On the Brink of Escaping Sanity

Fate. It is truly a wonder how the works behind that one particular word just happen. Most people cannot fathom to understand what fate is. They blame everything on it, and I am truly in a dilemma on whether the world needs to be renewed or it just takes time. Rebirth, chaos, destruction, then the cycle begins once more. An endless loop of life and death and the one suffering of it all is the world.

Every sunrise, millions of people would witness it, taking in the sight before them and go on with with their lives. Then there was its setting, where the moon will rise--the world revolving around the concept of numbers. Time. Another one that which people cannot fathom. Numbers decide the way of life, and numbers also mark the end of death. No one understands what fate and time truly are, even I cannot exactly grasp the perfect understanding behind it. I can only feel its power surging inside me.

Yet I am but one of the lonesome creatures. I do not have the rights to meddle between the process of life and death. No, that seems wrong. I'm making myself seem like the one holding the domain of time. I can meddle, I always meddle. After all, I cause the fates of those who go through the cycle of rebirth and destruction. But having this power, no, wanting this power--I must not meddle with those fates I have already tapped.

"Oh?" I tilted my head, leaning myself over the couch behind me. "How strange." My lips arched into a smirk, placing my leg over another as I crossed my arms.

Long grayish-white hair seemingly translucent against the light, eyes in contrast to fallen ashes lighting up like they hid embers beneath them. There were no need for words, the stare she was giving the moment she walked into that door was enough to tell me what made her come here, now throughout all these ages. Still, it is a bit saddening that she chooses to watch where it can hurt more rather than just taking her pace with me. After all, time is on her side.

"Not gonna offer your visitor some drink?" She smiled, setting herself on the couch opposite to mine.

I lifted my hand, a bottle of wine appearing in an instant, pouring itself over a wineglass on her side of the table. The bottle disappeared, ice cubes then summoning themselves inside her drink. She inhaled the scent of the wine, sighing in pleasure after she took a sip. I smiled watching her enjoy as I put my chin atop my palm, my elbow setting on the table between us.

"How many years has it been, Athanasía?" I started, swirling the cup filled with black coffee on my other hand.

"Honestly, I lost count. It would always feel as though it was just yesterday I last saw that mischievous glint in your eyes."

"As much as I enjoy your company," I gulped the last batch of my coffee, the caffeine pumping up my body. "Surely, you aren't just here to reminisce with me."

"There's nothing to reminisce about in the first place."

"My, always going after my feelings."

"I speak of the truth."

I sighed, snapping my fingers and just like that, the cup was refilled with coffee once again. "So, what's with the sudden visit, dearest friend?"

She looked down, clanging the ice against the glass which created that sound upon her silence. "It has been...so long since you last tap into anyone."

"Oh, so you're here for that."

"Why must her fate be like that?"

"You've taken a liking to her."

She frowned, now looking so serious at me. "What?"

"Why do you seem to blame me for every fates you dislike out there, Sia?" I took another sip, the coffee tingling my tongue. "It's not that I cause each one of them."

"But I certainly know her fate is your work." She clenched her fist.

I chuckled. "She already has a twisted fate. I just hmm...amplified it a little."

"You always do this for fun."

"Well, it is fun. But my reason for tapping her fate isn't just for mere entertainment."

"What are planning now?"

"Do not give me those searching eyes, Athanasía." I waved my hand, dismissing her worries. "Do not fret, you like her, do you not? I like her myself too. The pillars that govern over all life and death, do you know of it?"

"Time. Fate." She stated, even hesitant on saying so. "That's us."

"There's emotions too."

Her eyes widened for a moment, then slamming the glass back onto the table. For a second there, I was worried she'd break the glass and hurt herself. But my concerns are unfounded, her gaze now filling me with glares. While I do love inciting reactions from her, it's always no good to actually making her angry.

"How can emotions even govern over life and death?"

"It feels the world. It stimulates life and silence death. Imagine that power, Athanasía." My face then turned serious. "Power that can destroy the world if she wishes for it so. Power that can destroy the cycle of rebirth and destruction. Power that manipulates all of living things."

"Do not meddle with her humanity any more than you did with her fate!" She yelled, standing up.

"You're meddling with her fate too, are you not?"

"That's because..." she paused, unable to find the right words.

"You of all people should already know how dangerous she is when left alone." I refuted, matching the intensity of her gaze.

"Is that why you tapped into her fate? For her fate to lead to us?"

"And thanks to your meddling everything might just change. I don't even know what her fate is anymore. You know how my power loses its effect as your power against mine."

"Our powers collided and as a result--"

"No. Her fate is changing, yes, but there are still traces of it left. She will die. She must, and she knew of it. Reason why she had let her own daughter end her out of all people. She had set a stage, she planned everything out, all for her daughter to be renowned as a hero who had slaughtered a monster. She's a lonesome creature, just like us." I smiled, sadly, watching her sit back down probably with thoughts and memories of her past she would never share. "The reason why I tapped into her fate was so her potential won't be wasted, not because I pity her."

"Of all people you could twist fates with, why her?"

"I told you, her ability to sense emotions is just too great and not because she is a Cursed Blood. The blood running inside her...hmm think of it as an additional boost, a decoration."

"You're speaking riddles."

"She could have been born as a demon, a dragonborne, or could have been born in a normal family with no special blood, but Fate chose her to be a human, a Cursed Blood at that. She was meant to live a miserable life, she was meant to die with life of suffering. She was meant to feel a small dose of joy only to be replaced by agony tenfold."

"Still...to twist an already threaded fate..."

"Think about it, Sia." I stood up, the room suddenly beginning to turn dimly. I waved my hands on the air, as though my fingers were tracing something that wasn't even there. Each movement caused a glow, each in different colour.

"I am."

"If it weren't for me altering her fate, she would have had died an early age without even having to bore an offspring, don't you agree so? It was I who helped her set that stage so she could die in the hands of her daughter. But you meddled. You changed her reality by bringing the daughter and rest back in time. Do you even realize how much of my works have gone to waste?"

"Because I am against it."

I shook my head in dismay, strings in neon lights appearing all around us. "So you do realize what I'm doing."

"Altering her fate is one thing, but meddling with her humanity? That's against the rules!"

"Rules?" I turned to face her, amused by her annoyed reaction. "We govern both life and death, we govern the world, and I make rules however I see fit."

"Why all of the sudden?"

I closed my eyes, letting my irritation disappear before opening them. "She will die either way, I'm merely helping her ascend to being someone not even gods can do injustice."

"You're bringing her to our ranks."

"She is powerful. Power that not even the world can comprehend. As she is now," I sighed. The strings then formed into a ball of crystal, the luminous glow of it enlightening the dim room. "She is still far from it. I'm guiding her however I can, just like how you show up like a ghost by her side whenever you want to."

"No. You don't understand her."

"And you claim you do?"

"She wants to die to have peace, she wants silence--"

"And silence shall I give! Once she dies, she will claim her rank among us not as a human nor a god, above them even. Stand atop life and death, she will awaken her real power and become one of us. See my point Sia, she is but another lonesome being deprived of those who can truly understand her."

"You're saying that's us." Her tone was sarcastic, a hint that she's already on a brink of anger. "Funny, as how things stand, you're far from the one who could understand her. She will die and that's that. Do not meddle with her humanity--"

"She will die and she will claim her place among us here, not in that mess of a world. You want her to stay as a human? Why? What did humanity bring her? Nothing but unfairness as it did to us!"

"You're just lonely." She mumbled. I was taken aback by what she said, looking away almost as immediately. "I am lonely too. We both are. You just see ourselves in her. Bringing her here after death will only make her suffer more. You feel so lonely that you twist people's fates."

"And you feel lonely as well as much that you watch them unendingly through time." I sat back on the couch, my lips then meeting the edge of the cup, the black liquid falling right through my throat. "She is lonely just as we are, Athanasía. Only power can help her realize that the world, the people, they are all different from her. That she is special."

"Power only makes one lonelier."

"Even at the end, we always see things differently. You have always been against me."

"That's because you love loneliness too much that you hated parting with it when in truth, you just fear escaping that loneliness for you might not be able to see yourself then."

"And you hate being lonely that you try so much to escape from it only to fail every single time you make yourself feel warm." I replied, hastily.

"You just love messing with fate."

"And you're just too kind even with the pain time brought you."

Our silence dragged our eyes back to the glowing crystal ball, images then flashing. Pale, blue eyes...I wonder if Ke'ala herself is aware of what those simple gazes could bring anyone who falls into them. Her life, still, is far from what she could reach--if she only desire ascension. I truly only wish that she finds her true identity amongst the chaos the word centered her in--that she doesn't have to answer to those burdens.

Because the world does not deserve such powerful, lonely being, as it did not deserve us.

The uneasiness was swelling in the air, the constant anxiety and hunger for destruction as though orchestrating another war. May it be humans, demons, orcs, or any other races--they are all the same. Yet they judge each other, yet they discriminate one another, and still at the end...there will always be that part in their hearts that screams for selfishness. It's pitiful, really. Thinking how the world could have been better if it weren't for all those negative emotions.

However, as I stood above the bronze platform, watching the cinders burn through the wind, feeling the heat hovering over the spreading fire--could the world be called perfect without these trifling events that have shaped history people have known until now otherwise? A world without negative emotions... how boring would that world be? How empty it would actually feel? But is a world filled with pursuits of endless battles better than an empty one?

"Ke'ala? I've been looking for--" she stopped herself, noticing my silence. "Where have you been these past hours? And those wounds...they look horrible.'

I turned around, looking at Irona. "I wonder."

"Is something wrong?" She frowned, closing herself. I lifted my hand, stopping her.

"Nothing I know of." My gaze wandered around, again with the cries that hinted hunger for blood. "Another broke out, so it seems." I added, referring to the distant noise of fights.

"More reinforcements from the earlier battle against those blue orcs came. Sinabi ni Adalya na inaasahan naman nila ito pero mukhang matatalo sila ayon sa mga nangyayari."

I nodded, hearing sudden loud footsteps nearing over our direction. The trees were swaying violently, black smokes raging over the screams of the air. My senses were sharp, the emotions my body was sensing were clouding even my own. I could feel them, each single one of those feelings surging through my veins, going along the rush on my blood. Spiritual energy flooded in me, and I wonder then why it doesn't feel as painful as absorbing emotions usually give without the relic Gïzë. As though... that's right, as though the emotions were mine in the first place.

Blue-skinned orcs easily surrounded us with their huge sizes. They were speaking something I don't understand, not that I was planning to know either way. Probably another monologue about us being humans. Humans do attract orcs after all. It would be difficult to handle their numbers if we were to stay at one place for a long time. Still, there are around seven of them around us, raising their weapons in... threat?

One orc yelled something in orcish language, leaping overhead with its sword made of stick-together bones lifted, preparing to land it on us. Other orcs ran to our positions, visible hunger showing on their smirks which made me sigh. Everything seem to have come in slow motion then. I ducked, bending my body forward as I avoided the sword striking an impact on the ground behind me. I stretched out my arms, grabbing the orc's wrist which I used to hurdle myself up.

I twisted my body, my feet kicking the blue orc right at his face. The sudden attack made him lose his balance, making him unable to dodge an incoming sword which was supposed to hit Irona if she hadn't dodged. The sword from the other orc hit the one I was clinging onto, the bone-made weapon plunging deep into his chest. I jumped down, backing away as I met Irona just beside. The other orcs were enraged, now charging blindly towards us.

Until a figure drove himself in front, his own sword blocking a bigger weapon. The ground beneath cracked into a small crater, the soil loosening down as though it had always been soft. The figure pushed the orc away, the latter hitting the rest of the orcs which caused them all to fall. The man placed his sword on his shoulder, tilting his head in amusement as one orc stood along with the others.

"Having trouble dealing with creatures from Wonderland, Alice?" He smirked.

"Again with the horrible name, Salem." Napabuntong-hininga na lamang ako. "I dislike owing people, but you should know I wasn't having trouble with them in the first place."

"Is that so?" He slashed his sword, a gust of wind was created from that simple action which drove the orcs away, their bodies hitting the lines of trees behind them. "Ah, a tsundere?"

"Imposible. Ni hindi nga siya gumagamit ng enerhiya." Irona mumbled, her suspecting eyes scanning the man in front of us.

"Tsundere?" Hindi ko pinansin ang namumuong katanungan sa mukha ni Irona.

"A word from the East." He chuckled. "But they aren't opponents you can beat without mana, Ariel. Of course, except me who doesn't rely on mana usage at all. My body's used at using raw strength to draw out my innate natural power. At this point, you're only going to get hurt."

"I can handle my--"

Interrupting me with his sword raised towards the direction of the incoming blue orcs, he spoke, "plus, you must be drained from the events of earlier. You may not feel tired, but your body will eventually catch up to the time you lost in that place. You will soon feel exhausted, it's better not to force yourself."

He easily cut down an orc's arm, the big creature screaming as he lose blood painted in blue. His speed was no joke either. It's almost as though I was watching Andrei herself battle. That former Elite leader would usually fight without using energy, reason why she could outmatch me in terms of speed and strength even with using my own energy.

Saying I've already long surpassed her is impossible. With her already deteriorating health, she would purposely hold back between our trainings to preserve her strength. And this man might even be faster than her. Knowing the fact that I'm still far ahead, I feel unsettled. Naaalala ko ang mga nangyari kanina, at hindi ko mapigilang hindi mainis sa sarili ko.

Lights were glowing so brightly enough that my eyes couldn't keep up. There, even just for that moment, I wished for darkness to relieve myself off that glow, to relieve myself of that blindness and as I closed my eyes, even there I couldn't find that darkness. It was all the same regardless whether I open nor close my vision, a blend of yellow and white illuminating everything that they were painful. Too painful.

My skin, as though being burned, were opened with cuts with sharp rays penetrating them like needles. My mind throbbed, the heat raging inside me that it strangely felt nauseating, as though I was being hovered up through the air with nothing to cling on to. I began sweating, and they were cold like being wrapped by ice contradicting the heat building up inside. My voice cracked as I screamed, my heart threatening to burst, an eruption that has yet to come.

"For a child to desire darkness just as much as she desires light... you never fail to amuse me, Ke'ala." Came after that soft, deep voice was a giggle, making my skin crawl.

"Even at the end, this mortal cannot see past this light." This time, the voice was that of a man, thunderous and bold.

"No mortals can truly do." Unlike the other two, the third voice was pleasant, sound of an uncaring tone.

"Who was it that granted her the sacred passage?"

"Does it matter? Any mortal basked under this light always burns anyway."

"I did owe her once for obliterating those druids. Time always did pass quickly contrary to the truth of it."

"Is it you then, Morrigan?" The bold voice accusingly questioned.

One orc landed a punch right beside him, going right underneath the other orc and used the opportunity to slash its weapon onto the blue creature's knee. The four remaining enemies continued to try their best to hit him. Salem buried his sword on the ground, jumping up and land his weight on its hilt which made the ground tremble. It created another crater, only that this time it was far bigger. The ground under the four orcs trembled down, burying them through the thickness of the falling soil with their yells unfounded.

"Phew." He breathed, sheathing his sword. "That was a nice exercise--" he stopped when he turned around, facing

Irona's dagger which she quickly pulled out from the larp attached on her thigh. She must have had gotten herself some weapon when looking for me. Or it was possible Adalya had given her one. That female verdent orc might act like she hates