Lycanfolk.
Darkness.
Darkness is the color of death.
When my grandmother died, the hospital turned off the lights in the room, bathing her remains in a chilling darkness. Every so often, I feel like I go back to that moment.
Her skin turned yellow, her bones exposed. Upon being touched by death, her body seemed to regain peace. I long for peace. I don't feel sad about her death, it's human nature.
I will once be grasped by this darkness, a gentle hug that liberated her soul after a month of suffering. I hope that darkness will hug me fully when it's my time, swiftly and gently.
Darkness is the color of death.
Ever since God left, the whole world has been plunged into the deepest of blacks. The sky slowly was tainted by a red color, and now that I am on the rooftop I can see it. It's very dark, if it shines it's only with a faint red hue– something alongside a corrupted evening color.
Only now, when I see it, I can comprehend it. Where God does not look, death is sovereign. IHS would've never imagined it, the infidels will be the ones to survive the longest.
From the rooftop, I could see the people. They walked normally, even if their sentence was etched in a stone tablet– floating right beside them.
Well, nobody actually knows if God left– Aeternia just stopped working. He could be laughing at us. If that were the case, I would love to kill God. Not like a human can cleave through him, though.
I slowly climbed up the ceiling fence, and jumped. I felt the air hit against me– a tidal wave that freed my very being, and my body ever so slightly relaxed. Maybe, if I could let go, a better God could find me. If I could only transcend humanity, to delete this threat of eternal imprisonment, or hug mortality and die– die, and be reborn away from chaos.
I reinforced my legs with mana, and I landed gracefully. I turned my back to the world and walked towards my home. Everything seems rot, and chaos is plunging the Temple of Life. Why do I repeat the same routine? I'm going home.
As I walk alongside the street, it just all feels so secondary in comparison to what looms above us. If I could only know if humanity was about to be purged, or if just abandoned would be a great gift. Horrors that transcend our comprehension are the darkest.
After leaving the city walls, I finally reached my house. I would love it so much if my sister wasn't there.
- "Brother."
Speaking about Satan.
- "Something happened in New River. The highest of cardinals tried to perform an exorcism– one of those who have grown rather common."
She took a pause, her eyes gleaming with an odd fascination mingled with dread. Her breath came rather ragged, as pressure built up her chest.
- "Cutting to the chase, something went wrong. His whole body spurt, almost like an explosion– Then, it was all crimson."
- "The grass around him slowly began to wither, transformed into something akin to a fungus colony."
- "Then, they transported what was left of him, something like a mound, into a laboratory. They trapped it between glass and layers of Mana enhanced concrete."
- "As for the original place of the mound, the government resolved to nuke it with magical bombs. The spore went as far as five meters below ground, etched in the stone. Some animals– although not insects, were infected."
When she finished, she looked at her brother, her head having to tilt slightly upwards. Her eyes were steady, as if this was just a procedure.
- "I've thought about it, and there probably is a colony brewing somewhere. Whenever it infects a lycanfolk– or a hybrid of sorts, it's over."
- "Mhm."
I finally made a sound, my tone neutral as always. My heart was somewhere else. I had long since accepted that something would change– or end, for that matter. This news came faster than what I expected.
- "I've spoken to my father. We will relocate the manor inside the walls of the city. We are calling the Head of The Family, and we are going to stock up on some other rations."
Useful. She is so, so useful. I don't fully hate her because of that. She hasn't antagonized me too much. I guess my bad feelings towards her stem from her pushing a relationship between me and Julia.
- "What should I do?"
- "We are looking for ways to fuse you with a lycanite of sorts, or a way for you to attain superhuman strength. It's not new, by the way. Ever since you were eight years of age I've pushed for that. "
Since I was eight? Wasn't she just ten? My whole existence constitutes a tool for you, sister.
My heart halted for a moment. as I thought about it. If I could only escape what constitutes me, that being humanity. If only I could have that strength, I would no longer fear Julia, and I wouldn't have to be wary of her ways of reincarnating and manipulating souls.
My questions, my debate between embracing death or transcending humanity seems to have been answered.
Sister, I am not a brother to you. Albeit your tool should mind it, or not is something I cant answer.
- "If you don't turn me into some sort of monster, and if I can still hold my sword, I wouldn't hate it."
The answer came swift, my speech detached. I wanted to come off strong so she wouldn't just sacrifice me for her cause.
- "Brother, if you couldn't think, you wouldn't be able to serve the family."
That was way more crude than what I imagined. When she says it like that, I don't know whether to cling onto hope. There is something so bittersweet about being used and being benefited out of it.
- "Right. I'll go practice in the yard, as always. I'll see you, sister. "
- "Love you, brother."
I hope she never says that again. I don't want your love, not anymore.