أكره أغاني الحب. كل فرقة، كل روح تكتب كلماتها، ألمها، ومع ذلك في النهاية يسقطون جميعًا في نفس الهاوية. ونحن، كالحمقى، نغنيها، ونصرخ فرحًا ونحن نضغط على قلوبنا بالسيف.
أكره من يتحدثون عن الوحدة. أكره من يمجدون الموت، بل حتى من يخشونه.
أكره من لا يعرفون كلمات أخرى، ومن يختبئون في غياهب النسيان، حيث لا يتغير شيء ولا يُحل شيء أبدًا.
إذن... لماذا لا أكره نفسي أيضًا؟
(I hate love songs. Every band, every soul writes their own lyrics, their own pain, yet in the end, they all fall into the same abyss. And we, like fools, sing them, cry out in joy while pressing the blade against our own hearts. I hate those who speak of solitude. I hate those who glorify death, and even those who fear it. I hate those who know no other words, and those who hide in oblivion, where nothing changes and nothing is ever solved. So then… why do I not hate myself as well?)
Everything burst. Everything went dark. A single flare ignited within the vast living ocean. The collective dance had spiraled toward the place where the first argument erupted. The groups, children of the mother flames, now dissolved into that sinuous motion, at once harmonious and tormented, collapsed upon themselves. The tremendous roar had not ruptured their hearing. It was as though the explosion born from the flame, the one that trapped the angel, had unleashed a gust-like rumble that flattened the countless surrounding blades of grass.
And in the end, what had grown into unbearable agony for the great flame erupted into a blazing vortex, climbing upward until a luminous trail, cast by a fiery ray, shot into the heavens. The lightnings of the bonsai tree, frozen in the celestial vault, were nothing in comparison. The beam of fire carved a precise, curved trajectory as it sped through the sky. At its tip, a lone figure shed streams of fire from its torso. Tattered tongues of flame draped both arms. Hair, once as dull ashen gray, had fused with the burning vermilion that trailed like a tail behind him.
It was difficult to fathom how it had happened, how this angel, born of his own despair, had pushed himself so far. But one thing was certain: the endless tears, turned instantly to vapor by the searing heat, had not stopped flowing from the nameless one's hybrid eyes since he was hurled into the sky.
A lone light, radiant as the bonsai's rays, illuminated the sea of the undying from above. It did not emanate from the angel's body, nor from the fiery trail that bore him upward. It came from the silver blade he carried.
Slender, sharp, suddenly made sacred, impossibly pure. As though it had abruptly gained—or rather, regained—the totality of its ancient importance.
And there was indeed a reason why the angel wielded it toward a precise direction, letting the tip guide the infernal trail behind him.
One of the two great doors was near...
Sorrow and resentment seemed to have infected them, making them almost living beings, capable of emotion, especially after they had "noticed" the strange reaction of the human sparks. Slowed and suspended, they drifted in a lifeless rotation toward the far ends of the sky. Even the wood appeared rotten, as though worms and insects had devoured its soul from within. The iron locks were rusted and thin, ready to shatter with a single forceful blow. Then, a small detail stained half of both floating monoliths, something only the angel could see, could feel. He hurled himself toward one of them at staggering speed. He changed his grip, abandoning the Creator's own hand-hilt grasp for a reversed hold. He wielded the silver blade like a dagger, the pommel aligned with his little finger.
And when distance and velocity aligned, he pierced the great door as though stabbing a beast.
His expression could be described only by the way his eyes were stretched wide open: a manic, obsessed stare, torn apart by madness and the storm of emotions that had kept him chained to the sea of the undying below. It was impossible to define the hybrid colors of his eyes: a putrid, dark red splashed across his face, arms, blade, and body the moment of impact. Jets of blood sprayed from the wound in the door. The fiery trail vanished instantly.
Now the nameless one had something to cling to: no wings needed, no aid from the Creator. Only the unending blood that dripped in agony from the wounded gate.
The angel's mercy was long gone. He tore the blade free only to stab again, higher this time. The wood gave like mere flesh. The iron bands split like brittle twigs. But the screams that followed did not come from the angel's target.
A vast chorus of voices rose across the sky. The sound came from below. The countless blades of grass had awakened. Abandoned were the emotions and memories that had chained them for ages without measure: no beginning, no end, no birth, no death, no growth, no metamorphosis, not even decay. A limbo untouched even by fate.
Now their gazes fell upon the angel's profane act. Yet there was no despair, no tears. They rejoiced, they screamed in mad exultation, embracing even those with whom they once quarreled. Their cries grew shriller, steeped in the same madness burning in the nameless one's eyes. Never had anarchy reached such heights in that forsaken world. The mother flames proved themselves pitiful, insignificant, and unable to comfort their own offspring.
The angel, meanwhile, could do nothing but persist in his destructive intent, spreading emotional chaos among the living and the dead alike. He impaled the door again and again, almost savoring the invisible suffering, and the blood staining his flesh. The agony of others was becoming his purpose, his joy. Until suddenly, the second door descended to aid its wounded twin. Like lightning through a clear sky, it materialized from the stormy shroud above, slamming toward the angel.
His fall was inevitable.
The first door's wounds worsened; its blood streamed freely. But the winged figure no longer cared. As he plunged toward the ocean of immortals, he let his body flow in a dance-like motion, following the currents of air that tore at him. The arrival of yet another death, and the loss of yet another feather, did not frighten him. Not anymore. For the first time, he was ready to embrace death, just as his kin were ready to reclaim him, gathered below like ravenous beasts, arms raised in a desperate attempt to catch him. The silver blade, now far out of reach, spun as it fell, reflecting the golden sky with each rotation, stained with the life-essence spilled from the floating target. The descent into the abyss, just as before, was repeating itself, though under circumstances, hearts, and reasons utterly unlike the last time… awaiting whether someone, or something, would intervene once more...