–Albert–
[Eons ago, among a desolate world stricken by war and hate, roamed a journeyman.]
My heart ached. I could only wish for the freedom, but I knew deep down, I deserved it.
Above me, the stars stretched across a darkened sky like cracks in the shell of the heavens. Somewhere nearby, I could hear the echoes of screams.
My legs burned with every step as I pressed forward, driven by a need that consumed me.
There was a place I had to reach, and even if it cost my breath, my blood, or my soul, I would reach it.
I leaned on a crooked stick, worn and broken from the limb of a dying tree, dragging my body through the choking sand.
I lifted my blackish brown scarf and wrapped it tighter around my face, shielding myself from the storm that bit through flesh.
Despite the pain, I moved onward.
In this world, hatred is a plague. It seeps into the hearts of those who see too much.
The path beyond hate lies far beyond the reach of men. I have come to believe that all humans are evil.
We are vile. We are cruel.
Morality is a mirror shattered by delusion. Kindness is no longer a trait, but a fable.
And those few who carry its light are cast into darkness, their compassion stripped away like tattered robes in the wind.
The ones who seek the silence of death are not kind.
The ones who offer gifts and whisper of love are not kind.
The ones who help, who cherish, who hold hands in trembling sincerity, they too are not kind.
There is no innocence in this world.
Innocence is a gift given only to the freshly born, the untouched mutts of the earth. But even in their birth, they are tainted.
My own innocence unraveled the moment I loved.
For that love chose me.
And in doing so, revealed a cruel truth.
There are no innocents.
No one is worthy of the mercy of life. None deserves the freedom promised by death.
Yet still, I do not want to die.
I sobbed as my tears vanished into the wind.
Eventually, I stumbled across an oasis, a false paradise nestled in the dunes.
Trees loomed wide over green grass, and the sound of water danced in the distance. I ran toward it, desperate, wild, until the river came into view.
I hovered above its surface, ready to fall into its promise, until I realized the truth.
It was an illusion.
I glanced around, then scoffed.
"Is this the best you can do? I am a journeyman. There is nowhere I cannot tread. Even amid the plague of life and the worship of death, I will keep reaching."
I screamed as the dream shattered.
The water blackened into blood.
The trees crumbled into towers of corpses.
The grass peeled away to reveal layers of rotted skin.
I stood, trembling, disgusted by the illusion. Then I sighed and stepped forward, letting myself fall into the pool of crimson.
I drowned in that blood. I swallowed death. I laughed until my lungs filled with rot and despair. Madness began to take hold, until something pulled at me.
A tug.
A force.
A presence.
It lifted me gently from that ruin.
What happened next was shrouded in haze. Only one thing remained clear, those pale, white eyes.
When I opened mine again, I was no longer below.
I stood above it all, upon a pedestal carved among the clouds, watching the world in its endless turning.
From this height, I saw it again, the storm of hate, the dance of pain.
I laughed until I wept, and wept until I fell silent, watching as rain, hail, snow, wind, fire, darkness, and lightning tore through the sky.
Then I saw him.
He stood at the heart of it all, upon a floating pedestal. He was above all things. His black hair stirred in the wind.
White streaks ran through it like cracks in sanctity. His skin was tan, worn by time. And his eyes, those pale, endless eyes, shook me to my soul.
"You are a wanderer," he said, his voice trembling like prophecy, divine and cruel, righteous and mad. "But may I give you a name?"
I smiled. "Why would a human need a name?"
He tilted his head in thought, then reached forward and pressed two fingers to my forehead.
He laughed as he spoke.
"Albert. Yes. You are Albert. The first human I've seen with a heart."
And in that instant, I felt relief.
Everything changed.
I began to believe in something beyond the end.
Why must life be endured just to feel free?
Why do I crave escape, yet cling to breath?
What have I done to deserve either?
I saw the truth: as long as I yearned for life even while fated to die, I would never truly perish.
I chose to live.
Not for myself.
But for him.
A divine angel, perhaps. Or something far stranger. When I looked upon his back, I saw wings, black, vague, like the outline of a crow.
A crow who wandered not to feast upon the dead, but to consume death itself.
In doing so, he granted us release.
It was not I who lived, but I who had died.
And he, with his pale eyes, had led me back from the edge.
A paradox was born.
I was both dead and alive.
And that contradiction was my freedom.
That was when I gained a Memory.
It was not a moment, but a sensation, a flame branded upon the soul.
I saw an ocean, endless, crowned beneath a shattered sky.
To the left, calm waves shimmered with starlight, silent, serene.
To the right, chaos roared. Waves crashed like titans against broken rocks, fierce and violent.
And between them stood a figure. One foot steeped in peace, the other in fury.
That figure was me.
It was not a dream.
It was the truth of my being.
The balance between extremes. The breath between death and life. The peace forged by conflict.
This was my Memory.
This was my name. I was something akin to a duality.
[Faded away the world drifts back into the present where he has cast his gaze upon his core and smiled.]
***
–Nicholas–
I looked down at Albert and recalled the events that had transpired. I could only smile and stand.
I stepped back and allowed myself to spread the wings he had longed to reach.
Black, feathery wings, akin to those of a crow, sprouted from my back.
Everyone else stood back, their eyes watching me in awe as I reached out my hand.
Through his pain and despair, Albert reached back. As his arm stretched out, his body rapidly began to age backwards.
When he finally reached me, he looked exactly as he did when I first met him.
This was the immortality I had given him, huh?
My gift to this man, was it really a heart in which gave him breath, a power which allowed him to scream?
What an annoying person I was, and how reliant he had become.
They all stared in confusion as his entire outfit changed as well.
He wore the same thing as before, his scarf, greyish-black cloak, curved yellow sword, and brown hilt.
I smiled at him as he stretched and cracked his back.
"Damn, that felt so good."