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[KoJ] Chapter 44: Depression
🕑 Added 2024-10-10 11:38:35 +0000 UTCI stretch far from the pillar, but as always, gravity remains absent.
It is such a strange sensation, like constantly falling, but that could only be the case if the pillar I cling to is falling alongside me. Lacking an external point of reference, it is impossible to say. Only the fact that the ever-constant melody remains the same leads me to believe I’m not moving.
I could suspend myself in the air before, but that was always taking advantage of the counteracting forces of gravity that would tug at different parts of my body with the help of spatial distortions. There was never a time gravity wasn’t present.
Gravity is likely the only thing that has remained consistent throughout my life. When my territory was gone, when my distortions were gone, even when my supremacy was taken, gravity was always the same.
And here, it doesn’t exist.
Or at least not to any extent that I can feel. My body lingers out over an endless fall, but nothing pulls me down. I could even let go of the pillar itself and remain floating here, endlessly. But I never do; I can’t risk losing the only thing I can cling to. In this vast abyss, the pillar is the only thing solid. The only thing I know is real.
The haunting melody continues endlessly. Time disappears as I cling to Scia’s corpse and wrap around the only refuge I have. It is difficult to care for the passing time. Out of all things I can do, resisting its passage seems almost pointless with my little companion gone.
Occasionally, a crack of ethereal lightning branches out from below — or what I believe to be below now that gravity is gone — it spears through the air all around me, only for the odd power to be smothered by the permeating ballad. There is no sound; whether it has none, or I just can’t hear it through the song, I don’t know. But when the ethereal lightning recedes, it leaves behind a shattered spatial fabric.
It is not like bent space, nor is it akin to the manipulation of the phantom Titan, instead it seems to almost reveal another plane of existence. One where the space is beyond strange; where the fabric appears shredded, and yet still holds an orderly structure not even undistorted space could replicate. The very existence is a contradiction to my sight, and confusion bubbles within my mind simply by viewing the plane.
The fractal shaped rifts quickly close; patched by the melody that prevented its spread. Again, the space returns to its natural state. It's... strange to see what I thought was a titan heal the fabric. The song suppresses great damage to this world inflicted by something below.
I reconsider my initial position where I believed it to be a titan without doubt. Titans have only shown a nature of destruction. Whatever being creates this ballad, it is obviously the Titans’ equal, and yet their opposite. It fights something below that is desperate to spread and damage space.
Suddenly, I remember the shattering presence that proceeded the collapse of the tunnels around the Amber Barrier. If the same being that creates the planar rifts is the cause of that devastation, it can only be impossibly strong. More-so than the Titans themselves. Or, more likely, the greatest of them. This melody holds it back from destroying my warped tunnels, but it won’t last forever. Both the Beyond and the phantom Titan knew this.
I am both curious and terrified of what lies below, but I will never dare fall into the depths. Well, without gravity, there is no below, only what hides at the end of this pillar. The streaks of ethereal lightning always originate from the far direction of the pillar, but never come near the stonework itself. As with how the pillar seems completely unaffected by the alteration of space, each ethereal bolt rebounds as soon as it comes near.
Another reason to never stray from the one source of comfort I have left to me.
I uncurl, freeing Scia from my scales. She floats before my face, looking increasingly sickly and stiff with how long she’s gone without life. She’s horrible to look at. I know I can't continue to hold her like this. She is already gone, but as much as I understand that death has already claimed her... I can't let go.
Her little corpse is so fragile within my grip and even shrinking myself down to hold her better, it won't be long before she succumbs to decay.
I don't want to see her like that. I don't want to see her crumble away to nothingness. Even the current state of her corpse is sickening to look at. And yet... I can’t gather the courage to let her go.
If only I didn’t need to. If only I could keep her close forever, but this is a necessity. I understand that.
I need to finally let her go.
Nothing good will come from allowing her body to linger.
And so, uncoiling the tail that has only barely begun to regrow, I release her. I let her float in the empty space before me for only a few moments before I finally gather myself and push her away.
For the next thousand breaths, I cannot snatch my gaze from the little dead bat as she floats to the very furthest edges of my sight. Eventually, she passes beyond the threshold. Scia disappears entirely. Claimed by the abyss. Claimed by that endless song she so loved. I’m glad that she gets at least that in death, but it is merely a bittersweet feeling that doesn’t come close to acceptance. Scia's body is gone.
I am finally, truly alone.
It’s better than carrying her already dead body along with me forever. That would be nothing but foolish. Desecrating her corpse because I can’t accept that she’s gone feels like a horribly wrong thing to do. I don’t want my last memories of her to be the world eating her out from inside as she decays. The very thought churns my stomach.
I was once so ready to do the same thing I’m now forced; to let her go. To let her stay with her family. The time we’d met the other sciacylch, I hadn’t wanted to let her go, but I had been prepared. A preparedness I’ve since lost. I had been sad and terrified by the concept that she would leave me, but I could accept that she might want to.
When she hadn't left me, I had been so happy.
And now... I regret that immensely.
I wish I had just left her. I wish I'd... pushed her away and made her stay with her own kind. It would have been hard. It would have been almost impossible to face that crushed face of hers, but she would still be alive. I'd already been trying to get rid of her so often before then, and if I’d kept it up, Scia would be hidden in a fold of space along with a hundred others of her kind.
If she hadn’t stuck to my side, nothing would have gone this horribly. She would still be alright. Even if I wouldn't be there to see her. Even if, eventually, the outcome would be the same.
The collapse of the warped tunnels would claim her, but she could enjoy her short life with others of her kind until that inevitable day finally came.
I stay still for a very long time, simply glaring out into the abyss. My eyes stuck to the last point of Scia’s body before she disappeared. The cracks of ethereal lightning shattering the spatial fabric continue, and are mended in turn by the melody’s ever-present touch, but I barely notice.
The world fades into the background.
And I continue to watch the point which will be the last I ever see of the little lesser creature that became everything.
There is nothing else to do. Nothing besides regret my mistakes, and consider what I could have done better to keep her alive. What could have been if she was still with me? I do nothing but regret and stare out into the endless emptiness.
Even as hunger gnaws.
Even as exhaustion seeps.
I ignore that which afflicts me. They do nothing to numb the pain of Scia's loss. I would take another diamond spear through the spine if it meant I didn’t have to deal with this agony. Nothing compares to the knowledge that Scia is gone and will never come back.
There’s nothing to see any more — hasn’t been for a while — but I cannot tear my eyes away. The abyss song plays through my body, impossible to ignore, resounding with the emptiness that grows within. My mind reflects the abyss itself; empty besides a single thread. The abyss’s pillar stands undaunted by time, nor any external forces. The thought of Scia is the same.
But I cannot last as long as the pillar. Eventually, the hunger grows too great. My stomach writhes, furious at the neglect. It demands I hunt. It demands I feast. Regardless of my wish to wait for a being I know will not return, the pangs of starvation pierce my mind.
I've spent far too long wallowing.
My head snaps upward for the first time in far too long, snatching the sight of Scia’s last position from me. My gaze follows the pillar to the furthest reaches. Beyond my sight, that pillar might reach the warped tunnels. If I climb it, I can reach distorted space again and find prey to settle my raging stomach.
No. Not yet. I flinch at the thought of fleeing. Of leaving Scia here all alone, even in death. I try to return my sight to the spot I’ve stared for the last million heartbeats, but I can’t find it. The abyss looks the same everywhere. I cannot find the last place Scia drifted.
Is this what I want?
Do I wish to remain forever enclosed here? Trembling for eternity from Scia's death? Do I want to allow myself to die in this grief that overwhelms me? Do I want to allow what has happened to Scia to happen to me?
Do I wish for death?
The answer is no.
Scia is gone and I shall never forget her, but I can’t throw away what remains. I’ve lived for thousands of hunts, and this will not be the end of me. All that remains of Scia is that in my head. And I’m not about to let more of her die.
So I climb. My body curls around the large pillar and I tug upwards. I climb, ready to reach… whatever lies above. I don’t dare descend. Not with the beings in constant conflict that might very well be greater than Titans. Their battle is subtle, but the Titans of the Other Side didn’t cut space. Their size altered it, bent it from their sheer weight, but never broke it.
This pillar should return me to the warped tunnels. With the future I know lies ahead of the place, it will be dangerous, but at least there…
I can try to move on.
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Comments
Trasen56
Can't imagine what he'll go through when he realizes how close they were to escape in the tunnels
