Fear of the Fall
I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain time to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
would harrow up thy soul...
Prologue
It was cold. So very cold... Gustave could hardly inhale without shivering. A type of immortality was not without its risks. Being unable to die from natural causes does nothing to prevent natural pain. Coldness, anxiety... loneliness. It was there, as obvious as the emptiness of space.
He had made a deal some weeks prior to his other selves, do not surface and you shall be preserved. Ha, what a joke. Although the lack of screaming voices was a blessing, now it was a curse. Seeing the preserved corpse of Alicia, he ever so needed someone, something to talk to, even if it had to be himself.
Trotting through the empty corridors of the space satellite command area, he had nothing to do but reminisce about the past. Pathetic, he thought, worrying about his fate. If this was to be his atonement for his sins, so be it...
"NO!!" he shouted, "I can't accept this... this FATE! I won't accept it. I just will not give in to madness..."
He looked to a window closest to him. The stars were brilliant, but his attention was focused to his reflection, "How long? How long have I been stranded in this purgation... Three months? Four?"
He smiled. Wait... he noticed that he wasn't smiling, but his reflection?
"Approximately two months, three weeks and a day."
Gustave stumbled back, fell to the floor against a wall, but his reflections on the walls were still grinning. He tried admirably well to hide the fear and surprise in his voice, "You... I thought we had a deal."
The reflections combined into one figure of Gustave, a translucent shadow in the air, a sober expression now rested on it's face, "You thought we made a deal? Heh, a deal is a form of agreement that expresses equality. Rest assured, there is nothing equal about us."
Gustave slowly rose from the wall, "W-what are you doing here, now?"
"Shouldn't it be obvious? You are not exactly Human... you must've realized this. You should have, anyway."
"...Explain!"
The ghostly figure walked forward, "Well... for starters, there's a reason for me to exist. You are older than you think. Each one of us persona's must live for sixty years, then fade away. Your body slips into a coma, regenerating to an infant state. A new life is made for you, but we are ever present."
Gustave tried to believe what he was hearing. He was skeptical, but wanted to hear more. The reflection continued, "You are the seventh generation of the Engelhaft clan leader. The 'Engelhaft' is an ideal that power should not be separated. If power combines, there is no ensuing chaos. However, humans have the tendency for separation. That is why two castes of humans were made; one stayed on Earth to hide in Layered Cities after the Great Destruction, the other headed for Mars.
"The Engelhaft were a long-term experimental investigation command team that came from Mars fifty years after the Great Destruction to infiltrate the LC's. They were to stay and gather information for several centuries, and to keep the Controller operational; so when Mars decided to return, there would be no competition. However, a part of Engelhaft broke off with their own ideals, and called themselves 'Union.'
"But back on Mars, from what we gathered from Kisaragi, the Engelhaft were blacklisted and deemed unnecessary. They now hide in exile, away from the Corporations that infest Mars. If we want to return to Earth with the forces necessary, we must rally our allies on Mars. From there on, we simply-"
"Wait!" shouted Gustave. He walked up to his reflection with an enraged look, "I have had no say in this?! How dare you use me for your petty schemes!"
"You have no choice. You are NOT Human... so why do you deny the facts? Raven disgraced you and ruined my plans, we have every right to return with force!"
"You are gravely mistaken. I do intend to return to the Engelhaft... but to live the rest of my life in peace."
The reflection slapped a skeptical expression on his face, disgusted at his 'successor,' "Peace? Feh, peace is highly overrated. Your hands are already stained with blood, and you refuse to let go of a worthless felling... and for a corpse." he motioned towards the frail figure of Alicia lying on a reclined chair.
Oh, that did it. Gustave would hear no more from this abomination. Jun may have awakened these past forms of himself, but they were not necessary. "Go... before I jettison your beloved vessel into space."
The reflection looked startled, "No, you wouldn't..?"
"Oh?" Gustave commented as he made his way to the main hatch.
The reflection appeared immediately in front of him, "You can't! Centuries of knowledge would be lost forever..."
"What do I care? The fear of death holds no power over me." Gustave said as he walked through his reflective self. The hatch was just arms length away. Everything was lost to him, so he didn't lie when he said that he doesn't fear any death. Besides, there were things far worse than death.
The reflection appeared enraged, and Gustave could feel it inside his head. Before he could reach the switch to empty the atmosphere, the pain returned. An unwelcome pain, submissive... All of his former selves were forcing him back deeper into his mind, away from conscious thought. He suppressed a shout, but it was all too much.
Gustave screamed, his eyes bloodshot, veins bulging from his forehead. Then he collapsed onto the floor, and the darkness overtook him.