A couple people cry, a couple people wonder, and everyone else has no idea about it at all when you go. So what was the point of it? Existence.
Lin Shu stood at the end of his short life, curiously gazing into the orange and red abyss before himself. He sighed, lifting his chin up, leaning back slightly, a tear slipped out of one eye, trailing down his cheek.
What would happen if he disappeared? Well, it'd probably make the lives better for some, and worse for others. There was no real reason for him to stay here. No reason to not disappear with the rest. His gaze fell downward, the abyss growled back at him, it almost seemed alive in its poisonous mist. A wind picked up, whipping past him, lifting up his clothes a little to beat lightly against his body.
What would happen if he disappeared? Would the tears caused by his disappearance be less than what would have been caused if he stayed? Was staying here really worth it for the world in any way? What did his existence really change?
"Ha." He smirked, as the abyssal mist began to climb up the cliff-face he stood at the pinnacle of.
His existence: It was so small, a drop in an torrent of rain, a particle in a desert of sand, a leaf in a forest of leaves, it was so insignificant….it enraged him. But freedom.
"Free." he snarled down to the abyss. "Free to choose, free to not, Free to live. Free to die. Free to run, free to fight. Free to wrong, free to right. To live, is it not to be free?" he sneered upwards, a smile took hold, chuckling lightly. "WHAT WOULD CHANGE IF I DISAPPEAR?...ME."
"...I, myself, would cease to exist." his maniacal laughing descended into wretched, torn sobs, still vehemently shaking in glee, while simultaneously choking on tears. It was hard to face this, not because it was death, but instead a complete erasure of his existence. He'd seen it all. But running was less of an option at this point, unless he was ready to run forever. The abyss had almost reached his feet, curling over the cliff, when he reached out his hand, red particles formed in it, lengthening into a sword-like shape.
"Disappear?" He choked and laughed, he looked maniacally insane at this moment. "I can't disappear because…" he tilted his head down, an eye glaring into the creature-like mist, rearing its giant head, a monster that couldn't be touched, a monster that couldn't be understood. "I want to exist!" He leapt into the air, the glowing red blade in his hand, he leapt over the edge, into the abyss. No more. His eyes glared red, turning bloodshot. Aeeeaaaaah! He screamed, but no one would hear his cries. His clothes erupted into red particles, but no one would see his spectacle.
…and the abyss shut that day.
But who was there to know, when no one there had memory of or been to leave? And so it was, that on that day, one city disappeared, and no one knew why or grieved.
***
Lin Shu found himself in a strange space. Glowing red floors, reflective like water, yet he could stand upon them, and space open as far as the eye could see into glowing red on black sky, empty all around on this solid ocean floor, nothing in sight.
However, as he stood there, suddenly vines sprouted up from within the water, crawling up his legs, to hold his ankles, and vines also came from an infinite direction above himself, to grab his arms and keep them raised. He struggled, but found he couldn't move, the vines kept sprouting, and coming from above, until they formed a wall, starting from him and continuing outward in every direction.
"You." Suddenly a voice came from in front, calling attention away from the prison he now endured. He glanced down to see a man, clothed completely in white, with a white beard, and long white hair. "Why are you here?" he asked.
"I don't know what you mean." responded Lin Shu, he was also curious as to why he was there.
The man looked frustrated. "You're blocking my way, please move."
"I would if I could." responded Lin Shu in schadenfreude. "But I'm rather unable to currently."
"I have a world to destroy, I can't be held up by just your measly self-worth."
Lin Shu was confused. "I don't know what you mean, who are you?"
The man scoffed, arrogantly raising his head and voice. "I am where crying stops, and laughter ends, I am where vice is dropped and kindness is forgotten. I am the last of everything, the void of anything. I am here to make nothing else be. I am the end of existence at all, I am here to make things disappear which have no importance in existing at all or were, perhaps, in fact, never really meant to be."
"Then why just stand there? If you are so, such a great being, why stop and talk to me?" scoffed Lin Shu.
"Because you block my path." scowled the old man.
"Ha. then I suppose the end of all things has met its own final end, if you can't even make me who has no worth disappear."
The man scowled harder. "You dare lie to my face, when you can cause such a wall? If you're truly that meaningless, if nothing would cease to be if you disappeared, then why can you block my path?"
Only great heroes had attempted to stop him thus far, but even they became meaningless if history became long enough, as he drifted from world to world. So the old man opened his palm and began to show Lin Shu the world. He saw the past, he saw the present, he saw the future. He saw people's pain, he saw their joy, he saw how little he was to do, how little he was to become, how little he ever was, till even the old man stuttered in disbelief. "What is this?" he commented, confused. "How can you have so little importance to the world, that if you disappeared, nothing much would change at all. Maybe a mother would eat more one day, or a mouse find refuge in your home, or a business have one more customer, but what else did you do? What else were you going to be? How can you stop my way if your existence has so little meaning at all?"
Lin Shu just chuckled, and then he began to laugh, and then he stared down at the old man, "my dear sir, if you can't see what something would change if I disappeared, then you know very little about meaning at all, because my worth isn't in others, nor the sky, nor the past, it isn't in what I do, or I say, or I change, my worth is yet smaller than even a thought you see…but my worth is right here, it is simply…just me."
The old man stared back, annoyance coated his face. So little could be understood yet so much was held in that line. Indeed, it was so, that if the man disappeared, he would no longer exist, and if he believed in that, it was simple enough to hold back the end for the rest of mankind. But if ever he thought he had worth as a wall, then that worth could crumble, as fast as the wall, and if ever he thought that he had worth as protector, his worth would fall the moment he ceased to protect, and if ever he had thoughts, that his death held no threat to his existence, his existence would become as meaningless as the life he sought to keep. So the old man scoffed, sneered at his choice, and walked away silently, with little remorse.
He would wait, he would sit, and he would stand idly still. See if this young man could forever contend with his will.