I cannot see past the rain of blood. All around me is a fog; behind it awaits my "rebirth."
I ponder, is this any different from my normal life?
Why was I ever so naive? Was I made to be that way? When I return from this, he will talk . . .
Malik keeps walking; the winds persist in their attempts to knock him back. During the crimson hurricane, all he feels is the freezing cold.
All he wears is cargo pants; his scars remain exposed to the harsh whirlwinds of blood. The center of his chest has a large scar that connects to all the others. Malik stares at it as if even he doesn't remember how he got it. Instinctively, he tries to touch it, inching closer with his fingers.
Then—
His index finger grazes it. A shock. He gasps as memories flood in, into the perspective of another.
A mirror appears in front of him, but he does not recognize his face. An extraordinarily handsome, yet sickly pale man with long, snow-white hair.
Malik peers closer and sees that this unfamiliar face has yellow eyes with hints of green within them.
"Who is this man?" Malik asked himself.
Malik feels entrapped within the reflection, yet nothing feels right.
Is this . . . the man whose name I said? Mashia? It can't be.
. . . He's dead . . .
And it feels like I've known him my whole life. Yet, why am I seeing him?
. . .
I suppose I am no saint either.
Malik stares into the mirror deeply, or is it Mashia?
He lifts up a pale hand in a robotic motion. He points a finger to the mirror as he keeps a somber expression. His finger twitches as it edges closer to the surface of the mirror.
Then his finger grazes it, and it goes through, like breaking the tension of water. His arm goes through, and he feels something—something that grabs him from the other side, embracing his arm. His face begins to become foggy, twirling like a cyclone. All of a sudden, his face transforms.
"There I am," Malik whispers.
He looks down, allowing whatever is behind the mirror to take him.
His body is engulfed, then—
The red rain deafens once more. Malik awakes on the ground, his body sprawled, soaked in blood.
He flips over, staring at his scar. "I am burdened no matter what."
Has the shock from my pain led me to that vision? What did it mean?
He gets up, stomping his boots and dusting off his pants. Clinging to his blade, he has become one with it.
Suddenly, the red mist makes a path for him. At the end, it shows the black beam in the eye of the storm.
Malik marches through the path, his shoulders swaying as he makes his presence known.
I am inside a wound I never healed.
But what seems odd to me is the reason they want to fight. The reason I am forced to kill them all. The rebirth they speak of . . . was the reason I never went past my prison, because I decided to never let go?
If I haven't let them go, what else still burdens me?
. . .
Malik takes a deep breath. Then he looks at what is right in front of him.
Before he knew it, he faces it. If he took another step, he would've been engulfed.
It rotates? It moves in a rather odd motion, absorbing all light around it. Its overwhelming presence corrodes the sky, and even when looking up, its darkness bleeds into the sky. He steps back, taking it all in.
How long has he been walking for? Even he does not know. But what he does know is the phenomenon standing before him.
It had an odd beauty to it, yet it sparked fear within Malik's heart. It pulsed, like his scar.
Malik peered down; it made a crater, but he saw movement. A movement that showed it wasn't still. It was rising from the ground at a pace that deludes an untrained eye. It didn't make a sound, but it whispered to him.
He felt its grace control him, lifting his arm, edging his finger towards it. Into the darkness, his hand submerges.
He closes his eyes, expecting an agony beyond all belief. Instead, he opens them. It brought him to a new feeling. A warm hug that consoled him.
Opening his palms, letting go of all tension, hugging tighter.
A voice crept, reminding him. "Does death hug tighter than life?"
"Can you ever leave me be?" Malik hissed.
. . .
"Open your eyes."
Malik opened his eyes. He felt something snap, something that held them closed. He peered and felt a gnawing on his flesh, a feeling that was drowned out by the warmth as he bled slowly.
"Is this warmth to you?" the Bayonet added.
Malik resisted, shaking off whatever was lacerating his skin. He couldn't see it, but he felt it biting down on him without the intention to ever stop.
Screaming, but all noise was drowned out, gradually he swam through the abyss, but it kept going. He knew he hadn't spent more than a minute there, so why was he so far submerged?
It kept clawing at his flesh; his eyes became red, and his mouth began to bleed. Yet he kept swimming as the abyss sawed at his tendons.
Before he knew it, he reached the end, feeling the red light of the sky again. His hand broke the surface tension of it like a dark lake and—
He was high above. The clouds waved to him, but he fell gracefully.
He speared towards the ground and felt the wind again. He never knew that he'd miss it. He looked at that red sky and never knew that he'd miss it, even if it was just for a second.
Boom!
Instantly, he got up. He hadn't been paying attention, but his body hit the ground sooner than he expected, and his body had no wounds from the altercation.
He still held the blade, but now he pondered.
Frustrated, he went to the abyss again.
In a swift motion, he sliced the darkness. It was like a waterfall in reverse; no matter how he tried to cut it, it would still keep rising.
Then it began bleeding. It leaked black blood, a blood that felt familiar.
Malik stepped back, but he felt as if he had seen it before.
It kept bleeding, profusely, and it kept going without failure. It seeped, blending in with the ground, staining it.
Malik steps away, confused. He stares deeply into the river of darkness blemishing the ground. Even as he stares, his eyes feel like they might submerge in it if he stares for too long.
Suddenly, it spreads, flooding. It begins to submerge all the ground before him, up to his ankles. It tries to grab him from the liquid, but he begins to run. He runs, but the black stains his skin like a tattoo.
He looks at it, but then when he looks up—
The forest? How am I back here?
Nonetheless, it still engulfs him, following after him. It latches onto his flesh this time like a hand, but it maintains its liquid complexity.
He desperately tries to slice it, but its futile.
Malik remembers that hold; he recognizes it instantly. He ponders as the flood begins to submerge him and the forest as a whole. He remembers this feeling again, but this time, it feels like something looms in the abyss.
Someone is watching him within this eternal shadow. He looks around, forcing his eyes open, but to no avail—there is nothing.
Whether the man in the mirror or the man from the grave, they cannot save him. Nobody can.
Then Malik feels something press against his body, pushing him upward.
He feels it, its body too large to scale, and he sees the red lights up close from below the surface.
All of a sudden—
Splash!
Malik feels it detach from him, like the liquid wanted nothing to do with him anymore.
He looks around. Nothing was around except the sky. The ground he embarked on was lost in memory, and the crew he let go was submerged as well.
He feels something moving, that same thing that allowed him the gift of breath, looming from below. His heart beats; he hadn't felt a presence like this since—
Whoosh!
There it emerges.
Fate.
He looks at it closer. It turns out that the black fog reached the sky? Malik had awoken it. He had made it bleed, and it decided to cry. It decided to bring everything in the dark with it.
Its body drowns out the sky. It bellows under the water, but why did it save him? Why didn't it just devour him right there?
Malik followed the sound, but hadn't noticed what was right in front of him.
No.
He sees him. His heart pulses uncontrollably. Walking towards him, a man—a face that he couldn't forget, but one that he'd like to.
His two blind eyes flood his mind, and his stubbled grin glistens. He walks so casually atop the black lake of tears. He carries something; he sways it in his hand, but it appears to be a mirror.
"Hello, Malik. Oh . . . I thought you were my son," he spoke.
Malik tries to climb out of the water, but the surface wouldn't let him stand.
"How are you standing?" Malik asked.
"Who am I to tell you anything? I didn't raise you."
The man walks closer, and he holds the mirror up to Malik's face.
Malik peers into it, and it captures his eyes, forming a new shape.
Warping his face, he sees him again.
A pale man with yellow-green eyes and white hair.
"Actually, I think I've seen you before. You're that killer, aren't you? You'd get along with my children," the man spoke, faintly laughing.
Malik stays silent. His skin grows paler than the man in the mirror. But it daunts him; a flood of questions consume him, to where not a sound could escape.
Instinctively, he uses his blade to slice through the water, breaking its tension.
He dices through the mirror, cleanly severing it in half. It falls into the lake. As both pieces fall, one piece reflects Malik himself, and the other contains the white-haired man, as they both drown.
The man leans down and—
Crack!
He punches Malik between his eyes, breaking his nose, causing it to bleed.
"Gah! What's your problem?" Malik asks, rubbing his nose.
He then looks at his hand, shocked.
The blood on his hands is the same hue as the lake below them.
The blind man inspects his injury. "Oho, my apologies. It appears we're related."
He walks closer to Malik and holds him up by his arm, his ankles still immersed.
"You hold the Bayonet, but are you who you believe you are?"
Suddenly, the man throws Malik far. He crashes into the lake once more, sinking as he struggles to stay afloat.
As Malik barely manages, the blind man stands before him again.
"You accepted that, but you can't accept fate?" he says.
Suddenly, Malik feels something pull him from below, like a group of hands that wouldn't forget him.
"F-father, help!" He shouts without thinking as he splashes helplessly.
"I recall my son to be Malik. You don't appear to be him. Unless you can say you've slain fate."
"I killed it! I definitely killed it! Please, help me!" He begs.
The blind man walks away slowly. He utters one last thing.
"But are you able to do it again?" He chuckles as he fades, blending in with the darkness.
Malik struggles, watching the man drift away into obscurity.
He feels the hands pull him down, but his arms flail in the air, and then he sees it.
It hadn't made a sound coming up.
Fate stared right in Malik's eyes; its eyes were even darker than the lake.
Then it charges.
With its gaping mouth open, it nears him and—
Snap!
. . .
"Malik! Are you okay!"