What Does Death Look Like?
If I had no idea before, now I can say it: death is just emptiness.
I could no longer feel my body. There was no sll, no touch, no sound. Nothing.
Even the concept of ti seed nonexistent in this place. To keep myself from losing my mind, I started counting the seconds.
1... 2... 3...
86,400 seconds.
One day had passed like this)_24€52.
172,800... 259,200...
Is this what an unborn child feels in the womb?
604,798... 604,799... 604,800 seconds.
After a week, only my consciousness told I still existed.
2,591,999... 2,592,000 seconds.
A month later, it started to deteriorate—slowly, insidiously. I had to fight to hold on. What would happen if I let go? I feared the answer.
31,536,000... 31,536,001... 31,537,862 seconds.
A year had passed.
Just as madness threatened to consu , my mories started to unravel before my eyes. It was strange, watching myself as if I were observing a movie of my own life.
Is this what I looked like as a newborn?
The baby next to ... That’s Iris, isn’t it? A doctor hands us to a woman with long violet hair and sapphire eyes. The spitting image of Iris. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
Could she be... our mother?
She holds us gently in her arms. There’s a man beside her. He looks so much like ... Could he be my father? He’s tall, imposing, but his features remain blurred.
Did we have parents?
I had co to believe we were born in a lab. Are they still alive... or already dead? Maybe one day, I’ll want to find out.
Ti speeds up.
I see myself at the orphanage, two years old. I have to admit... I was kind of cute.
This mory...
No.
I don’t want to see it.
Stop.
I promised to forget.
I scream, but no sound cos out. I have no voice. Worse, I can’t even hear my own thoughts. I feel nothing.
Do I even exist anymore?
mories keep flashing before my eyes.
So, I’m still ?
Oh, this scene... My first eting with Lucy. We were so reckless back then. Then another mory—my first mission under Victor. That old man always seed untrustworthy to .
Another one. The promise we made that night.
I wonder... what powers will we gain after the Awakening?
They say no resonance is ever useless. Only the user is.
Just thinking about it makes eager to beat those bastards to a pulp—those so-called Executors and those damn Calamities.
Next ti, I won’t be the one running with my tail between my legs into the sewers.
Oh yes, I’ll make them pay for ruining my peaceful life.
94,608,000 seconds.
The day of my death.
It’s strange, watching myself die.
94,608,001... 94,608,002...
Three years already?
I just keep reliving my life over and over.
How much longer must I endure this?
"Do you wish for it to end?"
Yes. This silence... I never want to feel it again.
"Do you desire rest?"
Whose voice is that?
It sounds like mine.
"I can grant you rest. Just say the words, and I will give you peace."
What’s the price? Take your fake charity and shove it.
"There is no price. I will give you a life—loving parents, siblings, friends, wealth, power. All you have to do is want it."
What are you?
Who are you?
I don’t trust you.
"Why? I am you, and you are . Isn’t this what we’ve always desired? I can give it to us. All you have to do is say, ’I want it.’ In exchange, I only need your soul."
My thoughts... I can’t reach them anymore.
What a strange feeling.
You are ? What does that an?
And if, instead of giving you my soul, I took yours?
"I have no soul. I am you. Or rather, we are one—your soul and I."
Are you the Ether?
"Oh, is that how you see ? It doesn’t matter."
"What do you desire most? What is the wish I cannot grant? Give your soul, and I will offer it to you."
What I desire...?
What I wish for...?
What do you think you know about ?
"Absolutely everything. Nothing about you is hidden from . You want to change the world, to rewrite its rules."
"That power—"
"I can give it to you."
"I don’t need you."
"What I want, what I desire—I’ll take it with my own hands."
"Oh... Is that so? Do you think you can?"
"Do you think you’re worthy?"
No, not at all.
But you...
You are.
I will make you mine. You will be a weapon I wield to achieve my goals.
For that, nothing is simpler.
All I have to do is say...
"I want i
t."
I promise you, we’re going to have so much fun.
"What a surprise..."
"If you survive... maybe I’ll reconsider."
Survive... what?
"Don’t die, Sirius."
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