A continuation of my tale from last time.
It was the next day, unfortunately I felt my old group of people die in the night. The Abyss hunted them down like animals, played with them first like a cat with a mouse. I was too far away and too weak to be any help. My heart bled with every soul consumed.
Now I had new people to protect though, including her, so I couldn’t get lost in grief. I had to find a way to recover faster, The Abyss had hardly spent any energy in that fight while I was drained. Only his fear of me kept my people safe at the moment.
I went to check on her, she was unconscious still, but she’d live. She had a husband; I did not care to learn his name. But I entered his heart, he wasn’t perfect, but he loved her. That was good enough. Honestly, even if I manage to save all of existence, I did not think I would make it through it. I already felt my body breaking down, whatever power had awakened in me… Human bodies were not meant to hold it. The stronger I become, and the more I use my power, the more my body began to break down. It took a while before I realized what this feeling was, but after my last fight with The Abyss I understood. The atoms that made up my body were slowly being forced apart, eventually the waves that make up my electrons would collapse, and my protons and neutrons would explode apart in a show that would put the TSAR BOMBA to shame.
I walk out onto the buildings crumbling, decaying, balcony to overlook the ruins of what was once a very pretty town. I reach out, the amount of living souls left on the planet was reducing constantly and the ones that were left were too weak to ask for energy. I push myself out further, my mind travels through time and space as I touch everything that is light and good. I ask for the very fabric of the cosmos; I reach out beyond this universe; I ask living souls in others.
And then I’m back in my body, but I am glowing a bright white-hot light and waves of radiating energy come off me. Waves traveling through time and space, on a subatomic level, connecting with me. The soul in my heart, I feel it drawing in energy too, like a reserve. And then as soon as it all started it stopped, and my glow went out.
“Rick, Jeff,” my voice booms out with purpose and conviction. They walk up to me, very nervous but also seeming grateful. I put one finger on the tip of each of their makeshift spears, and they glowed white hot as I put some of my energy into them. “The demons won’t be a problem while I’m gone now,” I nod over towards her and the others. “Protect them for me, okay? And yourselves, of course.” They nod solemnly.
…
And then I no longer existed, and then I did. The Abyss stood waiting for me, tall and ominous, on a mountain cliff. I stood behind him, glowing white hot.
“You knew I’d come for you,” I say much more calmly than I felt. This was it; this was when I’d die.
“I would say it was foolish, but it doesn’t matter. I would have come for you anyway.”
And before he could react, I dove into him again letting him consume me.
Blackness, and endless empty void where light cannot exist…. Yet it does. White hot light radiated from my skin again and a very small bubble inside the endless void was lit up. I pushed my light, and with the fury of a thousand suns white fire burned from within me to out and the void shrunk.
And then the void pushed back, and my fiery light of justice and love was being pushed back into me. I reached out, out of even The Abyss, to feel her. To remind myself what is at stake, and my fire pushed out again shrinking the void. A dark purple tendril shot through my fire and into my chest, straight into my heart. I did not relent, as tendril after tendril shot into me, I pushed out even harder, ignoring the pain of a thousand horrid deaths.
And for a moment I thought I won, the void was ripped apart and I stood alone on a mountain side. And then I no longer existed, and then I did. But before I even existed again, I was filled with dread, I hadn’t won. I was back with my people, just in time to watch The Abyss consume her husband. Already glowing white hot, I dove into him voluntarily for the third time ever.
I reached out and found him like I had her, I pulled myself. I needed to be fast, there wasn’t time to spare. His face lit up; he was handsome. I set one hand upon his forehead and let a tear fall onto his closed eye.
And then we were back in the room, holding him like I had her, I set him down and turn back to The Abyss. And this time we don’t exist thanks to me, and then we do.
Flying through time and space I’m holding onto him as I take us through star after star, empty dead planet after empty dead planet. Time loses all meaning as we slam into a black hole, we’re crushed into nothing, and then we slam back into Earth leaving a building sized crater. And then The Abyss picked me up off the ground and for the final time that day I didn’t exist, and then I did.
I was in some strange hellish landscape, decaying buildings hung upside down from the sky as strange, giant, lovecraftian beasts walked in the distance.
The Abyss stood tall just feet away from me. I square up my shoulders and turn to face him, glowing white hot. The fear of death in both our eyes.