Chapter 260 Volume IV - Chapter 105: First Test
Silence...
A silence that makes me question whether I really exist.
Darkness...
A deep darkness that seeps into me, a darkness that feels familiar, yet alien and deep.
And then... after a period of time that I could hardly perceive, a difference.
The silence was noisily broken. The endless darkness I was in was suddenly filled with a white light. My eyes were dazzled, my ears ringing with the intensity of the sound, but I resisted. For a short while, both the loud sound and the intense light faded as suddenly as they had come.
Before I realized what was happening, I found myself in a world covered in gray clouds, barely able to stand. I was wearing a shattered, gray armor. It was supposed to protect me, but the broken pieces were digging into my flesh, hurting me.
"Why are you doing this...?"
My whole body was writhing in pain when I heard a voice, a voice coming from right in front of me. My head lifted up slowly, weakly. My eyes finally left the blood-drenched soil and presented me with a better view of where I was.
I was in a huge field, a huge field of corpses and disassembled machines. There was so much blood, bodies, rubble, and machine parts that I couldn't see the ground. It was obviously a long battle, but it was also near the end.
No... it had already reached the end. In the distance, a few people were still fighting, but they were so tired and exhausted that their movements were slow. Apart from that, one side was mercilessly killing the soldiers of the other side.
Yet all this was in the background. For me, this battle was not very meaningful. Because what my eyes were focused on was the man standing in front of me.
He was completely different from me, we were like two sides of the same coin. Like me, his whole body was covered in blood, perhaps that was the only similarity between us. Yet even in this... there was a contrast.
The blood on the man was not his. His armor was still intact, and it looked like it would stay that way. He had killed who knows how many people with his spear, which was clearly a weapon of quality.
With his tall stature, his shining armor, and his mighty weapon... he was magnificent.
"Why is a normal, weak soldier like you... on his deathbed... standing before me? Why are you here when you know you're dying?"
What's going on? I don't know... I don't understand. Who am I? Why am I here...?
I need to focus on these questions, I know that, but... now, when I hear these words from this man, why do I feel like I need to give him an answer?
Why does this burning desire inside me override even my logic, and make me feel as if my whole existence depends on it?
If so... no, even if not... I will.
I thought briefly about what I should say, then realized that thinking was pointless. I reached for the first thoughts that appeared in my mind, words born directly from my desires.
"Is death... something I should be afraid of?"
I smiled, looking into the eyes of the man in front of me.
"You are strong. You have a solid armor and a sword. In this battl-"
For a moment I felt something rising in my throat, then I coughed painfully. Blood trickled from my mouth, slowly running down the sides of my lips and down to my neck. Yet I continued, all too aware that my death was imminent.
"You have killed hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe many more in this war... For what?"
The man frowned, a blue glint this time in his eyes, the color of which I could not quite make out.
"I may be weak, perhaps frail, but..."
Memories flashed through my mind, memories that I wasn't sure were mine.
A woman and a man, a small child standing in the middle... They were waving, their eyes looking into mine. With longing, sadness, and... regret.
At first, I thought I was walking away from them, but... no.
They were the ones walking away. They were leaving, while I was staying behind.
They may have regretted it, but I didn't.
"At least I have a purpose. I have a purpose for being here. So what if I die? So what if I survive...? Isn't dying as much a blessing as surviving, at least as long as I leave no regrets behind..."
The man sighed deeply and pointed his spear at me.
"You say you're not afraid of death, huh."
His eyes grew cold, his gaze serious. He mumbled something I couldn't hear, did nothing for a few seconds, as if waiting for my reaction.
He was wrong, he misunderstood me. I... was afraid of dying. Dying was perhaps one of the things I feared most in this world. Because dying also meant that I would walk away from the precious things in my life. It meant that I would leave them behind, that I would never see them again.
But at the same time, without them, there was no meaning in dying. It was just like an eternal sleep, it didn't matter. If I was dying for those I left behind, if I was stepping into this eternal sleep for them... then dying was just an eternal peace."
So that's how I gave my answer.
"As long as I have no reason to be afraid, as long as I leave nothing behind... my answer is no."
I smiled and turned my eyes to the sky. He answered me with the same indifference, sighing.
"So be it."
The sky turned upside down, and as the whole world spun, I watched first my own body, then the foot of the man on the ground in front of me, and then his back turned as he moved forward.
The world slowly faded into darkness.
*******
The darkness lightened again, slowly this time.
I tried to move my body, but something was blocking me. I tried even harder, this time with more force on my arms... It still didn't work.
So I stopped trying to move and focused on my surroundings.
As my eyes slowly became clearer, a few sounds finally entered my ears. Someone was crying, a few people were shouting, and someone was talking incessantly in a raised voice.
Since I still couldn't make sense of the voices, I looked at the world as it became clearer and clearer, at least trying to grasp something.
The sky was cloudless, blue. The sun was right above me, beating its heat on my hair and the back of my neck. No... it was hitting my whole body, I was not wearing any clothes. It was... uncomfortable.
I was on high ground, because I could only see the ground if I tilted my head a lot, and there was a considerable distance between me and it. Apart from that, there were dozens, maybe hundreds of people surrounding me. Some were looking at me with disgust, some with sadness, some with anger.
It was at this point that I began to hear the man speaking in a loud voice.
"Today, here, we will burn this devil!"
His words were followed by shouts from the crowd that had gathered around me.
"Burn him!"
"Devil!"
"Die, asshole!"
Yet, apart from those who insulted me, there were also those who wept. Their lips did not open, maybe they were afraid of the crowd around them, but the expression on their faces was enough for me to understand what they were feeling.
That's when I realized why I couldn't move my body, I was tied, bound tightly with a rope to a piece of wood.
"Any last words, devil?"
The bearded old man standing at the front of the crowd, just below the spot where I was tied, fixed his cold eyes on me.
All his hair was gray, he was so old that he even had a slight hunchback. Yet his stern gaze and booming voice emphasized that his age didn't matter.
"Are you going to keep quiet?"
I took my eyes off the old man and turned them to the sky.
What could I say? I had no idea who I was, I didn't know why I was here.
I was just a... nobody who opened his eyes here.
"See you in hell, then."
The old man held his hand out to the side. Then someone in the crowd handed him a burning torch.
"Burn! Return to the flames where you belong and continue your eternal torment in hell!"
The crowd shouted something I couldn't make out behind him, a religious affirmation perhaps.
Then the old man threw the torch down at my feet.
The blue sky was suddenly filled with smoke, a mixture of gray and black. The first thing I felt was the heat in my feet as the flames slowly rose up from the ground.
The only sound I could hear from the crowd was insults, waiting for my death for no reason... yet I was calm. I should have been afraid of the flames, I should have been afraid of death, but... I was calm.
"Burn! Burn more, demon!"
The old man's voice echoed again, and the flames, which had been slowly rising until now, suddenly burst into flames.
The deep blue sky suddenly turned red. The slight warmth I could feel in my feet suddenly spread throughout my body.
Still... the flames were not scary.
Am I really a demon?
The flames hurt, they are hotter than I can imagine, but... why don't I scream? Why don't these flames that will take my life from me seem like an 'end'?
Could I really be... a demon, as this whole crowd is calling me?
I let myself go into the flames while my skin and eyes were melting.
The melting of my body while I was still alive caused tremendous pain. Yet this pain was what was keeping me alive now.
The flames were not scary, yes, but... after those few seconds, another thought sprouted in my mind.
The thought of death, of my impending 'end' filled my mind for a moment.
Thinking, knowing that I was going to die... made me tremble a little.
What did I leave behind?
Did I have any regrets? Had I achieved my purpose during my lifetime?
If I knew who I was here, what I was... would I feel happiness or sadness when I die now...?
The more the unknown wrapped around my mind, the more I doubted, and all this doubt raised death as an even more frightening presence in my mind.
It was at this moment that I heard a voice echoing in my mind; a child's voice.
'Dying... is it not really the end?'
This time I heard a laugh, and then I felt as if I was stroking the child's hair.
'Of course, death is an end.'
This time the boy sounded confused, he tried to speak again, but the other voice beat him to it.
'Remember what I said. Death is an end, but it is also a beginning, my little friend.'
The flames took my eyes from me completely, my world was plunged into darkness. Yet I was alive, the voices I heard echoing in my head.
'Do not be afraid of death. Don't shy away from life, of course. Move forward to the point where death is inevitable. When the time comes, accept it. Step into the beginning behind the end, then you will understand it much better.'
A comfort I couldn't make sense of suddenly enveloped my whole body.
Maybe it's bullshit, but... I'll believe it.
The point where death was inevitable...
There's nothing I can do now, is there...?
Then... I have to surrender myself to it and start a new beginning...
For a moment, I felt a sense of relief, a senseless peace enveloped my whole body.
Death was no longer painful or thought-provoking.
After all, the same death had brought with it these sweet feelings. It was not an end. It was accompanying me as I was moving toward my end; as I was approaching a new beginning.
It was a guide.
Maybe that's why, even though I died... I could hear a new light appearing, another door opening in eternity.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel