Bitter End?

What is time. This is a question humanity has had for as long as they could remember. It was simply a linear existence, a thief that steals moments we can never recover. The thief robs us of the opportunity to create cherish moments. Leaving us with memories too fleeting and a longing for more of it with those we love.

For Mathew, this was all too true as the thief had come to visit him at the most unexpected of times.

His mother's eyes were fixed on the road ahead, not because she was focused on driving, after all, the car hadn't moved an inch since they sat back in their seats. 

Mathew's gaze dropped, to her neck around it he saw a ring of ice. Above that, a hand reached through the shattered window, wrapped around and gripping her neck with a vice-like hold. The ice cracked under the pressure. 

Mathew's voice caught in his throat.

'No, no, no. Please no.' His mind raced with the desire for this scene to vanish. To wake up from whatever dream he was having.

But no matter how much he prayed or begged, or how much he wished to wake up from this nightmare, the echo, was burned into his memories. What had once been her head, was now reduced to nothing but a frozen stump of flesh.

He stared at her corpse for what felt like an eternity as his lonely heart wrenched at the sight. 

A second passed. Then another. And another.

After the long pause, Mathew shifted his gaze, looking straight at the empty street ahead, and let out a sharp, eerie laugh. It was a bitter sound tinged with desperation as he struggled to hold it together. Bordering dangerously on the brink of hysteria.

Right before his eyes, his mother's lifeless body slowly slumped onto the steering wheel.

"Of course," he muttered, his voice quiet and hoarse. "Just what I needed right now."

Tears began to well in his eyes, and slowly, a single tear dropped down his cheek.

"Guess you won't be giving me that explanation after all, huh, Mom?"

The words he forced out felt empty. Like nothing but a hollow shell of a shield, he put up to hide the growing pain inside him. And he knew it. But in this moment, no sarcastic quip, could mask his true emotions. He wiped at his face, brushing away that one solitary tear.

"Guess it's just me now,"

Though more threatened to spill, Mathew refused to let them fall. Choking on the grief that clawed at his throat. 

After collecting himself, and taking a deep breath, Mathew calmly opened the door, and forced himself out, moving nonchalantly around the car. Now standing before his mother's killer, he looked down and grimaced. 

He held her head by her long brown hair. The point at which her head and neck were separated was frozen solid, leaving no bloody mess as one would expect there to be.

With a heavy, clenched jaw, he locked eyes with the man who had the audacity to take his mother from him. It was a man dressed in a neat black suit, with a white unbuttoned shirt underneath, the killer had deep blue eyes and snow-white hair. 

He wasn't a monster in the literal sense. In fact, he was more handsome than most men in this wretched city Mathew called home. Yet, he was still one all the same.

Mathew clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms.

"Bastard" he muttered under his trembling voice as he tried his best to restrain the flood of rage within him.

'Why wouldn't it be some smug bastard in a suit?! Real creative. An ice manipulation trait too. Fancy.'

The man raised a curious brow and tilted his head, studying Mathew with a faint, almost amused expression breaking through his previously stoic demeanor.

The young cynic's rationality screamed at him. Telling him repeatedly to run, but the sight of his mother's head swinging in the man's hand ignited his rage, instantly overtaking his sense of logic. He couldn't possibly run with his tail tucked between his legs. No amount of reasoning could compel him to give this bastard the satisfaction of seeing him cower like some weakling. 

He wouldn't run. No, it wasn't that he wouldn't. He just couldn't do it.

Mathew growled through gritted teeth, his vision narrowing until only the man and that gruesome sight filled his focus.

"Congratulations bastard! You've officially ruined my life. Hope all of it was worth the hassle to kill a poor slum dweller though."

He took a step forward and kept going.

"What's the plan now, huh? Are you gonna monologue about why you did it? Maybe throw in some cryptic line about 'fate' or 'power' or whatever cliché thing villains like to use these days?"

He forced a crooked grin and spread his arms mockingly, then said.

"Go ahead. Impress me."

Mathew's eyes darted around, flickering between the dimly lit surroundings and the Herald that standing before him. The killer's icy gaze bore into the young cynic, but he didn't flinch.

He tracked the man's every movement, his mind racing search of something, anything at all, to even the odds. His hand brushed against the car door and he noticed it. Something glinting in the light of the streetlights. 

Now only a few steps away, the young cynic darted forward. Grabbing it, A large, jagged shard of glass embedded in the cracked window frame and breezed past, closing the distance in a second. The edge bit into his skin, drawing blood as he gripped tighter. But it didn't matter. If it meant he could kill this murderer, the pain was more than worth it. 

Thrusting the makeshift dagger at the man's neck, Mathew felt a rush of adrenaline as he hit his mark. But unlike the vivid images he had pictured, seeing the man writhing in pain absolutely on the ground with blood gushing from the wound, slowly dying, the reality was far less forgiving.

His feeble attack had been nothing more than a light breeze against an immovable wall. The man was a Herald after all. And what could a mere human do before such power?

In an instant, the handsome Herald moved too quickly for the young cynic to react, grabbing him by the neck and clamping down like a predator's jaw on its prey. 

A faint sliver of panic found its way into Mathew's eyes as he was lifted effortlessly off his feet. 

Desperately clawing at the man's arm, Mathew struggled, kicked, and scrambled for the smallest gasp of air. But the murderer just grinned as he watched Mathew suffer. Deriving some sort of sick pleasure in his suffering.

The oxygen in his lungs faded and his vision slowly blurred. But through the suffocating haze, his cynicism somehow managed to claw its way to the surface and he asked with a defiant tone.

"What's… the matter? Is that... all?"

The Herald's grin widened, amused by Mathew's defiance.

Managing nothing more than a bitter chuckle, the young cynic was on the verge of unconsciousness when the Herald hurled him into the car's side, leaving a massive dent in the shape of his torso.

Laying there broken and bruised, Mathew had no strength left in him, All he could do was watch as the man walked away with his mother's severed head. And as he did, a grim realization of his fate settled in

Looking up to the night sky above, nothing but bitter thoughts flooded his mind.

He strained to move, but lifting even a finger felt beyond his reach. He couldn't feel anything from the neck down. He knew without being told, he was no longer long for this world.

"This is it, huh?"

A heavy sigh escaped him.

"I should've... done more."

Could he have though? From the start, he had never been in control of the ridiculous situation that unfolded, so doing something 'more' was out of the question.

"I could've run… I Should've run,"

Maybe, but once the Herald showed himself, there was little he could have done to escape. And he couldn't exactly leave his mother behind to die.

"I should've been smarter. I should've known better."

Now this... this was true. Deciding to try and kill a Herald with a shard of glass was probably the dumbest thing he could have done. 

But what's done is done.

Teetering on the edge, Mathew's regrets piled up. Denying him the comfort of pretending he'd done the best he could. His body was on the verge of shutting down when a final thought flashed by. No... It was more of a final acknowledgment in life, and it was something he never wanted to accept.

'I never had a chance.'

It made him sick to his stomach to admit. But it was true. After that futile struggle, all Mathew could do was lie there, left with nothing but the bitter taste of failure.

Just as he felt himself crossing the borders of life and death, a voice came cutting through the haze. as a bright light enveloped his vision.

[Congratulations Herald candidate., and welcome to the Voidlands]