Dies Irae

We do not mind sacrifice if it is free.

His feet purposedly led him along the barren fields of a world that had been calling for him for two lifetimes now, a war that has had its hands around his neck for longer than he could remember at this point.

He had endured this war longer than he had known peace and perhaps that is what separates him from the rest that had come before him, perhaps that’s why he was the one standing here, and they were not.

That’s at least what he tells himself when he couldn’t sleep at nights, when he judged the universe for this life that he was given, this life that the universe decided that he deserved.

′What have I told you’ the voice of his trainer comes roaring into his mind, the voice of just one of many that taught him as a child at the academy where he spent his youth to become what he was

’-When the breath is unsteady, all is unsteady; when the breath is still; all is still. Control the breath carefully.′

1...2 ... exhale ...3

Dark steel blue watches the world intently, the long ashen lashes blinking, trying to understand the canvas of a war that has been seeking him out, while his remaining senses were encompassed in the stench of death. Consuming him, it dries out his throat, there was immense power coursing through his body at the sight before him, a trek of dead decayed bodies that riddled this barren salt plain.

Bodies like this that he had seen before, he had been clawed at by bodies that wanted to be saved, seen the light leave the eyes of innocent people caught up in this war that was bigger than any of them. He has had the devil’s laughter ring in his ears, had his enemies kill the people that his loved most in this world, he has been carved from this war into the person that stood standing here, alive now in this world that he despises more than anything else. In truth he wants this done with, and if only they had all known when they began all of this of the sacrifices that needed to be made.

But then we do not mind sacrifice’s if they are free?

Painless.

And comfortable.

Who was he kidding, stepping forward again, he continues mindlessly towards his destiny, one foot in front of the other, he had been defying this sacrifice since his birth. He had been defying his fate the moment that she wrapped her claws around his throat and demanded that his destiny fall into line with what she had preordained for him.

So really was it ever his choice? Did he ever get a say on how the curtain will actually fall on his life, or would he continue to be the marionette, his strings pulled by some invisible red strings of destiny?

His bloodied dark blonde hair tousles in the wind as the scent of death picks up before him, it suffocates him, the stench becomes stuck in his lungs.

Breathing in deeply again, it was a low, hollow sound that echoed in his chest. Knowing what this all meant now standing here, every breath was becoming more and more difficult. Death had come to him, on a day when he least expected it, but nonetheless, he had seen death approaching from afar with a slow, steady pace for him for some time now.

If anyone asked him in this moment what he felt before his humanity had begun to shut off, he would have told them that he trembled knowing that he was here, this world, this war for a third time, and that it was always relentless, it was consumingly merciless.

She asked him once, back when their youth was their own, when he could love her without cause, if you could do anything to erase what they had been through, but to forget it all, would you? Could you forget everyone that you loved?

He never answered her, not when she was smiling at him like that, not when those damned eyes made him forget about his entire resolve.

But now, standing here, now he was becoming afraid.

What is any of this if he can’t remember them, remember her? What is sacrifice worth if he can’t tell of his choices?

It could only be likened to agony, to something worse than hell.

So, it begs the question, sacrifice. Is all of this, what has been endured, is that true sacrifice? Is that enough?

Each step forward releases the holy light of his magic that pulsates and swirls around him, empowering him and leading him to the armies that were in the distance, he questions if they had been awaiting his arrival almost. Waiting for him to leave behind everything he ever loved.

Love... it serves to remind importantly that he had been spit out in pieces in the name of love.

A fragment here, a splinter there, all of his memories are streaks of ruin in a blurred watercolour, it is impossible hard to determine what anything is anymore. PastPresentFuture.

His consciousness, holding tight to the pulsating crystal demands things from him that his not willing to accept, like the nothingness of his humanity that it wants to claim.

He wants to let it happen, but there are choices that reminds him why he is here, and even if he is half-submerged in world of ruin that smells like old death: decomposition and disaster, even with the stench of his own blood that moulds together in the pieces that are missing of him, there are still choices that he wants to remember that brought him to this moment.

Breathe...1,2,3

Slowly in his pace, his mind leaves behind a simple neutral smoke-grey filmstrip that flick-flick-flicks behind his eyes: a shadow land that still has her captured beneath its icy grip. He sees the film flash and break and it’s the things of nightmares, it’s the moments of death. It’s a sword and blood. It’s pain and anger and the loss of control from those he loved.

It’s flames of a world and fingers scratching and clawing at his skin. There are screams, high pitched, terrible, gut wrenching screams that invaded his nightmares when he was once whole.

Flick, flick, flick

There is also laughter and it’s not from the ones he loves, the laughter is of those that brought this on him, they laugh in all the memories he holds. Surrounding him, overpowering him.

Flick, flick, flick.

Those memories are what ripped out his heart, those memories are the ones that burned him to pieces and choked him on the fucking ash-

He is inside out or upside down and everything is spinning, spinning, spinning-

He sinks into black, and everything is nothing or nothing is everything-

He can’t remember which anymore, he doesn’t want to remember what is right.

Flick, flick, flick

His mind smudges- remembering a time when she told him that she loved him. Hands grip her tiny cheeks and she’s looking at him as though he was going to save them all, those sky blue eyes hold so much hope.

And yet he did, his saved these fucken worlds multiple times and yet here he still was, this is what destiny thinks he deserved after all this time? This is what he gets for not being the stupid, benign idiot that should of thrown the crystal with all its powers away and made someone else to do it.

Flick, flick, flick

Perhaps as he allows the inevitable to take place, he accepts the fact that his life is now gone. It has to be in order to be here to fight this last inevitable war.

It’s gone.

Gone.

Gone, like his life’s a fucking keyboard and his got the delete key to the fucking metal.

He shouldn’t care, that was part of his choice. The sacrifice he made.

She wasn’t his, and he doesn’t belong to her. He stopped belonging when he chose this life.

Chose. His body stops walking, and his mind pauses, he didn’t get to choose any of this, who was he kidding?

Lingering and staring at the enemy that his come for, he was the ′then’ and ′now’, the before and after of this moment of his life. His powers are swimming, the crystal continues to demand the loss of his humanity to endure along this ultimate path.

And that’s the destruction of this fucken planet finally.

The last of his memories, the ones embedded into his core are all still raw and red and dripping around the edges of his insanity, and he doesn’t want to keep most of them anyway. swipe, swipe, swipe, they are all fragments that he doesn’t want to be reminded of, they’ll be erased shortly, his transitioning over anyway.

Momentarily he looks down to his hands, his shredded clothing evident of the last battle he had just come from, and he can see the scars blaring up to him, reminding him of the journey it took to get to this point.

Shaking his head, his attention is back to this torn world, the real reality he faces was that no one out there could possibly save him, no one was that powerful anymore. He became the only person that could end his enemies reign.

This god like creature that stood smirking at him, welcoming his existence into his immortal world, both knowing that the destruction of the other would spell freedom for the conqueror.

“True sacrifice it is said is never comfortable.”

That’s what was told to him once upon a time in a life that he no longer belongs to

“For a true sacrifice to be real, it must cost, it must hurt, and aboveall it must empty ourselves.”