Nevermore

[Travisty 1020]

 

𓆩༺𓅇༻𓆪

⟡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  ༓༒︎༻𓅇༺༒︎༓  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⟡

 

“AS I WAS, SO I AM. AS I AM, SO I SEE.”
∘₊༒︎──────༒︎₊∘∘₊༒︎──────༒︎₊∘∘₊༒︎──────༒︎₊∘

 

Hanzo ran until the wind scraped the breath from his lungs and the snow tore at his skin like tiny blades. The mountains swallowed him without hesitation, their white peaks like the teeth of some slumbering beast, ridges barren and vast. There was no shelter, no trail. Only endless, punishing cold. He thought maybe solitude would help. That far from the noise, the people, the lives he had ruined, he might find clarity. But even there, it followed.

 

In the wind, he heard them. Pleading. Mocking. Cawing. “COWARD”, “TRAITOR”, "DISGRACE”. He stumbled, again and again, blood painting red into the snow. He lost count of the falls. Lost track of time. Of hunger. Of sleep. His blindfold nearly froze to his face at one point, leaving him no choice but to tear it off even though he didn’t want to know if the darkness behind it was real, or if those who wished him dead lay waiting on the other side. There were moments he almost convinced himself that he could move on. That he could start over somewhere, bury the past. 

 

But how dare he?

 

How dare he, even for a breath, believe he was owed a new life? That the power he bargained for, the visions he bled for, could be left behind? That the price he paid could be walked away from? He had chosen this. He fell to his knees in the snow; blind eyes cast towards the sky he could no longer see. The cold gnawed at his limbs, cracked his lips, froze his tears before they could fall. He was shaking, not from cold, but exhaustion. From a guilt that hollowed him out like carrion left to rot. 

 

“Is this what you wanted?” He snarled to no one, “Is this what my sacrifice bought?!”

 

There was no answer. Only wind. Only ice. 

 

He screamed. A raw, animalistic howl. Loud enough to tear his throat. Loud enough to shake the cliffs.

 

“I gave you everything! I spent decades without vision, only to have it taken away again! I let them HATE me! What more do you want from me?!” 

 

He didn’t know who he was speaking to anymore; he didn’t know whether the Lords heard him, whether the Hells cared enough to listen to his desperation. But in that moment, it didn’t matter to him who he cried out to because he could no longer take the silence. He couldn’t take the memories. He collapsed, face pressed to the snow. He wished he would die there. Not with honor, not with grace, just end. But something heard him. It crept in slowly. First came warmth. Then sound. No longer just wind and voices, but whispers behind the whispers. Speech without words. He tried to crawl, but his limbs felt detached. Heavy. Disconnected from his own body. The darkness behind his eyes stirred.

 

It shifted.

                   It breathed.

                                         And then, in his dreams, he saw. 

 

Not with sight, but through it. A lightless world layered beneath the real one. A vision of shapes without form, of eyes without sockets, of masks floating in the void. Hundreds. Thousands. All watching. All waiting. And in the center, one immense shape. A wheel, ever turning. An eye fixated upon him. A faceless figure donning a great veil of ever-shifting masks, bleeding ink and shadow, it was impossible in size yet felt close enough to touch. In its presence, Hanzo felt he understood. Not a word was uttered, voices muffled as the indomitable wheel creaked loudly, deafeningly, in its eternal spin.

 

There would be no redemption. There would be no rest. Only CLARITY.

When he woke, the snow had buried his legs. His robes were torn. His hands, blistered and stained with blood, twitched at his sides. The wind was finally quiet, but the voices were not. The difference was that he now understood them. He could only laugh, softly at first, then louder. A broken, hoarse, thing barely human. It echoed throughout the mountains, a sound unfit for the living. He pulled a scrap of cloth from his belt and wrapped it around his eyes. The darkness no longer belonged to him. It watched through him. 

 

And it would never look away. 

 

∘₊༒︎──────༒︎₊∘∘₊༒︎──────༒︎₊∘∘₊༒︎──────༒︎₊∘