𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 | 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗘 𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟵 - 𝑴𝑨𝑳𝑬 𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑬𝑹

Chapter 12 - Cogito Ergo Sum

Previously, on the Reverse 1999, Chapter 11:

On the front page, everything looks shiny and bright. What a deceptive cover, it looks so tempting, making one imagine a paradise beyond the pages. But as you keep reading, you realize that something's not quite right. reality hits hard when one reaches the end of the page, revealing a rather depressing conclusion. It's like seeing a stunningly beautiful cake in the window of a bakery, eager to take a bite, only to discover it's made of stale, bitter ingredients. The excitement quickly turns to disappointment as each word turns out to be the one's worst fears. Maybe next time, they should start off with the harsh truth front and center, rather than leading you on with false hope. Obviously, someone was trying to pull a fast one over the eyes, offering a glimpse of hope, only to dash it all away with the cold, hard truth.

Who's behind all this chaos and disorder? Someone has a cunning mastermind pulling the strings like a puppeteer. A coup d'etat, perhaps? Or could it be a megalomaniac hell-bent on causing mayhem? A sudden overthrow and seizure of power by a small group? The world is plunged into turmoil, and no one knows who to blame. The mystery deepens and deepens while one is unable to try to unravel the true culprit behind this chaotic event.

And just like that, the countdown timer has reached its mark, signaling the end of an era. In England, technically it would be an Edwardian era, but regardless the era. They have found themselves in Vienna where everything is coming to a close, and the ominous Great War is imminent. Everything is about to change, the world as we know it is going to be altered, and it is not going to be pretty. It's almost poetic, how one historical period ends and another begins, like turning the page in a book or flicking on the next scene in a movie. The time moves on, whether we want it to or not, the clock was ticking down to something monumental, everything would have been written in history, the world was about to change once again, and the echoes of the past would soon give way to the chaos and suffering that would come with the storm. The era of peace and opulence is coming to an end.

The explanations a writer gives himself for having written any particular book are more often not the real reasons why that book has been written. Honesty is not the issue. Understanding is. A man does not write one novel at a time or even one quatrain at a time. He is engaged in the long process of putting his whole life on paper. He is on a journey and he is reporting in: 'This is where I think I am and this is what this place looks like today.'

Mainly all in the title but the scene in which the preacher describes hell is the most torturous version I've read. It was amazing and went on for pages. He has hands down created my favorite description of hell simply because it seems the most original and thought out.

To bear even the sting of an insect for all eternity would be a dreadful torment. What must it be, then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell for ever? For ever! For all eternity! Not for a year or for an age but for ever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. 

Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand.