Chapter 30: Go Down in Flames
No.
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
No.
No, this was not happening.
This was not possible.
My father had not just told me that.
That Lilith was my . . . my—
No.
It just wasn't possible.
Luckily, or maybe not luckily, I couldn't decide which. The Powers came back into the room before Ahilian could finish. I looked at Lilith with a new form of contempt. She had known. She had known what she was, and yet she did what she did.
No.
Soren came up to me and looked at me for a really long time. "I don't think killing you will give me any satisfaction over what you've done to me. You have made me a disappointment and a failure, and simply ending your life won't change anything. Ending Ahilian's life, will however change a few things; but only on the outside, not on the inside. Not where it really counts."
I stared right back at him. "Well, I won't stop you from doing what you gotta do."
"Was that a threat, Partial?"
"Only if you take it that way."
That got him to shut up. My noose was tied. I was standing on a tall wooden stool. All the Powers had to do was kick it out from under of me, and all of this would disappear. It would all finally be over. All the pain, all the struggle, it would finally all end.
And was that really so bad? Was dying really such a horrible thing, if it was your time to leave this world?
The Powers thought they were doing a terrible deed killing us, killing me. But no, they were actually doing us a favor. It was our time to leave and they were simply fulfilling that, even if it was only because they got something out of it.
That made me think about dying in a whole new light. Death wasn't a penalty. No, it was a gift.
But, when I had spent all that time traveling with Lilith, everyone had treated me like I was special, different, better,
Superior.
The Mountain Shae had said that I was special. But what exactly did 'being special' even mean?
I had always thought it was a good thing. But, couldn't it also be a bad thing? It was all in the way you took it, I guess.
I looked around at everyone in the room. These people I had only known for a few days, but it felt like eternity.
The Powers I had known my whole life, but it wasn't the same. Lilith, however—no, I refused to think about Lilith, and what she did to me.
Saphara was my sister. It explained so much actually, that feeling I got when I first met her, and then when I had to leave her. It also explained why she and Ahlin both looked so much like me. They were my family, real and living, as true as the sky.
And Lilith.
Adonis and Sinoda I had never really had the chance to get close to. Which was really a shame, I had the feeling that they could have been great friends. Sinoda was happy a carefree, he had probably never known what it was like to be truly hurt. He had never looked at himself in a mirror and not recognized the person who was looking back at him. He had never looked at a refection of himself and actually felt contempt.
Because do you want to know what the truth about pain is? Not all scars show, not all wounds heal, sometimes you just can't see the pain that someone feels.
Pain, changes people.
Sometimes, I still wonder why things happened the way that they did.
What was it all for?
And when the pain comes, do you want to know what I do?
I smile.
Which is why, in those final moments, I didn't scream or cry or beg for my life to be spared. I didn't take one last look at Lilith, or Saphara, or Ahilian. I didn't say some great quote that would be remembered throughout history.
The stool was kicked out from under me.
I felt my body feel weightless at first.
Then the rope snapped down on my neck.
I smiled.
YOU ARE READING
The Rise of The Powers vol. 1
Fantasía" . . . It seemed as if Saphara was no longer paying attention to me. I envied those who could get lost in their past, and forget about reality. Where as I had no past. Well, I did, but not one where I ever did anything; thought of my own free will...
