saralando

12-THANATOS- death



When He woke up he was lying on something soft and He could hear voices chanting all around him.
He tried to rise up but He found He could not. It was as if he was only thinking of doing it, without sending the actual message to his muscles.
The voices sounded really sad, and even if He could not understand the words, He knew they were speaking of loss, of something loved gone away, of remembrance and oblivion.
He opened his eyes to see a million sad eyes looking at him, some crying, some staring, just like the merchant was staring at him long ago, on Bezàr market’s square.
But this time he did not feel anger. He knew too well at this point to be angry; He was asking himself what those eyes were seeing and all of a sudden he remembered what Ziélrebaum had told him:

“Guilty of all of this and so much more
No place under this sky
You shall go back to the dust you belong to
And your old skin will be forever lost.”

He skipped a heartbeat.
Suddenly He realized the death sentence promulgated against him was going to be executed, and that this was the end of everything.
He thought that in such a moment He would see his whole life as if He were watching a play. He had always figured himself facing as his death with a sword in his hands, stately and scornful.
All he could think of, right now, was that He still had not found a way to break the egg and that all He had done so far was just going to be useless in probably less than an hour.

A wind started to blow, and all the eyes fade away.
The light began to get dimmer and dimmer, and it was nearly dark when Thanatos landed next to him.

“You’ve come so far, so far…”
He tried to answer, he wanted to ask the bat-winged creature how long He would have to wait before being killed, and how it was going to happen, but he could not make a sound.
“ You do not need to try. I already know what is in your mind and in your heart; I have been looking into it for the whole time you were unconscious.”
This invasion, oddly enough, seemed understandable to him. Maybe even fair. Natural.
“I do not think physical pain is something you should be worried about. And I cannot tell how much it will take for you to get to the other side. It is easier for some.
"And you will not have to wait too long. That is the reason why I came. To take you to the passage; to prepare you.
"What will be of you after that, it is not my responsibility”.
That said, Thanatos embraced him and took off.
From that height He could see the kingdom of Goor spreading out for miles; He could recognize places He had been and He felt that He did not care if that journey had brought him right to his death. It was worth it.
Little by little He started to feel his body again, and never for a second He thought of fighting to break free.
He would just fall on the rocks below.
After awhile He started to see something in the distance, something that looked like a huge opal dome. The setting sun was hitting it, making it shine. He thought it was the most beautiful thing He had ever seen.
Thanatos flew right into it, and He held his breath, fearing that even the slightest sound could ruin the entire construction, which gleamed like ripples of water.
The dome was so high He could not actually see if there was a floor, or if it just sunk in the bowels of the earth.
The only thing He could see was a transparent platform, close to the dome’s wall.
It was where they were heading.
Thanatos put him down on the platform and kept floating before him.
“Here we are,” he said, “This is where you meet yourself and we part.
You will not see this land ever again, but what you learn always stays with you. Because what you learn is you.
Every little something you get to know is something about yourself, or it is something not worth knowing.”
Then Thanatos flew away, leaving him alone on the platform.
The hours went by and nothing happened. He was starting to think that maybe his death would come by folly, when He himself tired of that anxious waiting would finally jump in the blackness below.

He looked at the dome once more; still amazed by the beauty of the construction, and the ways the surface was changing its colors, as if something behind it were moving.
The movement was holding his attention, and He could not quite understand why, but He knew it was important.
Or maybe madness was starting to run in his veins already, He could not tell.

…

There must be a scheme, a pattern.
Why are those colors behind the dome so connected to me?
Why can’t I stop thinking that if only I’d understand it everything would be different?
If only…


…

After three days, in which He did not sleep nor eat (because, of course, there was not anything that could be eaten), He realized that the movements of the colors were somehow related with his own movements.
On the fourth day He discovered that the colors seemed really familiar because they were the same colors of his skin and of the clothes He was wearing.
On the fifth day He decided He was gone definitely and completely mad because he thought He could actually see a giant version of himself outside the dome, stroking it and
holding it just like He had been holding the egg.
…the egg…

He searched his pockets and found it.
He took it out, and He started to examine it thoroughly.
The shell seemed more transparent now, and He could see something moving inside the egg, and weird enough it was the same figure standing outside the dome: himself.
He was inside the egg, somehow, He was inside an infinite number of eggs, trapped in each one of these dimensions.

He paused and then He knew what He had to do.
He broke the egg.

He woke up in the very center on Bezàr’s market, where everything had started. He was lying on the ground, his mouth filled with dust and soil and probably a million ants.
People were stepping over him, ignoring him completely.
Around him were scattered the pieces of the broken shell, inside him was the answer.

He laughed.