Insulator

1.1 Death Timer

I know this place... This is the farm I used to work on...

I had somehow made my way back to where I grew up. It was deserted, not a soul nearby, not a tree or house left standing... It was just a guess that it was my old home, as there was nothing from back then that remained, just large craters all around the ground, the leftovers of something I was all too familiar with...

It's been so long, and yet, everything that changed all took place in that brief period...

It was a depressing site... I tried to forget. I wanted to forget, but my soul wouldn't let me. It would always tug away at my mind and body, reminding me of the things I did, the lives I ruined... It was something cemented in time, that couldn't be changed.

I was a monster...

Though, I guess, I'm still a monster, just a less active one... Instead of seeking and intentionally causing destruction, now I just wandered around aimlessly, waiting for reasons to come to me.

There were two bottles I always kept with me deep in my soul pocket, two reminders. They both had a flame within them, one was small and a deep red, the other so white and filled with life that one may not even realise it to be fire...

Just looking at either one of them stirred up such a powerful weight within my soul, hitting me deep and reminding me of the tragedy that was my life...

Today, it was the pure, white fire that was on my mind...

I sat in the middle of the bare land, being the one that caused the terrain to be so open and exposed, it only right to feel naked and vulnerable...

This bottle was supposedly indestructible. To discover such an item... It was only natural that one would be curious, or even take it as a challenge...

It had been years since I sealed the flame within it. I didn't even remember if I did a good job, but I could always feel the power within it growing...

You could say that this bottle represented my life. It was on a timer, as nothing was truly indestructible. A time would come where this bottle would finally give out, and possibly the strongest blast of fire and energy of all time would be released on the world... I could have the highest resistances possible, be many towns away, and likely still be burnt to a crisp, not even ashes remaining of me.

It was my death timer. As the one that created it, with no way of stopping it, it was only natural for me to die with it. It was a choice I had made so many years ago, that I was still yet to face the consequences of...

It wouldn't be fair of me to run or hide from it. I didn't deserve to live, after all the things I had done...

The two bottles of ours were opposites, the red fire representing infinite life, my white-hot flame representing a life with an inescapable end.

It didn't matter what I did or where I went. It didn't matter if I were filled with life and purpose, or the empty shell that the world could see.

My body was sitting still, the bottle being met with an empty stare... Not a thought within...

It could have been days or seconds and I wouldn't have known the difference. My soul was already dead. I had nothing left within me, nothing pushing me along, no one still among the living to give me strength.

I awoke to find nothing but a gentle breeze around me. There could have been the loudest flashiest explosion, and I wouldn't have registered it, despite it bringing my heartless conscious back to the bare world...

I guess, I'm not deserving enough to get to choose my place of rest... This is where you went, but it wouldn't be right for me to have you in the afterlife... It wouldn't be right for me to even see you again...

The bottle wasn't breaking yet. I was still being punished, bound to this world a while longer...

But it was only a matter of time.