I never lived, I just fell through time unable to smile from the heart.
Scars and bandages litter my wasted vessel as I finally succumb to the inevitable end.
Now I sit here in a chair stationed beyond life and before oblivion. Across from me sits a blank mark, a hole in reality shaped like a man. It sits with an upright professional posture. Nothing around us but a white void and my oppressive thoughts. No smells, no sensation of touch graces my senses.
“What form do I take for you?”
I hear its question, nothing left for me but to answer it.
“You are nothing reflected in my eyes, a hole in this void.”
It tilts what seems to be his head in confusion.
“Not many see me as such. No matter, before you enter into oblivion I want to hear your life’s story. I ask this of every person who enters here, now it’s your turn.”
I let out a chuckle and sigh.
“Life? I never lived one. What life there was, it lost all meaning when it ended.
It ended before it ever really began, I died in a state of limbo. Alive but not living, surviving in the hopes of a day in the sun. However, that day never came for me.
How typical, so goes the fate of the background character. The world’s story stars the lives of a few great individuals, I was no such being.”
The entity takes a moment to respond to my words.
“Even still I want to hear it, all stories are equal in my eyes.”
I look at its form in order to see any sign of sarcasm, surely my life can’t be equal to any other.
Despite my efforts, I see nothing. There's still nothing before me. I resign myself to telling my story to it.
“As all stories do, my life began when I was born.
I was born with expectations, not impossible expectations but expectations that had no weight in reality. There was no become this or that, it was you will be that. As if it was ordained by God, that my path was set in stone.
Funny since my “Family” believed in a higher being.”
I take a moment to remember where I am and then look at the Blank mark.
“Were they right?”
The being took longer to answer my question this time.
“It doesn’t matter now, I’ll just say I am not that being your family believed in.”
“I see.”
I continue my story.
“Not much to say after my mistaken birth, I lived life in ignorance but always given a taste of what’s possible. Always given a glimpse of what lays outside my house’s walls.
But I was not great enough to survive in such a world, given no real opportunity to grow into something that could.
You see, me and my family were not well off, as many faith-based families tend to be, so they believed that someone would save them. I was dragged along that road, unable to escape my cage to live.
Time flew by and then I died when the ceiling collapsed in my room.
I never knew true happiness, the bond of a friend, joy of lasting creation, the warmth of love nor any other pleasure that makes life worth living.
A child in an adult body, never given the chance to grow and live a life.”
I refuse to go into further depth, I look at the blank mark dejected and disappointed. I open my mouth to ask a question but I finally realize I have no mouth. Yet sounds echoed out from within something deeper.
“What was it all for? All that time locked up just to die as a number in a statistic?”
The being changed into a more engaged position, with his hands clasped together and his back bent towards me.
“Why do you think I listen to your stories?”
I shake my head, I have no idea.
“It’s because the only thing certain is me. In my eyes, your stories are equally important. At least in this place can you find peace in knowing someone knew your tale.”
I take a moment to think about its words, the only thing I come up with is-
“You didn’t answer my question, what was it all for?”
“Nothing.”
I’m taken aback by the instant answer and conflicted on the revelation. I’m relieved in the fact there is no set path but horrified at the notion that I failed in my own pursuits.
Not because of vengeance by God for abandoning his path but because the world just happened to end my story before the second page. Something within goans...
“I would have preferred to never have been born if I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish my purpose.”
“You’re not the first to feel this way.”
“Then-”
“It’s because life is like a tree. Individuals are leaves destined to fall and scatter into dust without any real universal purpose. Only a few leave any mark on the trunk or feel at peace when they return to the void.”
Is that so? Is this how it works, why such a broken system? This isn’t right….
Instantly I felt what should be a silent heartbeat once again, I grasp my chest. It burns as if it was on fire.
The being looks at me confused but soon reclaims his calm.
“You didn’t finish your story. What was the purpose that you built for yourself?”
I focused on his words and my memory, I was reluctant at first but I needed to get my mind off of this pain.
“I know that life was not going to hand us happiness like my parents thought so I scrapped at the walls of reality in order to find it.
But no matter how hard I worked or wished, I never scaled its heights. Instead, the opposite happened, I lost more of my tools. Tools that made scaling it possible, without them I had nothing.
What’s funny is that all I wanted to do was write a book, to tell a story.
A life with a purpose unfulfilled and work unrewarded is no life at all. It was just wasted time and air.”
I had no more energy to speak of my life, I’m sure I did not have as bad as others. Who am I to speak of suffering, I’m nothing.
I’m no legend that was cut short, I was just another fallen leaf.
“I’ve heard and understood your story. Sadly, I don’t know if I can say anything to make your departure any easier. Many feel similar at their death, a meaningless end.”
The pain returns and I swear I can hear the embers of a raging fire...
“It’s to be expected, you know despite my complaining I know that my problems mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.”
“Why do you think that way?”
“It’s because of the small-time I had outside of my cage that I tried to help and connect with others but I always failed. I would hurt them and they in turn would hurt me, an endless cycle. What a dilemma....”
The being looks straight into my being and says-
“Makes you wonder why such a cycle exists….”
The heat intensifies at those words. If life does this to most of us, why even start it? Wouldn’t it be better if everything return to zero, save us the suffering?
We don’t live, we just survive day by day for a chance for a better future that most likely never comes.
Shouldn’t we right this mistake of wasted time….
My dead heart speeds up and the heat increases to an unbearable inferno.
The being notices and I don’t know...but I think I saw….a smile.
“Why does this tree of life even exist? Just to give the chosen and seemingly random few the happiness siphoned from the rest of us?”
I stare at the being, demanding an answer before my final sleep. I must know.
“So the majority in pain outweigh the few chosen blessed ones?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
The being returns to his professional posture but this time more relaxed.
“No one knows, it just does. I would usually try to guide you towards a peaceful end, to accept this reality and your hand in life. However, I feel the need to ask….should you accept this reality?”
My heart speeds up again as I ponder the answer but isn’t it obvious.
A reality that actively tortures its inhabitants in varied ways, a world that’s hostile to conscious life.
Conflict, disease, death….
Lack of connection….
Lack of meaning….
Unfulfilled purpose….
General Chaos!
What kind of reality is that?!
I….I…. I!
My heart seems to burst out of my chest as words spill out of my mouth that I don’t recognize or understand.
“Revel; Rewind to our Stasis Origin….”
A blinding light appears and instantly I’m on top of the being who seems to be melting into me. Like glass, the white of the void begins to crack and shatter around me.
“So you’re the first one….”
“What’s happening to me.”
“I don’t think you’ll understand fully but, you signal the beginning of Terminus.”
I hear the relief in its voice but before I can process its words the blank mark begins to fill in with a noticeable form, a form of a little girl with long raven hair. She has fair skin and blue eyes but behind them is something that has seen far more than anyone of her seeming age should.
“What the…..”
“It’s been so long anyone could see my real form.”
The young girl brings her hand to my cheek and caresses it.
“Thank you for freeing me from my cycle, I saved who I could. Now it’s your turn.”
“But I don’t know what happened, how can I save anyone.”
“I’ve heard that the first Revel will signal Terminus, when someone’s heart begins to burn with a maddening desire for change. More will appear now, thanks to you.”
She continues to melt into me but that's not what disturbs me, it’s my calmness to this situation. I instinctively know what to do, I need to reset it all back to the beginning to break this cycle of hostile life.
“I see you understand, I can finally disappear and leave this existence behind. My predecessor was wrong, there was no greater purpose….”
She finally assimilates fully with me and I can feel her desire inside me. The void collapses leaving me in a place more empty then even the void, but beyond this space lays the whole of creation.
I can see it, far greater and wondrous then I could imagine. Yet, there is still so much suffering. Suffering that must not, will not, continue.
I know what I have to, I need to reset this mistake called conscious life.
I’ll return this tree to the dust, as she wanted and as an apology to those that still survive aimlessly.
I reach to one of the many universes out there in creation. I pluck it from the tree like a fruit and whisper to it.
"Return to your origin."
The universe, once a 3D world of suffering shrinks until it's nothing but a single point.
"Begin again, anew."
Within the palm of his hand, another universe is born. This one without the flaw of conscious life but instead of beings driven by only instinct. An instinctive drive for peace and happiness.
"Yes...this is...good."
I look to the rest and soar to them. All must reset to a simpler time.
[Terminus - First Trigger]
ns 15.158.61.42da2
