Beyond the Void

Chapter 44, The will to be

of Sin 696 - Human Kingdoms rapidly expand east, beyond the Greater Spine.

An excerpt from the diary of Pia...

ANDREW

Two moons and three tens since the Mark of the Other One blossomed. The moon of Shrouded Life has come.

Alone. For days, Andrew wandered through the wilderness in solitude. He had opened his eyes half-buried under a pile of broken tree-trunks, dirt and a fair bit of snow. His surroundings had been decimated.

He stared in awe at the piles of misplaced dirt and trees and the petrified grotesques and piles of ash. He had caused all of this destruction. Then came the screams. Panic took his mind and did not let go.

Several fresh wounds decorated his body. He suspected that one of his ribs might have been broken, and across his chest ran five parallel slashes. A huge claw had ripped through his chain armour.

Screaming and screeching, he seared them all shut. How many times did he pass out trying to close just one of those cuts?

The others were all gone; they had abandoned him. Left him for dead after they had gotten from him what they wanted. That was the only reason they had tolerated him after reuniting. The need for power.

He would hurt them. But the demons would chase them? He needed to hurt them! But the freaks! He could not run into those grotesque monstrosities again.

Howling with rage and sobbing, he hurried through the forests and rocky crags. Afraid that the next moment he ran into the demons, would be his last.

Each morning he woke up with no memory of falling asleep. Panic made him forget hunger and even thirst. Rage only convinced him he needed neither. His water-skin. How long had it been this empty? Only frozen droplets remained on the inside.

Snow was enough, he did not have time to melt the snow any longer, and he did not have time for warmth or food. The only thing that mattered was getting back at the others. All of it had probably been Becca's plan.

Fury and fear pushed him for days until one morning he fell down a small gorge. And his right arm had maybe just healed. Or had he forgotten that pain too? His entire body throbbed with pain and he was waiting for darkness to take him.

Hour after hour, he waited. He was still on a small cliff, halfway down the pit, staring at the swirling snow and the branches. The only sound his uneven breathing. The cold would not take him. A furnace had been lit inside of him.

Andrew had grown tired of the same old sight. The colours on the barks and everywhere else had turned into a revolting rainbow. In between all that lie white, crumbling nothingness.

Late in the night, his screams filled the forest once more. I can not die. Sobbing and whimpering, Andrew crawled and crawled. He threw himself down more small cliffs and plateaus until he was at the bottom of the gorge.

And he continued to crawl. It did not matter where he slept, any place was good enough to be his final resting place. That was all he deserved. A nameless death in a nameless world.

Weeks had to have passed. Maybe even months by now. Who knew how many days had vanished every time he had passed out. One morning Andrew realised he had forgotten something important.