Chapter 173
Forever-Now
What questions were there to ask? Sylas pondered for a little while, but just as little came to his mind. For certain, there were the broad ones—how big was the universe, how many worlds there were, was this the only place with magic, all those were as exciting as they come… but he didn't really care, all things considered. Were it him back on Earth, he would have thousands of questions lined up, shooting them one after another as though his lips were the barrel of a machinegun. But he remained oddly quiet.
Today, however, he didn't think too much of it. There were a couple of questions still that he had to ask… but fear gripped him, at least momentarily. It was an emotion that he hadn't felt in a long, long, long time… and it was lovely. Like meeting an old friend after a lifetime of separation. Though it chilled, the fear's embrace was warm and familiar.
"Can I go back home?" Sylas asked, looking up at the girl. "To Earth, I mean."
"No," the girl replied simply.
"No matter what?"
"Why do you want to go?" the girl asked back. "There is nothing for you there."
"… it's my home."
"Home is such a strange thing," she said. "I have millions of homes, yet my heart aches for none."
"Can your heart even ache?"
"Why not?" she quizzed. "All things of flesh and blood hurt, Sylas."
"Dunno. I've barely lived a few centuries… yet I always feel so numb."
"It's a natural state," she explained. "A phase, if you will. It's your mind desperately trying to reconcile its evolutionary biases against reality. As with most things, it shall pass. The point of living for all of us, myself included, is feeling things. Feeling excitement, hope, dread, awe. Those things never truly go away, no matter how long you may live."
"It's hard to believe it," he said. "Every day… I feel it fading, further and further away. Sometimes, I almost don't get angry. Thinking about that day, I mean."
"… a young soul can't fuel anger over several lifetimes. Besides, why would you feel angry?"
"Why? Are you really asking me that?"
"I am," she nodded gingerly. "It was a regretful day—I felt it in my heart, too, believe it or not. But it is one day. One event. For a man who cannot die, you are strangely hung up on it."
"… that day defined me," he said. "For the longest while after, my only goal was to put Valen on the throne and kill myself. In fact, if I could, I would have killed myself regardless of Valen. You, I suppose, wouldn't let me."
"There is no heartly ache in the world great enough to dull the will to live," she said. "Most those who break simply were never given a chance to be whole. When all you know is suffering, it is easy to forgo life. But look at you now. Death seems so disfamiliar, does it not?"
"…"
"All species who can think and feel are the same, that way," she continued, her feet dancing in the pool's water. "There is always regret attached to the preventable loss of life. Truth is, if ever given a chance to escape jail, few, if any, would elect otherwise. You escaped it—yet, for some reason, desperately want to go back in, like a wounded child in want of returning to its mother's womb. There is no going back, Sylas."
"Are you always this preachy?" he questioned with a sigh.
"Very," she chuckled. "There are few things in life I enjoy more than holding lectures for the unwilling participants. And it is for one reason: I am always right."
"Always?"
"For I only speak when I am right," she said. "You chose to live that day forever, but you chose it for all the wrong reasons. You desperately cling onto something that's simply… no longer there."
"What? My humanity?" he scoffed.
"Regret," she said.
"…"
"You want to summon the guilt, but it won't come. You have moved on… but you can't admit it. For to admit it would mean to destroy what you think is the very foundation of your purpose."
"…"
"I once had a family," she said after a short silence. "Eight of us, there were. It was in the early days of my forever-now, and, just like you, I was still… adjusting. Unlike you, they weren't taken from me abruptly and violently. They were simply taken by the nature of time and life. So, for the first time in my life, I stole time. I stole time so I can be with them. Over and over and over again. And with each new one, they grew ever so slightly less… them. Until, one day, they were hollow shells, masks of people I used to know. That is why nobody else remembers, Sylas. For they must forget, lest they leave a part of themselves behind.
"They could have gone in peace, but I forced them back, and I dragged them through the harrowing end of life. And, just like you, I used guilt as a shield to hide away in the mountains, away from everywhere. And then, one day, I woke up… and, suddenly, there was something missing. Pain. Guilt. So, I summoned it. And every time I'd get distracted for a little while, it would be gone. And I would have to summon it again. I summoned all those things until time stole them, too, and there was nothing there."
"…"
"Since then, I have buried hundreds of thousands of children and loved ones," her words shook Sylas' heart as his eyes focused on hers. They were clear and tranquil, harrowingly beautiful even. "And every time I lost someone… I hurt. But that hurt passed. I loved each and every one of them with all my heart… but even I cannot undo things that are meant to be, Sylas. We have remarkable powers—as evidenced by you—but they are not everlasting. You will learn that, in due time.
"In lieu of that, I could have simply stopped having a family. Withdrew into solace. Some of us did—they still slumber, waking up here and there to grumble and rumble. Or I could have continued to steal time and desperately cling to the faintest of chances that they, too, might learn the tact of forever-now. But only one choice was proper—love them, be with them, and ferry them when it was their time. You, too, will have to do that, at least for now."
"Huh. So, there's really no choice to bow out, huh?"
"Do you want to, as you say it, 'bow-out'?" she asked with a knowing smile and he merely snorted as a response, looking away. "For them, Sylas, every day is a precious gift. Every breath, every touch, every emotion. It is inevitable that those like us take many of those things for granted. There's always tomorrow, there's always forever. For them, though, there is just now. For us, though, now is forever. It will be impossible to go back to who you were. Not because you are weak, not because you let them down, not because you betrayed them and betrayed your purpose. But because, however abhorrent it may sound, life is more than a day. That day for those kids will forever remain etched in their psyche and will haunt them until they die. For me? I'd be lucky to remember it in a few centuries. And the same goes—"
"No," Sylas shook his head. "I'll never forget."
"… but you already forgot," she said. "You forgot the two you loved just as well and just as much."
"…" Sylas felt it, the bolt of ache and guilt shattering against his heart. But, no matter how desperately he tried to summon a memory… it wasn't there. It hasn't been there for so long. So long. "Bitch." He growled.
"For us, there's always another love," she added. "Another life. Another journey. Another story. It's been hundreds of years, Sylas. Of course you forgot. Faces always fade in the fire of memories, no matter how desperately we cling to them. Because life is never lived in the past, you see."
"What can a sly tongue do, huh?" he grumbled. "Make it seem like forgetting your wife and a child is a completely normal thing."
"Is it not?" she asked. "You remembered them for one lifetime. And they haunted you for just as long. But new demons came, and they were pushed out. Just as it will happen with that day. Perhaps not tomorrow, and perhaps not even in a hundred years. But, one day, you will wake up, and suddenly feel hazy. Something will be missing. You'll forcibly remember it. But, bit by bit, it will begin to slip. Forever or for now, no one's mind is infallible to the rage of time."