Inclined by an instinctive urge to reach forward with my fingers splayed, thus the anticipative shadows swarm back to me, collating at my fingertips. The swell of darkness increases and spirals, growing into a vortex. With my hand upraised and palm facing forward, I begin to feel a sudden chill – a breath of ice upon the back of my neck, and the gelidness of death creeping up my spine, eliciting a shudder. I turn my head and look over my shoulder to catch an imposing apparition of V-syvious standing behind me; however, this version of him has pure white skin complemented with black striped markings.
Vonplex?
We make eye contact. I couldn't tell whether it was indifference or just his natural expression. He directs his emotionless gaze to the giant alosium arms ahead, and then looks down, examining the dark energy at my fingertips. He places his large phantom hand over mine, and raises it even higher - to the level of my eyes – just like he did to V-syvious when they were inside the interdimensional tunnel.
Pitch-black forks of lightning strike out from the expanding vortex. Developing a suction effect – a vacuum in its central eye as it mercilessly strips alosium from the unmoving appendages and enclosed digits, sundering them apart. Swallowing the crumbling pieces of Enjin's prison, acting as a gateway to annihilation – a black hole. Leaving nothing to waste -except for his soul.
I remember oh so clearly how the Sincistic Mal demonstrated his utilization of combining two elements, as if they were the same divinity.
Am I really doing this?
Or is it Vonplex?
My future self - the immoral mastermind who had orchestrated everything.
"Through blood – through memory – through our DNA - forgotten knowledge and power can be acquired once again from our personal transcendental connection to the self." He says as his hand slips away from my own and steps back.
Withdrawing.
Heeding the call of time.
I don't need to look behind me to know he isn't there anymore, and therefore, making me question whether he was here at all to aid me in this pivotal moment.
Was the apparition of him just another hallucinogenic side effect of his blood running through my veins, or was it memory residue overlapping into my own timeline?
The proportion and steadiness of the vortex fluctuate; my power is becoming an unstable mess. I can't control it! My hand retreats from the conjured creation. I make haste and round the vexed amalgamation, running over to the dwindling light source as the black hole threatens to swallow his spirit.
This power of mine outright defies nature.
It's unnatural.
The black hole recognises my soul because my last incarnation used the divine element of electricity, whereas in this one, darkness has chosen to aid me during my brief lifespan as a human.
The Sincistic Mal intervenes when the time and situation call for it, then leaves when his presence is no longer required; fleeting like an afterthought.
A ghost.
Playing chess with himself.
I wonder - which chess piece am I? How much faith does he have in this little human? Clearly, something else has yet to play out here. For every time he intervenes, there is a reason.
Always.
As I close in on Enjin's soul, it diminishes in size. I quickly crouch down amidst the clearing and scoop up his dwindling life force into my arms, cradling him close to my chest. The pulsations discontinue the moment he nestles further into my protective embrace, glittering ever so delicately – indicating his fragility. In the furthest depths of my subconscious mind, barely detectable, is our final strand of communication.
Thinning.
Dying.
Thank the creator, I found him just in the nick of time.
I visually sweep through the inflicted vault until my eyes meet an ominous entry into another maze of corridors. With no more time to lose, I charge towards the opening. I slide sideways on my feet into the vacant passage, and my shoulder bangs into a wall. I clench my teeth and hiss.
Fucking hell, that hurt!
I resume running while carrying him. Then a deafening boom transpires from behind me as the vault is crippled; thus, I receive the brunt of an unleashed shockwave.
The rippling force almost knocks me off my feet and leaves me breathless. Draining me even more so. I try to push back the wake of increased exhaustion creeping up on me, but I feel myself struggling to do so. Hair-raising static fills the passage – tingling my skin.
I check Enjin over to find him unharmed. My chest is filled to the brim with relief. Saving his soul is my purpose; therefore, the divine elements would not dare to touch him, not without my permission. Vonplex knows this, or else he wouldn't have bothered to aid me.
Quaking resonations reecho from all around us. The passageway laments and bends. The walls are self-indenting and beginning to crumple again, threatening to repeat what had occurred earlier. Then a heinous, blood- curdling gnarl infiltrates my ears. Isolated from the surrounding noises.
"There you are."
A disembodied voice of a serpent hisses just above a whisper. The walls give in as the remainder of the passage behind me tries to crush itself from the inside, all the while radiating an ardent, reddish-orange. Molten blemishes cover the walls and emit a sudden heat, producing hot smog. I keep on running, and blink apace as the growing heat stings my eyes, making them water. The stench of sulphur spreads and suffocates the rest of the passage up ahead – burning the inside of my nostrils. I'm starting to feel lightheaded.
I – I can't breathe.
I hug Enjin's soul tighter and push for another burst. I bore onwards through the clouded corridor until the smog ultimately disperses and I am in the clear.
I come to a lurching halt and gasp aloud for a highly welcomed breath, as asphyxiation leaves me. That seemed short-lived?
It was - strangely fleeting.
Now, I am in a fairly basic and spacious area. It is almost non-descript. There is no other light source besides the frail soul in my arms, and a sliver of silver writhing in its lonesome, on the floor, submerged in carmine liquid; illuminating the same dim shade of blue as Enjin's.
I squint my eyes.
Is that – a piece of cord?
My crippling anxiety reawakens and permeates through me, rendering me inert. A low, nefarious, and animalistic growl thunders behind me. I immediately flinch and turn around in alarm to behold eight sanguine eyes, glowering at me. The striking, vibrant, differentiating hues of reds and minimal streaks of yellow in his irises encompass his slit pupils, as though I am viewing a dying sun in mid-implosion – burning away the stars. Frozen in time.
Those eyes.
I know them all too well, for they were once mine thousands of years ago.
They belong in the past – and the past only.
"I cannot accept this to be true. You – you are not me. You cannot be, or else that would surely mean I have just sentenced my future self to vivisection. An experience I shall too come to suffer, that I am indeed predestined to reincarnate as the very creation I helped beget; a creation born from mine, and that incompetent fool's DNA. The very thought of myself being conceived by a member of my own seeded race with his likeness – his genetic make-up – with the face of whom I despise – is utterly repulsive. Incomprehensible..."
Electricity egresses from his eyes in exasperation and ire.
"You made my genetic engineer resign from her position in hysterics. Babbling nonsense concerning divine timing and professing she had made a grave mistake in coming here. She even had the sheer nerve to claim you were my second incarnation." He cackles in a fiendish demeanor. "What a preposterous statement, indeed."
He snickers at me. "Ira's protégé; is quite an exaggerated title – yes?"
His upper lip curls up - showing his fangs in the form of a spiteful smile, and sneers at me.
"No one leaves – nor dares to escape me. She saw too much. If Ira were to learn of her findings - only Vonplex knows how he would react to our truth; for he knows what he is truly capable of, whereas I have witnessed but a fraction of it."
I notice a dry coat of yellowish-green smeared across his talons.
Blood.
Her blood.
How many lives has he taken with those talons?
"Deep down, I knew a day would come when you'd finally reveal your true self to me; however, I cannot bring myself to fully accept this revelation. To me, it is a lie. Just another deceptive hallucination invented by Vonplex himself, to drive me further into madness." He trails off his last sentence and finishes it with a venomous hiss.
V-syvious stalks towards me as the plain and minimalistic interior begins to illuminate, generating heat all around us. He towers over me with his impressive height of twelve feet. Then his tone drops to a low yet solemn octave. He narrows his bloody, foreboding gaze at the soul in my arms, barely emitting a hue.
"He has played us both, so therefore if I do try to accept you, I know I will plunge into the retrospective pits of lunacy, which is something I cannot permit." He admits.
Then, an unanticipated motion at a breakneck pace delivers something so acute that it was too quick to follow with my own eyes. I stumble back. Incapacitated by an overpowering flare of anguish, followed by a sensation of tepid fluidity coming from where the source of the excruciation is located. I look down to see obsidian streaming excessively from the three gashes across my chest and soft gut. I sway and lose my balance. Enjin falls from my arms, as V-syvious slams his ginormous palm down on top of me – knocking me down onto the floor, landing roughly on my back.
"I hope you understand why I must do this, Alex." He presses down further, enacting the weight of his hand upon my body and into the fresh, open, blood-filled gashes dealt by him. The tips of his talons are doused in my dark blood. He is crushing my frame and forcing the air out of my lungs. I begin to hear my ribs crack under the applied pressure. Both of my arms and legs are spread out beneath him. Pinned down against the floor.
I can feel my body temperature falling.
I am so cold.
The last remnant of my strength to stay awake is failing me.
Where is Enjin?
My eyes search desperately for the fallen soul, only to find him lying next to my right hand. Then a loud snap is followed by a dreadful pain, which shoots straight through my spine - paralysing me down to the hip. I hold in my voice. Refusing to grant him the pleasure of hearing my agonised cries.
"Your time is now at an end." He growled maliciously, showing no mercy to the fallen and the broken. I hold his glare, abstaining from surrendering to the call of sleep. Coldness is now the only thing I have come to feel. There is no fear here.
"Only I can be the one who decides my end," I repeat out loud to him – his own quote.
His expression hardens before radically warping into genuine lividness. He opens his mouth wide so that his lower jaw hangs loose - producing saliva from his grey gums – preparing to strike.
The thing about fate is that it can be incredibly ironic.
Our actions in the past will eventually come to haunt even the best of us. And just as he said, he too one day shall come to suffer the same agony. There's no escape from it - for it is predestined - a self-fulfilling prophecy. A bright flash of turbulent tangerine explodes from behind him, followed by a rattling boom. Catching him by surprise. The interior renders itself apart, and the same hot smog I once felt in the corridor a mere moment ago fills the room.
The call of sleep is almost irresistible not to adhere to at this point.
All this time, it was never just about me, but also about the other souls who were interconnected with my past and future self. Those who underwent so much suffering because of me did so not without a valid reason.
I see Enjin's thin yet newly manifested astral cords wrapped around my fingers. Highly strung. Strained to the extent of their length, just barely succeeding in their reach. It looks as though he is trying to hold my hand like a person would.
I smile at him, even though he is diminutive and frail; his soul will always be beautiful to me.
My vision blurs as flames rage on around me – burning everything. Screams of maniacal anguish pierce straight through my eardrums. Wistfulness gnaws on my conscience. Eating me alive.
Nothing matters now.
His cords tighten around my fingers as I take my final breaths, and I impart my last words to him.
"I am so sorry - Enjin."