Nehmasis

Becomes the Sun

Light of Creation, Time Immortal, Eternity

Otu

I spent an eternity trapped in hell.

The depths of Eruk exist in a darkness blacker than any other place in existence, either in the Above or Below. Vast, but suffocating, empty, but filled to the brim with ceaseless anguish, the prison of the Underworld tore my soul to pieces.

Truth be told, to the best of my recollection, it wasn't one soul, or two, or three. My soul, the original one, was an abomination. Cruel, repugnant selfishness ruled my heart. In the depths of Eruk, the place of eternal punishment for unrepentant evil, I was battered until I was nothing more than pieces of that abhorrent soul, stubbornly sticking together as though tarred by the brush of nasty filth I had earned.

I thought it was over. Surely, my soul was destroyed... broken beyond repair or redemption. There was relief in that thought. My wickedness was finally destroyed.

Then... they came. Pieces of other souls. Just as stunningly evil as my own. Worse in some cases. Like a foul, repugnant film, they stuck to me, filling in the holes in the tarred filth until all I was was pure, unfiltered hatred. Thoughts... I shudder... thoughts of rape and murder, of killing with pleasure and soaking my hands in the blood and terror of innocents... it never stopped.

The hatred turned to fear, then disgust at myself and everything that made me, but my soul forged on, the pathetic, limping thing. I couldn't stay still any longer, so I crawled, desperate to get away from the foul parasites latching themselves onto me. I crawled until my hands and knees were broken and bleeding. Then I fell.

Into the water I went. I drowned over and over, my mind shrieking in protest at the pain. Suffocation is cruelty at its finest. Robbed of breath, the weight of the evil fragments clinging to me pulled me under again and again.

I had to push them off, so I did, and finally, I could surface.

The air was hot and brittle. My mouth was suddenly more parched than the desert sands. The endless agony of drowning would have been welcome at that moment as the heat stole every bit of liquid in what was left of my body.

I burned and burned in the hellfire of Eruk. The light so bright my soul was on fire until it burned to ash, then further until nothing remained, yet still I was. I existed. I was heat and fire and light instead of flesh and bone.

Then... my memories. Faces and names, places and events, everything I thought erased came back to batter me senseless. One thought prevailed over all else...

I deserve this.

Eternity passed. The ash hardened under the pressure like a diamond in the depths of the Above. Slowly, the fire went out. I was nothing more than a lump. I lay there, unmoving, unmoved, until something forced me to my feet.

I stood...

And was a god.

A god of heat and light. There was nothing else; somehow, that place frightened me more than Eruk ever could. Eruk was filled with sorrow and rage, floods and fire, evil and cruelty. This place was barren. Only the flames existed, burning away at everything that made me mortal and sane.

I was losing my mind, the frayed edges of the last of my sanity alight in flame, when I was given relief. A shadow. Small and fleeting, just a motion in the corner of my eye. I believed I was hallucinating, then I saw it again and again. At first, I could only see it on the edge of my vision. It was elusive, my little shadow. Fast and wily, too. A tricky little thing. Watching my little shadow made the burning lessen. My mind clinged to the tiny figment. My sanity Time passed. Ages. Another eternity, then another. My shadow grew, but was still a tricky little thing. I became desperate to catch it. Obsessed.

I finally gained the strength to control the light. The sun. I suppose I should have been proud of myself. I was the sun god, but I spent an eternity being arrogant, and hubris was ripped from me in the bowels of Eruk itself.

Just as I gained control, the sisters came. Young females of a weak nature, gleaming with pale beauty. One had white-blond hair and the lightest blue eyes, the other had dark hair and eyes of the darkest blue, both with translucent skin and delicate veins pumping the golden ichor of the gods.

My false other half. A mirage of beauty hiding arrogant souls. Born of the Mother to be by my side, the moon to my sun, they were nothing more than a miscalculation. I, too, used to be grasping and greedy. I know it when I see it. Narcissistic creatures should never exist together as fated souls.

The moon was no relief from that too-bright place that could burn the retinas of its own god. In their light, I lost my shadow for an endless time. I was miserable until I spotted her once again.

I found my shadow and followed it. It led me straight back to a place I never wanted to return to. The palace of Irkalla loomed in front of me. I didn't want to walk inside. I could feel the waters of Eruk pulling at me from deep under the castle walls. I wanted to turn around and walk back into my light, but my shadow was skipping along, boldly entering the palace.

I had to do it. I could do nothing else. I followed my obsession... and found my little shadow was a flesh-and-blood female. Enchanting, tiny, and so utterly fierce, with her sharp daggers in both hands, sparring against grown males eight times her size with her small teeth bared in the most adorable threat. Her eyes were as dark as the bottomless pits of Eruk. Her hair as well. She was color shrouded in darkness to my abhorrent, endless, boring light. She was my agony, my pain, my fault, and I adored her immediately and entirely. Every rotten piece of my soul loved her, even the parts that weren't mine.

My sweetheart. You are my reason for existing, but when you know who I am, who I was, your hatred for me will burn as hot as a thousand suns.