“Cleo told me a bit, but I can feel the rest, darkness of my mana, the way it flows around my body… Everything thing in the world, I can feel it, I can see it, I laugh it off but this isn’t real right? Right!? No matter what anyone does I will know who has caused such a thing for me, such a life for my willingness, and my regret, it’s me, I regret myself…” Alex tailed off, or, well, Sub-Alex trailed off.
It wasn’t Cael, it wasn’t even what was left of Alex, it was the sub-level of his inner self, a self locked from taking form in the physical, yet here we where.
“What is the meaning of this Alex? What do you mean?” Roland stood up, he didn’t remember a time when he sat, if anything time felt hazy for all of them, including They.
In fact, They was soon to come anew;
“Bright like a butterfly, dense as a caterpillar, Everlasting like a light, And as fruitful as a tree.”
Sub-Alex said, he had never heard that poem before, and he didn’t know why he recited it, to sub-Alex, life was but a foggy lie.
Perhaps it was They who wanted to say such a poem, or maybe the life of a caterpillar called out to Sub-Alex, maybe it was in response to what Roland had said.
Maybe meaning was hidden inside of the poem, Sub-Alex didn’t really care though, incapable of words the Sub-Alex relied heavily on the present
Cael, but Cael wasn’t there.
To put it metaphorically, Cael had slipped, slipped so far into the depths of his absent self that he didn’t know what was real or what was.
Nothing to Cael made any sense, one moment
Sub-Alex was crying, and the next he had taken over completely, but Cael wanted to go out with a bang, he didn’t want to fall and die, so he searched for something in the absent of Nothing.
Sounds illogical but it made sense to someone who was searching for nothing.
“What? What does that poem mean? Or Where does that poem come from, Alex?”
Roland questioned, but it was already to late, Sub-Alex grew further and further from self, his eyes where dull and is soul was quite.
Sub-Alex walked over to his bed, his forehead started to sweat, his soul started to wept, he was slowly losing it.
Losing life, losing self…
Roland reached out grabbing Alex’s shoulder pulling him back, Sub-Alex’s face also came back to look at Roland as he had pulled Alex’s body back.
Sub-Alex’s face was pale, his mouth was slightly open, his ears where red, and his eyes where blank, nothing alive was the right description.
Roland upon seeing Alex’s face almost jolted back in fear, to Roland it was his son who looked in such a downcast mood, such an unbelievable fate.
One second he is recited poems, the next his face is wishing for death,
Roland then looked closer at Alex, his saw is mana had gotten more black, and thereby worse.
was no longer circulating, it should normally go around the body, but
Alex’s mana was not only turning black but was also leaking;
“Hey, your mana.. It’s leaking, can you feel that right? Your not causing it right? Your not the one making yourself leak mana right?” Roland said, he pulled his hand back from Alex’s shoulder, Roland wasn’t much of a farther, to be honest Roland was terribly afraid about being a farther.
Roland was there for Alex, but he never knew when to step in and help Alex, this made the relationship between the two more distance.
But that was unavoidable in Roland’s eyes, after all Alex was merely to show the
Elders of the tree that Roland was settling down, to sweeten the deal on getting into the tree for work.
“And what if I was? Would that bother you?” Sub-Alex said, standing there just dull, just stagnate, his head was low and his eyes where on his shoes, nothing about this felt right.
To Roland, the act of leaking oneself’s mana was partly a wish for death, mana was contained and often times even stuck in the body.
To ordinary people they could never access there mana, so the leaking would never happen and would always contain it’self.
But to anyone who knew magic, or any mage, or anything of the sorts, leaking mana was a wish for death, a final act of hope and salvation.
Even in many wars, mages would leak there mana before the enemy had fully arrived, causing them to fall unconscious feeling no pain, often falling asleep forever as there body would be stabbed by the enemy side.
So the act of leaking mana was equable to wishing to fall asleep forever and join the void of death in your absent, something Roland knew very well.
“What do you mean ‘would that bother you’ of course it will! Your leaking your own mana! Don’t you know what happens!? What happened when you have no mana left? You still have so much life ahead of you, and your choosing to give up now? After all we have done together, after all we have done for you, your choosing to end it all?”
No words.
No words where shared past this point.
Just silence, a quite soft melancholy silence.
Roland thought he overstepped, saying such words to a child, still, Roland thought it was the right move.
Sub-Alex didn’t respond, he didn’t even lift a hair, just silence, cold-cold-cold silence.
After who knows how long had passed, Roland shifted his weight and moved his body, he was facing the door, reaching out for the handle shakily.
Silent, silent, silent.
Roland had slipped out of the room, but Sub-Alex did not, he didn’t budge, it was his room after all why should he leave?
All he did after a few moment had went by, was slowly sit down holding his knees around his arms as he curled into a ball.
Sitting there;
He didn’t blink, he hadn’t blinked,
He didn’t speak, he hadn’t spoke,
He didn’t think, he hadn’t thought.
Sub-Alex was left again, slowly, and slowly did thought start to come back into the head of Sub-Alex, slowly the thoughts of anything started to regain it’s footing in Sub-Alex.
Sub-Alex was truly lonely, cast aside, he could only be described as the cold foot of a mountain, and what was worse, Roland had known.
Roland had saw right through Sub-Alex, Roland was like the sun, and a cold foot of a mountain and the sun don’t mix well.
But the fact Roland had knew what Sub-Alex was planing, just who is he?
Sub-Alex goal was to end suffering for every fracture of self, and the only way to do that was to suffer once more.
In the name of Alex, Sub-Alex was going to slowly drain his mana, slowly flushing out any unwanted self, this included him, but Sub-Alex was willing to end everything, if that meant peace for They within the self, inside of the body of Alex.
This almost desire to fuse back into one came at a price though, that price was his own head, his own self, the Sub-Alex, he may be forgotten, he may not make the cut.
But that was beyond him, first he needed to assemble all the parts of self, like a broken mirror.
Yes, A Broken Mirror!!
That’s exactly what describes Sub-Alex’s ambitions, to fuse all self together, to become one, eliminating individuality on the level of self.
That was his goal all along, to fuse everyone’s self he had, together, to become one, to become They…