(Rose)
The sunlight is blinding me.
The sky is clear around me, except for the pillar of smoke stretching seemingly into space, from the volcanic caldera in my back.
I stand at the edge of the world, and an edge of reason too.
My sanity is compromised in more ways than one, but I smile about it, quite aware of the fact.
Today, I enjoy fighting over the destiny that chaos and life brought me, one step only before my wildest dream...
My thinking is queer, but I smile therefore.
My hair is flowing behind me. I welcome a being from another world, without mind or reason to relate with as a human. An angel, a demon, only a human before. We were human once, now we're different you and I...
We grew wings, we found power, we grew beyond. And the impossible has become a natural part of reality.
And now, a human whom should have died is flying toward another whom shouldn't even be alive to begin with.
We've grown beyond the time when the threads of our fate ended.
And there is still hatred, pain, and desires, even desire to kill no less, nonetheless. Because even though it is on a different level, in a different manner, we still live like animals.
Even though power makes us as gods.
Her name was Horanah. Now, she's a winged monster eclipsing the sun. She found, or was found rather, by another being-like-her, after we killed and buried her.
Unless she changed on her own. After dying, now humans and animals have the choice to accept their fate, or not. And if not, the rules of biology making them human in the past are simply scrambled, thrown away, and new dices are thrown to define them. And they become what they want, but mostly what they feel.
And like many others before, this girl lost all humanity in the process, valuing life over sanity, and suffering hopelessly in a world she cannot grasp anymore.
Shrouded by a desire for revenge, she's just a shade of her past self and nothing but a monster now.
The winged beast eclipsing briefly the sun, comes to land abruptly onto the mesa I'm standing on. She's become a colossus twice as tall as before, twice my height, and still sharing a silhouette with the human she once were.
Her wounded skin absorbs most of the sunlight. She's darker than ever and spreads a shadow of her aura, that also swallows all the light she can.
She's angry, but mostly she's hungry. Living with her prime fears and instincts overgrown, like hunger, fear of physical weakness, and hatred for me...
These traits humans can control normally, became her frozen identity. Urges swallowed her dead mind and created a beast too afraid to die on its own and unable to think.
The colossus she's become is a wounded being, or even a construct, that doesn't feel pain.
I welcome her. I remember her... Her abdomen still is bleeding, flesh dripping between her legs.
I hold onto Blume's ribbons like a whip. She's ready. I am.
The colossus is puzzled, but it cannot see the world anymore. It forgot everything. All it sees is me, and perhaps Blume. It runs toward me, with a beastly growl. Its undefined wings are slowing its run.
I jump aside as it charges, and with a supple twist, I slash her legs and wrists. She falls onto her knees at the end of her movements ahead. She yells.
Feeling weak is unbearable.
Being afraid of dying broke her mind.
Staying alive at any cost, any... Swallowing the world if she had to.
She would eventually, because she's grown unable to feel any kind of satiety. She will bring misery to the world until she's put out of hers. That's how sad her end is...
I'm sorry I failed you...
This, is my sin.
What you became now results from my mistakes. I can't make it right. Blume can't save you. My death wouldn't even heal you.
You've become a pointless existence. All I can do now, is stop you. At least that I owe it to you to do myself, and carve your memory inside of me for ever.
I approach the crawling giant. It suffers but cannot move anymore. Blume is paralysing it from within already.
I reach the head of the crouching giant. Its eyes would burn me alive if they could. Her inhuman flesh is falling apart. She was never a viable being...
I tangle Blume's ribbons around her neck. I'm about to slash her head off. This should put an end to her long, long nightmare.
R - I'm sorry.
Her head falls in an awful noise of burnt and shredded flesh. I'm sprayed with blood smelling like mould and oils. The body shakes a little. The wings collapse.
I walk toward the fallen head, dripping with her blood from head to toes now.
She's not looking at me anymore...
It's over. I sigh.
The flesh is already liquefying, leaking everywhere and flowing all over the place.
I brush some of her fluids away from my face and hair.
I turn to the sky over the pyramids again. The light is getting better. The aura lowering the amount of ambient light that she carried along with her is collapsing. It's...
B - It's not over. Not yet...
I turn around.
The body has fully turned to mush.
What could remain?
~
What could remain once the body is dead?
I begin to shiver. I begin to fear. No, it cannot be... She was human!
The shadow from the liquid flesh rises, it stands up.
A shadowy form, a human silhouette of translucent darkness rises from her dead flesh.
A dark vaporous body of her previous human size and silhouette. Just the shape, no eyes, or anything drawing a face or even skin over this volume of shade.
It darkens and from translucent, it becomes a mere black, without shades or reflection. She's nothing human anymore.
R - Has she become...
B - A being-like-me, yes. She has. She's nothing human or animal anymore. She became entirely one being-like-me... She cannot die from the death of her body anymore.
Before we can discuss this further, she jumps at us. I barely avoid her silent grasp. She's just wind and shadow now.
The whip of vines and thorns passes through her like smoke or illusion. Her punch however hits me hard. I fly and fall. My jaw hurts, maybe broken.
She jumps without a sound, and lands over me in a great thump. My chest hurts painfully with that shock. I yell Blume's name in panic. Do something!
The dark one raises a fist. She'll crush my head in a second if we don't do something.
Blume entangles her suddenly. It works. I manage to stand up as the ribbons constrict her like ropes.
She's fighting. She's ripping them apart.
I take a deep breath. What power do I need to win against a being like this?
Something in my hands...
I feel the blood in my hands, rushing, boiling. We're making something there. A weapon able to reach her even on the other side she's migrated to.
Blume confirms, telling me to grab her.
I try, as my hand seem to glow now. She escapes and hits me with prodigious strength through a kick.
I fall a few metres further, coughing blood, my mind under shock, knocked.
I feel danger and take a glimpse at her above me. I roll to the side as she lands, breaking the ground apart under her arms.
The mesa is collapsing. I keep coughing, trying to catch my breath back. All the ribbons of Blume have been ripped.
She's falling with me inside the volcano.
I'm hurt everywhere. She's coming at me without a sound or voice.
I can barely protect myself. My hands couldn't grab her. She's throwing me away like a toy, but my landing hurts me deeply and my limbs grow weak. I'm trembling all over.. Blood is dripping over my face.
My skin and lungs burn from the fumes. Only my hands keep glowing with a power that can face her.
Blume armed me, I just need to grab her...
I stand up, painfully. My feet burn on these hot rocks.
The monster makes something. It holds something invisible between her hands.
As I realise what, I start running at her in panic. Blume yells me to hurry too.
She's making magic. She'll blow this place apart and engulf me in the wrecks along with her.
I jump at her, but she avoids my grasp again. I think she's laughing while I panic, but it's my mind playing tricks on me.
Because I remember her laugh as she discovered the extent of our power. She wants to unleash it.
She wants to feel alive. Somewhere, not unlike me as I was waiting for her.
She wants to feel avenged. Her hands hold a ball of fire that is a growing explosive.
She avoids me as I keep trying to grab her as if if it was just child's play.
I feel my arm fall. I can't raise them anymore. I try to catch my breath.
She's about to win. I remember her laugh.
I've been proud...
I think about Blume. Now, I yell inside our heads the word Now.
Make us flee or destroy her!
Something breaks inside Blume's mind. My feet leave the burning ground. We fly off suddenly. The shock made me pass out for a second or two.
I'm back at the higher edge of the caldera.
The sun suddenly appears inside the volcano and blinds me. We fly further away, from the blast or Blume's will I cannot say.
~
I'm in the air, flying fast. Dizzy, hurt, a little lost and confused. I see a shadow reappear in the sky and falling on me.
Her kick crushes my belly. I spit blood and fall.
I crash into the desert in a dune of complex sand. It didn't hurt.
My sin comes to land over me.
Its faceless head right over mine. I can see the sky through it. I'm coughing blood.
Her hand plunges inside of my belly, ripping me open. My breath is stuck as the pain stakes me.
I don't know if my hands still glow from Blume's spell, but I can hardly move them anymore.
I thought the battle was going to be easy...
I really was a failure as a hero... I even fell to the oldest of hubris.
We didn't foresee what she would become truly...
She crushes something inside of my belly or chest, which sends hell fires through my body. I yell, collapsing, my blood and sand raining all over me.
But in that rush of pain, my hands jumped to her neck, in a last surge of strength from either Blume or me.
My hands soon sink onto the shadow, hitting themselves. She's lost her physical aspect again. But we touched her.
She's stepping back. She's collapsing.
Flowers begin rapidly to blossom all over her. Small translucent roses. As well as over me.
She falls to her knees into the sand, roses blossoming all over.
She falls next to me, and begins to vanish. Blume did it...
I cough blood again, and breathe rapidly. My tummy has been shred open and blood spills over the sand at each breath and heartbeat. I lie there, worried.
R - Blume? Can you heal this?
B - I think I can. I'll need you to sleep however. We need you to rest while I proceed.
R - Ah... All right... I'll see you in my dreams then.
B - We will. Rest tight.
My breathing slows down, my loss of blood slows down. The pain fades away as she grows new buds all over me.
The sand flies around. The sky is clear. I'm wounded, but I can feel calm again. Everything happened so fast, but now it's calm again.
It didn't go nearly as I thought it would... That's life. Especially when you're reckless like me... But it's over now...
In the distance, the volcano has turned into shredded hills of jagged rocks and earth. It was destroyed but didn't erupt... I still see the great pyramid next to the main mountain peak. The clouds of smoke are spreading thinner in the distant sky.
Above me, the sky remains clear. The sun feels warm onto my skin and onto my wounds. I slow down my breathing and close my eyes.
~