Golden bursts of light ignited themselves into the dark atmosphere. The lit room seemed dark in comparison to the vortex that he faced…
His first true Abyss.
They say when you stare long into an abyss… It stares back at you.
But Cobalt scarcely felt a warm gaze returned to him from within it.
The world he had opened up was beautiful… But it wasn't the type of beauty Cobalt loved.
This felt colder… More distant…
"And this is how it ends…"
He had made a bet with death.
He would run towards the only things he wasn't afraid of. But what exactly was he not afraid of?
"..."
He held back a laugh to himself, but between quenched lips, it escaped him hoarsely.
"There's not a damn thing I'm not afraid of."
And that was the truth…
There was a golden endless stream of light in front of him. The portal to another world. The crown jewel of decades of escapism romantics like him had dreamed of.
No matter where we are…
It was then that he realized.
All humans wanna do is escape to somewhere else…
Just how flawed were their brains?
Millions of years of evolution had not treated his mental state kindly. No—it hadn't treated anyone's mental state kindly.
"This is what poets sang about before we even knew what song was…"
Be it media, or stories, or tales, or videogames, or songs, or anything else that humans had created with their romanticized minds, it was always escapism that it led to in the end…
"So what does that make me? The poet of this story?"
Staring into the golden abyss, he could only cycle between the same existential thoughts like a broken record.
"I give everyone here in this God forsaken place permission to hate me with everything they have…"
After he would leave this world, the lab would be set to destroy itself.
The rift. The documents. The equipment. Any evidence Cobalt had even been here at all…
He'd burn it all.
"That means you too, Bizzy…"
That name…
No matter which way he turned the situation around in his mind, that was what killed him the most inside.
He didn't have family, and he didn't have friends. No one would miss him…
But if there was even a shred of Bismuth alive in that brainwashed husk…
"If you're still in there by the end of this, try to hate me as hard as you can."
His voice choked on the words. His eyes worked as hard as they could to hold back the tears…
But anyone could see clear as day the pain hidden in them…
"I'll be long gone… But trust me, Bizzy… Hating me will make this a thousand times easier."
A foreign sensation tingled down his right cheek as his reddened eyes sharpened themselves against his ruthless words.
"Cause I'm the villain of this story."
How much of that he believed was unclear, but staring deeply into the golding whirling vortex, a sharp toothed grin plastered itself across his teary-eyed face.
"I never fit into the narrative… So throwing me away was easier in the end… Right?"
His words sounded pure and confident. But his relentlessly shaking body played a different melody.
"Well, even though I reeaallllyy didn't want it to end like this, ya made the right choice in the end, guys…"
He wiped his right cheek with the back of his hand as he took a step closer.
"Your judgment was right. I'm just trash, so you can vilify me until you run out of words."
With more weight anyone could manage over their shoulders…
He mindlessly marched into the Abyss…
* * * * * * * *
Explosions rocked his left, right, and center.
With the orange blur continuing its rampage across the cultist camp, Cobalt was forced into a corner…
This endless darkness fell down an inescapable chasm. He couldn't see any light. He couldn't see any color…
His second true Abyss.
Face to face with unapproachable darkness, his mind played the words for him once again.
When you stare into an Abyss… It's supposed to stare back.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked hopelessly down into the endless mouth of a snake.
Would Cobalt be able to survive this?
Questions pulsated through his mind. How deep is this pit? Is there water at the bottom?
With the explosions getting louder, as well as closer… With the incessant warmth at his back from the excessive firepower getting hotter and hotter… And with the likelihood of escape seeming smaller and smaller…
He didn't even need to think to throw a rock down before diving in.
He had already made up his mind.
"Yeah, yeah… I think I feel it now."
He cut the remaining rope off his wrist with the dark knife before snapping his fingers in some kind of a Eureka! moment.
"You are starin' back at me! Your eyes look hungry—like a snake's!"
And yet Cobalt was resolute with his decision.
Stretching every part of his body from head to toe, he shook profusely.
However, wearing a smile…
"You're one selfish snake, ya know that? Makin' me choose what predator gets to devour me…"
It was in Cobalt's hands now…
Could he save his own life?
KRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHH
Missiles rained down around him. Whether he could save his own life wasn't even a question that mattered anymore.
With his ropes from ankles and wrists undone, he stuck the ashen knife against the dirt.
"Yeah, think I'm done with you… I don't forgive ya for takin' my blood before the cultist's—If you can even call that blood—But anyway, you can go ahead and rest. Try to find a better life than the shitty one ya had here. I'd have nightmares if I brought ya with me. But best a luck anyway."
The only soul in this world even worth saying goodbye to…
Was the knife that had freed him from his restraints… But it could very well have been the exact same knife that had cut across his chest.
"Maybe people aren't all that bad… Or somethin' like that…"
Cobalt almost wanted to laugh at himself.
He sounded like a completely different person in moments of internal panic like this…
Was he somehow more wise when forced to fight for his life? Or just as hopeless as usual?
"Enough contemplating…"
He faced the entrance to the cave that had caught his eye. The tiki torches had shined just for Cobalt, guiding him here.
Between the cultists, the orange blur, and the abyssal mouth of a snake…
"I'll take my chances with you…"
And without hesitation…
Against bursts of relentless explosions, fireballs and missiles of fear, resentment, and uncertainty…
Cobalt charged forward against all reason…
Jumping faithfully into the Abyss…
* * * * * * * *
Within the golden rays of a portal which promised a land beyond his suffering…
The embers of exuberance sparkled all around as he felt himself leaving the world he despised.
Lights and fireworks of ascendance clung to him, constraining his vision and sucking him in to a foreign world of hope.
But that word… Hope…
He bit his lip against his overwhelming emotions, before bringing his pained face to a sharp toothed smirk.
He held that smirk as he accepted that fate.
Accepted that bet against death…
He didn't feel fulfilled.
He didn't know what he felt.
His smile persisted, but as his face became more and more strained…
He found that the suffering he was forced to endure all alone for so long…
Tears surfaced.
Ruthlessly.
Mercilessly.
Pitifully.
He had thrown away the entire world…
But more than that…
"No."
A voice had invaded his thoughts.
He wasn't sure what he was hearing. He didn't know if it was real.
But he knew exactly who the voice belonged to…
This rift pulled tight at him, welcoming him to paradise with a sparkling necklace of gold.
But in that very moment, he refused to accept it.
In that moment, above all else, his panicked mind recreated the image of a girl.
The girl he was in love with…
For so, so long…
"You're wrong."
That feeling.
That relentless feeling he had suffered through time and time again.
The feeling that a cruel being was coming to pierce his decaying heart…
To remove it from the dying black sludge that melted away his ribcage…
But the image his mind recreated wasn't that.
It wasn't cruel.
It was mercy. It was love.
As he felt the world slipping away.
As he felt the world tossing and turning.
Twisting and warping.
As his mind went as well…
He saw the face which spared him those words.
Through rosy lips. Which mirrored her sparkling eyes. Her exuberant colors. Her unending rays. Her smile whose gently plastered spectrums of allure welcomed him more than the scary foreign rays of gold.
Seeing that face, he felt the life drain from him.
Not in pain.
Not in suffering.
But in acceptance…
Her words lulled him away from the hell he was never meant to endure alone…
"You're wrong, Cobalt."
『I could never hate you.』
* * * * * * * *
Fighting for his life, his feet began their plunge.
He was swallowing his freedom, but not forever.
This was his last resort. This was the hope he believed in.
Hope...
Yeah… That's what this feeling is…
It was so foreign to him.
But he welcomed it.
Regardless of when his feet would touch the world again, he relaxed himself…
Putting his faith into the chasm which had devoured him like prey.
I'm making my own decisions from now on…
His shaking slowed.
Acceptance.
Poised, and yet calm.
He was ready to live.
Yes - that's it.
I'm ready to live again…
With a grin surfacing to his excited face, he readied himself for where his own fate would take him…
"So let's make this life worth it, goddamnit!!!"
He had hope.
It wasn't much.
But he had hope…
Twisting and turning, the world fell away from him…
Beckoning him to something new…
The first chapter in Cobalt's brand new life…
Feeling this sensation, he welcomed the gentle feeling of hope.
And just as quickly as it had begun…
The painful chapter in Cobalt's life which had caused him so much suffering…
Came to a close.
『End of Act Zero』