The Outsider

Zerathur's dull blue eyes open to meet a familiar yet all too ethereal presence, the dark chitinous face of the young changeling queen merely inches from his face. The signature tired smile, the bright blue eyes full of longing, the voluminous and somewhat messy purple mane that adorns her delicate complexion; The mother of his daughter, the lady that took his hand and pulled him along distant golden shorelines. He smiles at her in return, laying still whilst she gently wipes the blood he'd cried. The long sleeves in her white clothes gain a few stains, but they are soon gone as self-cleaning runes take action--- She'd always been the smarter one between the two when it came to every-day spells. His heart tightens within his chest, a hurt that slowly spreads through his back and his arms, even as he sits up and rests against the wall.  There's blood at the bottom of her white dress, pain behind her soft voice. He can see it in her eyes as well, intricate coils of magicked crystals floating in suspension signalizing the same grief he'd seen eons ago. Just as then, he feels the mental anchor he has in reality shifting, his mind isolates itself to protect the greater whole. However, this is only temporary; She's stood up straight now, her shoulders heavy with unseen burden, and yet she still has the strength to offer him a hand. He takes her hand and together they get him to his feet, yet she's no longer there. It was only a phantom, just another creation of his daydreaming mind given too much magic. Of course, she died so long ago. Everyone did. He catches himself staring at his own hand, closing and opening it repeatedly as though trying to grasp hers once more, oblivious to the truth. He pulls it to his chest and holds it close to his heart, fully aware of the pair of purple eyes that stare at him from the doorway. Adeena's words interrupt and cut through his like a hacksaw through bone. He side-eyes her silhouette in the dark, not all too dissimilar from the one he once knew; Yet he also sees more, he knows more. She's told him some in her desperate attempts to connect that he's consistently shot down--- Of course she has. After all, she is as much Adeena as she is every incarnation of Despair. Including... Including the only lover he'd ever truly given himself to. Except she isn't her. She's not  her, only her memories. Zerathur lowers his hand to his side and watches as the blood and viscera that cling onto his mane and clothes burst into slow-burning blue flames. He doesn't wait for the cleansing spell to end before he turns fully towards the doorway, his legs struggling with each step. He stops before her and raises his eyes to meet hers, her doll-like chitinous face expressionless as ever. She's still staring, but steps aside to let him pass.

 None are allowed to explore the world outside of Zerathur's house. Not because there's danger, or something being hidden; Rather, it's just empty. There is nothing after the woods. No sea, no tree, no animal, no hope, no despair; There is nothing that lives and nothing that dies. There couldn't be. The stars have faded eons ago, the last black holes evaporated, there's nothing left but him, his home and his forest.  And yet, here at the very edge of the treeline, something wanders in from the darkness. At first it has no shape, no will of its own, no words to voice its primitive thoughts. But He does. He nurtures it, He dwells with it, He for it. Through every waking hour, a majority of His thoughts are poured into it. When sleep does take Him, so do the dreams of things that are no more yet could be again.  The phantoms are gone. Zerathur sits alone in his living room, earbuds on, a song in repeat yet nothing in his head but static. Their music is too loud. He takes off his earbuds and carefully places them down to the side, but the very sound of his clothes shuffling with him is like running his skull against a grater. He's not sick, he doesn't have a headache, not with all the healing spells inbued into his bones; Yet, everything hurts .  Zerathur stands up and starts heading towards the doorway, hoping to make it back to his room to rest. His breathing is too loud. And so he stops breathing. His heartbeat is too noisy, throbbing against the base of his skull, and so he stops that too. The pain grows worse. The vision goes blurry. Everything cascades like a curtain being pulled back at the sound of a thousand, thousand voices, and they all say the same thing:  I know what you are.   He reaches out and grabs it by the neck. Feeble muscles fight against that which shouldn't be grasped, he wrestles it to the ground as it squeals and cries. The skin melts off and burts from its seams to reveal the red pulsating flesh beneath. It twists and writhes, bending its bones in impossible geometries until they break, screaming in despair and laughing in divinity. It dies there and then, cackling in its madness and choking on its viscera.   Zerathur raises himself from the grisly scene. His heart flutters back into beating, his lungs take in a fresh breath of air, the world is quiet again. And thus he collapses, whisked away into dreams of eternity.