(Sora)
Where am I?
Is this... the afterlife?
I don't know, I don't know anything anymore.
I'm lost, so lost.
I could've sworn I died, but then I didn't? So did I die? No, I don't know anymore.
But I definitely died more than once. That much I'm sure of. Again and again and again. My body collapsing. Ariana dying in my arms. Again. Again. Again.
Might've been a cruel perk of my Divine ability, immortality? Revival? Perhaps.
Death might've played a hand in this. Who knows at this point?
But Fate.
Fate was there, Fate was here. Fate did this. I know Fate did, I felt it, I heard it in every vision, at the back of my mind, Fate was there, controlling what I saw.
I couldn't explain how I knew, but I knew.
It probably reached its limit, huh? Finally, I died.
Or maybe... I reached my limit?
It was dark, very dark. I couldn't even tell if my eyes were open, if I even had eyes, if I even had a body.
And because it was dark, I laughed, I continued to laugh with the arrogance of one who died.
My laugh echoed across the vast, empty darkness of the afterlife.
I kept on laughing until it cracked, until my laughter cracked.
I laughed and laughed and laughed.
I felt the tears flow down cheeks I didn't even know I had, the guttural laughter of an insane man filled with hopes and dreams. The arrogance of a man who had everything in the world but nothing at all.
I laughed, but then...
Then I cried. My laughter turned to sobs. Ugly. Pathetic sobs of a... of a beggar...
A beggar clawing for something—anything, anything at all to hold onto.
My chest hitched, and the sound that tore out of me wasn't dignified, wasn't anything like the proud knight I pretended to be. It was small. Weak.
I curled inward without realizing it, arms wrapping around myself as if I could squeeze the terror out of my ribs. My throat burned. My breath stuttered. I felt snot on my upper lip, tears mixing with spit on my chin, and still it wouldn't stop.
"So—so, I actually... I—I have a b—body," I said, laughing in between sobs.
So pathetic. I was a knight of the Knight family, and I was a prince. But I begged to die. I begged Iliam. I remember the words slurring out of me, the way my tongue felt too heavy and my throat too tight to breathe, yet I still spat out those pleas like they meant anything.
Heh. Maybe that bastard actually listened. Maybe he finally got tired of me and actually finished me off. Iliam, that son of a bitch… I knew he hated me. Rivals since we could walk, and for what? Maybe he saw an opportunity, a perfect chance to be rid of the competition, to be rid of me.
But I should be relieved, right? I asked for it. I wanted to die. In those loops, in those moments of drowning in that endless nightmare, I begged more honestly than I ever spoke in my life.
So why? Why am I crying?
Why does my chest feel tight?
Why does my face feel wet?
How am I crying? I'm dead. I should be gone. I should be empty.
But more tears burn down my cheek, and my shoulders shake even though I have no strength left to make them.
My voice breaks, small and strangled.
"Mama… I don't wanna be dead."
I didn't mean to say it out loud. The words slipped out, torn directly from the part of myself I thought I'd outgrown years ago. The part that hid under blankets during thunderstorms. The part that clung to warm hands and bedtime stories. The part that believed parents could fix everything, even nightmares.
"Mama…"
The word claws upward from my ribs, scraping through the pieces of me that remain. I won't see Mom anymore. Because... because I'm dead.
"I don't… I don't wanna be dead. I changed my mind."
The dark around me doesn't move, doesn't answer, doesn't comfort.
It just watches.
"I don't wanna die."
I choke on the words.
"I don't wanna die anymore."
I am terrified. Utterly. Completely. Childishly terrified.
And I'm not sure if anyone can hear me. Or if I'm too late. Or if this void is all that's left for me now.
But I still whisper it, voice cracking as if the darkness might pity me.
"Mama… please…"
Suddenly, the ground shook, and light appeared, blinding me. But as the light faded, I found myself floating in... I didn't even know.
A thick black mist curled around me like some living thing, rising in slow, lazy coils. Strands of yellow, blue, purple, white, and even red lightning flickered through it, pulsating, like... like blood flowing through veins. This mist was alive.
Around me were stars, planets, galaxies, extending like ribbons with no end, like smeared paint on blank paper. And that blank paper was space itself, the universe.
Was I... Was I watching over it?
No, I wasn't. I wasn't around or over. Not above or beyond.
I was in it, but not.
Somewhere between everything and nothing.
Where the hell am I?!
Through the mist, out of the churning darkness, came a small girl.
A child who couldn't be older than twelve.
Long blonde hair set in waves, cascading like a waterfall down her back. Her garments were royal white, trimmed in soft, molten gold that glinted like starlight whenever she moved. Her eyes were a shade of blue-violet that shifted hue as she stepped closer, as if undecided on what color they wanted to be.
She appeared innocent and small, no more than half my size, and undeniably adorable. It almost cheered me up.
A thin white diadem, too delicate to be a true crown, more like a ceremonial headband, rested lightly atop her hair, catching the glow of the drifting stars.
And then she opened her mouth and stepped directly in front of me, looking down at me with all the disappointment her innocent face could express.
"When are you going to stop doing whatever that is?"
My breath hitched, and at the same moment, she wrinkled her nose and puffed loudly like an adorable, disrespectful brat.
"Crying, laughing, whatever. It's loud."
She folded her arms as if I were inconveniencing her. In this void. In my death. In my breakdown.
"What…? Who… who are you?"
She tilted her head, strands of her long blonde hair swaying as she let out a snicker. A snicker that was painfully reminiscent of my sister's whenever she caught me doing something embarrassing or was plotting something behind my back.
"I'm Fate."
"P—pardon?"
She huffed, tapping one of her tiny feet clad in white flats against the void—sending little ripples of black mist outward as though I were the unreasonable one here.
"Not the little girl you're seeing right now, obviously. Well, kinda... It's complicated."
She rolled her eyes with so much sass, I thought they would've fallen out.
She waved a hand at herself dismissively, as if brushing away an illusion, then continued,
"This is just a… preview. A little sneak peek of someone you'll meet someday. Think of it as future packaging. But at the same time... it is me? I don't really know how to explain, so just roll with it."
That didn't help.
At all.
"What does that even—"
Before I could finish, she leaned down to my eye level and flicked her finger forward and thwip. She flicked me right on the forehead.
My thoughts, which had been spiraling in a pit of despair, suddenly felt… lighter. Clearer. As if she'd dusted my brain off.
What the hell?!
I blinked.
"…What did you just do?"
She beamed—like actually beamed then clapped her hands together with a sparky little hop and a proud chin tilt before stretching her arms behind her, quite literally embodying the cute little child she was.
"There. All fixed now!"
"..."
Fixed?
Right... fixed...
"Fate?" I said slowly
"Hmmm?"
"Are you really Fate? Like the Princeptus of Fate."
She rocked back on her heels, gaze drifting up toward the swirling cosmos above us as if the question bored her.
Everything about her radiated a maddening combination of childishness and authority. It was almost eerie.
"Mhm. Fate. The Princeptus of Fate. The big one. The important one."
She replied as if she were confirming the weather. Like she didn't even care.
Like, she didn't even care about the suffering she put me through.
"The one who sees every possible future and controls destiny and all that boring stuff."
Boring stuff?!
She waved a small hand in a lazy circle, as though explaining the shape of the universe was a chore.
"Happy now?"
Then she suddenly leaned forward, hands slipping behind her back, eyes narrowing mischievously.
"But honestly? You're a little slow, aren't you? Most people would've screamed, or bowed, or fainted by now. Most people don't even get to meet me. You just… stare."
"Well, what am I supposed to do?!" I sputtered.
She shrugged.
"I dunno. Anything other than cry, laugh, and melt into a puddle of existential goo."
She wrinkled her nose again.
"It was getting really embarrassing to watch."