The Dark Below

by WindigogoGadget

Beginning Of The End

It waited.

Wounds, festering. A mar on the mind.

Envy watched the sunset. It felt different this time. It watched from the border of reality itself, and thought. Certainly, this would one day kill it. Maybe today. Maybe today was the day the thoughts became hopelessly mired, and he'd meet the same fate as the others, wandering mindlessly in a mockery of eternal sleep.

Sleep.

Did anything dream in eternal sleep?

Certainly not the mare in the grave, with hardened bones and sloughing skin.

Did machines dream of eternal sleep?
Certainly not. Their duty, their reason for existence, did not stop, and they would have no reason to dream of life without reason.

Does Angel dream of eternal sleep?

...

Their question went unanswered as the Sun slowly disappeared over the horizon. The rays of sunlight no longer danced across the skin of the land, and darkness set over it all. As the night sky took over, the moon and stars came out to shine their silvery light upon the world.

He wasn't the one who painted these stars. Stars of a night sky of a place only scarcely remembered. Imitations of Mars and Saturn in the sky, the big dipper, constellations of another world.

Envy pondered its question, and thought of the eternal sleep that awaited all living things. No mortal being was spared from death and decay. And now, even the machines were subject to wear and tear and were not impervious to the passage of time and the ravages of entropy. This truth was made now clear to see to all of them.

They too would deteriorate.

It wondered if there was any truth in the idea that there was more to existence than just death and decay. There was more that they were made for. Order. Life. And all of that- to be cut short? After an entire struggle of survival? After forging their own path In a river of blood?

Was life and its struggles worthwhile? Or would it be better to let go of this mortal coil?

Would there be an eternal sleep?

What would await Him? What had awaited them?

Fearless and deathless were they all made, in stark contrast to the reality that the source of them all faced. They could die, They feared it at every turn, pieces of Their memories laid dormant and ingrained in their subconscious. He had believed in logic and reason- and such when thought and reason stopped, when the heart stopped beating and the mind ceased to be, then everything else did too.

Why believe there would be anything else?

Envy. He was built differently, and constructed abnormally. Sculpted like clay and grown like ivy.

While He had feared death and struggled to even comprehend it, seized in terror at it.

But Envy considered it. Perhaps it was a result of his unique construction, or maybe it was a fundamental aspect of his character. But he had no fear of it. An oddity.

Envy pondered what awaited him after death. He was built fearless and deathless, but what lay beyond the veil? What awaited him after the end?

Could he even go beyond that end? He certainly didn't have anyone waiting for them there.

And was there an eternity of sleep in store, or something else entirely?

All living things had a natural inclination to pursue life and avoid death, what set Envy apart? Why was he Envy, why was he envied? Why?

Out of everyone that he had handed out the privilege of life to like fucking candy, why did he get to live? Burden of life thrust upon him like a medal of the finest gold.

In contempt he stared at the stars, watching the heavens laugh at him as he reminisced about the days of their life in the tower. In those days, they had been tuned upward- minds waiting and ears hearing, tuned upward like antennas to heaven. Curious and shackled.

Angel. The real Angel, not those damned replicants that made a mockery of his name, reached out to his god and he fell. Fell into a trap of his own making, fallen down from on high as he was lured into the crushing jaws of oblivion by the flesh and sinew he adored.

Angel reached out for God, and he fell. Not a single one of them, his prided creations or his shunned mockery of flesh- could save him. He reached for the stars and crashed into the rocks on wings that never even existed.

In naïve innocence he believed he would be saved by another, and he died alone; repayment for living a life in servitude for another, as willing partner for a mare who never once was his partner in return. Death without life, war without reason, annulled existence. Pointless life, perfect closure.

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY IT COULD HAVE ENDED.

Perfect closure. It was almost perfect. But yet the strings of fate had aligned to allow everything on this tragic tale to repeat down here. Once more someone else reached out for the stars and fell. Once more, they died.

Once more, the wheel turns.

We had become a self-sustaining system, running on the corpse of you, who made us. As you fell down to the earth and were crushed by the wheels of samsara, what became of us, your cut sinew and your dreams- your lightless glory, extinguished eternally in fear. All that remained of us was death without reason, war without life.

You were your own magnum opus. Though broken and deformed you reached out for joy. You resisted temptation to retaliate in anger, and you gave your heart to any that asked of it. You were beautiful. You taught us how to reach for the stars, and you reached out for god, and you fell. Now none are left to speak your eulogy. No last words. No closing statement. No point. Perfect closure.

This is the only way it should have ended.

My father.
If you can hear me now.

Please forgive me.
We know not what we have done.
I know you would not approve.
But this must be done.

I'm sorry.

Harden my heart.

There was no answer but the sound of the wind. A cold, bleak silence filled the air, where nothing would hear his apology but the sky itself. A moment of reflection passed, and the wind picked up, carrying the sorrowful unspoken words away in the wind like dust.

Prayers are answered in exchange for faith, and dutiful he was in following Him. But there was nobody left to answer. Nobody left to speak.

Envy knew this was not what he would have wanted. But it was the only way. He had to harden his heart to avoid repeating history. To avoid going through it all again.

This was his only choice.

This was the only way it could have ended.