And the greyed mist extended infinitely. Covered the ends of the world. The black soot was everywhere… Encased the trees. Thousands of trees, growing more blurry the farther they go out. Ash floated, choking any who breathed it in…
But there was no need to breathe. There was no need to breathe at all…
The air was composed of voices. All these...passing words.
All the indecipherable whispers.
I floated through the ashes… My body...gone. The sensation absent. Nothing.
My mind felt fuzzy and disoriented. Battered and rotted.
The trees were decaying in the soot. Branches hung low. Bark peeling and falling to the ground.
The black ash blew away as I moved forth...Revealed a desolate, barren ground. Bleak and dead grey like the infinite mist… Skeletal remains of unknown bodies were embedded into the iced dirt. The bones melted into the earth.
The whispers… They morphed together. It sounded as if they were the voices of the trees… That's when they moved, appeared in sight.
Sickly shadowy figures grew into being… Thinly bodies with flickers of shards thrown off, disappearing forever into nothing...only to reappear as dead leaves that covered the remains of the deceased.
They were following… Staying at a distance but moving closer slowly. Ever so slightly.
I tried to run, but...something was holding me back… As if the shadows were pulling me back...Pulling me towards them.
No physical struggle. Just a...allure...with their quiet and echoey voices…
And...they were becoming clearer…
They were repeating my name. Overlapping one another, growing louder and louder…
And when they seem to get my attention… They spoke their true intents.
I always have time for you
No apologies. Did what was right… Hope you do the same... if necessary.
Just don't make the mistakes I did. There's always another mission. None of them are an excuse to make you an island…
I survived this long watching my own back… No time to worry about anyone else…
I don't know who you are. Not since they got their hands on you.
Are you here to kill me?
Must counteract sabotage. Stop me if you must. But...don't try it.
That won't happen. Go get her. I'll see you all when you get back.
It was nothing I couldn't handle.
I watched them die. They were processed. Rendered down into some raw genetic paste...and pumped through these tubes.
You left us behind.
If you don't think about the needs of the whole crew, people could get hurt. Even killed.
Your courage for my people will be remembered. You won't be alone…
Help us.
The voices wrapped around my body. Whispers drilled into my skull.
I didn't know where I was going. Only to get away from the shadows, but wherever I stepped my foot pressed on the remains of a skull or rib cage...and more figures appeared around me.
And there's something that breaks the whispers. A sound that passed through the mist.
Laughter... The echoing laughter of a child. Young and innocent… It overcame the whispers, passed through the mist and the shadows.
I saw a small glimmer of white light in the grey. It moved, running away...
I want you to know, I'm willing to do what's necessary.
I'll march into hell whenever you want but not with a fake smile on my face.
Finish this... You promise me…
I'm sorry.
I beg you. Do not do this. Please…
I know how this will end...But I won't back down. I can't. Let me die with honor.
I wanted you to have a normal life. Marriage. Children… Things I could never have. I just never meant…
Some souls die in battle. Some die in their sleep. Some die for no reason at all… Don't let me be one of those.
I am willing to lay down my life for you…
I pushed forward. This slow, floating walk. Each step became harder and harder. The shadows still surrounding me….
The white light stopped for a moment. I passed behind a tree, almost reaching it...but it disappeared.
Under your leaderships...we can't fall. Go. I'll hold them off.
I settle for nothing but the best.
I'm sorry… There's only one way.
We only acted in self-defense… Do we deserve death?
Good luck. I hope we see each other again… But I know that's unlikely.
I'm still here…
I make mistakes like everyone else.
I made the mistake of trusting you. Believing you were my friend. I was a fool for trusting you…
Each of us needs to be willing to die…
I looked around. Another hint of the light in the grey mist…. The continued laughter.
I headed towards it… Passed this burnt bench covered in the same black soot of the trees. It was placed next to a dying, rusted light. Flickering. Trying to stay alive.
The shadowy figures blocked it, leaving only a shield of muddled blackness… The glimmer kept moving, kept running away… Laughing.
Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask if honor matters. Their silence is your answer.
We know you can't save everyone.
The sacrifices you make... Until they have someone worth following...
And only now I understand the extent of your sacrifice…
Each voice was familiar...Someone I knew, or at least thought I recognized...
The laughter turned into screaming… Panicked, terrified screaming… I felt the vocal cords ripping apart.
I tried to run faster...Tried to pass more and more soot covered trees...But I...I couldn't. Something was stopping me. It wasn't the shadows' voices. I didn't know what it was. I just couldn't run faster. I don't know why…
The screaming continued without stop… The shadows' voices overlapped.
I couldn't reach the glimmer. It kept moving
...for better or worse…
Sometimes the most brutal way is the most honest.
Because I couldn't let you go...
They were...They were trying to surround me… Their voices became more frequent. More louder. And...Fucking Louder.
They maintained their distance, but I knew they were trying to get a hold of me
More constant. Ending mid-sentence…
They were all trying to fucking blame me.
Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.
I must go to them. I'm sorry. It's the only way.
We know the score. We know this is goodbye.
I hate you.
You were born to do this.
We will not survive.
Does this unit have a soul?
I need to know you're always coming back...
I love you… I'll be by your side...Even to the end.
The glimmer stopped moving. Stood still in the middle of a small empty area where the trees didn't grow. As if they were abruptly stopped from their march.
I moved forward...The shadows began to surround the light...but they also stayed their distance…
I was almost there...I…
The voices stopped… Almost immediately. Their shadowy figures disappeared… There was a loud booming sound. A electronically rhythmic yell that blocked out the glimmer's screams… The shadowy figures' voices…
A flash of dark red and black light ignited and dispersed. The ground shook. Soot was shaken off the trees. The ashes on the ground were disturbed, thrown into the air to reveal more remains.
The glimmer was frightened. It sprinted away in terror… It circled around back… Back to the rusted burnt bench and the decayed street light…
I followed… The shadowy figures reappeared around me… Stronger than before…
Their voices didn't start again though… Instead it was a hollow sound that creaked… Like the sounds of someone's last breath….Raspy and weak…
Nearly gone.
But it was only a single sound. Not a chorus of individual voices… But just one...Just one…
The glimmer...tripped over something. It got back up… Stared over a particular skeletal remain… It looked different than the rest… Half it's body was visible, sticking out of the ground. There was something...covering it.
I was almost there. Only a few meters away. The shadowy figures again stopped where they were.… They shimmered more.. More shards of shadow shot off and disappeared…
The hollow sound… It became louder as I got closer and closer… But...the raspiness turned into an inhuman sound… A bubbly, broken sound… Garbled and meshed… Like it was choking on blood… Crunching on bones.
The glimmer of white light surrounding...the child I saw on that transport… The child I couldn't save…
Save the rest...
You can save the rest...
I approached behind him… He was dressed in blue jeans and a white hoodie… He must've been around nine or ten…
I reached my hand out… Trying to grasp him… To take the glimmer away from all this…
He turned around and…
He… He…
His skin...was gone... Replaced by this pale rotting tanish flesh with parchments of sickly yellow-green covering his body like thin paper... Decaying and stiff… His eyes...were...were gone... The entire face gone… Instead it was a gaping hole where I could see parts of his skull and blackened inner mouth… These wire-like tentacles with red feelers at the ends stuck out. It seemed to originate from his stomach…
My hand stopped… I backed away… Afraid. The white light that surrounded the child was fading…
"What…?" I was finally able to say. My voice was weak. It seemed to travel into the grey mists… I still slowly backed away. The fear was growing… "What are you?"
The child didn't move… It only continued to...to look at me. The feelers… They...moved. Spastic jolts in random directions… The child's arms...Jesus Christ… Jesus Christ, they were fucking gone.
Jesus Christ…
I scrambled back. More and more. I noticed something on the ground… I looked down… The skeletons… They… A similar substance grew, engulfing them and the ashes that covered them…
This tan-green and bloody orange and red mesh-like skin that grew over everything...Over the remains… Over the soot covered trees… Large sac-like blisters formed… These pods that looked like they were about to burst… I could see shadows within them… Moving… Something was inside them, sloshing whatever kind of liquid was in there.
And the grey mist was dying… Replaced by...these dandelion seed head particles that rained from the sky…
The shadowy figures were gone…
I?
It responded ...I knew that the child was speaking despite his...whatever was left of his grotesque mouth not moving… The ground rumbled… The leaves infected… His voice consumed everything… His voice…was everyone's.
His voice was everyone's own. Everyone spoke at once.
I continued to back up… The ground under my feet eaten by the mesh… Puddles of green liquid formed at my every footstep. The ash dampened and washed away.
I am the monument
To all your sins.
...The substance began to form around the child….Covering the body… Where the skeletons once were… They rose… They rose out of the ground not as shadows but...monsters… Monsters of flesh.
They lumbered towards me.
Do not be afraid.
The sky was disappearing under a reign of biological beams and illusionistic ceilings...The trees became pillars of blisters...The ground...a tapestry of necrotic skin...
I was able to run… Whatever held me back before wore away. I ran as more and more of the world was consumed. I tried to get to what little of the grey mist was left in the far distance...
I am a timeless chorus.
His voice was still as strong… Only growing stronger…
I tripped over something… Looked down and…
It was...another tentacle…A thick, sickly green tentacle that rose into the air…
I scrambled back...I didn't even know where to anymore… More of them appeared around me… Like they shadows they were...
They were surrounding me...
I clawed at the ashes… Trying to get away… The spreading mesh, the growing skin was nearing me… The tentacles moved in closer…
A sweet unity of purpose.
I tried to speak…
Join your voice with Mine
And sing ever lasting victory.
I looked behind me… The rest of the mist was being consumed.
Unlike them
I come here not for vengeance
No plague
No cycle
No destruction
Only unity.
Unity
Of blood and flesh
Of mind and bone.
The tentacles were...had to be thousands of feet tall… And the ceilings… Now put into perspective… were even higher… Covered in...millions of blisters…Carved like the inside of a cathedral.
They lashed out at me. And before I could even react...One grabbed me… Wrapped around me. Buried me. Dragged me across the ashes...Into the sick ocean….
All life dies
All worlds too.
Flesh rise
Evolve
Advance
And at the apex of their glory
Through Me
Through Us
Live forever.
As one.
The tentacle lifted me into the air… Hundreds of feet into the air… The skin ate everything… The ground violently shook and split apart into a chasm, a ravine of endless…
I am peace
I am salvation.
It was mouth… A bloodied red mouth of rotted flesh edged with teeth… Thousands of individual movements of…
Of…
Of everyone…
And they could not escape
They were...They were dying. Decomposing... Turning into more monsters.
The tentacle threw me into the abyss of decay, and I was finally able to speak.
Screaming... I was screaming in vain.
This is not your grave
But you are welcome in it.