The lives
As he falls on his back he looks at the sky and squinting little by little he sees a person approaching him looking at him with eyes filled with a perverse pleasure.
As I saw it, the description of this person was:
The nose was half a foot long, shaped like a beak, with only two holes, one on each side, close to the nostrils, but enough to breathe. Under the coat he wore boots in very bad condition made of leather where one could see his long nails (like those of a monster) embedded in the leather and bleeding constantly, fine leather pants that are tied from him in front of those boots and a fine leather blouse with short sleeves, whose lower end is inserted into the pants. The hat is also made of the same skin... with glasses over his eyes, in his hands he was not wearing anything, you could see how he had wrinkled hands, with very long and sharp claws.
(Or that's how a dying John saw it)
John is surprised to see such a dark beast watching him.
The beast, while watching John, lifts a very old and bloody case from the ground, removes a needle no less than 30 cm long and arms a syringe containing a very thick and dark liquid.
Seeing this, with his last breaths he begs...
-From... Leave... me.
The beast responds with a sarcastic tone:
- Don't you think life is very unfair to some people?
John no longer manages to maintain his consciousness and with his last strength he breathes a sigh of frustration...
At the moment when everything became dark and he thought he had died, he heard a voice that was at once calm and imposing, a voice that conveyed both security and wisdom:
- Boy!
- Pss!
- You're not dead yet, you know.
John opens his eyes and sees how everything around him is a starry sky, as if he were floating in space surrounded by stars. He is quite stunned and intrigued, as what he was contemplating looked very much like one of the landscapes described by his mother in one of her many bedtime stories.
- Oh, wow! So you finally decide to open your eyes.
- Who-who are you? Show yourself! -he shouts.
-You are looking at me right now... I am all you can see.
- All I can see? Are you all these brilliant things? -says John demonstrating ignorance and a hint of innocence.
-If you put it that way... -Yes... and no.
- Yes and no?
-At this moment your life is on a very thin line, obviously so that you don't die I had to bring you here with me to have a talk.
- A talk? About what?
-Going straight to the point... While you were dying I noticed an abnormality in your body, that abnormality is so strong that it is currently trying to merge with your soul.
- Abnormality? -he asks, dubiously and confusedly.
-Well... Basically you have something that in your language would be called something like "Lives" which are running through your body and trying to merge with your soul right now, those "Lives" can cause one of these three things...
1- Death.
Also it may cause a wound in your astral soul that would help one of those "Lives" to take control of you.
3- And finally, if you manage to control those "Lives" you will be able to live, but you will be the target of many evil people who will try to take them away from you. Well, it's not as if you'll manage to survive.
- What, are these "Lives" so important that all I can hope for is death?" says a surprised John.
- You know, I'm made of "Lives" too, but mine is different. I'm made of the desire for those "Lives"; as I'm sure you know, the people in your world want to give you an answer to what they don't understand, and that answer... is simply me!
- So, are you like a god?
-Something like that. I guess...
-I was created thanks to you, to your wishes. When I was created I understood that I was part of the universe and the universe was part of me, its past and its future are linked to me, directly or indirectly.
-With the passing of time I tried to understand how all this was created, but, even being part of the universe, I cannot understand it, I am basically alive thanks to the beliefs of the living beings of this universe.
- Alive? -asks John.
-Humans are the only living beings that adapt and manage to evolve considerably faster than the other people that inhabit this vast and infinite universe
-I suppose all this is because you are at the center of the universe, where all the power is concentrated. Well, I don't know, when I was born all this was already created and that's why I don't have all the answers.
"That's why there are countless races in your world that are constantly evolving.
John, hearing all this and not understanding a bit of what he hears, asks:
- Why are you telling me all this? I don't understand anything...
-Because those "Lives" you have are crucial to the fate of the entire universe. Someday you will understand.
- But if I am going to die, how will I understand it? Isn't there some way to use those "Lives" to my advantage? -exclaimed John, fearing for his life.
- For an insignificant human like you? Never. You would simply die and those "Lives" will be dispersed until one day someone brings you back together. I just want to keep you alive for fun, around here boredom abounds as you will see.
- What? But if I never got it together, how come I got it?
-Many times strange things happen, this is one of them.
Suddenly John looks at his right hand and realizes that his hand is much older than he remembered.
- What is happening to me?
- Oops! I forgot to mention that in this place every 2 minutes is ten years, that means it's been like 300 years for your soul and 3 days for your world.
- — ¡300!
-That's right, you have to go now. (Nervous).
Those were the last words heard from him.
After saying goodbye like that, everything around John started to break and then break.
John opens his eyes again and manages to see the blue of the sky and on his right side the house where he lived, then he gets up from the place where he had fallen injured, looks at the place where the arrows are supposed to be stuck and sees how there are simply three scars on his chest.
He gets up with a little effort, walks straight home and manages to see his dead mother on the floor and wanting to leave in tears, but without any tears or expression he proceeds to bury his mother near the leafy tree where he used to play with her as a child.
After burying her and devoting some few seconds of silence, with unimaginable pain in his chest, he went to the village to see his sister who had died by that spear that came from far away.
As I was walking along the town's road you could see the bodies of dead people who died in different ways, you could see how they were massacred or how the villagers themselves committed suicide to end the terror they lived through.
He looks to the right and sees an old man with his throat cut while trying to play a guitar, in the guitar you could see how the old man trying not to be afraid would stick his nails through the wood of the guitar, and his right hand very scraped from the very abrupt movement of the strings against his fingers.
John grabs the guitar and remembers that when he was a little boy that same old man had taught him how to play the guitar. Then with dry eyes, he dedicated one last song to him, the song he dedicated was one that the old man always said meant a lot to him and his ancestors.
The song is entitled:
The wind will blow...
The music was about a man who devoted himself only to his farm, until he got tired of being ignored by his people, so the man took up his rake and fought with all his strength against the corruption of the kingdom. He and his rake, what for? So that the wind may blow through his lares.
The name of the song comes from the last words of man:
- Someday the wind will blow in our favor! So, never stop fighting for what you think is right!
As he sang around the village and went to the place where his sister was, he saw, in passing and without showing any feelings, the bodies of his friends who tried desperately to escape, but did not succeed.
When arriving at the place and finishing the song...
He drops the guitar he had in his hands and looks in surprise at the place where his beloved sister's body was supposed to be found, but the only thing he manages to see is a spear stuck deep in a trunk, with no blood around it and no traces of his sister?