Story:Kings of Strife/Int 2

Intermission Two
She was in the dark plane again.

Things had changed. She was cold, very cold, shivering. Maria looked down, wondering why she was so freezing, and found herself without clothes. She stood up quickly and wrapped her arms around her chest and crossed her legs, her feet trembling on the hard black and purple tiles. It was still dark, darker than ever, but she knew what colors the floor tiles were. Somehow. The same way she knew that the plane she was on was endless, and impossible to escape from.

This was unusual. Something was missing. In all the recent times she's had this dream, this nightmare, there was something that was missing now. Something that was usually always there, usually always nagging at the back of her mind. She began to walk in a random direction, her cold skin barely making noise on the floor. She searched for it, with her mind and her eyes, searching for the thing that was missing.

Soon she wasn't cold anymore, she noticed. Maria didn't move her hands from her chest and kept one hand over her crotch, but it wasn't to shiver, now. Her hair was no longer in its long braid, she also realized, and it cascaded down her shoulders and to her butt. She held her breasts still as she walked. Deep, dark feelings were holding her tight, keeping her from properly thinking. Even as she became more and more lucid, something was missing. What should have happened...didn't.

She was trapped, she knew that for sure. The darkness was everywhere, when she closed her eyes and when she opened them, and her heart was adamant that there was no way out. Just darkness, just void...but that couldn't be right. There was someone she was supposed to be with. This wasn't the place for her. And just like that, as she thought it, a spear of sunlight pierced the horizon. A warmth spread down her back, and she whirled around, some hair getting in her face. There was a dot, a tiny dot, but it was there, far far away. It was bright. At first she staggered towards it, but she soon began to run towards the light. Towards the feelings.

There was a wind now, something different in this void. It was still cold, still freezing and frigid, but it was painful. Her life's warmth began to drip and drop. It was comforting how she could warm herself up, but it hurt. Was that was this was, pain? Maria numbly thought of it, examining the situation and her actions. Why was she running again...? What was going on?

The light got no closer, but it began to brighten the void she was trapped in. It confirmed that the floor was indeed made of what looked like black and white tiles - it was cold and hard like steel, like everything else in this place. But she wasn't quite alone; giant spear-like objects pierced the ground and faced upwards to the black ceiling. Was it a sky, an atmosphere? Black clouds, a black sun? Space? Questions, endless questions, they never stopped coming, and it was beginning to hurt like the cuts that the wind gave her.

And then there was a shadow. Maria slowed to a stop, panting lightly and watching the pitch black figure in front of her. Her blood made a pitter-patter on the floor and pooled at her feet. They were cold again. The shadow was a girl, curvy and of the same height as Maria. The girl was immobile, and Maria looked around for a second. The tall spears had feathers at the ends that pointed to the sky and it occurred to her that they were arrows. Arrows that pierced her land? Was it a dartboard, was she...another target? That word was familiar and sent waves of pain through her head. What did that mean?

Now the girl in front of her moved. Maria's eyes moved and caught the eyes of the girl cloaked in shadow. The darkness seemed to move with her, traveling and moving like a wave, and then it was a cloak. Yes, the other girl was wearing a pitch black cloak that stood out from the light behind her, but besides that she was naked as well. Unlike Maria she had no shame apparently, and stood with her hands on her hips, her body out in the open. Maria blushed, but she didn't know why. She forced herself to look up from the ground again and stare at the other girl, and was shocked to see her large, blood red eyes. Her skin was pale, extremely pale, and her eyes were wide and unforgiving, hardy. Her hair was short, bangs roughly cropped to frame her angular face. She stared at Maria with an undiscernable expression.

The two looked at each other for a moment before the cloaked one spoke. "Why have you awoken? Your time has passed. Return to the abyss where you came from. I am the true one here." Her words were harsh and demanding, cold yet seething with...something. Maria didn't budge. Something told her not to budge an inch. The cloaked one's frown intensified and she took a step forward. "You truly are despicable."

There.

That word...despicable. Maria's eyes widened and her arms cradled each other involuntarily. Why was that word so chilling...? It brought back memories, memories of a darker time, of everything she'd been missing, of her fear and her emptiness and how he had just opened up to her and how she was gone, gone forever. She looked up at the red-eyed individual, her own dark brown eyes narrowed with determination. Is that what it was...determination? Yes, she told herself. Her cuts didn't hurt anymore and the cold was gone. Her own inferiority, her own despicable self, had liberated her from this crawling darkness.

Now Maria stood proudly, hands out to the side. She took a step from the small blood pool that had lapped around her, making vermilion footprints in the tiles. She was strong, confident, she felt power, and she would be damned if she didn't use it to take back what she wanted. The cloaked girl took a step back, confused but still angry. After this moment of hesitation, she took another step forward and crossed her arms at her breasts. The light was very intense now, coming from everywhere, and heat was radiating among the black ceiling. The arrows were flaming now, their passion on fire and threatening to burn through the atmosphere.

Maria stopped walking and stood in defiance four paces from her cloaked counterpart. Now they both summoned shadows, shadows that overlapped each other from opposite directions. The light was so very hot. Maria spoke, ignoring her aching throat's dryness. "No. I refuse. I reject. My life is my own, and I'm going to live it. Without you." Her hands clenched into fists and she lifted her chin a little bit, a sign of her sheer rejection. She would not be backing down. He wouldn't let her.

The one with the red eyes tilted her head, the bangs on her face now slightly moving downward. Her mouth was ajar and her expression was one of amusement. It was mostly blank. "Your rebellious nature...I do not understand it. From where do you evoke such emotion in your empty shell?" Maria suddenly felt self-conscious, her arms threatening to cover herself again. This was difficult, and she suddenly felt light, as if the next breeze would pull her with it and drag her back down into the despicable darkness. It was moving as fast as ever, but it cut her no more, and she did not move.

"N-no. No! I am not an empty shell. I am Maria, I am Maria Zorphanul! Now you move out of my way and let me wake up and go back to him...let me go back to my life!"

"What life?" The pale girl spoke with such conviction, such pure detached confidence, that the weight of despair fell on Maria's shoulders once again. What did that mean? Why was this happening to her? Maria fell to her knees and could almost feel the pale girl looking down at her now. She struggled to stand up, but now she was on her hands and knees. How disgraceful, how weak, how despicable. Why couldn't she hold on to her strength? "You are nothing more than a failure in my composition. You do not exist."

She was cold, Maria was cold again. The fires went out in an instant, and the darkness came and with it came the cold. The breeze continued to stab at her with little pins and needles. Tears fell to the black and purple checkerboard floor and mixed with blood. First her resolve, now she was simply wasting away in the dust. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. But...why? Where had she gone wrong? Why couldn't she just be strong enough...?

And then the pain came, strong and rushing through her abdomen like a bull's horns. The object, sharp and cold like a blade, stabbed through her back and out of her stomach, finding its way in the floor. She was impaled and lost all energy, but falling downwards was more pain, so she held herself up in her position, keeping the agony to a minimum. Her brain wanted to shut down, she wanted to sleep, forever and ever, but he was there, still there in the back of her mind keeping her awake. She was definitely losing it now, all strength and pain and weakness and power fading away, but he was still there. His black cloak was still visible in the darkness, but he wasn't. She couldn't even remember his face or his name. That hurt more than everything else.

The pale girl's feet walked away from where they stood to impale her. Click clack click clack went the pale feet, the same size as hers but so much colder and whiter. Not exposed to the sun. Not under his watch. The pale girl's emotionless - yet aggressive - voice rang out through the now empty void. "You do not exist. You are an absence of eternity. Ah, so I'm awake..." Was she speaking to her?

"At the first moment of your experience, you were an affirmation of creation, a weak and wriggling larva in the ecosystem of life." More talking, she didn't even understand it anymore, what did it all mean? The girl was far away now, so far away that Maria couldn't even squint and see her pale feet anymore, but her voice was as clear as ever in Maria's ears.

"But nonexistent none the less. You never happened, you were never meant to happen. Just a failed conglomerate of some of my damaged traits. And now that you have been suppressed, I am whole. I am complete. What you felt no longer matters." Was she speaking to her anymore, or observing something? How did this malevolent entity know so much about her? Was she speaking...the truth?

"Psychological wrinkles. Lunacy, dementia, paranoia, fear, love, loneliness, panic, emptiness, hope, power, pain, destruction, death, rebirth, universe..." She was talking fast, very fast, and Maria could hardly understand it anymore. She gasped with agony. An obscene amount of blood pooled everywhere and her hands and feet were beginning to slip. The blade was painful, it was hurting, everything was pain and nothing was left...! Things were getting mixed up, colors, stars, emotions, the words of the pale girl, shattered memories and broken promises...It was too much. Maria closed her eyes, hoping they would never open again in this dark labyrinth of her flaws. The pale girl's words snaked through Maria's ears one more time, going in one ear and curving around to devour the tail at the end of the other.

"Nobody can love you."

...End of Second Intermission.

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