Chapter XIII

3:47 am

" Rio "

" Reins "

" Xiao "

Three piles of rubble neatly arranged rested in the bed of sand as big damp rocks rested at each top with carved names.

I found my back against the sand, my two hands rested at my stomach as I fiddle with them, I gazed upon the sun with the five figures above while listening to the brush of the ocean and smell the breeze that it brings.

" Why can't I die. " A thought of mine that still burns the brightest.

" why do you want to die? "

A sweet voice that lingered within my thoughts. I smirked knowing that she wasn't real, nothing but a fragment of my own longing. A deep desire.

" I'm tired. "

She appeared in a dress of puff, it was simple and neat. She wore a hat that would deprive the sun of touching her face. She sat beside me while her eyes scavage the ocean.

" They still need you. "

Just like that, she was gone. I sat upright from where I laid, words flowed out of my lips gruesomely.

" T~~H~~E~~Y~~? "

" The vile. It consumed you, it took hold of your soul. It left you with nothing but a soulless being to cascade over different realities. Soon you'll be one of them. "

She appeared behind me then disappeared only to emerge yet again standing on the surface of the calm ocean.

" Klaus. There's a reason---why everything that just took place happened. "

The shore came to a halt as did the breeze.

" The whispers in your ears, and all the things that you've seen and have. They've all been given to you---because they chose you, right from the start. Right from the very moment that you were born, you've been chosen. "

" W~~~H~~~O~~~ "

She turned her head to face up the sun and pointed at the five crosses beside the sun then turned back at me.

" They need you up there...we need you up there. "

" Without you, "

" Everything that we know, "

" That we love, "

" will be...gone... "

" W~~W~~H~~A~~T~~ "

She suddenly appeared beside me as the one in front of me disappeared. She held my hand and brushed my cheeks. She pressed her forehead against mine while we both closed our eyes.

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3:47 am

" Klaus. Open your eyes. "

Striking light blinds my eyes shut, then it smoldered down. We were floating in space within more than millions of glimmering stars in every direction I face.

She motioned her hand softly and in an instant, we were in a different place where the vast black space was not only filled with beautiful stars but was covered in a green nebula.

My eyes couldn't believe what it was witnessing, It was like a collection of every little thing that burned gleefully and wonderous yet at the same time ignites with a disoriented and chaotic cauldron of calamities. It was a collateral beauty yet no words nor sight of striking glamour would compare...it simply wouldn't.

" Look at the stars carefully. "

It was burning bright as all would, but the more I stare at it the less that it looked like one. It was not a star at all, they were windows. She spoke once more the moment that I realized it.

" They're windows to another reality---one like yours. Life, truly finds a way. It could bloom in millions and millions of possibilities each different from before and of the others and to what will become of it. "

" Right now, they face a terrible turn of events that none would understand. Life, rests upon you---for only you have the power to stop all of this from fading out of light. "

" Do you remember---the rift from world war one? the forest? and even the one you made from the lab? you were there when it happened, but that was all in a different reality. Countless more would burn out and disappear as if nothing even had happened. How long would it take before our reality would meet the same end? "

I held both of her hands as tight as I could, but it matters not for I was dull as a soiled blade. From a far distance rumbled a dark force of bulked clouds. It was lurking, somewhere out there lies a great force that pulls you in. If you try listening hard enough you'll notice faint voices reaching out to you. A blackhole that just---eats you whole, no matter what you do or who you are. It devours, it leaves you with nothing, not even yourself.

" UUUUUNNNNGGGGGGGG--- "

" It sees us... it sees you... "

Another high pitched sound waved through the clouds of dust and moved the embodiment of the cosmos itself, yet this time it was---alluring as if it wanted to tell me something. As soon as she saw me staring from where the sound came from she quickly shook off both of my hands and just like that we were back at the shore.

The shivering embrace of frost suddenly melts as the radiant sun watches over me.

Just as I thought that I understood---everything. Everything turns out different. I felt like I was back at being an astronaut forever drifting in space, but this time something found me, a black hole---found me.

I was being sucked in, and there was nothing that I could do, and that I was the black hole. I'm always there, never resting, forever watching in the cold and dark comfort of space. How could such a thing exist, how could I...

The sphere from my back pocket grew in size yet again fitting the sunken figure of my palm. It also radiated like the sun in a golden hue then shifted and turned several times highlighting yet another set of symbols.

It hovered above my head and shined rays of golden light but then I stepped back from the light realizing that by doing this---I would relive my greatest fear. Life. But---refusing means the end of everything. The end of existence. Nothing can save life by then, not God and not even the devil.

I took a last glance at my fallen brothers before reflecting back at myself. I turned away from the light shifting my sight from left to right but not really seeing what was there but rather what wasn't there.

I was struggling. I felt like a large boulder had just crushed every part of me and that I'm stuck there forever---forever breathing, and not dying. Both my hands were clamped together at the top of my head as my lips quiver and tears dripping.

I found myself sobbing as I fell weak on the sand with both knees high and a hand on my mouth.

It took me a while to think things through. The fragment of my longing slowly shimmered away...

" It's~~~o~kay~~~you're~~~f~free~~~ "

" Y~you~~~can~~~move~~~on~~~now~~~ "

" Fare~~~well~~~ "

Tears cascade down my face, but they were not of lonesome nor sorrow but of love and desire. She shook her head as she sees herself fading into the light. She took one last glance before going then smiled as her final light faded out of sight but the memory of her burns great still.

My face harvests a grim look seeing her gone. Nerves went a steel and core harden, I stepped in front of the light as the artifact above me grew brighter by the second.

A great flash turned everything into darkness then another came by and everything...changed. I can see the entirety---all and whole. All realities boiled hot and bright, even brighter than the sun's heart itself.

The being of great collapse that continues to dismantle and harvest the roots of our different realities was washed away from the windows of life, it was a plague, a tumor of great size and like cancer, it spread.

Yet again "Life" found a way---as it always does. No matter the consequence nor the cost, it always does. The plague had been washed away, the break of worlds, the great catastrophe, the beginning of an end had all been but a mere wordplay.

The forces that are alien to us are assumed to be pawns of a dark element that seek only for the desolation of all without really knowing what it truly is nor the nature of it.

How long can life keep it at bay before it takes root once more for the light? How long has this foreseen event had been repeated? The prophecized never-ending battle of light and dark had been waging since the origin of existence was shown to me by just mere seconds.

"Everything" is a nature of its own, it is a lie that hides in the facade of knowledge and the illusion of freedom for we are never free, we all think we are for it its the curse of knowledge that we all bare. Everything that we have known has been a lie, it's a massive curtain and behind is the stage where the truth is finally revealed and only those who are destined to know are whom who is really alive.

Now I see why everything lied, it needed to. It's one of the costs for life to exist. In the end, I failed---just like those who came before. We were deceived by what came to us as salvation, or so we thought.

We are all but victims of a war that all are oblivious of, those who came first, now, and who'll come next. I've seen enough to say that I am doomed to be an artifact of a soulless entity, a watcher of the inevitable loop, a broken cassette that plays a never-ending disoriented tone.

A war that bares no end, a life that's never-ending---an eternal life. A life that religion promises after death---yet here I am reliving an endless cycle of life. The promised life shouldn't be for we deserve to rest in the comfort of the truth, I see now, death is our faith, it is the promised land---it is that truth.

We were fighting without knowing the cause nor knowing what we're up against. But I can end it all. I can end the beginning and start the beginning of an end.

Before, I didn't understand what it was, what it wants.

It wasn't a calling,

It was a warning.

The sphere gave me a premonition, a glimpse of what is to become of me, a glimpse of my fate a destiny that I bare, to be one of them---a succession. But no! as long as I draw breath I will always choose to stir my own fate and forge my own destiny.

I went aside from the light and passed it, I dug up the pile of rubble that captain Rio rested. His face almost as sunken as mine, I hoisted him up on my arms and lay his body upon the light.

Forgive me, my dear friend. But we all must make a sacrifice to bring an end upon this false existence. The light slowly turned into a dark cloud and covered every bit of his body until there was nothing of him that I could see.

The dark rumbling clouds became a wet black cover that wrapped him entirely. His two legs aside against each other and his two arms wide from both spans. It was like he was being crucified without dying until the end of time.

He who rested, he who thought not of bitterness now wakes in the awe of it all. His body left no remark of him as it slowly hovered towards the side of the sun along with the others.

I swear upon everything that is true---Your sacrifice will not be in vain. The sphere faded its light and fell on the sand which now takes shape of my palm.

With the truth now carved within me and the secrets of existence finally unraveled, I now serve an ultimatum of my own.

-------------------

unknown time

With Rio given as a sacrifice, life began anew. The poison that rooted upon life and realities was pushed back once more from the far edges of the ever-expanding scape of time where light and darkness meet.

Life exposed darkness to immense heat as it shined bright for millions and millions of galaxies exploded and had given birth to new swarms of realities each still different from the other.

Different shades of galaxies and hues of nebulas and even the very space itself were covered in a different color as stardust hovers on the infinite space.

I glanced once more upon my brothers, still my face grim as ever and intentions clearer than daybreak. I rotated the sphere finding the right symbols carved upon the surface as it came on a halt, I extended my arm in front of me, It opened a ripple in space.

The final loop begins with me.

~~~Fin~~~