Authour's Note:
Everyone, I apologize greatly for leaving this hanging for almost 2 years. I was hoping that I'd be able to continue after the writer's block left, but it didn't, then school started. I'll be a seniour in high school this year, so I'll do my best to update as much as possible. Again, I'm sorry, and I hope you all enjoy this and the future updates. This story is nowhere near finished.
Almost 2 years had gone by. It only felt like some insane nightmare. One that was bound to never end. Autumn was closing in. One could say that the October skies were visible in the horizon. Frozen. Dark. Desolate. Endless. How long would the suffering feeling continue? No one, especially not Nefarious, would be able to answer that.
He lifted himself out of yet another day-long trance. Two years spent doing absolutely nothing. Meditation and sleep were all he needed. His nightmares were his only source of comfort. The shadows of his cave consumed him. No light of day ever seeped back that far in. After that fateful day, he locked himself away for what he hoped would be forever. His fatal love had turned into his tantalizing abyss of destruction and decay. Never fight, never forgive, never love again.
Nothing could stop him from remembering those final moments when he was awake. It tore at his mind, ripping through whatever emotional defenses he tried to construct. All the while thinking, hoping, pleading for whatever gods and goddesses were out there to give him a second chance, or to at least allow him to forget. Any moments of consciousness were spent cursing himself for not using that power to destroy Uka Uka instead. Why it had to be this way, he felt he may never understand.
Any and all memories of her...good or bad...were used against him. They tortured him from the inside out. He tilted his head back and allowed the sadness to take over once again. Tears flowed freely, nothing holding them back for any reason. She deserved so much better...than me...a monster of monsters. He thought to himself, biting down on his lip, drawing blood. A knight...and a Necromancer in one. A hero...yet a destroyer. A harsh cry ripped through his chest. Doubling over, he felt the surge of fiery heat pulse through the pentagram on his back. Ever since that day, the pain had become much more frequent. He contemplated the cause of that several times over, and he deduced that it was triggered by a strong push of only one emotion.
Then...he snapped.
Forcing himself to stand up, he pushed past the agonizing pain, and strode to the opening of the cave. The Wasteland had become his home, and he despised it now. Looking up at the sky for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he threw his head back and let out a long, guttural cry. Enough was enough.
"I UNDERSTAND!" He shouted to the stormy clouds above. "I KILLED HER! NOW END ME YOU SELFISH, HEATHEN CREATURES PEOPLE CALL 'GODS'! END ME!" Lightning struck the ground at that moment, thunder ringing out in a deafening roar overhead. Rain flew down, pelting him and everything around him. "What?" He growled under his breath. "Do I not deserve death, or is my punishment eternal, living suffering?" He stood, watching the lightning flash.
Suddenly, something clicked. Something he wished he could have remembered sooner. Closing his eyes, he drifted back to the day she hit her head on the wall after falling down the stairs. Her voice rang through his head, and more tears fell.
"You cannot die twice."
"...oh god..." He was unsure of what he felt right now, but for the first time in a long time, he felt some spark of hope. Grabbing a slate of stone, he jumped and slid down the side of the rock wall. He had no idea where he was going at the moment, but something told him he needed to get to N. Sanity Island, and soon. If not there, then the castle.
Ramping off a slick rock at the bottom, he flipped over a skeleton of some animal, then grinded off a rock. The wind at his back, and all the rocks slicker from the rain, he made sure to not touch the sand as he boarded away from there. Looking around, he tried to make sense out of where he was, but to his misfortune, he had not paid attention to where he was when he found the cave. All he knew, is that he was heading in the exact opposite direction, which was all he needed. But something occurred to him just then...even if he were to go back and see her again, would she forgive him? Would that wretched mask just force them to fight once more?
He shrugged it off. It was too late to be thinking of said things. The vast desert eventually came to an end. Hopping off the slate, he looked across an ocean. If it were not for the storm, he may have been able to see anything in the water. Instead, he turned his back to it.
"Damn it." Cursing under his breath, he scouted the area for anything that may be of use. Much to his surprise, there was a stone gate that looked much like a teleportation system. Standing inside of its circle, a blue mist appeared. Several options appeared in the mist before him. Someone must have recently used the gate. Someone from the castle.
"To Neo Cortex's castle." He stated firmly, then disappeared in a flash of light. Sure enough, he appeared through Cortex's extremely experimental teleportation gate. Looking around, it was surprisingly quieter than he had imagined it to be. Stepping off of the platform, he glanced around once more before leaving the main laboratory. Nothing at all was operating, which was strange. Normally, several pieces of machinery would be running at once. Closing the door quietly behind him, he glanced around the cold, empty stone corridors.
This was more than just odd, to say the least. Taking the nearest flight of stairs up to the surface, he noticed a thick film of dust over everything. Something wasn't right. Something was far from "right". Or so he thought at the moment. Opening the door to the first floor of the castle, his heart stopped briefly.
She was there.
Looking up from her book, she turned to face him, the raw emotion in her eyes unreadable to anyone, even him.
"...M...Mariana..." Unable to support himself any longer, he fell to his knees at her feet, the tears spilling once more. He couldn't bring himself to look at her. "I'm...sorry..." Gritting his teeth, he clenched his fists and snapped his eyes shut. "I'm so sorry, Mariana." He choked. "Please...understand what happened."
She knelt down in front of him and set her book on the floor. Wondering what compelled him to come back now after nearly 2 years had passed, she lifted his chin and waited for him to open his eyes. When he finally did, she figured that it was her turn to say something.
"No." She looked down, unable to lock eyes with him anymore. "I'm sorry."
"Don't blame yourself for my mistake."
"That's not what I meant." Looking back up at him, she regretted everything. "My tribe caught up with me."
"Uh...what does that mean?" Everything else he was feeling faded, turning into confusion at that point.
"Means woman is mine now." A deep voice echoed from behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see a tall, shirtless man with a grass skirt, tribal tattoos, and bone decorations woven with leather bands. "Other scientists in kitchen. Leave us. I take woman back to island now."
He looked back to Mariana, feeling the self-destructive melancholy resurface. "So...this is...it?" The pain of the punishment was all too real at that point.
"Blue man miss chance. Chief took woman after recovery. Forced marriage not great, but effective."
"I guess that means you think I'm giving up?" There was a new edge to Nefarious' voice. He stood up and turned to face the chief, his head cocked slightly to the side, a malicious, insane grin spreading across his face.
"Nefarious...bad idea...stand down." Mariana laid a hand on his shoulder, the skin-to-skin contact making him shudder violently. "He may look like nothing, but he's even more powerful than I am." The look on his face made her take a step back when he glanced over his shoulder at her.
"What do you think I've been doing for 2 years?" When she didn't answer, he looked back to the chief. "Meditation. Every day. Dusk to dawn, and sometimes, a lot longer." Her frightened gasp told him everything he needed to know. He would win.
