Prologue
“Oh, how it pains me so,” I wept, tears dripping into the creases of my palms. The agony was cold and endless, far too great for any one man to bear. “Icarus- Icarus, my dearest friend, are you okay?” A voice asked, hesitant. My wooden door opened with a painfully slow creak, a fluff of hair peeking in from the outside. Light blasted into my room as he opened the door, its warmth dancing along my skin as I attempted to shield my eyes. He was a humble man, his gentle and round figure strolling toward me.
“My friend, I grieve with you- truly I do, but surely it is time for you to leave the confines of your home. You must heal. Experience the beauty that the world still offers, rather than dwell only on the wound it has inflicted.” This was not his first attempt at encouraging me. I had lost count after he tried to physically haul me out.
“Just let me be..there is nothing left for a man like myself to enjoy in this life,” I replied, wiping the tears from my cheeks. His expression deepened into concern, his soft hand resting gently on my shoulder.
“You know where to find me, my dear friend,” He said, leaving my home. I did not see him after that day. I was truly alone. Time became meaningless. No fresh air, no sunlight. Some days, I considered stepping outside, maybe even moving on from my pain. How foolish of me. My growling stomach served as a reminder of my sins. I was a hunter, after all. The thrill of the catch was something I once thrived on. Sometimes I wondered if this was punishment for the lives I’d taken–divine judgment for my attempt to slay a creature far beyond my capabilities. Worse, for inviting my family along. Weeks passed as my food supply steadily declined, and my limbs became frail. Most would call me insane, and to some degree, they would be right.
“How else is a man to pay for the sin of getting his entire family killed?” I muttered. At that moment, a voice answered–a response I could not comprehend. What was that? Have I truly lost my mind? I hesitated for but a moment, silence once again consuming my surroundings.
“Hello?”
Silence.
That couldn’t be. I heard something. The voice did not return for weeks. I let the curiosity slip to the back of my mind as my water supply ran low. Walking from one room to the next became difficult. My ribs protruded, my body shrinking until my clothes no longer fit. For the first time in ages, I felt fear.
In those darkest of hours, I found that it returned. The voice that I could not decipher. Despite that, I felt it– an impulse more than a message. It was fierce, demanding… yet oddly comforting. It did not resemble the voices of the gods we worshipped. Soon, I became something unnatural. My body, beyond malnourished, beyond even frail, had become corpse-like– yet it breathed. Even scarier, it could still move, and the voice’s presence grew stronger. Whenever the agony of loss consumed me, it was there. Whenever I shed tears for my sins, it was there. I began to understand. “Let go,” it urged. It might just have me.
Months passed before I decided to leave. A horrid stench filled my home, mold and decay crawling along the walls. I walked, guided only by the voice. I snuck through the kingdoms of human society, crawled through the wilds of the forest, climbed and descended the harshest of mountains. The voice led me to-peace, driving me somewhere that felt more familiar the closer I got. My body was not fit for such a journey, yet I persisted, slender limbs exerting impossible strength. Eventually, I arrived at a place that shattered my heart. Why had it brought me here? The resting place of my family.
"Oh, my dear sons,” I whispered, kneeling at the exact spot where they got crushed– brutally trampled by the beast we sought to hunt. A field of white flowers had grown where their corpses once lay. Even the mouth of the cave had become beautiful. As if their blood had nourished it, by some cruel natural law. My body was once again guided in another direction, one a mere few meters away from my two sons. My wife. Oh, my beautiful wife. A heart too kind for the world, and a heart taken far too early. What sort of cruelty is this? Why does the voice seek to pain me so?
“Let go.”
My eye caught sight of something that made my heart collapse into my stomach. Her ring. The ring I presented to her was for our marriage. The very symbol of our hard work and love. Tears poured from my eyes as I fell to the ground, hands trembling violently around the piece of jewelry.
“Let go.”
I cannot take it. I screamed at the top of my lungs, tears rushing down my cheeks. It should’ve been me. I should’ve died instead of them- instead of her. I wish to hold you in my arms once more, my love. To once again spar with my sons, teaching them how to be strong young men. The world began to spin around me. Why in the Gods am I still alive? I am without food, I am without water, I am without sunlight, I am without basic human interaction. Why do I still stand despite looking like a corpse that should be six feet beneath the soil? By the Gods, I started to laugh. I laughed so hard that I might have lost my voice, not that I’d notice. I truly had nothing to live for.
“Let go.”
The impulses rushed within me. I finally understood them. The impulse to destroy and consume without bias or mercy. The primal urge to leave a void of what used to be in my wake, or rather, in its wake. Whatever this voice was. It would destroy everything and anything beyond repair, beyond healing. Just like me.
“Let go.”
I did. I had nothing. And I was swallowed by the dark.
Never to return.
