CEO of the Interlink Enterprise. Billionaire. God of success. Creator of post-planetary tech. Heart of Alabaster. Monarch of Silicon Valley, and many more...
Such were the titles given to me by others. In hindsight, they weren't enough.
What I went through, how I went through it... Words could never be enough to truly express what life has taught me in my 39 years of pain.
Every person I've backstabbed, betrayed, ruined, destroyed...
They are all still here with me to this very day, in my thoughts, my actions, my words. Every living moment that passes is nothing but pure suffering, my guilt and conscience claw away at my heart, threatening the essence of my soul.
All who are in the know are aware of this, no one reaches such places without incredible sacrifices.
Every step of the climb to the peak demands you to leave a piece of yourself there, and especially for someone like me, one who came from nothing and now owns everything...
The price of equivalent exchange for this power is truly terrifying.
I don't know how much longer I can keep holding on for.
Every second that passes is another step I'm closer to the edge of a cliff of my own making...
Or at least, that's what they all think.
Vultures!
Circling the edge of my cliff, looking for the slightest opening to strike me down my throne of blood and bones.
Such are those who have abandoned all but the illusion of money and power. Soulless demons, desiring nothing more than to rip me apart and cause my destruction at the slightest sign of vulnerability.
Unfortunately for them, such vulnerability is nothing but an impossibility, a fever dream.
Those who have not sat on this throne, overlooking all but god, couldn't dare comprehend what it is like. Conscience, guilt, vulnerability. All are nothing but illusory constructs doomed to fall under me!
I have no burdens.
Nothing to weigh me down, and nothing to hold me back. I've ripped apart far too much of myself to feel anything anymore.
Perhaps some would call it a curse, something to fear and hold them back.
They value their humanity.
I've found peace and truth among this solitude. Learned to embrace what I and only I desire, without any illusions to hold me back.
Family, friends, lovers, they do not mean to me what they mean to others.
I alone, am sufficient for myself. In matters of support or times of gathering. The strength others need to find from outside, I find within me.
Companionship is an excuse that the weak create to hide their shortcomings, an excuse to avoid knowing how brittle they are.
Humans are social creatures, they say.
Humans are weak, I respond.
Perhaps that's the reason I was chosen by God.
Belief is a foreign feeling to me. I had lived my life with purpose, I didn't require a religion.
Now?
I had no choice but to believe.
After all, I was currently staring at the deep purple sky, my body laying on top of a literal mountain of rotten, mangled corpses...
There was no sun.
There was no moon.
There were no stars.
Just a sky of purple above, and a sea of red below.
I saw beauty in this foreign world that shrieked in suffering, even though the air was dead silent.
I breathed.
My lungs screamed in pain as I did. My whole body was, actually. Every beat of my barely functioning heart only allowed me to feel it more clearly.
Perhaps, this was hell?
A divine punishment that came upon me, a fitting one, for a devil like myself.
Yet, I struggled.
I was done reveling in the gruesome peace that laid all around.
I twitched my arms as they came alive, like a machine that booted up after decades of rest.
My body felt weirdly unfamiliar, like it was mine, but also not.
Slowly gaining control of myself, I rolled to my side, pushing off of a couple of severed limbs as I tried to stand up.
I couldn't stand up.
I had no legs.
I had to look at the nonexistent lower half of my body to fully process my condition.
Cleanly severed at the top of my thighs, without any open wounds.
Perhaps it was pure adrenaline and shock keeping my mind clear now, perhaps something more.
I wanted to survive.
If God could punish.
I could resist.