Chapter 39: Whoosh

  Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Cut. Cut. Time has passed. I do not know how much. Have days passed? Months? Years? There is no time in this black void I built. No sun to announce the beginning, nor moon to announce the end. There is only one rhythm. Whoosh. I was cutting. And cutting.

  At first, every cut was accompanied by a scream. "Cairo!" Whoosh. "Clara!" Whoosh. "Mia!" Whoosh. "Arda!" Whoosh. I was cutting their ghosts, trying to tear apart their memories. But they always returned, staring at me with their dead eyes. Now... I no longer scream. I no longer cry. I no longer laugh. I have become a machine. A metallic body in a black void, performing a single function. Whoosh.

  The only thing that broke this routine was "The Brayer." The Deer. The entity I imprisoned with me. At first, it trembled silently in its corner. But after what seemed like an eon of the sound of my sword, it started going mad. "Stop!" Its voice came into my mind, a mental scream filled with despair. "Please! Stop! This sound! I can't take it! Stop!"

  I stopped cutting for a moment. I turned my metallic head slowly toward it. The darkness was thick, but I could see it. It was banging its head against the walls of my black illusion. Then I smiled. An empty, cold, dead smile. "Hahahaha..." The laugh came out of me dry, like the sound of metal scraping against rust. "Look. It's braying.

  Is this fun? Do you want to play?" "You are a monster! Insane!" "Insane?" I whispered. "No. I am worse."

  I waved my hand. The illusion changed. Suddenly, the Deer was no longer in a black void. It was in the Throne Room, but the corpses rose. Cairo, with his severed, smiling head, began crawling toward it. Clara, in her blood-red dress, crawled toward it from the other side.

  "No! Stay away! Stay away!" The Deer was screaming in my mind as it ran in circles, trying to escape my ghosts. "Yes..." I whispered as I returned to my work. "Very funny." I raised my sword. Whoosh.

  Time passed. Or it didn't. I don't know. My dreams became strange. I no longer slept, but my mind drifted. Once, I found myself in a warm place. I was flying above the clouds. And I was naked. I wasn't alone. She was with me. "Kayla..." She was naked too, in my arms, above the clouds. We were making love.

  But her form was strange. Her skin was red, as if burnt. And her head... was severed. I was embracing a headless body as it whispered words of love to me. And I replied: "You are so beautiful."

  And another time, I dreamed of my son. He wasn't a child. He was a little monster, his eyes golden like mine, wearing a black suit. He held a small black sword, and he was stabbing me with it. Over and over. "Dad! Die! Die!" he screamed. I didn't defend myself. I was laughing with pride.

  "Yes! Like that! Cut! Cut, my son! You are just like me! Cut!" Then I noticed something. My son's head was also severed, floating above his shoulders as he stabbed me. "Oh," I said in the dream. "It seems I killed you first. What a pity."

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Even my brother, "Robin." I saw him. He was in that dark wedding hall. He was very angry, never smiling. He was playing with "Kayla's" severed head. Kicking it like a football on the marble floor. "Why her?" he muttered angrily as he ran after the head. "Why not me? Why did you leave me?

  Why didn't you cut me too?" I watched him from the shadows with distorted sadness. "Brother, you don't understand. Cutting is the only solution." I loved these dreams. They were comforting. Whoosh.

  More time passed. I began to forget. One day, I stopped cutting. "Who... who is Kayla?" I tried to remember her face. All I saw was a severed head, and two empty black eyes. "It doesn't matter." I raised my sword. Whoosh. Who am I talking to now? Am I crazy? I laughed.

  "No. Madmen think they are great. I am not great." "I am worse." "I am scum." "I am walking trash. A foolish ape. Cursed. Scum." Yes. That is me. I no longer needed to cry or scream. I accepted my identity. Whoosh.

  Sometimes, I would stop cutting and step out of my dark prison. Not because I wanted to see reality, but because my "Lazy Friend" hated the mess. I stood in the ruined dining hall. Quietly, I began to work.

  I rearranged the chairs around the decaying corpses that were still sitting at the tables. I wiped the dust off a plate of dry soup. I saw the wooden golem toy lying on the floor. I picked it up. I walked to the corpse of the little child who had dropped it.

  I placed the toy gently in his dead, stiff hand. I looked around. The place is tidy now. The corpses are organized. I returned to the darkness. Whoosh.

  Then, on a day unlike any other, the routine broke. I was cutting, and suddenly... Clank! My black sword hit something. Something physical. I opened my eyes. The darkness was still around me, but in front of me stood a man.

  An adventurer wearing leather armor, his ordinary steel sword shattered in half from the impact, trembling in terror. "How... how did you get in here?" I whispered. He penetrated the illusion I built. I smiled.

  "A visitor." I didn't kill him. No, that would be boring. "Do you like games?" I asked him. I waved my hand. The illusion changed. We were no longer in darkness. We were in the furnace room, and before us was the "Salamander" with its fiery roar. "Kill it," I told the trembling adventurer. "And you will live."

  I watched him fight desperately. It was funny.

  And when the adventurer was finally defeated, and fell to the floor dying, I saw the Deer. It was trying. It was slowly trying to take control of the dying adventurer's body, to wear his skin and escape. "Bad," I said.

  "Very bad." I walked toward the body. I grabbed it. I felt the Deer's soul twisting inside. I squeezed my hand, forced its soul out of the dead body, and returned it to its animal form. "Didn't I tell you to bray?"

  This became my new game. Every now and then, "intruders" would find their way into my illusion. I made them fight my memories. The Salamander. The Sentinel. Even a weak version of "The Lazy One." And they always lost. And the Deer always tried to escape. And I always brought it back. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

  One day, the Deer came and sat beside me. It didn't bray. It didn't tremble. It just sat, and watched me cutting. A very long silence. I ignored it. Whoosh. "Stop." Its voice came into my mind, not a scream, but a calm command. I stopped cutting.

  I looked at it. "Don't you know how much time has passed?" "Time doesn't matter here." "A lot of time has passed... at least since I sat here, a year has passed." A year? Haha. It feels like yesterday. "Stop. Please. Stop. Aren't you tired? Don't you get tired?

  " Tired? This body does not get tired. "Don't you want to stop? I can help you. I can make you rest... and cut... at the same time." I stopped for a moment. Rest? I looked at the black sword in my hand. I remembered the smiling face of one of my brothers.

  I remembered her rolling head. Rest? I laughed. A quiet, empty laugh, cold as the heart of a dead star. "I do not deserve rest." I raised my sword. "Go and bray." Whoosh.