The Abyss

Chapter 1: Back to the Start

August 21st, Friday

I never thought it would end like this. After all, with everything that I'd seen and done, who in their right mind would think, even for a second, that I would do what I was about to do?

And yet, here I am, in front of The Gates.

I keep asking myself how it came to this, how it is that I found myself here, after everything that has happened. I ask myself what I could've done to avoid it.

I keep searching for answers. I have all the time left in the world for that. (Which, admittedly, isn't turning out to be much.) When I look up at the sky, I see almost all the stars have blinked out of existence, only a few left now. Soon, I'll be living under an eternal starless night.

I keep searching for meaning, but I don't know what to look for. At the end of the world, at the end of time, what truly matters? If there is no future, what do we look for; what do we strive for? Is it the choices we made, the people we hurt or saved? Or do we still count our wins and losses, even though they don't amount to much anymore when there's no one left to celebrate them? And if it is the choices that define us, what does that make me? A monster, a hero, or something in between?

Like Rachel said, maybe there is no way of avoiding it. Maybe this was all it would ever amount to. Maybe every road I could have ever taken would have led back to the same place. Maybe there was only ever one destination.

Because I decided a long time ago that, no matter what, even when nothing matters, even when everyone is dead, I have to keep going. I have to finish this.

Even then, the ghosts still haunt me. I can hear the victims of my mistakes echoing in the silence- screaming, begging, crying out in rage and despair and everything in between. I don't look in mirrors anymore- not only because I know I won't like what I'll see, but because, out of the corner of my eye, I will see them taunting me from the shadows. I can smell their blood in the air as I move through the countryside. When I close my eyes, I can feel their hands on my skin, pulling me close. And no matter how fast I run, no matter fast I drive, no matter how fast I go, I cannot escape them.

My dreams are haunted by Her. The Woman. The Mysterious Abyss. She whispers in my ear, telling me to come closer, telling me terrible secrets, telling me of her plans for me. She controls my dreams now. Each time I shut my eyes, I see the slaughter of another innocent, again and again, until the streets run with the blood of the damned. It's a haunting reminder that I'm not yet alone.

Although, soon, I will be.

She no longer just exists in my dreams. I see her strolling through the forests, the cities of shadows, her long silky dress dragging along behind her. The monsters, the creatures, they usually stay clear of her, but sometimes they cautiously approach her, bowing their heads in submission as she pats them with a strange motherly passion. She is their queen; they are her pets. The poor survivors, they fared the worst. Should they happen to stumble upon the strange woman, their new terrifying transformations would add more names to the growing list of the dead.

Time is slower now. Seconds turning to hours, hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to eternity. Time is dying. Time is cycling over and over again in a continuous loop, and I can no longer tell if I've been here before, if my life is somehow connected to time and I'm just living and dying in a continuous loop.

I am numb. Numb to things around me. Numb to the people, the few that are left, and to what is left of life, which whizzes by me. Numb because they are leaves in a hurricane: here for a second and then long gone. Numb because I know, I can feel it in my heart, that it has all happened before. Numb because I am trapped in this world, and I cannot escape it, even though everything else around me seems to.