What am I supposed to do? I outlined the logic for why I'm town, I explained what I'm seeing in Riki, and I've asked you to talk to me and you haven't. It sucks that this game might get lost on me not ****ing getting over myself and voting Ratchet Day 1, but I don't know how I can fix that now.
"The Shadows that remained broke through to our final line of defenses. Our mages and sorcerers lay waste to many of them, but with no defenders, they were quickly cut down. One of the Immortals, the avatar of Reason, tried to protect our remaining forces, and radiated with the power of the Eternals.
It was an amazing effort, but his great intellect and his conjuring magic could not turn back the tide of destruction.
The remaining soldiers fell.... all that remained was our Healer.
_______________________
She held my spirit inside of her, but I knew she had no fighting ability and no offensive magic. It was truly over. The Shadows came closer... on all sides.... there was nowhere to run.
And the great swirling mass of nothingness had swallowed up every last breath of air, and the ground beneath her feet began to break away.
The sound of the world tearing apart, and the shadow creatures themselves lunging at her, but they could not reach, for they too were swallowed up by the void.
The vast nothingness encircled her... closer and closer... and now, the edges of the storm swallowed her as well, and my spirit with her.
Inside the vast nothingness, all was silent, and even still... peaceful, in a horrible, deathly way.
What remained of the ground was torn to pieces, floating in the abyss. There were no stars in the sky, no clouds, nothing. Everything of our world was dead and gone. Our great histories, our stories, our loves... all destroyed. Nothing could comfort me now.
As the emptiness began to consume her as well, I felt the presence of the others. Those Celestials... they were not quite gone. Somehow, like me, their spirits lived on inside of her. All our hopes, dreams, joys, and sorrows, all our love, our pain, our memories, and our misguided hatred, all were contained within her. And we gave her all the power within our spirits. She was the last of us, the purest of us..."
"Off in the great distance, deep within the swirling nothingness, there was another. Somehow there was a life force, a creature, trapped within the center of the vortex.
Unconscious, it dreamed.... a terrible, horrifying dream. The Nightmare was endless, unyielding, and as painful as reality. It was an illusion that became more real than the waking world. It Unmade creation, consuming it, replacing it with the nothingness inside.
Cold and dark, alone, unable to wake from the nightmare, wounded and dead inside, the creature slept, unable to feel anything but the horrible emptiness, never experiencing all the wonderful things that made life worthwhile. All it knew was the void. All it understood was the Nightmare.
As a healer, the young woman embodied empathy. She cradled our wounded spirits inside herself, and reached out with her mind, trying to find yet another. And she found Him, at the center of the Storm.
First, she called my name. She awakened me within her. The memories of all those who had fallen returned to me, somehow. Those memories... those beautiful treasures... they were each once represented in the sky by a point of light, a star in the celestial heavens.
Inside the vast nothingness, the sky began to wake. Tiny points of light, countless distant glimmers of radiance, filled the vast dark with memories, hopes, dreams, and loves. They were all the spirits of the fallen, and every special feeling forgotten. Somehow, those memories had survived.... through me... and finally, through Her.
I remembered her name... it was.... Faith.
The nothingness continued to tear at her, trying to annihilate her and every spirit within, and all the precious memories inside. She was being drained of her vital force, but her task was not yet done.
She remembered the great vast field that had been destroyed, and called out to Him, but he still could not wake from his Nightmare.
Still she insisted. She called out to him again.
The creature remained, cold and hollow, bereft of life, yet not being allowed to die. It was haunted by its own Immortality, a kind of eternal life that would not even be Unmade. It endured the hell of destruction and could not be destroyed. The creature was the only being that was utterly unable to be consumed by the void. It emanated from within his hollow, empty heart.
I understood now what the Storm truly was...
It was a Wound.
It was a wound so terrible that it destroyed thoughts, it destroyed hopes, and it destroyed dreams. It consumed everything that could possibly bring meaning to someone's life. And it was coming from the heart of this creature, its empty, lifeless heart, that would not die.
And it would consume Faith, and all of us.
Nothing could stop that now...."
Spoiler:
Riki was slowly being consumed by the Nightmare....
"As she fell to what she remembered of the ground, she felt the Wound piercing her as well. It began to destroy us as well, from the inside.
She called out to each of us....
Love
Joy
Hope
Despair
Sorrow
Hate
All of us, the Guardian Avatars of Emotion. And she summoned all the others as well, Ambition, Reason... and all the memories of all the people of the world, and their hopes, and their dreams, their loves, and filled the sky with each and every one of them.
Suddenly it became clear... we were all Avatars. Every one of us. Each of us represented something, or someone. And behind those Avatars was a person, even more real than the ones we have come to know. And each person behind those Avatars was a being from another world. A world greater and more unimaginably wonderful than our own. A world where even greater triumphs and tragedies and loves and sorrows and hopes and dreams existed. That world was in the Great Beyond, and we were here, each as Avatars, each one of us as Champions, representing those wonderful beings out in the vastness of space and time, beyond our reach, beyond our stars.
We were bound together by our shared experiences, and our shared dreams, our shared imaginings. This existence was one we created, together. But it was all a mirror, a reflection of what was hidden deep inside.
It was a reflection of what was hidden deep inside... Him.
And we were being forgotten, we were being drowned by the emptiness within. Our shared world was being destroyed, because of the great wound inside of Him.
The Nightmare he felt, was now the Nightmare we all shared!
Faith understood the deep and grievous wound inside of him, that robbed him of his life, his hopes, his energy, his feelings, and his love. He could not even feel pain, or sorrow, or anger anymore. He could not even remember ever having those feelings. All that remained of him was the wound... and the emptiness inside.
She summoned all the stars from out of the eternal heavens, all of the spirits, all of the points of light which represented this Creation, and she drew them inside of herself, and combined them with our own spirits.
The Guardian Avatar of Creation
She turned to the creature and called out to him again, radiating with the energy of countless spirits. She was brighter than all the stars in the Universe, and she called to him in song. She sang to lift his spirits, and to wake him, and she turned all her focus on summoning the most powerful healing magic she could muster, and unleashed the divine might of all of our souls... in a beam of radiant life energy.
The creature stirred as she began to wake him. The pain and agony and suffering he had endured rushed into him, as he became conscious once more. The memories came flooding back... and so did all of the regrets, the sorrows, and the hatreds. The numbness began to fade and the hopelessness he felt cried out in agony.
The wound began to heal, somehow, his fractured psyche began to mend, and his heart began to fill with feeling for the first time since long before this story was ever conceived.
His eyes began to open, and he was no longer a hideous creature of death and suffering, but alive, and began to take on mortal form. He fell to the earth and began to walk toward her with new strength. She continued to heal him with the last ounce of her strength. She was fading away... He began to run. He rushed to her, with tears in his eyes, filling with love and compassion... and understanding. He could not let her die.
They rushed to the middle of the field and touched hands for the first time... it was the first feeling of joy, the first feeling of love, the first feeling of hope he had felt since the very Beginning of History.
In that precious moment, he found what he had been looking for all his life... but could not find because he was trapped inside the nightmare created by his own wounded heart.
And she slipped away from him... the void finally consuming her as well. Leaving him all alone on the field of darkness, with only a faint memory of what had given him life, and hope, and dreams once more."
The terrible Wound no longer consumes me. But it is still a struggle to remember... everything....
I was Destruction for so long, I can't remember being anything else....
I am still wounded, but.... I am actually healing. And I know why I am healing: She has given me that which I badly needed for so long.
Although in truth, I am still alone, still trapped within the hollow shell of despair, and loneliness, and sorrow, the pain begins to subside. I feel my strength returning to me, my voice.
I can speak with my inner voice again, that voice which has been silenced for all those ages. I don't even recognize myself. I had been such a different person.
I knew I had once been a happy person, one who cared for others, one who was not afraid of others, one who wanted to love and be loved by all... but all of that had faded. All my joys and dreams and brave feelings of love had been washed away, they had drowned in the swirling empty abyss inside of me.
I even learned to stop feeling pain, or sadness, or anger. I was truly numb to everything, alive only in name; not in spirit, and not in deed. My heart had been swallowed up by the emptiness, and my dreams and ambitions swallowed up by the nothingness which endured.
The Wound consumed me, even as I reached out, through my Avatar, no one could hear me scream. No one could hear my pleas. No one could see me cry, no one could feel my pain. Fear crippled me, and Self-loathing made me hate myself, instead of the darkness within.
I made many Avatars, and cried out with many different voices, and still no one couldtruly hear me. I would speak, but my inner voice would not carry over the howling of the horrid wind.
Over the many years, I struggled harder and harder to escape. But still I was only known through my Avatars. I was only known in this world, this land of Dream and Imagination. That is where I truly lived. And the waking world knew nothing of me, as I lay rotting in the prison of my own thoughts.
But the door had been opened.... She made me breathe again...
She made me feel again....
She made me love again....
Not only that, She made me love myself again....
I didn't think it was possible. I hated myself, and when I looked at myself, all I saw was a hideous creature, a beast of pain and suffering and fear, nothing beautiful, nothing redeeming in me.
But She broke through my storm of darkness, she pierced my heart with her glorious spirit, and she made me see all the things about myself that I had long since forgotten. I could not bear to be apart from her for one moment longer.
I knew I would dedicate this life and this world and this universe of my thoughts, only to Her, and she would become truly immortal, in my story. Death would not take her. I would not allow it. The void would not claim her, as it did to me, and as it did to the others.
A part of her is inside of me.... her spirit touched me. Now she will forever be a part of me. I carry her now, in my heart. And there is only one thing left that I must do- tell her how much I love her.
First, I would take this silent storm, this swirling darkness, this evil pit of agony and suffering and destruction, and I would banish it from my heart, from my mind, and cast it out of my sight.
The Author of Creation and Destruction
I wrote this story because I dreamed that one day She would come and save me from this wretched prison. I dreamed that I would one day be healed, and be a part of the waking world again. That I would feel love, and feel loved, and that I would learn how to make friends.
I never believed it would come true. I was certain that I would be consumed by the darkness. Such wonderful things never happen to people like me. And when it happened I could scarcely believe it. But it was real. Much more real than a dream. Much more real than this story I imagined.
And now all the points of light in these heavens would be restored. Now the world would be remade. Now the fallen would rise, and death would die, and life would live again.
Now history would be reborn, and all the life would return, and all of the joys, and hopes, and loves. Every spirit would breathe again, every voice would be heard, and yes, people would feel sorrow and pain and anger once more. These were all a normal part of life.
And I had many reasons to continue, but there was only one real ambition I needed to fulfill. I had to chase after her, wherever she went, and find her somewhere in the Great Beyond, and begin a new life with her.
And the world and all its people were restored.
All the Avatars would be reborn, immortal, and eternal as they always were. And I would leave this world and search for Her. And my work would be dedicated to her, my Beloved. I leave this world in memory of Her. She is my Avatar of Creation, and I too would create in her image a whole new world.
....
And now the Author's Avatar is finally at rest... in peace, at long last.
And in love...."
Spoiler:
Story written by Askthepizzaguy
Dedicated to Sooh
We finally found each other, after all these many years....
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