Medio: Antichlorobenzene ~ Present

Children, really, so many problems we could save ourselves if only we didn’t care about them. That was the root of it all, in a way.

Back when I was a “human” named Halia, the state of affairs wasn’t precisely bright. The Gods always used whatever telchines they could get their hands on, including me, because of our magic, because of our capacity of bringing their own kind to this world. But even if our common origin makes us more similar to them than we are to humanity, we were always shunned and despised by them.

Even then, somehow, I was perfectly comfortable with that state of affairs. But apparently, not everyone can agree that peace is the thing that matters most, and that kind of people can cause an upheaval for the most trivial of matters. Gods are an extremely ruthless kind, and when one of them got annoyed by me, I wasn’t the only one who paid the price.

That was the turning point for me. When they transformed my kids into monsters, I refused to take any more slights from them. My peace had been permanently broken, and all I wanted was to get payback to them.

Of course, I failed.

My ire rot inside me, cloistering, until, eventually, it mellowed out. In a way, I think that was when my heart truly broke apart, the ire grew so big that it became ridiculous and I myself noticed how useless it all was. I had very little family left, but what I had, I was going to protect with all I had.

The only good thing I managed to do before I escaped to the bottom of the ocean was to convince my daughter, my only remaining child, into preparing Electryone as a vessel. My daughter was too old for it, but my grandchild had a fighting chance. If I brought the God of Death to the world, and convinced her to use the blessing of undying on us, no God would be able to hurt us again.

So, I spent years preparing myself. Abandoning my name as Halia, to be reborn as Leucothea. The time I spent perfecting my magic gave my insights into the powers of the oceans, and in a way, I connected with my own roots in a way I had never done before. It wasn’t complete, but in a way, I felt as if I could reach mental peace again, if things kept going as they were.

Of course, they did not.

When I resurfaced, the Goddess of Wisdom teamed up with the God of the sea to take me down. I was lucky that the other Gods didn’t consider me enough of a problem to intervene, but those two were enough to drag me into my wits end. As soon as I returned, a prophecy about the entire island being swallowed by the sea was given to me, as a threat if I didn’t comply with their wishes.

Now in retrospect I can see things differently, and something became quite obvious in my mind when I remembered how things fell apart. I think the problem was not the telchine blood that runs through my veins, nor the fear that I would retaliate against the Gods again. No, The Goddess of Wisdom knew what I was preparing for and probably guessed precisely who I wanted to call, and she allowed me to do it.

It’s so obvious now, but at the moment I was too blind to see it. After all, the idea that even the avatars of the Gods fear death was not something that made sense in my mind at the time. But now? There is nothing that I am more sure of than this, that the only reason I got as far as I did is cause those two wanted me to call the God of Death, only to take its blessings for themselves.

Now, for my second return, nothing was that easy anymore. It’s a simple matter to escape the world, but not to enter it. Fully aware of the consequences, I opened a rift to reality, and all the telchines entered through it, plunging the world down with them. The worst of them was the priest, the one whose instructions allowed me to return and soon, will allow me to take vengeance against all the Gods that slighted me.

But even then… that wasn't the reason why I returned. It was a benefit of it, certainly, but I had my sights in something else. My daughter died when Desrho sank in the ocean, and as I have feared all this years, my granddaughter will never forgive me for what I have done. She doesn’t understand the blood that runs through her veins, what the Gods would have done to her if she hadn’t become one of them thanks to me.

It is not the ungratefulness that infuriates me the most. No, what truly hurts, and makes my insides boil every passing second now is to remember when she was just a toddler, a small child that believed in me and that played with me while her mother was busy protecting the island. Does she even remember those days anymore, or is it too late for even that?

If I won’t have my family back, then truly, nothing truly matters anymore. I came here because my family was here, and I had the smallest, tiniest hope that Electryone would be able to see me in the same way. Now that I see that she does not, this world has no meaning, and in a way, its absurdity is just starting to show itself more clearly. What’s so different if the sea and the land become one and the same? What’s so different if death and sleep become one and the same?

What’s the difference if the sun and the moon stay together in the sky at all times? Why do you all even want to count the days? Are you so desperate to reach your eternal sleep that you can’t avoid counting the time down to the last second?

But, even if the world did plunge into its current state due to my return, I do not believe that I have done anything cruel. If this happened, it’s because the Gods pushed me into this position in the first place, and I simply responded in kind. To be honest, the one thing that I truly regret was to make all those soldiers in Desrho fight against the Gods to buy me time, only for all of them to sink into the ocean.

That’s the only mistake I refuse to repeat, so even if Medio is the center of the new ritual, even if their days are counted, I refuse to let that tragedy repeat again. At the very least, why shouldn’t everyone be happy until the final moment?

That’s why I created the festival, and that’s why I made sure that the food and the kykeon were both poisoned with ergot. A little gift on my part I would say. In those rituals the peasants were so fond of, they already poisoned themselves by accident and even hallucinated themselves into believing the Gods cared about them. They don’t need to tell me they want this little gift, the sheer fact they made the festival a reality tells me their will quite clearly.

Now, drunk and high, unknowingly guided by the instructions marked in the glyphs engraved on their clothing, every last person in here is too blissfully unaware to actually see what’s in the center of their city now. They can’t see the enormous telchine coming out of the hay man they are burning in the centre of the plaza, while they ground quakes, and their dance brings it forward into reality.

Even those prisoners brought from Sueño fulfilled their role perfectly. I have to thank whoever brought them the ergot, for because of that, they themselves fulfilled their role, dancing with their engraved chains and jumping into the fire to sacrifice their own lives. I have no doubt that despite what the priest did to them, at least they were happy in their final moments.

A second earthquake follows the first one mere seconds after it ended. The rift in reality it's taking its toll on the land, but it's nothing that truly matters. With this telchine on our side, even the violence of death won’t be any interference.

I watch calmly, from the entrance of the mansion, the seven meters tall monster that is now here. A beast worthy of a fight with the soon to be last hero of mankind.

Oh, and look at that, if he doesn’t have the most excellent timing.

Even when I sealed every last entrance to the city, that didn’t matter at all! As pathetic as he usually is, even I have to admit that Electryone did a fantastic job for his presentation. The image of a man with an enormous boar mask going over the walls of the city with a single jump is probably something that I’ll never forget.

He landed down the street, far away from me, but I know that we both can feel each other's presence. So, come now hero, show me who you truly are.

If we are lucky, at least one of us will find what’s the meaning of having this fight in the first place.