Chapter 17B: Cycles and Sinewaves

The nearest streetlight suddenly flickered. Between the cold air at the bench, the streetlight flicker, and the swing which moved on its own, I decided it was time to move on. It was time to leave the city behind me. By some mechanism I did not understand, a phantom plagued Bones City as if it were fueled by the anger of countless people striving to survive and save their families. I walked away from the playground and made my way toward the home where I had brought Aeliana when we met for the first time. Even from a distance, I could see steam seep through the street and climb into the sky. Even from a distance, I could see the ashes of the home where I wasted away waiting for her to find me. I stepped inside the wreckage and kicked aside the cinders which were once notebooks filled with pages of nonsense. Nothing I wrote then ever mattered, and even this journal is nothing more than a diary etched into crystal. It exists only to serve as a backup for a memory which corrupts itself over time.

Dear crystal diary, I’ve come to a crossroads between the past and my decisions. This fallen city worshipped ancient heroes as if each and every one of them carries the burden of a world that only they could save. They chose to see the best in themselves and their heritage; they saw the best in the people who shared the streets with them—each life lived betwixt passionate ideals and idle pleasures. If I were anyone else, perhaps I would hate myself for the blood that stains my hands. Perhaps I would find myself haunted by the lost voices which echo in my heart. Perhaps I would renounce my crimes and commit myself to using my unparalleled power to prettify the world I shattered. Perhaps anyone else with my strength would have left this world even better than they found it. I said before that my story was never one of a willful man striving to fix a broken world. I said then that stronger men than me have tried, but that is impossible. There are no men stronger than me.

Perhaps this in itself is proof that this world was damned for destruction since my inception. If there does exist some God who exerts any will upon this world, then that is the source of the unique power which burns in our soul. From the very start, I was given the most fearsome weapon that exists in this world. Not only am I cursed with the power to devour everyone else—I am malevolent enough to actually do it. The truth is that I hated everyone in this city even before I met her; she simply gave purpose to my hatred. I was born broken and have no one else to blame for my malice.

My proclivity for destruction is not a consequence of circumstance in any way. While other orphans lamented that we were discarded by our parents, I simply found relief in knowing that no mother would ever know my depravity. While other orphans detested that our parents would have killed us before birth if given the chance, I simply found irony in the way that this city had created its own destroyer; I knew all along that I would kill them all. While other orphans bemoaned that the workers and the world cared nothing about us, I simply found solace in knowing that I was not alone in apathy. While other addicts decried the way that the chemical created comfort we could find nowhere else, I simply concluded that we were cursed to this condition from the start.

The truth is that I have nothing to blame for my malevolence. My aberration is my birthright, and it isn’t anything other than simple statistics. Just as some people grow unusually tall, others grow unusually short. Just as some people are born clever and curious, others struggle to understand simple truths. Just as some people are born to grow into idealistic heroes, others become monsters by no fault of the world around them. I am an extreme outlier; I am the datum that skews the bell curve beyond normality. I am the Z-score which should not exist.

Even as I blasted my way through the city wall with a bombardment of powers, I reflected on the way that this darkness had always dwelled within me. I could not blame any outside force or even the shadows of the souls I had devoured. I remembered lying awake on a lumpy cot beneath a leaky roof as a child in an overcrowded orphanage. I remembered thinking to myself that it would not change anything if everyone around me died in an instant. I remembered thinking that no conscience could stop me from doing it myself, but I refrained because I had nothing worth fighting for. I had nothing to gain. I had no one to benefit. Perhaps that was when I first suppressed my madness, and it remained silent until the day city security sent Alyssa outside the walls. Even then, the fire in my heart had been hidden by layers of ice forged by a society which dared to derail my deathly desires. I wasted years of my life playing pretend as an ordinary citizen of an ordinary world, playing a peaceful part like a puppet on a stage. I fooled more than just the people around me; I had even fooled myself.

I could have lived a peaceful life if only the stars had not crossed us. The stars feared the power we possessed, and so they cursed us apart from the very start. But had we only shared a simple life as husband and wife, then I would have never awakened the darkness I had buried. We could have lived peacefully as ordinary workers in an ordinary city. The underworld would thrive as it always had, but it would never cross our path. If only the stars had not sought to separate us, then the streets would still be teeming with pedestrians. Families would browse the markets as they always had. Lovers would cuddle on the couch and watch some mindless show. Donovan and Anna would sit side-by-side on a snowy bench and watch their children play. More than a single swing would still be in motion.

I flexed my new power as I trekked for a second time across the badlands. I intended to tread slowly so that I could distract my breaking heart with daydreams of a distant past where I still had Aeliana at my side. I intended to move slowly through this world without playing part in it for a short time, but the barbarians who plague the badlands would not accept my abstinence. They rushed at me as if they could feed on my flesh, but a scattershot of energy blades tore their bodies to pieces. A woman stood in my path for a second time and steered a sandstorm with her hands, though she did not remember me from our past encounter. She instead saw me only as fuel for her power. She fought bravely until she realized that I had the power to fight back, and in the end, I devoured her just as I had devoured so many others. I threw her broken bones into the sky and smeared her blood onto the sand.