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“Thank you…” were your last words. Because how could they have possibly been anything else?
How could you feel anything but elation at the end, when everything preceding it was nothing but pain and misery you could only, at best, exchange for mere nothingness?
As you kneeled on the ground, your life dripping out from your wounds and down to the red surface that was your last battlefield, you raised your gaze to face the woman who now stared down at you in a mix of confusion and spite. You don’t blame her. After all, you’ve just resigned your fate down to her. You could only feel the greatest form of gratefulness towards her, but over time, she will have grown to hate you like she’s never hated anyone else… expect, perhaps, for the person you hated like no one else.
Your eyes then fell down, looking in wonder as your burgundy drips across the surface, slightly darker than its bright red. It caused your memories to drift back to all the blood spilled across the history of Alternia, every death caused by your own hands, every bloodshed you initiated, participated, or put an end to. So much blood of so many different colors… and you’ve seen yourself bathed in every shade, over and over until it didn’t matter anymore.
Everything didn’t matter anymore given enough time… and time was the only thing you ever had, ranking almost highest in the list of things you hated, second only to yourself.
Yourself and all that ever defined who you are. Your origin, your past, your upbringing, your tutor, your master, your powers… your awful, damning, lives-ending, hopes-crushing, suffering-defining , never-asked-for-them POWERS that didn’t even deserve to be called SUCH!
Power was supposed to be something for your own use. The definition of the word referred to the capability to do something, to change things at will. Powers, you always knew, were something that should’ve given you possibilities… given you a choice…
You chuckled. Choice was the one thing you never had…
It wasn’t even a matter of question. No one could tell you that you didn’t know, because you did… you tried it. You tried defying your tutor, only to be tortured by his almighty will. You tried defying your master… only for him to drop your own deformed, blood stained corpse before your own eyes. A remnant of a parallel timeline, you understood, where you actually opposed him instead of being shown this alternative, which froze you where you stood and made you abandon all hopes of carrying out this rebellion.
The first time, at least…
As your hatred for your fate and actions grew, your concern and value for your life diminished until, eventually, there’d be none of it. But until then, there were many acts of rebellions, all of them leading to suffering, humiliation, feelings of impotence, and many, many corpses of yourself laying around, decorating the naturally green environment in endless maroon.
The last time you tried, you lost consciousness under the pain of torture… and later woke up covered, literally covered in corpses from which you had to crawl out… only to see that the pile of corpses, all of them yourself, extended all around and as far as you could see.
Just like all the deaths you caused across Alternia…
You might as well have gotten what you wanted, you reasoned. It didn’t matter if your blood was still running through your body. You were dead inside, as well as the countless corpses you left behind your trail. You weren’t just dead, you were Death itself. At least, so had your reputation grown among your people as you carried out murder after tragedy after massacre with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. Not anymore…
Unable to support itself any longer, your body fell to the side. Finally, you were dying… for real this time. Not in another timeline, not metaphorically… no, you were really, truly dying…
Tears of happiness fell down your cheeks, blending with the blood of their same color. Ironic, you thought with a hint of amusement. Your burgundy blood was of the lowest rank, and you’d grown to know of many lowbloods despising it due to the limitations it imposed upon them, and yet, it was perhaps the only thing about yourself that you didn’t hate. Well… soon that wouldn’t matter anymore, either.
As your vision grew blurry, you could only distinguish two colors. The dark of your own blood, and the bright red of the spaceship… which brought your memories to someone else.
To him…
You followed him across time, through every defining moment of his life. When he arrived on the planet, to be found by his jadeblooded mother, when he met his yellowblooded friend and comrade, then his oliveblood lover… you occasionally followed them, at times… even picturing yourself as part of their group. Longing, perhaps, and projecting, you’d think… for the life of your own you could never have.
You met him once… all alone, one on one.
You were there to kill him.
This, in reality, had been your last act of defiance: To sabotage time by killing the person that, you knew, was meant to have an essential role in Alternia’s history. Perhaps bigger than anyone else’s, even yours.
But you couldn’t do it.
Even today, you still wonder why. Nothing could have stopped you. He was just a man, and you were Death incarnate. That he lived past that day was, undeniably, your own decision… perhaps the only one you ever had. The only life you were allowed to have mercy upon… perhaps that’s why you did it, to hold one decision across your entire life. To have shown someone the mercy you prayed for yourself.
Perhaps it was the feeling of familiarity you felt upon seeing his red eyes. Perhaps it was empathy, whatever remained of it in you, for you knew his fate and could relate to what you knew would be his end. Perhaps you simply gave up, abandoning this chance of escape as your way of giving into your own fate. You never considered yourself strong, anyway. After all, you never had power.
You never learned of a timeline in which you did kill him. If there was, you’re certain your Master would have presented you the corpse of it. Or perhaps there was, but he didn’t do it that one time, just to leave you with the question. Yet another form of tormenting you… of killing you.
Death.
Time.
Power.
All was losing its meaning. All was losing its capability to be before you. You didn’t mind it, though. Just like you exchanged emotions of sadness, regret and remorse over your own actions by the dullness of no longer caring, convinced in every possible way that you simply never had a choice, so you’d gladly exchange life for the nothingness of death.
And yet, for some reason, the red kept overtaking your eyes, even over the dark maroon of your blood and tears, over the red that was becoming all you could see…
“Damara…” a voice echoed… making you blink, and in that blink alone, everything changed.
You were no longer in pain.
You were no longer dying.
You were no longer… alone.
“It’s all over, Damara.” He said, his red eyes looking down you as he kneeled before your laying figure, “You don’t have to suffer any longer…”
You simply stared at him for a moment, disbelief – a sensation you hadn’t felt in centuries – overwhelming you now. He offered his hand to help you stand up, but you simply kept staring at him and the vast… nothingness behind him. Just him and endless blackness, and yet, his kind eyes shone upon you, encouraging you to reach for his hand…
“I…” you voiced, slowly reaching out with your trembling hands.
“It’s okay…” he spoke, taking your hand in his, holding it firmly yet… warmly, like a friend you always wished for, but never had. “Come…”
He helped you stand in the emptiness they laid across now, and the moment you were on your feet… his arms were around you, surrounding you in a warm embrace… something you had never, ever felt before.
The next second, you were weeping like a wriggler on his shoulder, your pent up… everything unleashed right there and then while he simply held you in his arms, making you feel welcome, feel… cared for… for the very first time…
You cried. You screamed. You sobbed. You sniffled. You clenched your fists around his cape, pulling to sustain yourself. You smashed fitful punches against his large chest, he didn’t even mind. You begged forgiveness for everything you’ve done. You apologized to him and to everyone you’ve killed. You promised to never hurt anyone again. You pleaded for the absolution your soul needed so very much.
And when you thought you couldn’t cry anymore, he simply rubbed your hair, looked into your eyes and replied…
“I hold no ill feelings whatsoever for you.”
…proving you wrong right there and then. You still had so much more to cry… and he gave you all the time you wanted. For the first time ever, you were grateful for time.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” you repeated over and over, maroon tears falling down like rain, as if saying it once for every life you ended, as if dropping a tear for every troll you’ve killed…
You were sorry… and for the first time ever, you could share it with someone…
You were known as a demon, as Death incarnate, and among the few that knew, as the Handmaid.
Your name is Damara Megido.
And in death, you’ve finally found happiness.
“Thank you…”