Desolation [manxman] DRAFT

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Of course I couldn't fall asleep and just peacefully slumber until I was awoken by gentle rays of the none existing sun in my sphere and the smell of freshly prepared foor we didn't have. No. I had the pleasure of being stuck in Chaos again without anything to do or anyone to talk to. I don't know if the fates got the message but boredom had far more negative impact on my mental health than anything else. Or maybe they were just doing it on purpose.

I just didn't understand why I was brought here. Sometimes I was just sleeping, dreaming and minding my own business until I woke up again and other times it brought me here to suffer in boredom. I had yet to do something useful in here or anything at all. Unless you counted finding my dad's long lost dark side and talking to it for a few minutes. Other than that I just spent time floating around and being frustrated.

Maybe this was the universe's way of trapping me so I'd deal with the problems I was currently having. Hah, nice try. I was the master of not dealing with things. No amount of boredom and trapping would be sufficient in doing that. I'd rather start cannibalizing myself. Now that would keep me occupied and if I dragged that out long enough the parts I consumed would grow back. This way I'd never run out of things to do. Maybe out of sanity but not that.

I sighed frustrated and started reflecting on the last family meeting again because I just couldn't let go. Everytime they had opened their mouth and told me how sorry they were, all I could think of them so many years ago, promising me we would stay together forever and love each other. They had lied to me back then and I was scared they would lie to me now. I didn't want to bring myself to trust them in order to get betrayed again. I sighed frustrated at that, rubbing my face.

"You seem different." A voice whispered behind me, making me whirl around and glare at the intruder but I relaxed as soon as I laid eyes on the smoke, quivering there.

"How?" I asked, squinting my eyes suspiciously.

"It doesn't consume you anymore." It said quietly, shivering and shuddering.

"What doesn't?" I wanted to know.

"The darkness." It sighed, pulsing around me. "It's still there but you seem to have learned to live with it."

That was good, wasn't it? I didn't know. And not knowing made me uncomfortable. I needed to understand things in order to feel safe in the world. If I didn't understand things I wouldn't know what to make of them, how to predict what was going to happen and how to interact with the world while simultaneously feeling drawn to those same things. I liked puzzle solving and putting clues together but I didn't like foundering on them.

The smoke just hovered in front of me, shivering and pulsing. I got the weird feeling as if it were watching me, staring right into my face and trying to read me. I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to reduce the surface it could stare at, which was stupid since it didn't have any eyes to do that with but still. I felt naked and exposed. There was that sensation of someone watching me and since no one else was here anymore it could only be the smoke.

"What?" I snapped at it, trying to challenge it with my stare except I didn't know where to look.

"I never meant for this to happen to you." The smoked said, looking dejected. "I wanted you to be happy. I wanted my child to get to grow up amongst your siblings, having everything I never could. A family, parents, freedom."

It actually stopped its frequent pulsing and slowed down, curling in on itself. It almost looked like it tried to hug itself, to comfort itself. I was confused. Confused and compassionate. Confused because I had never even met it before and yet here it was, telling me it wanted me to be happy. You don't tell random people things like that. Sympathetic because I knew what it felt like to watch other people and see how happy they were while having everything you couldn't. I glared at it before its words registered in my brain and my mouth fell open.