CHAPTER IX — A Beast Risen Amid Ashes

I have never died, not even during at my most desperate, desperate moments during death.

They do not know--they could never guess--that I disobeyed the Angel of Death itself, and gently told him,

I never was and never will be yours like this.

Such am I, here,--here,--here crawler, such am I,--being born in cold ashes of the good that ran within me, long ago.

This goodness is gone, and without any clarion call, or any farewell, there was really nothing left to fill that empty gap which is cruel and uncompromising.

Trust ye me I will be merciful to thee?

No. Compassion which dwelt in my heart is long gone and mercy spread with it.

It is at this point where a creature lures in the darkness, all that is left in the darkness is to find an image of itself.

This time, I was a captive and I have been imprisoned in my own mind, my prison was a wall made by my hands.

a creature hewn and split, with two visages: that of a demon to the outer world; and of a brute wild man to my own inner being.

I was haunted by dreams; I was haunted by nightmares; silent visitors,they followed me day and night.

I stretched my mind and eventually gave up my throne and broke my pride.

Be not mistaken, that it was a sign of weakness, to have so surrendered, because, in quitting, there lay a fearful power.

I formed a mirror inside of me that is uncompromising and cold and accepts me in all my brokenness.

That glass is where I can see the most accurate, a bestial creature behind the thin veil of the human face.

I forced an angelic soul to come down at the cost of my emotional soul.

I learned that there is something about the depth in humankind, that is thin veil only.

under which blood oozes gradually through wounds too, old, too, raw, and too deep to open ever.

And then?

I disappeared in the confusion of experiences that wanted to connect and be understood.

But the ship I held On board was empty and broken,

its sides were lined with fissures, & when I ventured near the least touch caused it to bleed.

I felt the then that I was a loser at this inhumane game,

And yet, in my defeat, a triumph not to be seen in the eyes of the world--a silent triumph.

Fate in its inexorable will had selected me, even before.

It woulded my triumph too, and yet it was and is an impossible paradox.

The boat and the mirror which I so painstakingly made held to a stubborn faith in eternal good.

As naive as that sounds, I said to myself, there is still some light left in humanity.

And that faith sapped me, sucked the life out of me, as it is making me doubt everything I previously believed in.

As a matter of nature, I am selfish and savage.

Why I tried to fade into the mass of you, I cannot say, maybe once my family did the same; they held me close, wrapped in cosiness.

I lied myself into thinking that there was some kind of warmth waiting outside of those walls in the rest of the world.

I had the dream of change.

However, things turned out to be the opposite; that I am a hunter.

And then there are predators to be kept in check before it eats up all things in its wake.

But where is that to?

I walked on a precipice of cracking.

that tremulous being scarce held together with hands.

But you never realised there was a clue to evil itself in my death.

You brought it back when you knew not its coming, and now it comes back,

not just to forget that which has passed, but be reborn stronger and more merciless than ever it was.

There is no abyss in this world and there is no peak.

The hilltop may dissolve into chasm and the chasm may turn into hill.

Such the inhuman justice of things.

This is self-punishment and self retaliation combined.

Thou hast called torments and slumbering demons to rest in me.

And now I come to thy dreams,

To empty your souls out,

to show that the animal was not, as it always seemed, actually dead,

waiting only patiently enough to get its throne back, once a moment has come.