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Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Every day, he heard the same name inside his head, like a whisper, like proof of a sin he didn't remember committing.
Khaslana. Khaslana. Khaslana.
Little Anaxagoras clung to the altar, dressed entirely in white, and instead of praying, he simply knelt there, hoping to find in that distorted image of God the answer to the same question.
Khaslana.
Who was Khaslana?
Why did his hands, his heart, his mind remember him?
Why did the scar on his neck burn so fiercely whenever he heard that name?
And why…? Why wasn't he at his side, when his soul longed for him so desperately?
✧✧✧
Maybe it was a hallucination.
Maybe it was just the voice inside his head, slowly dying of loneliness. Or maybe it was the devil's voice, tempting him, making him believe there was something more for him than dedicating his body and soul to the church.
Because… if you're real, Khaslana… if you truly exist, then… why aren't you here?
Why won't you take me away from here?
His sister had died. His parents were sacrificed for refusing to bring him here. If Khaslana were real, if he were out there somewhere looking for him, and he dared to carelessly speak his name aloud…
Wouldn't that condemn him too?
After all…
I'm only a tool.
I only exist to make others believe that God, whoever that may be, is real.
But he isn't.
God is dead.
I killed him.
“It's time for the oracle, Anaxagoras.”
Trispios, the temple priestess, took his small hand and helped him up to the altar.
“Don't force yourself, alright?”
He only nodded, as always, knowing that today, just like yesterday, he would hear nothing.
Because the voice I pretend to hear in my head—the one that's supposed to be His—is my own.
✧✧✧
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
He had begun to enjoy hearing that name in his head while he pretended to hear the voice of God.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
He held the bouquet of white roses between his fingers, ignoring the blood seeping from his hands.
His blood was the catalyst for calling upon the Gods, but…
I will never hear anything.
Only the devil's whisper, breathing directly into my ear.
The sole desire of a child who was never permitted to look beyond the distorted image of God, pretending to carry out His will.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Will I ever be able to meet you?
Do you think I'll ever know more about you?
“What is God's will, Anaxagoras?”
Anaxagoras pressed the white petals against his bleeding hands and let them fall into a font of holy water, just as tradition demanded.
“Sacrifice the youngest lamb of the flock, and paint a cross on your door with its blood. Any family that refuses will be executed.”
In a world where God doesn't exist… is it alright if I, and only I, write the rules?
After all…
Aren't we, human beings, the only true gods?
✧✧✧
Look at me. Praise me.
Kneel before me and beg me to grant your every wish.
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis…”
Devoted, obsessed, committed… all of them waiting to receive salvation from a God who wasn't even capable of saving himself.
That was how it was. How it would always be. Because no one, no one but him, knew the truth. And he would never share it with anyone.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
Don't you dare stop looking at me.
“Sanctificetur nomen tuum…”
Because in a world without Gods… am I not the closest thing to one?
I, and only I, am the one who rules this world.
“Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra…”
I, and only I, can shape their destinies.
“Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.”
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
Never grow tired of looking at me.
The faithful wept. The faithful gave away their possessions, their livestock, even their children to the church, all for the chance to hear the wise and honest voice of the oracle Anaxagoras. The one once known as the child who could make wishes come true.
The only one capable of carrying out the will of God.
Kneel at my feet.
Pay the price. And maybe, just maybe, I'll deign to grant your wish.
Because there is nothing that alchemy, that the power of transmutation, that I—who have become God—cannot do.
“Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo.”
No one could ever know.
No one would ever know.
“Amen.”
Only him. And only Khaslana, who lived constantly inside his thoughts.
✧✧✧
Sometimes he dreamed of him.
Khaslana. His Khaslana.
Sometimes it was blue eyes. Other times, eyes the color of a summer sun.
Sometimes it was gentle hands. Other times, rough hands grazing his with softness.
Sometimes it was his own fingers—longer, older—tangled in golden strands, or in strands of a pale, white hue.
Khaslana. Always Khaslana.
Lying together on the beach, on the sand, hands intertwined, trying to decode the secrets of the stars. Trying to understand everything that Reason alone could never describe.
Khaslana. Khaslana. Khaslana.
He couldn't see his face, but he saw his smile. He knew the taste of his tears.
Khaslana. My Khaslana.
No matter how different the setting, no matter how different his own body felt, the sensation was always the same. Fullness. A warmth rising from the deepest part of his chest until it flushed his cheeks pink. A perpetual flutter in the pit of his stomach that only grew more intense each time he woke from a new dream.
Khaslana. Khaslana. Khaslana.
What I feel for you…
Are these just memories?
Or is it the devil's voice, still calling to me after all this time?
He didn't know. He really didn't know.
What could a child who had spent most of his life locked away, isolated from all human contact, possibly know about love?
Nothing. There was no way he could know even a fraction of what it meant to love and be loved. There was no way this obsession could be anything more than just that—him, dying of loneliness, giving shape to a voice that whispered the same name over and over inside his head.
✧✧✧
To them, he was Anaxagoras, the oracle.
To them, he was Anaxagoras, chosen by God.
Anaxagoras, the young man whose knowledge surpassed that of the oldest living scholars. The one whose studies, inventions, and blasphemous teachings were tolerated only because he passed them off as messages from God.
To you, I am Anaxagoras—the one who has spent six years playing God.
But…
Though he was supposed to have everything, though the world lay at his feet, though he studied the very principles of existence and made them all live the greatest lie ever told… he felt so alone, so hollow, so unbearably bored, that he had begun to wonder whether he should tear apart everything he had built with his own hands.
Because… how could someone who had everything begin to understand what it meant to feel incomplete?
How could someone bathed in the devotion of others even conceive of shattering the peace the world had built?
Perhaps because what mattered most was missing: the heart that should have been beating inside his chest.
What Khaslana stole from me before he disappeared.
Or maybe it was simply that stupid longing that kept growing inside him. The one that spread through these marble walls while Khaslana—his Khaslana—existed somewhere out there, in the vastness of the world.
If you won't come and find me,
if I can't stop thinking about you…
what's the point of pretending I want to be here?
✧✧✧
Sometimes he woke up from the pain. Sometimes he pressed his hands against his neck, desperate for the burning that spread constantly along his throat to stop.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Get me out of here.
Sometimes he screamed. Sometimes he doubled over his sheets, spilling tears of golden blood.
Make the pain stop.
Make my scars disappear.
The scars on his neck burned—they always ached after his dreams, especially since his memories had begun to surface. And the void inside his chest, where his heart was supposed to beat, only deepened every time he woke to find himself in a reality where Khaslana wasn't.
Khaslana. Khaslana.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
Come find me. Come to me.
I want to see myself reflected in those golden eyes.
Again and again and again and again. For the rest of eternity.
I want you to take my hands, to drink my tears, to let me drink every last inch of you.
I want you to look at me until you can't live without me.
✧✧✧
The first time he heard the name Cerces was while he was preparing for one of the greatest ceremonies of that year. The coming-of-age ceremony, where he would be sacrificed to mark the end of an era and bless the birth of the next oracle.
The day the oracle Anaxagoras must die.
Trispios stood behind him, brushing his long mint-green hair, when Anaxagoras raised his eyes and found himself staring directly back from the mirror.
“Tell me, Cerces. What do you see this time?”
Cerces saw children playing, families preparing roasted lamb, a woman pouring wine for both of them as if they were part of the family. As if they were more than two strangers who had stopped for one insignificant moment inside each other's lives.
He saw the world enchanted by the blazing sun that smiled beside him, moved by the beauty inside Khaslana's broken soul.
He saw the sun setting, that persistent pup trying to steal all of Khaslana's attention. And that notebook in which Khaslana used to capture the abstract memories of his travels, paintings no one but him could ever truly understand.
He saw him, eyes bright, fully aware that once the sun went down, it would be time to put an end to the existence of yet another world.
“I see you.”
Finally.
Only you.
As if it were the first time I've ever truly looked at you. As if it were the first time I can understand each and every one of your secrets.
Khaslana took his hand, sliding his fingers between his. He saw his face blurred, unable to give it any shape, but he could sense his smile. He could feel the devotion in his gaze.
Smile for me. Only for me.
Don't cry.
Just look at me.
Just love me.
I'll destroy everything, so it can be just you and I. So the Gods can never make you suffer again.
Khaslana, beautiful and sorrowful Khaslana…
Don't let go of my hand.
Look at me, only at me.
Don't let the Gods, don't let Destiny, ever take you from me again.
Anaxagoras let his hands fall and stared at his own shattered reflection in the mirror.
“Anaxagoras?” Trispios asked, watching him with concern.
He reached into the drawer, pulled out a blade, and cut off his hair in one swift motion.
✧✧✧
The crowd had gathered, dressed in black, cheering and celebrating the day of the oracle's death. The day of his birth would be, ironically, the day of his death.
Or so they believed.
“Oracle Anaxagoras. Today, on your eighteenth birthday, you will be sent back to His side. You will sit at His feet and bless the birth of the one who comes after you.”
He stood there, dressed in white, staring at the ceremonial knife set out for his execution which was nothing more, clearly, than an ordinary and filthy suicide.
Heh.
These fools were too cowardly to end his life with their own hands. After all, they knew that if anyone dared lay a hand on God's creation, they would unleash something far worse than the apocalypse.
If only they knew that every rule, every prayer, every fear, every law they hold so dear… each and every one was created by me…
They wouldn't have thought twice about hanging me or burning me alive.
But…
If you're waiting for me to die, if you're waiting for me to kneel before you, you are very mistaken.
Because this world is mine. And I, and only I, can destroy it.
Anaxagoras took the ceremonial dagger in both hands and raised it high, waiting for the high priest to give the order.
“What was given must be returned. What spoke in God's name now falls silent, so that God may speak for himself.”
Eighteen years was more than enough time to become tainted by the devil's sins, wasn't it?
According to the ancient scriptures, an adult, no matter how innocent or sheltered they had been raised, was too impure to go on hearing the voice of God.
They just needed to find a new sacrificial lamb. A replacement to keep manipulating.
Ahh.
If only they knew that the only thing I want is something none of you filthy swine could ever give me…
“The oracle does not die. His flesh returns to dust so that His spirit may ascend and speak from on high. Glorified be the sacrifice. Glorified be the service he has rendered to his people.”
How would your god react if he knew the kind of blasphemous thoughts that cross my mind?
“May your blood, shed in His name, purify the earth beneath our feet. May your death be our life. May your silence be His voice.”
Perhaps, if the gods existed… I would have been the devil's oracle, not God's.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.”
The priest poured holy water over Anaxagoras's head. And in that moment, in that single, simple moment, Anaxagoras let the dagger drop and drove it straight into the man's abdomen, twisted his wrist, and split him open in one clean motion.
✧✧✧
That nameless world didn't take long to fall apart without its "God" to guide it.
The church collapsed at nearly the same moment as the high priest's insides. The believers hanged every priest who cried out that salvation could be found in the sacrifice of their people.
God had never existed. No one was coming to protect them.
They were alone. And Anaxagoras would not lift a finger for them.
I told you.
I, and only I, decide the fate of this world.
And if you betray me… if you try to decide that I have no worth—then…
You simply have to die.
One world died. And Anaxagoras, free at last from the chains that had bound him for eighteen years, set out to find the owner of the voice inside his head.
Khaslana. His Khaslana.
✧✧✧
His memories grew more vivid with each passing day. He could hear his voice clearly now, and he saw himself—curious, trying to understand, trying to learn to speak his language.
Sometimes he was Cerces. Sometimes, Anaxagoras. Sometimes, he bore a name he couldn't even bring himself to pronounce.
But Khaslana was always him.
Always him.
Always searching for him, always finding him, no matter what name he wore or how much his nature had changed.
But…
If it's always you…
Then why can't I remember your face?
Why, no matter how far I searched among the stars, couldn't I find him?
Where are you?
Why won't you look at me?
Why can't I see you?
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Khaslana.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
Where are you?
I want to see you. I want to see you. I want to see you. I want to see you.
No matter how much he searched, no matter how desperately he tried to find some proof of his existence, there was no trace of him. As if Khaslana—his Khaslana—were nothing but a figment of his mind.
Do you really not exist?
Was the devil's voice, the voice of his loneliness, so overwhelming that it had stained his every thought with darkness?
Were all those memories just a way to stay alive when he was dying of loneliness?
No.
That couldn't be.
There was no way, because…
Anaxagoras was not the kind of pathetic existence that needed someone else to survive.
If it weren't for those memories, if it weren't for that desperate need to see him for himself…
He would have grown bored of playing oracle long before anyone thought to come and find him.
If you won't let yourself be seen…
If you don't want me to find you…
Then I simply have to destroy everything, don't I?
I just have to find a way to call you.