IT CRAWLS. IT MOVES.

[erside]

I'M SCARED I'LL FALL ASLEEP.



It looks at me with bated breath. I know it does.
It's waiting for me to make the wrong move.
Ambition whispers to me in low tones,
It tells me to soar higher than what I am now,
but I'm scared of falling.

I don't need to move to do the things I want to do in life.
If I start moving, it might notice I'm alive.
I'm so far from home, but I see its wings.
Wide Sun-Eclipsing Wings
Ivory and Sanguine colors.
His Abyssal Majesty's burning eyes.

We will surely be devoured.
I can feel its gaze crawl under my skin.
I can feel its disdain for my insubordination from so far away.
I hate sleeping. If I sleep, I am not serving my masters properly.
If I fail my masters, then it will surely devour me.

I'm scared of falling, but dream of wings to take me higher.
I want to go so high his gaze won't reach me anymore.
But it seeps through my veins already,
I can feel it wanting to get out, trying to find its way through my flesh.
I want it out.
I want it out.
I want it out.

I am stuck, in a labyrinth of my own making. My chains, my ambition. My freedom..
To be one of Ifrit.
To be one with demons, before they can devour me.

[erside]

I NEED TO WAKE UP.

... Have you ever been trapped in a prison of mirrors?
It is a revealing experience regarding oneself. Regarding one's own psyche and their potential.

I hate mirrors.

Alas it is all one can do at a time. Stare into the mirrors, endless reflections that bounce off one another in hopes that it will eventually result in the culmination we hoped.

But it never does turn out to be different.

When I look into the mirror. I see myself as smart.
I'm a genius, and maybe the rest of the world can't see that reflection. That is their fault for also hating mirrors.

I must be a genius afterall. I know things.

I saw things, how my reflection decays.
my reflection betrays.
my reflection prevails
my reflection unveils.
my reflection becomes.

And when I open my eyes.


...
I hate mirrors.

I wonder if perhaps it uses mirrors to watch me?
                                                                      mock me?
                                                                             taunt me?
                                                                         become me?

I must be smart.

Who else could peer into the matter of the unsoul? To advance and make such strides in demonology.

 Peer through the veils and cracks that our world makes for us to abuse.
to consume.
to presume.
to
....

The fire in that gaze. I wonder if it is watching me.

If it knows that I don't like it. If it knows what I would do if it gave me the chance to. It probably doesn't like it.

I wouldn't like it if I was watching me either. This arm of mine aches still. It hurts
and burns
and spurs
and churns
and breathes

I wonder if this loss of mine will result in me being devoured?
Before I can become one with you.
Ifrit.

[erside]

"When I was young, I decided that I would like to burn as bright as the very sun."

... Indras. You will haunt me no longer. Not now. Not tomorrow. No more shall I dream and see you there, with your gaze upon me.
                                                                                           No more shall I stand and wait for you to devour this world whole.
                                                                                                  No more shall I do nothing while there are still deeds to undo.

Ifrit. You who have given me your blade. Who has believed in me, to be your champion.
Today I bring you news. Humanity has won, victorious. I, their general, was able to give a path for them to take.
Take it they have. Soon enough, the Atrellyan forces will be neutered, and their strength set back a thousand years in the past.

".. I burnt like the sun. Did you see me shine?"

Lykon. My flame and yours, both will die out. Our names will be struck by history, as they have so many other times before.
But that is not necessarily something bad. You were a great devourer, and a terror upon Eternia. You were on the cusp of more.
I suppose it is only ironic, that we both fall to the brink of the enlightenment, and the hubris that took us there in the first place.

Felice.
...
...
...
...
I'm sorry for breaking our promise. I'll make it up to you the next time we see eachother, alright?

"... as brightly as I could.
.. with the most power I could manage.
... the fate of what happens next, is no longer up to me."


... In the end, I became what I wanted.
I am Ifrit, though not the first.
A symbol, of a vile-man, made-warrior penitent.
Even now, I haven't truly died out yet.

For the sun will rise tomorrow just as it has all those other days before mine.
One must only wait..



"For that Sun, to rise again."