His sight parted, and his view of the city grew hazy, as if his soul, or his consciousness, had first been stripped from within Ignar, ripped away from the body it inhabited, or rather existed in, only to be placed within another body, at another point in time, in a new location, to see through the eyes of another creature.
He struggled and twisted himself, trying to reach a point of release, a place where he would not be stuck under someone else's powers. Such a fight had been futile since the beginning, for only things seen emerged, as everything else became sated; the pain of others took center stage. A journey of unbecoming of what you were, only to reach a road of becoming something unknown.
Replace my thoughts with yours. Strip me of the last pretenses of a self; let me become not just someone like you, but something more. Let me become just you.
Already scarred, already in between a conscious understanding of reality and self, Kanrel was pulled and ripped, dragged along from one experience to another. Thoughts could emerge during the in-between, understanding of things seen, and the emotions that would come from the ones practically given by Ignar and the ones he could experience for himself. A feeling overwhelms you, forcing you to react to it; to scream, even when you are denied a mouth to scream with; to cry, even when your eyes do not exist within this moment. But even then, Kanrel screamed. Even then, he wept.
Despite all these forced-upon sights—these moments—forgotten to a history never written. There still remained a seedling of doubt that tried to bloom and exclaim to the world, "Beware of this, for this is not of you; this pain is not yours; this empathy is forced upon, not naturally formed."
But the mind discards it as unimportant, for the seedling exists in the deepest forest, within the soil of his consciousness; a passing feeling of doubt and nothing more, something to be ignored as wholly irrational, even when it, too, is something to be heeded with.
He screamed, and he wept.
The world gives no answers, and a Sharan walking down the street is what he approaches; he reaches this creature, comes in contact with it, and becomes one with it. The scream ends, and so do the tears. Silence ensues within the conscious. He is now within someone else; another victim, but only as a silent observer, not aware of itself, and only aware of the reality or the illusion of it that the Sharan experiences...
- - - - -
It was midday. Rhen Cascadun was just returning from a visit with an old friend in the heart of their beloved city of N'Sharan—the District of Gold. Someone they'd confided in for decades. Someone who understood the slow decay of their marriage to Georg Cascadun. Someone who listened. Sadly, the Café N'Sharan was closed that day for some reason, and strangely, it had been closed for days now. No one seemed to know why. But that didn't matter—there were plenty of fine establishments around the District of Gold!
Rhen walked against the crowd, clutching their bag to guard against pickpockets—or simply dropping it in the rush. They'd been warned about thieves from the District of Copper. The poor would often steal if given the chance, or so Rhen had always believed. They'd never been robbed, but that was beside the point—they were simply more careful by nature.
If only they could say the same thing about picking a partner for marriage...
What Rhen really wanted was acknowledgment. That raising a child alone while Georg disappeared each night and slept through each day was breaking them. But no—Georg had brought flowers. Rhen hated flowers. They'd said so before. That wasn't the problem, though. Not really. It was everything else—the silence, the secrecy, the stench of vomit each morning Georg came home claiming to have "worked."
It was clear that Georg was either cheating or out drinking when they ought to have been looking for work. And questioned, they always claimed that they were working, but never said where. None of it made sense, unless they worked for the Offices of Life and Death, which Georg seemed too lazy for.
Rhen gritted their teeth and pushed forth, muttering about their useless partner, their far-too-small apartment, the difficulties of raising a child, and how they wished they had married their friend instead of a dimwit like Georg.
The audacity to bring... flowers? Did they really have to spell every little, tiny detail to Georg, so that they could understand what was really needed?
A sudden "bang" shook the ground; it filled the air with screams of terror. A high-pitched whine filled Rhen's ears. People froze at the first blast—some fell to their knees. But after the second explosion, the crowd surged in panic.
Rhen could not move, and when they did, they moved with the crowd... the wave of people took all with it, in a state of panic, where many were left under others' boots. Their bag was torn from their grip, swallowed by the stampede.
A shadow approached from above, blocking the midday sun for a moment for those who were below it. The earth rumbled, explosions still went off, and people screamed, but all that was so minimal to what followed.
It fell like a tree—not by axe, but by detonation. A slow collapse of marble and memory. It could only fall, and fall it did.
By now, most Sharan had dispersed, but one can hardly run from a falling tree; some ran toward it, not knowing better, and many were stuck within it, unable to stop it, for none of them had the required magical ability to stop something so large.
The earth shook as the building collapsed against the street below it, as it collapsed against the buildings across from it, causing some of them to fall as well. The sounds of screams and even explosions were swallowed by the rumbling of the falling tower. The fall of the center of this city, they called home.
Rhen did not look back; such a thought never even crossed their mind. They ran—not with purpose, but with desperation. Toward home. Toward hope. No longer was Rhen's mind plagued with annoyance toward their significant other, but instead with hope that they could reach home and find refuge within their arms. That they could hold on to their child and cry together, for they had survived. Rhen ran the wrong way, not toward the falling tower but toward the District of Copper...
They needed to get home, just to see their family, even if it was the last time. Even as the crowd pushed them back, Rhen clung to one hope: that a path home existed.
Rhen ran against the tide of fleeing Sharan, against instinct, against reason. The deeper they pushed into the District of Copper, the more the world pushed back—magic thick in the air, another blast knocking them and others to the ground.
The world was shaking, and as Rhen came back to it, they could see blood everywhere, even body parts. How many had died was uncertain. With effort, they got up and continued running but fell on their knees as they slipped on something, a long thing, with… maybe fingers, maybe bones… an arm…
Vomit forced itself out; it was so painful as it came out, their throat were on fire, and their stomach were as well. Even so, they got up and began going the way they had first intended. There were others as well that had gotten up; there was even more panic than there was before. There were screams of those who were afraid, screams of those who were in pain, and screams of those who were going to die.
The District of Copper wasn't so far away; still, they went against people, and Rhen could barely hear anything. It was as if there was no sound, or there was sound, but it was somewhere far beyond, as if they were under the sea and hearing the faintest of sounds that came from far above, from the surface.
Rhen's body began to ache; there was pain, even, tomorrow their body would be filled with bruises, if there was a tomorrow. Georg would be so angry with them; they always told them that they should not cause trouble and to stay away from crowds.
As they ran downhill, from the corner of their eyes, Rhen could see some of the explosions; they happened above the city... Rhen could feel them in their whole body as the world shook beneath them and around. Rhen came to a sudden stop; they looked up and saw what many others saw as well. The wall, the great dam that was to keep the ocean at bay, crumbled; it crumbled before their eyes. And water gushed in.
There was no time. There was no place to hide. There was no way out… There is only the sea. Even then, Rhen could only think of turning around and running the other way; there still had to be hope; there still had to be a way for them to reach home.
At this point, all action was done through instinct. Everything was a haze; Rhen turned around, now running with those who tried to get away from the slopes of the District of Copper. But none of them could run far... The coming waves struck them, and they hit all those thousands and thousands of people who lived here; they all were swallowed, mangled, killed, and drowned by the waves. For Rhen, there was only darkness. For them, there was only the darkness.
You don't really drown, as one normally would. The waves strike you down, and they crush you. They bring you down beneath the waves, with the currents as you become one with them. You cannot breathe. One isn't even aware of anything else except the pain.
Rhen never reached home.
They never could forgive Georg.
And together, they never raised their child—never gave them the chance to become someone more forgiving than either parent had ever been.
- - - - -
As the darkness became all that remained, Kanrel again became aware of himself. He was allowed to observe his own emotions instead of someone else's.
Again, he was stretched and ripped apart; transferred through time and place, pulled against his own will away from the embrace of darkness and the moments during which he could experience himself. That self, by now, was too shattered to hold any torment of its own. He had inherited the memories of others—their pain, their love. Their anguish had eclipsed him; they had become his.
How could hours happen in mere moments?
So much had happened in moments that one could not truly process it. As someone stuck, seeing through the eyes of the victim, he had become not an observer who looked at it from far above, like the angels had done. He was not above them. He was one of them—small, helpless, condemned to whatever came next. An ant; a dot.
Slowly, he was forced to move through the darkness, through the waves that had swallowed the District of Copper, where thousands of bodies now floated.
Some had their faces against the water, some were on their backs, their eyes toward the heavens, their bodies mangled and twisted into unnatural positions, their faces locked in expressions of pain that he, too, had been forced to experience.
Would they now form the lines of the afterlife? Taking their position in the Sharan thought of death, awaiting their turn to be reborn, stepping through one of the many doors promised by the Sharan belief—second lives, third, or perhaps their thousandth.
But Kanrel would not take his place in the line. His consciousness flew through the city; he could see the Sharan, dead and alive, running away. He could see the explosions and the ruined towers, the damage the city itself had taken. He could see not only the victims but also the perpetrators... the terrorists, or freedom fighters, whatever one wanted to call them, who released their magics against the populace, using devices that launched bullets at the unsuspecting Sharan...
Just terror and death, all in the name of freedom.
He reached a place not too far away from the center of chaos. A grand building with an imposing facade, white pillars garnished with flags of red and black... the colors of life and death. The doors were locked, but people flocked to them, banging against them as from behind the crowds other Sharan emerged—robed, masked, and killing indiscriminately.
This was no normal resistance. Not one based on moral decency. Who murders their own and still calls it liberation?
The killers... could they ever know whether those they killed might have stood beside them, had they been given the chance? Did they not wish to free not only themselves but also their brethren who were as much victims of the Nine Magi as they were? Only a force that saw it all to be corrupt could partake in such actions...
Kanrel's consciousness passed the doors and entered an Office of Life and Death... on the other side... Figures, dressed in black, with machines in their hands, masks covering their faces. His mind entered one of them—silent, trapped, and stripped of self. He could not resist. He was only allowed to witness.
- - - - -
Georg shook but tried to keep himself calm. Questions ran through his mind, "Where is Rhen? They weren't home when I woke up to the explosions... What if... What if they…"
"...are dead?"
A warm hand was placed on their shoulder; Georg winced and looked to their left, seeing their closest friend in full uniform, dressed in black, a gun in hand, and a mask to cover their face.
Ragen knew everything that there was to know about their relationship and how difficult it had been for Georg to not tell Rhen what they really did for a living... The Offices of Life and Death is a nebulous post to have, especially if you worked on the "death" side of things...
Georg felt a little calmer, and they nodded, and Ragen, who held their hand on Georg's shoulder a moment longer before removing it, said, "We have our orders." The apprehension was clear—too clear for someone about to do something they didn't want to do.
Georg stared down at the gun. It had been years since they last used one. If only they could find Rhen—then everything could still be made right. They fixed their gaze on the locked doors... But there were so many there...
And they couldn't just... let them go.
"Ragen?" Georg asked, their voice came from beneath the mask they wore, uneven and filled with anxiety. Ragen looked back at them. "Yes, Georg?"
"What are our orders, exactly?"
Ragen did not answer at first; they only looked at Georg for a while.
After a while, they turned their gaze toward the doors, and they whispered, "Execute."
In an instant, all the members of the Offices of Life and Death that were within the building, behind the doors, grasped their weapons, took positions, and aimed them at the doors. Georg followed suit, although one action behind the rest. They did not wish to partake in this. None of them did, but they all had to.
This was their duty.
Someone had to do this.
Right?
"Fire!" A beastly voice commanded from behind them—their captain, someone who had killed more than any other among them. Someone who took pleasure in killing. Someone who saw death as art.
Someone perfectly fit to be an executioner. They had a name, but most never used it. They all knew their captain only by what others called them... "The Sharan of Death." They were someone far more powerful than the rest of them, someone who would make sure that the others would do as they were told. Because if you did not... they would make sure that all disobedience would be promptly taken care of.
Georg could imagine their gleeful expression. They all could. That's why no one hesitated. No one dared defy orders—even if it meant unleashing hell on the innocent.
Georg gritted their teeth. They all gritted their teeth. They aimed. They pulled their triggers. They listened to the screams.
Bullets flew, and the door promptly became nothing more than just pieces of wood beneath their feet; dust obstructed their vision, and when the debris cleared, their handiwork lay before them—corpses piled at the shattered entrance.
The Angel of Death gave another command; they marched on to the streets, over and past the corpses that they had created, over and past the death that they had brought here. On to the streets, where more could be found.
Georg tried to empty their mind. They weren't a person anymore, not even a Sharan—just a tool. No guilt, no thought. Only duty. They had to believe that this would bring peace, that through death, life would emerge.
It was within the creed of the Offices of Life and Death: Life through death. They were instruments who sought such a reality and nothing else.
No thoughts. No guilt. It had to be this way, or none of them could live with themselves. For they all had done terrible things before this, and this would be just another thing to add to the list and nothing more.
It all was done for a cause, and that cause had to be placed above the lives that would be lost in the coming hours—hell, in the coming days.
They moved through the streets, firing as commanded. There was no room left for questioning. Only duty. No one could stop it. There was no one to stop them. No command but the one they followed.
They made their way toward the center of N'Sharan, where a view of horror spread before their eyes, one that they had to ignore, one that ought to be ignored. But such a sight, one could never ignore.
The Tower of Lies and Truths, built from marble, white like ivory, now lay as a wall that further divided the city. The street that it now halved was laden with corpses. People who had died seemingly because of a stampede. People who had died in explosions, their corpses were just... pieces... lying around the other corpses. There were people, shot by those who had caused all of this... There were adults and children alike.
One image pierced the fog: a Sharan lying with a child in their arms, both riddled with bullets. The adult must have shielded the child. The bullets had passed through one to reach the other. Disfigured by the gunshot wounds. An efficient killing; the end result of a firing squad.
It reminded Georg of Rhen. Of their little Laren.
And worst of all... Georg didn't know if they had been the one who'd pulled the trigger.
As they went closer to the tower, in its rubble, one could see bodies peeking out, limbs and faces, all crushed by the weight of gravity. Such devastation, none of them had seen before, even the Sharan of Death shook their head in what seemed like solemn grief: "Less work for us," they muttered—then smiled, "Still... art is art."
- - - - -
Dressed in black, with machines in their hands, masks covering the faces that brought death.
Bullets fired in the name of justice; bullets fly, and blood is splattered on the streets. Bullets fly, and those behind the masks do their duty; they might not even question if this is right, if this is what one should have to do to another.
Bullets fly, and more fall to the ground, their lives flowing away, all who live slowly drifting to the night.
But the rising sun is radiant, for it is another morning, another beautiful morning in N'Sharan.
Bullets fly, and from above, they look on with curiosity in their eyes. They wonder: how long might it last? Until a rebellion ends? Until the revolution is brought to a halt?
Bullets fly, and there seems to be no end to those who die; bullets fly, and screams are all they hear; the screams of the bullets, the screams of those who are to die, the screams of those who yearn for freedom; screams are all they hear.
And when it ends, death is all those dressed in black might see. They cover the streets, their bodies, their blood, all motionless, only a few still move, still breathe for the last moments of their lives. They bleed away, as there is no mercy to be had on a day such as this.
And those who are dressed in black, again arm the machines they carry, sliding in another magazine, and then they slowly walk down the streets, searching for more to bring to justice.
The sun slowly rises, and the horizon is drenched in the vibrant colors of red, purple, orange, and pink. So beautiful is this, another morning in N'Sharan…
But the Angels, they know this is only the beginning. They would still have to sweep these streets that they had helped build. They would still have to bring it all to an end, for there was no other way.
And among the Nine Magi who stood upon the walls, eight looked at one of them. They all looked at the Angel of War and Peace. And surely, the Angel of War and Peace could feel their gazes upon them, and thus, they spread their wings, and with a heavy heart, they descended onto the streets; they wielded heavenly fire, a form of divine punishment, one that they wished to use upon themselves and the rest of the Angels...
And what was left but to finish what they had started?
This was mercy, they told themselves. This was forgiveness. This was duty.