"You're crazy," I managed out, falling to my knees.
Every trace of energy in my body had suddenly disappeared, my mind foggy, my will rapidly dissipating.
Looking down at me, Ciara was unbothered by my situation.
Her eyes burned with curiosity and she enthusiastically began speaking.
"Death bridges the gap between a living being and their deepest self.
Use it as a bridge to explore your being to its very depths and find what it is that makes you tick so differently…."
"Bitch." I cursed
That was as much as I heard from Ciara, the rest turned into disorganised sounds which eventually faded to silence.
My world turned black, no amount of mental battle I put up able to save my life.
A wave of frustration went through me, regrets surfacing to the top.
I wanted to survive but didn't know how.
In the darkness I sank into, Ciara's directions were impossible, I had no control over my mind.
What felt like forever passed with me in the darkness, then suddenly it shattered apart.
My consciousness was pulled up until my eyes blinked open. My vision returning, my back arched and I took in a deep breath, my face pale and eyes trembling in terror.
From the arms of death, I was back alive, breathing in my body, all sensations returning.
"Welcome back!!"
I hadn't seen her initially, but the second she spoke my head tilted to the left.
Seeing Ciara squatting over me, my arms went into motion, I immediately tried to move away.
Unfortunately, Ciara's hand shot out and clamped on my leg, and effortlessly she dragged me back beneath her.
She didn't say a word, just looking at me curiously and I stared back at her with my back propped up.
I wanted to speak but my body remained trembling from the ordeal it had just been through.
As I tried to calm myself, I took in more of the situation around me, noticing that a light ray was being cast by a red cross symbol with foreign symbols orbiting it, floating above me.
"How did it feel?"
My eyes shot back to Ciara, and immediately I layered her with a look of hatred.
Showing no reaction to my gaze, she lifted her left index finger and slowly brought it to my chest.
She used the least of force and my back crashed to the ground, a groan leaving me. I tried to push up, but Ciara's finger felt like a mountain on me.
"What are you doing?"
"You didn't do what I told you to."
As Ciara spoke, she brought her right hand over to my body and in it, she held the black dildo.
"No!! No!! Don't..."
It was like my body was butter. Ciara effortlessly put the dildo back in my chest and, just before my consciousness faded, I caught a sick glee on her face.
Same as last time, the death ordeal repeated itself, I screamed helplessly in the darkness.
My mind felt it would explode from the overflow of memories, then after some time, light returned, taking away the darkness.
"Please!!" I croaked through heavy breaths. "Please."
"You still haven't found it."
"I've tried! There is nothing there. If you continue, I'll die."
"Really? There is nothing?"
"Yes," I answered earnestly, nodding.
"Nope, you're lying. I can see the fear in your eyes. Instead of doing as I said, you spent your time screaming and panicking, didn't you?"
"No, please…"
Ciara didn't listen to me. I was stabbed by the same fucking didlo and sent to the darkness once more.
My mind felt weaker when I came back for the third time.
My vision stayed blurry for several seconds and when I opened my mouth, I felt myself unable to utter a word.
With much effort, I turned my head to Ciara, my eyes communicating my desperation to her.
"Would you prefer I killed you?"
Instantly, rejection appeared in my eyes and she laughed.
"That's good. I haven't broken you. But if we keep at this, you'll eventually lose it, Alfred."
I shivered within, putting strength in my jaw, wanting to move my lips, but Ciara put a finger on them.
"You want to tell me that it's okay, that we don't need to keep trying. That you're okay with living a life of mediocrity."
The woman read my thoughts well, and I did my best to nod, but she laughed.
"Sorry, but you don't have that option, Alfred. You're with me.
This is do or die for you."
Hearing the woman, I looked at her with a plea that came from the depths of my soul, but she effortlessly ignored it.
I was sent to the darkness the fourth time, then came the fifth, and then the sixth.
Nearly dying this many times, the chaos that usually plagued my mind had almost vanished.
A major concern for me now was my consciousness, which had begun failing.
Questions like 'who I am' were what floated through my mind, the answer to my name, taking me seconds to find.
"Maybe I should die. What do I have to live for?"
"But if I die, what next?"
"Damn, how pathetic do I have to be to want to die?"
"But what do I have to live for? Love? Revenge? Hate?
Well, I could live to kill that woman. How dare she torture me like this?"
"But what next? I can't just live to kill her alone."
"Maybe I'll fuck her. That doesn't sound bad."
"I need something more, though, that's too shallow.
Non-ending questions went through me, until finally I returned to the living.
I was barely able to open my eyes, and Ciara brought her face above mine, staring at me intently.
"That's good. I'm seeing some fight in you, but you need more. Money, sex, fame, power—which do you want?"
My mind was quickly sent into another round of contemplation, but as I felt the weakness in my body and the heaviness of my mind, an answer quickly came to me and I somehow mumbled it.
"Destruction."
Ciara's eyes widened above me in surprise, but it didn't last long. She brought the dildo back over my chest and giggled in excitement.
"I hope I'm on your naughty list."
Like before, feeling not the slightest bit of pain, I went back into the darkness.
A stream of thoughts came to assault my mind, but I easily brushed them away.
I already had a focus, and in the darkness, I answered my purpose: "Destroy everything that makes the world sick."
How much had I seen? How many times had I stood powerless?
To be able to see everything from the day you were born, no one understood the magnitude of sights I had witnessed."
I wasn't a Samaritan, not a benevolent man, but I had a heart that annoyingly ached, and when that happened, I wished for the strength to exact my desires.
What better form did power come in than destruction?
"How selfish of me," I chuckled.
My mind went absolutely quiet for a second, then I burst into full-blown laughter.
Money, sex, power, fame, who was I kidding? If I could, then I wanted them all.
No longer wasting a second, I began looking within, doing as Ciara said.
"This is dumb. How am I supposed to find something when all I feel is darkness? Even I am made of darkness."
I had just barely finished having this thought when the darkness around me shattered like glass and I found myself in a completely different world. Beneath me was an endless sea.
My body floated above the water, and towering ahead of me was a Dice the size of a mountain, slowly spinning in the air. Just as the world came, it suddenly disappeared, and I opened my eyes to see myself staring up at Ciara's ceiling.
I quickly spotted Ciara by my side, intensely staring at me, and I immediately understood why.
My being had begun to emit something I had only ever seen from other people, essence.
It wasn't just gently leaking out of me, rising into the air like mist.
Before I could worry about stopping the flow, my eyes caught something above me.
At first, it was blurry, but quickly the image became clearer, solidifying in the air, a dice about the size of my head spinning above my chest.
I stared at it in fascination until it suddenly stopped spinning, pausing with a 'clink.'
A foreign power took hold of me, and I immediately clapped my palms together.
"Gear 5, neutral ground, Sand purgatory."
My voice reverberated throughout the room and immediately, the energy in it shifted.
The essence which I had released rushed back, circling around me in a whirlwind.
Its thick blue nature blinded me until suddenly I found myself lying on sand, a harsh sun glaring down at me.