Preface
Time – an unquantifiable, powerful influence in mortal life.
Most of the time, it would lay quietly by our side, watching us while we mature and learn from everything we have done during its endless tolls. But then again, we could never escape the ironies that the gods bestowed upon us, for the sins of our forefathers turned time itself into one of our greatest enemies.
It is the reason why we could never hold someone dear to us eternally. Feeling like a thousand summers, never aware of the fall that is yet to come. Time had been marking our limits, a great scar that each of us has; so I dare say there is no forever – it is just a word invented to suffice man’s want to beat his rival.
How could I say these words that I look so much like an antagonist of nature?
Try grasping nothing, something that has departed. Try walking blinded in a path you have never encountered before. Try loving so much and then suddenly become empty, suddenly succumb to oblivion. Then try… just try… meeting Death himself. After all of that, try to give an answer to the question that you’ll soon ask yourself.
Just wait and it’ll happen. My fate could be the same as yours.
PROLOGUE:
Threaded
One. Two. Three.
My chest heaved as I counted my empty heart beats… Its harmony’s slowly regressing into an unsteady, silent place, waiting for the final note to take its toll. I don’t know if I’ll survive this. Maybe this place is what they call hell, for the air was full of stench of lost souls, and the demons’ murmurs sounded like a lullaby that caressed me to go to the depths of oblivion. Inferno is everywhere; and there I was, standing inside circle of my fate, waiting for the judgment to come.
“Clyd…” A voice hissed on my ears. “Clyd, Clyd, Clyd…”
As the calls prolonged, an excruciating pain hit me– I was being suffocated, like an invisible snake coiled around me. “Stop it… STOP!”
I forced myself to speak to my unknown assailant as the grip tightened around my chest. “What do you want from me?”
A trilling laughter resounded. “Don’t be such a baby.”
From the darkness, several hooded creatures emerged, hissing and taunting me to come to the shadows. Red slits served as eyes for each of them, complementing their white, marble faces. To this point, it was as if I was a lion being hunted, a once predator down; there is no point to escape, I know it. If I was to die, to be killed, I don’t want to prolong the agony– it is too much for self sacrifice.
A woman slid out of the group, wearing a sadistic smile on her face. She was carrying a thread, and she held it out to me.
“Clyd, Clyd… What have you done my dear? You’ve savaged your own thread, and yet your soul begs to stay… You have no life ahead of you yet you have no death.” She touched my face and traced the contours of my lips and sighed. “Why?”
She stared at me while I cannot answer for my own sake. My last memories were of self inflicted torture, of holding those hands… her hands… as I breathed my last…
I closed my eyes to avoid her knowing gaze. “It’s none of your concern…”
“Then why can’t you show me your mortal eyes? Are they full of deceit, of lies, of sin? Are they full of regrets because of someone you lost?” She leaned closer and breathed to my ears.
“Or is it because you have seen Natalie die before your very eyes?”
Her name. Her name was all I needed. Natalie was my source of strength, my refuge. If I could only go back to that fateful day, that exact moment…
“Take me to her! I just can’t…! I would do anything… anything…”
“Your Natalie isn’t yours any more, Clyd… she already met Morte. She won’t come back.” Once again, she showed me the thread, “Please knot your thread… Please will to live again…”
“Could you not understand? Kill me! I don’t give a damn to that thread! Kill me!”
Her eyes tightened as if my words pierced her. Her slender fingers wrapped around my arms, her nails almost penetrating my skin. “Do you want to experience dying again? Isn’t it enough to witness her passing? Isn’t it enough to putting an end to your own life?”
I denied the tears that started flowing from my eyes. “There’s none… She is my life.”
“Then look into my eyes.” Her voice was covered by a hypnotic layer, and I gave up completely into her request… She took me into a dreamlike trance, singing to me while I saw flashes of foreign memories.
Clyd… Do you feel her pain?
There she was, Natalie, standing in front of me… She was standing over a pile of dead bodies, which I recognized as the street thieves who repeatedly stabbed her as I heard all of her cries for help… I am a living nightmare, for I killed her myself for not being strong.
Blood was dripping from her wounds as she approached me. Clyd look at them…they hurt me… Come with me, my love, and defend me from them…
“Natalie… I’m so sorry for being so weak… Please come back.” I embraced her and stroked her hair, but the scent of flowers that enveloped her was now replaced by savagery, violence, revenge. This was not my Natalie.
What is the problem? Are you afraid? She pushed me away and bloody tears trickled in her face. You don’t want me anymore?
I wanted to stop her from crying and hold her, but she was different. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m afraid… not because of what she had become, but because of the thought that I really had to accept that she’s not mine anymore. “Natalie, I… I still want you back… My love.”
LIAR! She reappeared inches before me, one hand holding my neck and another holding a knife. If you wanted to be with me… you should die! Die you liar!
It took me almost an eternity to realize that she raised the knife and plunged it into my chest, until the throbbing penetrated me. No, this can’t be happening, the thought I forced to be real, but then, she raised her knife again and stabbed me several times more. My tears mixed with my blood as I felt nothing but pain, the pain she felt that night. The feeling of nakedness, a hell she experienced before dying. She knelt before my dying body and kissed me. Help me, Clyd. Clyd… Please.
Her words took me into another stream of consciousness, this time, in my room. I saw myself standing on the unguarded terrace past the window, smiling at me and holding out his hand. Ah there you are. I’ve been waiting for you. Come, Clyd. A perfect mimic of my gestures.
My feet took me to my other self and took his offer. He pointed to the ground thirty floors beneath us. Look. This is where we will find Natalie. Jump, my brother.
I took a step back and hesitated. “I’ve done this once… and I didn’t feel fear. I couldn’t understand…” I looked at him for an explanation, but I found him looking at me with the same expression. We were one. “What the…”
Don’t be unfair. You made me jump my brother, now it’s your turn.
Before I could utter another word, he pushed my off the ridge. I closed my eyes and preempted the impact I’d be suffering, but instead I found myself breathless, kneeling on the black stones of the purgatory. I was out of the nightmare I created.
“I don’t understand… Why?” My empty eyes lingered at the hooded woman for a moment. “Kill me now if I need to die… if I am destined to destroy myself.”
“LISTEN TO ME!” The woman growled, baring me her teeth, as two other hooded creatures seized her way from me. She struggled as she shouted, “You have damaged your soul! Your life! By cutting your thread, you have put an eternal punishment to yourself…”
“You, Clyd! You are a cursed being! You are a freak of nature!” Her anger fired at me and I felt my body shiver.
“W-what do you mean?” a whisper escaped my lips.
“Mean? What do I mean!” she hissed furiously. “I will show you what I mean!”
Her rage struck me as she directed a mist of green towards me. “YOU… CLYD! YOU WILL DESTROY EVERYONE IN YOUR LIFE. YOU WILL ROT IN THE GATES OF HELL AND TOUR SOUL WILL FOREVER LIE IN STYX!”
The flames rose and danced, as the thread– my thread turned to ashes. There was nowhere to run. There’s even no point in doing it. I held myself and prepared to receive the blow I deserve.
The fire consumed all of me, devouring every inch that it could reach. I was a specter, and at the same time a taste of doom– my own ashes danced with the flame. I saw my right arm turn to dust, and I couldn’t help but scream for help.
“Stop this… Please, I am begging you!” Many times I pleaded, but there was no answer. The hooded figured disappeared one by one with wrath on their faces. I am now alone in this torment.
If I were to ask what this was, I could readily provide an answer. This is what they call dying, the payment for my unforgivable sins. Was this the only way to meet Death?
My inner voice answered. No, you won’t be meeting him yet. You are going the opposite way. Forget it. You will never meet him my friend, and you will never see Natalie again.
Just then, the lost souls around me celebrated for my misery, and a long bloodcurdling but somehow victorious scream, pierced the purgatory as I disintegrated into nothingness.
