The Forbidden

Chapter One

In the darkness, he could see everything clearly.

Every decision he made, from the moment of his creation to his last glimpse of light, played over and over in his mind, until he could finally separate each individual thread in the tapestry of his existence. He'd made so many choices. Some insignificant, others bearing a weight of importance he had not fully recognized until he focused on the decisions which influenced others, effecting the choices they made, their reach rippling outwards and widening exponentially until they all led to one inevitable, damning, conclusion.

He was the eye of the storm.

It took time to work it out, to examine the countless variables and track back to the source. How much time? He did not know. For time could not be measured within the confines of the Void. There was nothing to mark its passing. No sun. No moon. No light. Only oppressive, consuming darkness.

Beyond that, in the distance, he could hear the muted cries of his brethren. Two hundred voices to represent the thousands who were lost. A constant reminder he did not suffer for his actions alone. Sometimes they created a deafening cacophony of sound. At others, it was a lone plaintive plea. Some repented their sins, others questioned their guilt, a few raged at what they considered to be an injustice.

In silence, he had done all of those things, the last most of all.

Rage consumed him when they were tossed in the Void. He was blinded by it, was almost lost to it. When it burned out, grief followed. He wept an ocean of tears which did not fall, felt the heart which was no longer his shatter into a million irreparable pieces. When he became numb to the pain, he added his voice to the others, telling them what happened wasn't their fault. The blame lay with him and the punishment should have been his to bear alone. He pleaded with them to be strong. To hold on. He didn't know if they could hear him, but it mattered that he tried. 

No-one replied.

Sometimes he wondered if the voices he heard were real.

The absence of other senses made him equally as uncertain of the presence of the body he had once inhabited. Clinging to the illusion, he frequently flexed phantom muscles, stretched invisible limbs, reached out and attempted to touch something. Anything. But there was no movement in the scentless air. He didn't feel warmth or cold, hunger or thirst. Consciousness suggested the existence of life, but it wasn't living. Not in the way he learned to savor it during his time on Earth. 

Did anything familiar remain there after the waters receded? To wipe away everything good and beautiful and wondrous along with the bad and ugly and terrible didn't make sense to him and while he knew it was wrong to question –

STOP.

Refocus.

Now he could see clearly, he knew what must be done. A sacrifice was required. Something of great value to prove his resolve. He had not spoken the words in his mind yet. Not in the way that would make it an irrevocable choice. Once spoken, there would be no going back. Instead, he would fight his most basic instincts and retreat. He would drift in the Void, wait until his sentence came to an end, and conserve his energy for the bloodshed which would precede a shining new beginning.

Look.

One last time.

Not a single shred of doubt could remain.

To be certain, he must revisit the past, step by step. Relive it all, from beginning to end. Remember every minute detail of what happened. Feel everything he had felt.

Then he would let her go.

Forever.