Psycho Gem

Chapter 14: The Talk

I was falling down into an endless darkness, plummeting through a dark abyss as echoes of different voices filled my ears.

"Magus, are you ok?" I heard Tracks' voice say to me.

As I heard them, I realised that some were from past events, and others I couldn't recall hearing.

"Get help." I heard Wendel say.

"I thought you didn't care for anything." the Chairman said in a mocking tone.

"Get help." I heard Xynysus repeat.

"Only you would miss a simple detail like that." Darryl teased.

"Drown in darkness." My old friend Veil said in a darker tone. She had never said that to me.

"Is my son alright?" I heard Tracks' Mother say.

"You're a monster!" I heard an unfamiliar woman's voice. "Why would I ever love you?!?"

"Do I know you?" my Mother's voice echoed past me.

"You said you'd protect me!" I heard Tracks again.

Then everything went quiet. I stopped falling and began floating aimlessly in the zero gravity, and out of that silence I heard Malcolm's words.

"It's not fair... is it?"

Then I woke up. I looked around and saw that it was even darker than before. So dark I could see better with my eyes shut. I couldn't feel the sickness I had felt before, or the pain in my arm where my tattoo was. I felt completely fine. I stood up onto the surface underneath my feet, it felt cold and rock solid like a concrete floor. Although I couldn't see anything, I felt I could make out the faint scent of burning charcoal. I was trying to make sense of where I was when I heard his voice.

"Y'know, when I first saw into your mind I expected to be as disappointed as I was with everyone else, but I wasn't. I didn't expect... you." I turned around to see Malcolm standing a few metres away from me, clearly visible despite the dark. "You're different from the rest. You're so... miserable. You believe that's what you deserve and that nobody can help you... but I understand."

I immediately used my magic to blast a wave of fire at him, which he redirected with a wave of his hand, sending the fire behind him. I then tried creating multiple glowing orbs in the air above me, which fired beams of energy towards him. Malcolm created a shield, weaved out of his own wires and blocked them without struggle.

"How could you understand? Just because you're an echo of me doesn't mean you know me at all! You're nothing like me!" I shouted, trying to grab him with my mind, but I couldn't reach anything, as if he was resisting me.

"Maybe not exactly, but we're more alike than you're willing to accept. We may have lived very different lives, but I understand... your pain." he said, calmly walking towards me.

Even though I've seen countless other echoes of myself in other universes, I still wasn't used to seeing his true face. It felt like I was staring at a dark reflection.

"What do you mean by my pain?" I asked, giving up on attacking him and deciding to hear him out.

"I know what it's like to lose everyone you've ever cared about by your own hand, to spend every second in the suffocating cold, unable to reach out to anyone, and to long for the nourishing warmth of family."

As he said this I became more and more confused. 'How does he know about...' I thought to myself.

"You feel the gaping emptiness, as I do. Look around you, this is all I've ever had to look at. I've been stuck in darkness longer than forever can reach. Sure I've managed to get a tiny piece of myself out into the world to have some semblance of excitement, but it's not the same. All those thousands of years in the darkness I believed that nobody could possibly fathom how it felt, but then I saw you." Malcolm said, gesturing at me.