Hey, I'm back. I decided to post the second chapter, even though I was going to wait until I was done. Now, don't expect chapter 3 to come too soon. I technically have it done, but it's only 400 words, so I need to lengthen it.
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"Raven, I need to talk to you." Terra came up behind me while I was meditating on the roof. I had sensed her dread ever since she left the main room, which was six stories below the roof, and thirty minutes ago. She had taken the longest route possible to get to the roof, and had only come up because the pain she was feeling was too much. Not physical pain, emotional pain. Trigon was bringing her down by memories, whenever she did something he didn't like, or did not do something he wanted her to, then he would send her a memory. These memories were from her past, but at least Trigon had the decency enough to keep them blocked from me. He at least let Terra keep her own memories her own, and let me keep my sanity by doing so.
I stepped down onto the ground, turned around, and looked at her. For the last thirty minutes I hadn't been meditating, I had also been dreading this moment. Even though I knew what was going on, it seemed impossible for me to tell her that I already knew what she was going to talk about. I couldn't even say 'I know'.
All I could do was nod.
In the single nod it was as if Terra figured out that I already knew what she was going to say, but she also seemed to understand that I needed her to say it. It was like she knew I could not believe it was real unless I heard it. Deep down inside I had the feeling that she could not believe it was real unless she heard it either.
"Raven, I'm... not..." Terra took in a sharp breath, held it in for a few seconds, and then let it out.
"Alive" I filled in for her.
She only nodded, and I had a feeling that if she was able to cry her eyes would be watering right now. "Maybe I never was alive. Maybe I was dead inside the stone prison, maybe when you're dead nothing happens. Maybe you don't exist, maybe you're just not.
"I was just there. I don't remember what happened when I was inside the prison. I was only able to dream, and think.
"There was also a tiny little voice inside of my head that counted down the time. I couldn't hear the voice, or see the time, yet I knew what the voice sounded like. I knew what time it was, and I knew that time was counting down. It knew when I was going to die.
"When I woke up again the time had continued. It seemed to be counting from zero this time. It was 78 hours in."
"Three days." I said.
Terra nods. "While I was in the stone prison I had dreams, and time. Then when the time ended everything stopped. There was complete blackness, or maybe it wasn't black. I can't remember anything; it could have been purple...
"...But the most reasonable answer is nothing. No black screen, or white. No heavenly white gates or tunnel. No blinding white light. No red gate or flame. No heat. No ice or cold. No water. No grass. No sky. No clouds. No ground. No feeling. No anything."
I nodded, and a sudden respect for Terra came over me. I never really saw her as the deep thinker type. I never thought of her as one to ponder over pointless things, things that didn't matter, but still seem to at the exact same time. Then again, if somebody was stuck in a stone prison for a few months like Terra, then you're bound to think.
But here she was before me, mumbling on about all possibilities of what death is like. She had experienced death, but yet, she still hadn't. She had died, dead for 78 hours, but she still did not know what death was like. Then at the same time she did.
Death was nothingness.
"Death is a nothingness." Terra said. I was a bit startled at how she had said the exact same thing I was thinking, but I did not let it show.
"I don't want to Raven. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be some servant to Him. I don't want to feel anything. I don't want to be."
I looked at Terra for a long while, a long, long while. She was looking down at the ground. I could have sworn that, if she had been alive, a single tear would be running down her cheek.
I had been thinking about what she had said, and I agreed with almost everything she had said. I didn't want to be somebody's servant, and I didn't want to feel anything, for the pain and dread were the worst things I could feel.
I didn't agree with the other two things she had said though. I did want to be here, and I did want to be. I had friends, and I did not want to disappear. I wanted to be, I wanted to exist. My friends had me, and I had them. I cared about them, and after all we had been through I knew they cared about me.
"When?" I finally asked in a monotone voice. I was talking about when he was going to come. I wanted to know how much longer I had until he came. How much longer I had to prepare for.
She lifted her head up, and after only looking at her for a second I knew what she was going to say. "He's already here."
Once she said that I felt something charge into my body. It felt like a giant horn had just caught my stomach, and for a second I thought I might be bleeding.
Then I noticed I was still standing, and still staring at Terra. This time she wasn't looking down. She was looking straight at me. Her face was blank, except for the slight downward curve at the outside edge of her eyes. A sign of regret and sadness.
"I'm sorry, "she whispered. "I don't want to do this, and unlike last time I have tried to get free. I have tried to cry so many times. I have laughed so hard to try to get the sadness away. I have used my powers so hard to attack. I have used them so hard to attack myself.
"I keep trying to end this, but at the same time I can't. And the force stopping me is not my will to live. It's Trigon.
"Every boulder I throw and force to come back to me will swerve at the last second. I have even tried jumping into it right before it swerves, but it moves back. I have done it again and again, each and every time it comes within an inch of my face. It comes so close I can feel the wind of it, I can see the tiny specks of dirt on it.
"All I have accomplished to do is make myself unafraid of objects coming straight at me. I've made myself invulnerable to fear." She says.
"I haven't flinched at all since yesterday. I keep on thinking that maybe if I don't flinch I won't have any close-to-death encounters. Instead, when someone attacks me I'll just stand still and I'll have an actual death encounter. I'll be dead and won't have to worry about being Trigon's servant. I'll be back in the nothingness that is death. I'll just be there and rest in peace."
I take in all that she has said. I never considered her to be so dark. I always thought of myself to be the one that would commit suicide, out of any of us. I wouldn't actually commit suicide, but I think I would be the most likely candidate.
"Raven," Terra continued, "he's coming here tonight. He's going to take over you and make you do horrible things. First he plans to make you destroy the city! Then he's going to make you destroy the rest of the world! He's going to make you destroy every single person, and he's going to show you how much power you have!"
Terra started to speak really fast, and I tried as hard as I could to understand her.
"He said that he's going to make you destroy everything, and he's going to make you watch every person you kill. He's going to make you watch them wriggle and squirm under your wrath! And while all that is going on he is going to talk to you, and discourage you, tell you what he thinks about you, what he thinks about everyone you know. Only, he won't make you destroy your friends."
That surprised me, after all that stuff she had said I was going to do she then said I wasn't going to destroy them.
"He's going to bring you down mentally, and emotionally, and after you have destroyed everything except your friends he will let you go. He knows you better than you think Raven, or at least he thinks he does. He says that he knows that after everything is gone you will do 'the right thing'. You... wi-wi-will... Ugh!"
Terra fell over and started to moan in pain. She clutched her stomach and hunched over, I rushed over and caught her as she fell forward.