of groceries, and faced off with my adversaries.

Isn't it funny how you always end up fighting amongst yourselves? Even you – in you timeless quest to protect them all – always ends up like this. Always fighting the ones you're trying to protect. Always. Why – why did you ever willingly sacrifice your soul for this? Why did you die – for this? Why do you cry…

FOR THIS!

FOR THEM!

"Who the fuck are you? How do you know all this?"

You know who I am. You were foretold of my ascension. You saw. You saw inside the locked room. You saw that I was – yanked from non-existence onto this path. This time. This room. To you.

I drew fire first as they approached, firing blindly as I crawled across the sky, soughing ever higher. Never high enough – what a fuckin' high, man.

One of them, the one closest and riding upon a good ol' trusty Charizard, caught the brunt of my strike, and streaked downwards to be swallowed by the trees of the forest – it fell in a smog of burning mass and dreadful cries of agony.

The rest of them – smaller creatures of a kind and strength of number that reminded me of a steely night years and lives ago, worn out and fought in the vast wilderness of man – streaked past the clouds separating us in a sort of frontal strike without thought.

My hand, wet with the damp of the settling night's crisp, dewy air, slashed across my torso, and a streak of dark, purple vicious light was yanked into reality by my hand. It tore through the air, laser-thin and precise, and slashed through every creature it touched like they were but little more than paper.

As they fell, as I prepared my second and third mode of attack, the earth moaned and a fire so bright my eyes lost sight coalesced from nothing amidst the woodlands below.

And then the world screamed in defiance. Defiance of me. Screamed for vengeance. For my demise.

A world I was only trying to protect had come to conquer me. Again.

The forest caught on fire.

And a creature so hideous and magnificent – so monstrously out of touch with the world – ate its way through the trees, stepping into the burning crimson light of dusk.

Its skin leathery, it had become a grey-dark mate color, almost but not quite black, the likes of which I'd hardly ever seen before. Across its torso was a line of deep sky-blue color, going along its underside. It had grown in size, as well – considerable so compared to when I blew it out of the sky a few short moments ago.

It had none of its wounds, either. And the fire on its tail, man. It was so fucking dark. Almost black.

What the fuck was this? I mean, clearly it was a Charizard, but also as evidently it was not… just what the hell had happened to it?

And then there was the other problem.

Oh. Shit.

It had already ascended the sky and was already on me.

Driven by instinct deeper than knowledge gained across a plethora of battles died and battles lived, I raised my arms against it's sweeping claws, of which were infused in the infernal lights of the dragon.

My forearm caught fire – and I mean that fucking literally.

Other creatures joined the fray, emboldened by the creature's success, creating a maelstrom of jolted limps and fiery streaks of inhuman forces. All of it with yours truly in the center of it all, getting plummeted, getting shit-faced fucked up.

I laughed, fucking howled, and brushed it off. Keep it goin', motherfuckers!

I ascended the sky, so high in fact that I caught sight of the League's headquarters in the distance, incased within a range of snowy-clad mountains sides.

They followed me, crawled and fought and screamed and sang the toil in flight, because they sensed my moment of vulnerability.

The Charizard, thinking it was faster than me, blew past me to block off my retreat, but the sky was open and I stirred left with a harsh thrust of my hand and an explosive push of force.

Unfortunately, good ol' Agatha's lifeless remains couldn't quite handle the g's, and a wet tearing sound shot out and rang in the night's arrival, as her neck snapped and her head hang and flopped around the space of her shoulders.

A small giggle forced itself out through my clenched teethes – and I cursed away the madness looming ever close to my perception of it all.

Her head spun again, as I burned right just in time to avoid the blazing breathe of the dragon hot on my heels.

Beyond the trees of the forest, miles upon miles in the distance the waters of the ocean coalesced to my eyes, and even further beyond that, the heavens and the oceans met in perfect dark symphony, creating the illusion of eternity.

There was forever. And it was going round and round and fucking-

BOOM!

Lighting forked across the space in between me and the abnormality of a Pokémon. It had gained up on me again. Maybe it was truly faster than I in the sky.

No matter.

I had flown high enough now.

I let go of Agatha, saw her sail past the creatures below, saw her disappear in their all-encompassing darkness – like they ate her out of existence. Felt her hit the trees of the forest and disappear.

Was she still even of existence, then?

What? I shook my head. And focused.

Hands together in front of my torso, I continued to glide upwards with my back to the sky, eye-to-fucking-eye with my would-be executioners.

"I'M ASH KETCHUM, THE GUARDIAN OF AURA! IF YOU DO NOT CEASE YOUR ASSAULT, I'LL PUT YOU ALL DOWN!"

Some claim. Maybe I had the juice to back it up, maybe I didn't. I had a plan either way, I thought, as I angled my flight out over the waters.

Within the palms of my hands, there was a light of deep blue, glinting almost like a sapphire, vibrating with power and growing out of non-being into being by the devise of my will and intellect alone. Immediately, my hands started shaking, as the vast heaviness of the infernal thing grew in existence. I began to breathe again and my breathing grew labored quickly, my sight lost all focus, but I was beyond such rudimentary sensory experiences. I was seeing all there was, all there could be – I was seeing all – as it should be. Seeing it all with blind eyes.

"I'M GOING TO COUNT FROM THREE!" My voice, amplified by unyielding intent, touched across all heaven and earth. They must have realized I didn't bluff. I never do. So why did they not cease their pursuit. Even creatures such as them feared death. Right? Or were they, too, in the know.

Had I somehow opened up the gate of truth long enough for a creature intoned with nature's intent to catch but a glimpse of the beyond? And had they understood it?

Or maybe we had all seen it. That night. Maybe I was just the only one of awry coconscious who could see and not bow. Maybe these creatures, with lack of identity and thus no claim to madness, could stare into the abyss and not grow too scared nor too fond of it.

"TRUST ME! YOU DO NOT WANT ME TO REACH ONE!"

Flash of lightning streaked across the surface of the little devil's ball in my hands, tingling the skin beneath the layers of the grey suit. I was in deep contention with the energy, as I'd been all along in the long and arduous process of creating this weapon. Its creation was yet another costly glimpse into the dwindling humanity of my being, sacrificed on the altar of benign falsehoods.

Sacrificed for the murderers of god.

"AND SO THE MURDERERS OF GOD SHALL BECOME GODS! THREE!"

We were out over open water now, far out, Agatha's body long forgotten and eaten away by the woodlands – creatures of the night would shortly dine upon her delicious remains, unless I hurried.

Or I'd lost the only thread I had left to yank in this clandestine mess.

The sphere of energy had grown beyond my hands, filling out the rest of my form and stealing energy that leaked out of my every pore – I had once more lost a small measure of control.

That could prove costly.

For them.

And me.

Fuck me, this was going to tear me asunder.

"YES! MORE! COME ON, KILL ME!"

There was a songbird in my chest, begging to be left out, but I was much too tough for it. Nobody could ever see my fierce tears of dread, for they might mistake them as human. And whatever tears I'd had, they dried up ages and deaths ago.

Death is right, the creature beyond the veil said. Death is quite right.

"TWO!"

The sky cried out in fright, as lighting danced across a clear night sky, and at last something like comprehension touched the eyes of my foes and they began a quick descend towards the shelter of the forest in the distance. I'd had scared them off, I could let them leave-

"TOO FUCKING LATE! ONE! DIE!"

I threw my hands out, held them out like I was nailed to a cross, and opened up – opened up for everything. Every little speck of life I'd ever endured, every little dot of time upon which I had yearned. Everything. Every Ash Ketchum to have ever existed.

And from within my torso, right across my fucking ever-lasting heart, a beam sprang forth like thunder and coalesced into a blazing force. Quite like the power of the sun.

But it was out of control. I realized it as soon as I'd set it free. Before that, even. As it jetted forwards, growing, growing, growing until it was the size of small city, I was thrown away by the backlash of it, thrown so far away I quickly lost sight of the destruction I'd wrought.

And when I came to, I was floating along on bottom of the ocean; it was night and there was not a speck of light in sight. But I could still smell the putrid aroma of scorched flesh and unruly, unquenchable power from the surface.

And then I heard Lance, speak in a devilish tongue.

I thought of Serena.

Thirty two hours…

Ah. Fuck.

Two years have passed. Since that night. The night. It's funny. Tragic. Nothing's changed. Not a damn fucking thing. And yet…

Try to imagine. Imagine yourself two years in the future. Now imagine that instead of you continuing being this pathetic version of yourself, going nowhere, going backwards, you instead take charge of yourself. You try – you fucking try as hard as you can. Every day. Imagine how much you could accomplish in a little over seven hundred days if you but gave it your all from the moment you awake to the moment you have to sleep.

Imagine that.

There are no limits, are there? In your imagination you could be almost unrecognizable to whom you are now. And it's not even hard to see the path you'd take probably, especially if you'd aligned yourself just a tad upon a pathway on which you could see yourself pursuit. You can see the small increments; the daily steps to take towards a life worthy of praise and of strive.

Now, step out of fantasy and walk back into the cold touch of introspection, for therein lies the real truth – the truth you must spent every day, every minute, every goddamn second in denial of.

Walk back from now instead, look upon the last two years of your life, for therein lies something that's approximating wherein you'll be two years from now. Look.

Nobody goes anywhere. Anywhere of worth, at least.

Maybe you've moved forward in your career over the past couple of years, maybe you can even convince yourself that it matters, but most likely it has left precious little time for your own life – the time spent on yourself and not on another man's vision.

Maybe you've started a family, and you can honestly say you love them, but your own life has stagnated as a result and your love – the little of it you are still capable of – is not worthy of them or the person you once were. Or maybe their capability for love has dwindled and it is no longer worthy of you. Who knows?

Who can ever be satisfied by average love, you wonder?

You see. Life is but a maze of infinite choices. And you can never get what you want or – more tragically – you cannot even get what you need. You're forced to choose and squander away the possibility of a meaningful life in favor of something that might approximate a finite sense of happiness. At best. You will become droplets of genuine happiness intermittent by long pockets of time filled with unbearable suffering. Or worse – and believe me there can be lots worse than suffering. At least, in suffering, at times, there can be meaning. You can have that.

But if you cannot even have that? What then? What happens then?

If you cannot even have meaning in your purpose, what happens then?

What do you become then?

What do I become?

Hopelessness turns good men… cruel…

What will it do to me, then, I wonder?

Will it make me like you?

Crimson King.