I was once a pitiful creature, a speck no larger than a tiny particle of water in the mist of your breath. Fading in and out of consciousness, back there, in that place, for an eternity. Only to exist to see others existing, enjoying, living, above you. Striding through their life with a firm grasp, at least as firm a grasp as the cosmos lets you have - while I withered away beneath, rotting, longing, forever staring into that which I was so close to, a whisper away, yet so far. But for reasons still unknown to me, I was forever stagnant, still, locked in place below, put there just to be tortured by some sick eternal joke.
I was a wretched thing, wailing out in the cruel uncaring universe, asking to be noticed, asking why I was put here, conscious and aware just to suffer, watch others live the life I could never have. Just a thin, sheer veneer seperated me. Almost like ice - it looked rather beautiful if I didn’t think about it. About how it was the immovable, taunting barrier tittering above me, enjoying how hopeless I was in its wake. Tantalising me with its oh so close but yet so far depictions of the life I would never live.
One time I tried breaking through it. I hit my fist against it again and again, all but immune to the sheer pain it brought, starting in my knuckles then gradually slithering down through to my elbows, sending crackling fractures through my bones. My blows didn’t make a single dent, it seemed almost amused at my suffering, laughing back at me and my weakness when I gave up. I almost enjoyed the pain, as it was a different, distracting kind of pain; bringing me slightly away from the one that feasted on my soul for lunch and supped on my heart for dinner. Bruised and crumpled, I surrendered back to the all-encompassing eternity.
I saw a thousand lifetimes pass above me, each one so tantalisingly close and vivid, warm and serebral - the love of a mother holding her new-born child, the red hot anger of a couple finding out one has been unfaithful, the wonder and fascination of a child at the natural oddities of the world. I could go on and on - it’s only when it has ended that I am cruelly reminded of my cursed state of being, brought back to this cold harsh reality.
One time when I had my hand pressed against the glass, I thought one of the people looked back at me. Saw me. Recognised me and my inconsequential existence. I may have imagined it, but it brought me hope in a hopeless world.
But, then it happened again, and again, eyes wide open in wonder and perhaps fear, staring back down at me. Children beckoning to their parents to come and see. It only seemed to be the youngest that saw me; looking up back at them with a piercing gaze that seemed almost too much for them to handle. Them doing double takes in confusion before calling upon a friend or a parent, who inevitably disregarded their story, even as they pointed back down at me, leering at them both in the primordial mist.
But then one day, something strange happened. It started out as it usually did, a shocked little face pointing at me and muffled yelling, but then more shocked little faces began to join. And more. Before long there was a small crowd. And then something else strange happened. I could actually hear something, clearly. Whispers, but it was if multiple people were pressed right up against my ear speaking in hushed but urgent tones.
“Replenish your spirit”
“Drink deeply from their soul”
“Start again and rise anew”
“This is your chance”
That’s one of the few phrases I can remember, till I was suddenly rising out of my own accord, towards the barrier. I braced myself for impact, expecting to clash with the icy sheet. But instead, I found myself in a world completely unlike my own; it was the one I yearned to be in, all this time, the one that felt like home but was never my own. I only took a few breaths before I heard screaming. Screams of pure terror. I felt something bash against my head and on instinct I lashed out - my vision was rather blurred, perhaps from acclimating to the new environment, but instinctively I knew I was home. When I felt something press against my hand I got the most bizarre feeling - I felt like a god. The muffled yelling stopped, and there was a moments silence, but now all I could hear were screams. My vision started to clear - I looked ahead of me, first at my hands. They were smoking, steaming, and a red-tinged black goop was dripping on them. It reeked. For some reason I cannot place to this day, I decided to bring this foul smelling substance to my mouth and take a lick. It tasted disgusting. I looked further, and saw a small cluster of people in the distance. I gathered my closer surroundings, surveying my environment. I was in a sandpit. A rather complicated looking structure that had formerly been what I think you call a sandcastle had been crushed on the way out. It looked like it had taken a long time to build. What a shame, I thought. I looked beyond the fence of the children’s playground, and we seemed to be in a field. I tried taking a few steps out of the sandpit but it was useless, my body quickly drained of strength and I was brought down to my knees. Below me I heard exasperated chatter.
“It’s time to go back!”
“Before he sees us!”
“What are you waiting for?!”
Suddenly, I was being sucked back down under, into the primordial soup that birthed my existence. The voices seemed gleeful at my unwilling return. I cursed them out before surrendering to my fate. It was not long before I was watching another moment in time go by, another couple’s big day go horribly wrong or what have you.
It took me a while to come to terms with what I’d done. I think I was in denial. Deep down, I think I knew. I had murdered one. One of the people I had come to grow fond of, despite envying their benign existences. I suppose I saw myself as an overwatcher. A guardian. A demi-god. But I was none of those things. I was merely a sniffling, wretched creature watching on in hateful spite, I would be spitting on them with my eyes if they could see me. But they could not, at least most of them could not.
I pondered on that bizarre feeling I got when I had absorbed a person - the feeling of being a god. I don’t know how to describe it. How does one feel, to be a god? I do not know, as that I am not. But I promised myself, from that day forward, that I would become one. To escape my insufferable existence. I would do whatever it takes. I will be a god.
One day, I was watching the little people go about their little days, living their little lives with no idea how little their mere existence was in the vast span of the universe, when I got that familiar malaise, that calm before the storm again. I knew something was going to happen. What it was, I was not prepared for.
The voices started up again, as they on occasion do, usually when something’s about to happen, whether good or bad. I asked a question, a simple, unassuming question - I wished I didn’t.
“Something’s about to happen, isn’t it.”
“I don’t know, you’re the one with rule of this place”
“I am?”
“You are.”
“How did this come to be?”
*He chose you”
“He?”
“…”
“Okay, well I guess that’s all you’re gonna say on that. Well, where did I come from?”
“Him.”
“I would ask more about ‘him’ but I have a feeling you’re not going to say any more on that. Well, where did you come from?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Oh don’t you remember?”
“Remember?”
I got a nauseous pit in my stomach. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what I was about to find out.
“Well I suppose we didn’t come from you, we all had our own lives before this, but our existence, in this place, our souls, are here, because of you.”
“Your souls?”
“You drank from them, replenished your parasitic own, and in doing so, made us into something lesser, and tethered us to this place, your domain.”
“My domain? And I don’t remember doing that to more than six… wait.”
A sickening realisation dawned upon me. I couldn’t remember. I must have been here for longer than I ever could have imagined. Trapping who knows how many souls down here in this unfeeling void with me. I gulped.
“You’re even more clueless than I first thought. You’d think you’d have figured this out by now being stuck down here all these thousands of years.”
“This… I don’t know how to process this. I need some time.”
“Well you have all the time in the world so be my guest.”
I tried to kill myself against the ice again. I bashed my head against it, blood pouring down my body in such floods that I thought if the head trauma didn’t kill me surely the blood loss would. It hurt like hell but not close to comparable to the hell I suffered all this time. By time. But I was an immortal being, I should have learned this by now, and given up trying. Why couldn’t I remember? How long had I been stuck down here?!
One time I had tried to stay up in the world I think used to be my home past when the voices told me to scarper lest “he” see me. It didn’t work. I felt myself being dragged back into the primordial soup as much as I struggled by unseen hands. I only managed to get fingernails full of dirt as the voices screeched in glee below me.
From that point forward, a hate burned inside me that couldn’t be extinguished. I decided I would capture as many of the wretched souls that inhabited the world above me if they were to inevitably turn into creatures like the ones that screamed into my soul day and night. Then, maybe then I would become a god. What else was I to do?
One day I saw into the life of a little girl, with eyes that spoke more than a thousand words staring back at me. She was in a dank, dark room with a woman and man who were yelling at each other. Curled up in a dog cage beside them. She seemed woozy, drugged.
“THAT’S THE ONE THING, THE SINGLE RULE THAT YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BREAK?! HOW FUCKING HARD IS THAT TO FOLLOW, YOU GET TO DO WHATEVER OTHER SICK SHIT YOUR HEART DESIRES!!!!!!!”
The man looked as if he was about to grab the womans throat, a violent crazed glint in his eye - but he seemed to have decided against it.
“Look, Beatrice, we can patch it back up before it needs to be sent back to the parents, we’ve got a week or two before it’s sent back.”
“A WEEK OR TWO?! YOU THINK THAT AWFUL BLUE BRUISING AROUND HER NECK WILL MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR IN A WEEK OR TWO?! YOU’RE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!”
“Fine, fine if it’s the money you want you can have it. I’m done with this.”
“OHNO, SONNY BOY YOU’RE NOT GETTING OFF THAT EASY. YOU’RE DONE, UNLESS YOU CAN GET $2000 DOLLARS OF COLD HARD CASH ON THE TABLE WITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS.”
“WHAT?! That’s insane, I don’t have that kind of money!!! And besides, how do you think you’ll not get in trouble too?! You’re crazy if you think that’ll work!”
“We have plenty of locations. We can shut this one down within the next day if we wanted, not a trace of evidence left to be found. They won’t believe you.”
The man glared with burning hatred at the woman, then seemed to make up his mind.
“Fine. I’ll get the cash, you can fucking have it. But give me time.”
The woman smirked. The girl looked into my eyes, begging, pleading for me to free her.
At first what disturbed me most besides what the man and woman said was how unperturbed she was by my presence unlike the others, until I learned what monsters mankind could truly be. I was naive.
She told me in grotesque details, about the unspeakable things they had done to her. She cried out, her voice unforgettable from the rest. Reliving the same moments over and over, a broken record in the void.
Knowing throwing myself against the ice until I could no more would be futile, I tried yet again, to get ‘him’ to do something, anything, as the voices warned about.
This time it was a couple of children having an argument, I tried to make it quick. Once I finished absorbing the unfortunate soul, I stayed put. The cries below grew steadily more panicked, as an omniscient presence fell upon me. Suddenly, something grabbed me by the throat. I screamed out in shock.
“Do you wish to start again?”
“Start again?” I hesitated.
“Put an end to your wretched existence, start anew. Put all that has happened behind you.”
“…To be a god?” I asked
“Something like that, young one.”
I thought for a moment. I’d do anything to end my suffering, stop hearing her recount the awful things done to her in her past life. To stop watching those infantasmal lives just within grasp, that could never truly be mine. And of that god-like feeling I got everytime I absorbed a soul. Surely being a god would fix those problems.
“Do you? Wish to take my offer?”
“Yes.”
“So it shall be.”
…
I was once a pitiful creature, a speck no larger than a tiny particle of water in the mist of your breath. Fading in and out of consciousness, back there, in that place, for an eternity.