Prologue - To be Human (1/2)

To be human is to suffer.

It's the kind of phrase philosophers love. Since suffering can encompass a whole lot of things, people love to romanticize their hurt, their efforts, and their normal day-to-day to make it more valuable.

What is more valuable than pain?

Well, fuck them, pain is shit.

The pain of having both arms severely broken, to the point your bones look more like a jigsaw puzzle. The hot boiling feeling of your blood leaving through your mouth, how your insides turn into mulch, how the cold quickly fills the warmth.

He's hurt.

He's dying.

He's so scared.

A young man in a costume was lying down in the remains of what could once be called a house. His body was broken beyond saving, arms twisting in multiple directions, his legs having the same issue, while large gaping wounds seemed to litter his body at different intervals.

With light brown hair painted red by his own blood, and black eyes dazedly looking at the open sky, the man in a costume shakily blinked.

Peter wondered how he got here. Having done so much, and yet all those accomplishments hold no meaning in the end. He did many great things, helped many people, and found a small group of friends he could call family.

He watched as everything crumbled between his fingers.

Strongest Hero, he was called.

What a joke, he was the strongest, and yet he was never able to protect anything that truly mattered.

The question came back. How did he get here?

Peter knew the answer, it all came down to five years ago when he took that bloody deal.

To start again, a new life, with the character he loves, in a world in desperate need of a hero.

He wanted to be that hero.

So he took the deal. And everything changed.

He was transported into another world. The world of a web serial he was vastly familiar with, a grimdark where the edge is so strong Peter rarely took it seriously.

Yet a world so beautiful for its characters, for the way they are so very human.

He tried to take a deep breath, but all that came out was a wet cough which only made his body spasm.

The ground was cold, he didn't even know where he was. Thanks to Doormaker, the battle encompassed the entirety of Earth, so Peter didn't have a clue where the last portal sent him.

All around him is what could be optimistically called the husk of a city, with large skyscrapers having been broken or in the process of falling to the earth beneath.

Hell, maybe he wasn't even on his Earth anymore.

…fuck, it hurts.

Not the body, that pain was pushed aside for a much greater one.

Everyone is dead. He failed to protect them and failed to defeat the big bad in the end.

He failed to save his parents from this world and failed to protect his friends in the wards.

Tears began to form.

Failed to save Regent from sacrificing himself and failed to save Grue and the others in the battle of the Oil Rig.

Tears now flowed freely on his face; they were warm.

He failed to save Taylor from her own sense of absolute, he failed to help Khepri in managing her new powers.

The tears stopped, having nothing more to give.

Worst of all, he failed to stop Scion.

The world shook, much like an Earthquake, except Peter knew exactly what was causing the shakes.

It's starting.

The destruction of uncountable parallel Earths.

This is the end.

How pathetic, after everything he's done after all the battles fought and all the effort made in preparation for this very moment. It was ironically thanks to him that they failed.

Taylor became Khepri, and yet she was unable to sacrifice so many people. She was desperate, trying all she could so that anyone she controlled could live, moving them out of the way, giving up on attacks so they could try and rescue others.

It was immensely heroic, and yet it was also exactly that which led to her being struck down.

His fault, he knew that this was his fault. Peter loved the character known as Taylor Hebert, and even knowing her story, her future, and her actions, he couldn't stop himself from falling in love with the person who was Taylor Hebert.

He reinforced her heroic behavior, admonished her towards anything villainous, and tried to be her perfect role model on how to be a hero.

It was all his fault.

Scion won, and it was all his goddamn fault.

Peter felt like crying but there was nothing left to give, everything had dried up, his vision was going dark, and there was a constant buzz next to his ears.

Doesn't help that all this earthshaking is extremely painful to his mulched body. A mind-breaking pain pierced through his thoughts, making him scream out.

Nothing came but a wet gurgle, his throat filled with blood and whatever the hell the rest was.

Oh, so that's what an intestine track looks like, holy hell it's long as fuck.

Something is coming. A pressure began to increase around the area, his injuries forgotten for a moment as he directed his eyes skyward.

Peter felt like laughing.

Because he felt a familiar presence, one he could never forget.

He only felt such pressure from two beings in his life. Scion, and the one who gave him a deal.

The world was cracking, he could vaguely hear it behind all the constant noise.

Then the space in front of his darkening vision shattered like glass, and an eye as large as his body opened.

The one who gave Peter the deal.

Abaddon.

"You look like shit." Well fuck you too you cosmic worm.

So, as it turns out, not every entity thinks like a super meat computer, their processing and programming language translating into vaguely correct English grammar. Maybe all Entities can speak normally but just don't feel like it?

Well, at least he thought they could.

On their very first meeting, Abaddon spoke like a kid from the twenty-first century. In other words, his vocabulary was exactly like that of Gen Z's.

And something told Peter it wasn't a one-time thing.

"Such a shame, your death will be incredibly missed, chosen." It was a voice, deep and eldritch coming directly into his head. It also somehow sounded exactly like an old trucker man with a beard so large it muffled their voice.

And was completely deadpanned.

'Please, cut back on the enthusiasm, I can literally feel the overflowing emotion behind your words.'

"Still a sarcastic asshole until the end, aren't you?" The eye seemed to roll, or at least mimic the action, in exasperation.

'And get out of my head, don't want you looking around there.'

"Oh please, hardly the worst I have seen."

'Doesn't make it better!'

"You still have a fascination towards wide hips I see, how scandalous, oh my god is that handholding I see?!"

'Die on a ditch, or better yet go fight Scion.' The eyes seemed to scoff, then stared off somewhere in the distance. Presumably where Scion was commencing on eating the energy generated from all the destroyed parallel Earths.

"Confronting The Warrior after he already began to absorb all this energy just seems like a really creative way of committing suicide, I'll pass."

Peter sighed, or at least tried to before his body convulsed in pain from the action.

He had a few more minutes at most, maybe seconds considering his shit luck.

His relationship with Abaddon was weird. The entity brought him here, but it never disclosed why, never gave him an answer about why it chose him from any other.

The eye darted back to look at him, and he knew that Abaddon read that last thought. It seemed to be contemplating something.

"I wanted to see how you would react. I wished to witness humanity in its purest form."

What? Why was he saying this now?

The eye seemed to shrug, which doesn't make sense since it's a giant eye in the sky.

"Humanity seems to be a Multiversal constant, I simply wished to see what would occur when I took a simple human from a peaceful earth into one breaming with violence. What would you do, how you would react, and how your actions would affect others."

'Hah, so in the end I was just a puppet for you to watch. I hope I was entertaining.' Peter felt a bitter feeling tighten in his chest. It was stupid, but he wished that the entity had chosen him for a different reason, one more important or perhaps more personal.

Whatever, he was going to die soon anyway.

"At first you were barely entertainment. Given powers beyond your comprehension, you bumbled through life for quite a while, trying not to create any waves in the world, scared of what your actions would do." Ouch, thanks for the confidence, Abaddon.

"But then, one day, you saw someone in trouble, and you acted without thinking." Huh, Peter had already forgotten about that, helping that nice lady in going back home after dealing with some punks, how two children came running to her legs while crying. How those were his first steps towards integrating himself into the story of this crazy world.

He wondered how that lady was doing now.

The world shook, and Peter realized that it was a dumb question.

"Little by little I saw you rise, combat against forces which should have made you give in." Peter paused in his internal musings.

He never knew that Abaddon had been watching everything. He always imagined it would be customary glances every once in a while.

"I never saw you give in, not once."

There is only silence now, Peter trying to understand, and Abaddon simply observing.

"I have seen you falter and fail yes, but in those circumstances where it should have weakened you, you seem to have more strength than you ever had before."

A knot was taken away in his stomach.

It felt good, to know that people appreciate what you did. But this was different, Abaddon had been watching since the beginning, he knew about Peters's greatest wins and the lowest moments, and yet-

"I'm quite proud. To be given the gift of knowing you." Peace, because even if he failed at saving everyone. At least one didn't despise him, at least one would stay by his side in his final moments.

"Rest now, Elpis, your job is done" The voice, even being a low pitch that should never sound as comforting as it did now, was surprisingly calming.

'You know I hate that hero name.' Peter laughed within the confines of his mind. It was a nickname given to him by his friends, an internal joke between his friend groups.

Yeah, this is his stop.

He lived a short life, it had its many ups and just as many regrets.

If only he could go back.

If only it was someone else instead of him, then perhaps they would have done a better job.

This marks the end of Peter Wallace's life. A young man whose intention was to help others, and with it doomed the future.

After all, to be human is to suffer.