Empress of Self-Ruin

Chapter 21: Duty of Regret

Arsen wasn't asleep, not really. He only tossed and turned in his bed, eyes screwed shut and breathing uneven despite how hard he concentrated on keeping them steady. But still, sleep escaped him like a taunting child.

He wasn't even sure how much time had passed since that blasted day. A few hours? Weeks? Months? He supposed every day would seem the same when you had nothing to look forward to.

It was only when he finally blinked his eyes open that he realized the sun was already starting to bloom on the horizon—like golden petals stretching ever outwards into the rich blue—the brilliant flower of the sky, its warm yellow rays wafting through the window.

But Arsenio Arcturus remained motionless as though frozen, wondering about the nature of time: Why it stretched certain moments into forever or constricted some to blinking seconds. Why his days seemed to go so painstakingly slow. Why, when he looked back, a week ago seemed years away. Why something that hadn't even happened yet haunted his mind like yesterday.

He hadn't wanted to accept it of course, but his dreams kept getting worse. The nights were almost always sleepless. And he was so tired all the time.

Most nights, he had woken up expecting to find Constantine in his room, taunting him. "Do you think the empress is stuck with you because she likes you very much? Hah, don't delude yourself. It's because she wants someone who has the emperor position—not yourself."

"Shut up!" He had shouted back at nothingness.

"Do you think this empire needs someone like you? How long will you be able to maintain this empire?"

"Shut up!"

"It's funny the way you're handling the empire despite the legacy of your predecessor. The empire will slowly collapse because of your existence."

"I said shut up!"

But when he didn't appear, what had greeted him was worse.

Sometimes it was his father. Mother. Phoebe. The child he would never see again in this life. Calypso—all the people he had failed.

"I wish you would just die. If only you disappear..." He had heard them say.

He had tried to touch them—tried to beg for forgiveness, but they disintegrated in his hands. A wisp of smoke. Black, charcoal smoke. He would wake up sweating, and the reality was even worse. The fact that everything was real—that they must have thought he had tainted their legacy. He thought he had tainted their legacy. He probably tainted everything he had ever been in—it was suffocating him.

But then he remembered that night when Calypso had guided him through—what was that called? Ah, the 5-4-3-2-1 method. Remembered how it made him feel—as if the room finally had air; finally had some substance to hold him up.

Calypso... He mumbled her name under his breath.

The first thing he had wanted to do when he finally got himself together upon waking up in the past was to see her and make sure she was alright—but she didn't even want to see him.

Then the whole lake fiasco happened.

He couldn't even describe how broken and devastated he was upon learning that Calypso had truly tried to take her own life—couldn't imagine what he would do if she succeeded in her attempt.

Probably follow suit?

It wasn't like it had been the first time he was tempted by death—lured by the simplicity of it. It would be easy, he thought bitterly.