Immortality: Gift of Eternal Life and Death
I got the idea for this story from Suikoden and my dreams, but it is not really about Suikoden, so please still read it and bare with me.
A young man walked into the heart of an empty city. His red hi-tech clothes clung to his sweaty body. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, with side bangs over his face. The city engraved with the hushed emptiness of a once filled city, was like a tomb from which life had sprung, and then was buried. The winds spoke his name, the dust rolled by his feet as he looked up at the many ladders and wires hanging from the dead towers above. As he entered the void of emptiness, he stopped and closed his eyes to think…
Once again, I walk down this path of destruction, where life once stood but has vanished. I know this place well, yet, at the same time, I don't. I believe I have been here countless times before, though the sane part of my mind denies it.
I start to walk down a thin bridge, made of lose wiring, and metal bars. It seems as if it is about to collapse, yet I walk on. I start to feel a sense of belonging, when I take those first steps on the bridge. Almost, as if there were a reason for returning to this cold place. A muted voice inside my head tells me to keep going, so I do and I walk down that bridge until it is behind me and gone like the people of this city.
Some rocks shift behind me, they bounce on the cold floor until they stop and roll off. I swivel around, instantly taking my gun from my side, and I find myself pointing the barrel at a young woman. Her hair drapes over her mud-stained face as if she were sweating from a good run. The collar of her coat covers her mouth, and she stares at me, with emotionless eyes, like she loved nothing in the world.
"Who are you?" I demand not placing my gun down, for she stands only a few feet away.
Though the gun is pointed at her face, and she was defenseless, she doesn't seem shocked, and she says calmly, "I have been searching for you for many days, come, for I have much to show you." She acts as if she knows every word I am about to say next, though she can't, could she? She cleared her throat and spoke again, her voice filled with nonchalance, "I know why you are here, and why you keep returning to the same place."
"Who are you?" I growl this time, I am getting sick and tired of her attitude.
"How do you know that? Who are you?" I growl this time getting sick and tired of her attitude.
Yet once more, she does not answer any of my questions, seeming to enjoy my annoyance, "Your time grows short and remember I wait for no one, not even you, chosen one."
I was about to ask her what she was talking about, but she started to walk down a flight of stairs that lead even deeper than I am into the city. With each step I take, it is like I am taking a step closer to knowing where I am and why.
She holds out her hand to me as we reach an opening, "Your destiny awaits you chosen one."
I walk a little closer to see where she was leading me, then I feel a crunch in my stomach. My air seems to have run out, my gut twisted. I grab for the closest thing near me to stay up, but find nothing and fall on the floor to my knees. My memories, true memories flash before me.
I remember that, one week ago, I worked as a scientist, to find out what dreams were. My co-workers and I however needed a human specimen, for technology finally allowed us to enter a human dream, or so we thought. I started to write everything down when we entered the dream, and I remembered them as if they had been typed into my mind.
Dreams are timeless. They do not need to be held by the rule of hours, days, minutes. Some asked us how we can dream for what seems like hours, or days, when in reality, we dream only seconds.
It is just the secrecy of this realm, my friend, but what mankind really seeks is like a mole in their mind trying to surface, some realize it faster than others. It is immortality; I think by passing through a dream, we can attain this. Darkness, nevertheless will follow to destroy any wish of mankind, for every wish granted, has a price.
Darkness likes to tamper with the minds of its prey before crushing its bones and killing it. Fooling it so it can't see, thinking things are real when they actually are not, it likes to see you confused and suffer.
It is like walking through a hallway, but the more you walk, the farther away the end is, and with one step back, you start at the beginning.
I wanted to seek what all men longed for. I had figured it out at a young age, I needed to escape the ending road of mortality, and I needed to escape the pain. I did not want to walk down that road knowing somewhere along the line it would stop. I needed to find a way around it.
Soon I come back, and I feel as if I am awake, or maybe, this is the dream. No this can't be, it has to be real. I can't make up my mind, reality or dream?
I finally notice that there is no one here but her and me. Suddenly, I see a door, the insane part of my mind already knows where it leads, but I'm not sure, so I look anyway.
The door is towering above me, fifty feet tall at least. Though I am not close, it looks like a black hole ready to suck anything close in. The doors are open slightly and inside I see an infinite abyss of darkness.
"What is that?" I ask the woman gazing at the door.
"This is the Darkness created by mankind's heart." She replied placing a hand where her heart should be, and then she glances over to me.
"Those are the Guardians of Darkness; they will kill anything at all costs trying to destroy Darkness, for it is how they exist, all they know, and all they ever will know, for they are a slave to it forever."
I soon realize what she was talking about; the Guardians were larger then normal men, about nine feet, looking like phantoms. They had long flowing shadowed cloaks, over their hunched body. No matter how long you stared at where the face should be, all you saw were red glowing eyes, which was like looking at the sun. There were two of them in fact, one carrying a sickle, and the other a sword as big as a tall man.
"What is my purpose here then? Why am I here?" I ask, turning my gaze to her, since I could no longer stare at the Guardians.
"You are the one, told many times in stories handed down from generation to generation. You will be the one to rid the world of Darkness."
I look at her in shock, not knowing what to say, and I place a hand over my gun, feeling the handle against my cold hands. If that was my destiny, I was willing to accept it. I take one step forward, and as if they were motioned censored, they both looked up and speak in unison, their voices cold and so empty of life, "Those who try to destroy Darkness shall fall to their deaths." They both move closer, edging towards me, the one with a sword in front of the other.
"Get down!" I tell the woman when one steps a swipe away from me and her.
I pull the gun from my pocket, and start to shoot at the closer one. I find them absorbing the shots, which I shoot with hate, they were like two children eating a lollipop. They enjoyed it!
I roll onto the floor, when one swipes me with its sword. I hold firmly onto my gun. I shoot one again, but the other bats me into the air with the blunt side of its weapon, then knocks me down onto the floor. I hit the floor with such force a crater is formed, I feel my body crushed, I hear the woman behind me saying, "I can't help you, you are the only one who can damage or destroy hate."
I stand up again somehow, my will strong, my face bleeding, I feel the front of my chest pounding with pain, but I realize I am not rising on my own- they are making me. A dark aura starts to rise from the floor, rising me, but I can't move. It slowly starts to rise from my legs and upwards. I start to struggle as I float into the air, and then I am laid into a standing position, one of my legs feel broken. Suddenly it covers my whole body, and my eyes turn white, as I enter another world, in which the worst of my fears are real.
"How could you?" I hear my mother call; I turn to her, confused. Somebody's body is lying on the floor, dead. I can't tell who it is, but then it strikes me; it was Elaine, my girlfriend, and my best friend. My heart starts to pound faster and faster, did I really do it?
I kneel by her emotionless body and start to cry, "How could you act as if you mourn for her?" my mother asks me.
I hear police sirens blaring outside, then they enter and grab my shoulders, "Sir you are arrested to the murder of Elaine Hart." one of them says.
Without looking up, I mumble, "I didn't do it…I didn't do!" A voice in my head starts to whisper, "It's your entire fault." I cannot block out the voice no mater how hard I try. It seems to be coming from the wall, echoing. What was this place? It was so hard for me to now tell the difference between reality and fiction.
Without actually thinking about it, I fall to me knees, my mind comes back slowly and I start to scream with agony, as I notice the black void is slowly choking me as I laid in that horrible place. I regain consciousness, but continue to scream, thinking it is all real.
One guardian mumbles something, he seems tired by my screaming and prefers to kill me its own way. He smacks my body out of the black void, far enough from Darkness as it felt content. The dark void follows me nevertheless. I slide onto the floor, dirt in my face. My windpipe feeling as if it had been slowly closing as I laid in the black void. So it is hard for me to breathe. I feel crippled as if most of the bones in my body were probably broken.
Soon it hits me, as I turn over to gaze at the door and the Guardians, I am a captive of this cruel place, which I thought was the end of my torment. To have each day the same as the last for all eternity, I finally had what all men wanted, immortality, but at what cost? I soon realize that I never really wanted it, but it was too late to turn back.
I feel myself slip from the world; I know I am going to die. I try to get up to fight back, and place a hand behind me to support myself up and find it broken, so I fall back onto the floor once more.
"No!" I hear the woman cry, "you must get up chosen one, you are all we have left!"
I cough once as I fall to the floor, blood trickling from the side of my mouth, I still stare at the door, seeing what I could not destroy and what caused all my pain. My windpipe closes and with the very last of my breath, I laugh. I laugh out loud hysterically. That is what I do as I see the helplessness of my situation; I know I am going to die. For now, I know my faith, I will live the same day over again, to die everyday for eternity.
With my last seconds alive, I look through my tearstained eyes, my bloody face and scratches blurring some of my sight, as darkness takes over. I will live in torment, when I tried to prevent it, then complete the cycle once more. Again and again and again through this dream, for all eternity…
-Mokoto-san