ᴅᴇꜰɪᴀɴᴄᴇ - ɴᴀɴᴏᴡʀɪᴍᴏ 2019

01

As a child everyone told me how honoured I was. How great I was. They said, that I am the most valuable person to our society. I obviously believed them, because I was as stupid as a log back then... but nobody told me what the consequence would be, so that's that then. I thought being a "mouthpiece" was a part-time thing. I'd be dancing in wealth and luxury, I'd be admired by everyone and just had to be possessed by a god once a year. I was indeed a weird child. Weird, lazy and stupid probably summed it up best.

Anyhow, at some point I figured what "sacrificing your soul" meant. That was the moment I realised, that I didn't have a future. I was raised like a lamb for slaughter.

And so, we arrive in the present: A week away from the grand ritual.

Huge excitement spreading around the nation – supposedly – priests and oracles praying for it work out – I guess. That's just what I heard from the people walking past my window. Personally, I just laid in bed. What else should I do? I don't have enough time to read, since I would never finish the book in time.

Doing things is overrated anyways. Who needs to be active and do things, or at least start to do so, when it won't last long enough or would just remain unfinished? Normal Harath are immortal, so they can afford the luxury of doing nothing for a century or two. I though, had the limited time span of about six days... try to spot the difference.

And yet, being constantly bored isn't good either... but was it better than facing the harsh limitations of my soon to end life?

"Have you ever seen her?"

"Who?"

"The girl. You know? The chosen one with this weird floating eye on her forehead that's supposed to make her superior to us?"

The voices approaching were loud and echoed through the hallway outside of my room... they seemed to come from the temple at the end of the corridor.

Anyhow, they were most certainly referring to me. It was probably going to be the exact same chit chat I've been having to endure that last few days, when the final ritual date was announced first.

"Oh her... nah. I've heard quite a lot though. Golden hair, green eyes, pale skin and all that. Ya know? The thing you'd see as "perfect" around here."

"Same here. She's supposed to be mean though. An absolutely arrogant cow that's too full of herself."

"Oh come on. The poor child has been told from all sides that she is amazing since birth! It's natural that she developed to act this way."

"That still doesn't excuse her supposedly terrible behaviour towards others. Just because you like yourself doesn't mean you need to hate everyone else."

And after that I decided to ignore their noisy talk, that slowly faded down the hallway. I wasn't mean towards others! I had absolutely no future so I wanted to live my short life to the fullest! They'd probably behave the same, if not worse in my position, these cowards. Unknowing, ignorant idiots, that's all they were. Especially compared to me. I mean... even though I didn't want to be a mouthpiece, it did indeed make me more important than them. In fact, it made me more important than most of our society.

Footsteps already announced the next people coming from the temple. The afternoon prayers have finished and these must've been the last to leave, if I haven't lost my sense of time in this never ending, boring lapse of night and day.

"Is it just me, or do you just find it totally weird too?"

"Whut?"

"The girl... I mean, she did indeed deserve it. She was nasty as heck, so I probably should be happy for the shorter time span."