Breathing. Painful. Heavy.
The blood flowed quietly, like a stream at dusk. I looked around, she wasn't there. Ai is gone. So, yes, it was made from the same material as all her lies, illusoriness. Damned falseness, looking as if you could touch it.
And yet I knew. Not with certainty, but knowledge stirred somewhere deep down. Wasn't it clear, a deception remains a deception, no matter how practical and alive it seems. You can touch it and not feel it.
She's been gone for a long time. The memories have long been hidden. The past is far away. Forgotten.
Can I blame myself for missing that past? I don't know, but I know for sure, I feel my weakness. Weakness in failing to hold onto the most precious thing.
What a pity. And this is a deity?
Would a deity allow what is dear to it to disappear forever, without a chance of return? Is a deity a being that lets go of what is most precious just like that?
Then what is a deity?
People usually think, a deity decides everything. Financial problems, spiritual questions, everyday trifles, everything is in its power. Imagine, there is a being that can do everything. Doesn't it transcend matter? Isn't it transcendent?
And if someone wondered "why do we need?" We exist, therefore we need something. If god created us in his own image, doesn't that mean he also needs? Need gives birth to action. Hence, could humanity be the result of someone's need?
Or why do we ourselves always want something? Is life good because it has a constant feeling of need, and much of what is desired is inaccessible? Maybe the Creator wanted to dull his own need. Wait, is he also capable of experiencing what is given to people? Feelings? Weaknesses?
Animals and people aren't so different. We want, we need. Without this, we cannot survive. A cycle, a chain. A closed circle.
If a deity lives by the same rules, needs, acts, repeats, doesn't it turn into insignificance? Not into divinity, but into something absurd?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!
— Aha-gha-ha-kha-ha! — her laughter, as usual, piercingly annoying.
— How quickly you can be swayed by a thought! — she said, and her voice was light, like a knife. — So, you are like everyone else. Trash. An insignificance.
Life.
Cycle.
Circulation.
Needs.
Cyclicality.
Constancy.
— Tell me this, were you really clinging to predetermination? Then, knowing, did you accept it as inevitability? — the witch said with excitement. — Let me guess, you thought that mere brute force would change everything?
They say everything is predetermined by someone above. But imagine, you have the power to rule the fates of others and yet you yourself are in shackles? A paradox, right?
You should be free. But what if this freedom is a new chain? You realized your power and it is immediately stronger than it was.
The path stretches, you walk, the step looked back upon disappears, not because it wasn't there. It simply dissolves in the expanding space.
Fate — a word that sounds like a verdict. Like a sentence. Is it born within us or outside us? An object or a subject? I don't know. But I want to know more.
That which is unattainable. To touch. To see.
Without seeing, you won't understand the form, without knowing the form, you won't understand the essence. Energy? A person?
— Are you still trying to fight it? — the witch interrupts my thoughts, as if she is bored listening to my inner phrases.
— So, you are desperately trying to give fate a form, an animated form, — she continued, and her voice held mockery. — Because you have never met it.
A pause. A pause that makes even silence fall silent.
— Isn't it something that cannot be seen and touched? — she added, with the same tone.
— If even my strength wasn't enough to fight against it, then what is it, if not a person? — I answered. Words, like shouts in an empty hall, I wanted the whole world to hear the truth.
— Who said your strength is worth anything? — the witch, coldly, almost contemptuously. — Try to understand, you are insignificant.
(Filthy whore!)
— I would gladly see what you are made of, if I were in better shape! — I forced out and immediately, as if testing her, added. — It's convenient to hide behind the rules of your own game.
(Yes, convenient).
— Trying to dull your insignificance? — she threw arrogantly. — But even without rules, I would be in no danger from a pathetic piece of shit like you!
A sharp sting. A word that hit the mark.
— Let's drop this topic. Let's return to the beginning. To where I am the predator. Where I must maul the wounded prey! — she said with self-satisfaction.
— Be my guest, — I answered.
(Don't think I'm so easy to defeat).
She threw a figurine, like in a game. Where every number is your loss.
If this is a family dinner, well, fine. You can't get me with this.
But…
W-what the…
Surprise.
A question.
A memory.
A deception.
A relic of the past.
And somewhere there, beneath these words, something stirred. Something that returns, although I thought I had buried it forever.