A prelude

[Shinova]

A prelude, as the title suggests, to things that may come.




Prelude

Shinova



The inevitable had arrived. Sounds of weapon fire and explosions heralded its coming. It would be mere minutes before destiny broke through the final barricade and destroyed his body as it had done so with his spirit years ago.

He felt nauseous. He wanted to vomit his internal organs out through every orifice in his body for the world to witness the sheer absurdity of it all. He had learned long ago that destiny had a flair for madness.

All he had wanted was revenge. Half his life spent under the grind of occupation forces, self-occupied tyrants, an absent family, and friends in name only. Not long ago he had finally found the means to his revenge. Then his means breathed life of its own one day and took control of his life as contemptuously as people, political forces, and mere circumstances had done so many times already.

He had felt a special kind of sickness back then. He had wanted to kill himself, but even that was deprived from him. The universe conspired to make a mockery of him.

And now he felt that same sickness once more. This was where it all culminated. All his years of pain and suffering turned numb over time. Madness that infused every fiber of everything he laid eyes on, from the mocking faces to the tools of death in his hands that controlled him more than he controlled them.

A black dawn was coming. A meaningless existence culminating in a meaningless end in a war and world without meaning. It was a perfect reflection of the void in his heart, one that could not be filled with a lifetime's worth of bullets or lasers.

===


Somehow he had fled farther than the others. The sounds of the inevitable were quieter here, but not silent. His feet crushed gravel as he stepped deeper into the catacombs under this world steeped in lost history. The glyphs and writings on the walls became more frantic as he walked on---and then they too fell silent. Once again, his only companions were his own lonely footsteps and the sounds of the inevitable chewing through his fellow soldiers far away.

He rounded the final corner. And saw it. His weapon fell through his frozen fingers. His gaze lay transfixed. For one moment, the sounds of destiny failed to fall on his ears, and for one moment everything else in life and the universe didn't matter. His world was himself and it.

It saw him. Echoes like a soft song drifted through his thoughts.

Come.

Embrace your dream.

He opened his arms wide and embraced his dream, letting it fill the void of his heart. It sang a soft song, and he sang with it. He emerged, wielding it as his testament.

And destiny fled in terror at the sight of him.