Coalescence

At the foot of the black spire, the lone doll stares into nothingness.

I’ve been hearing voices recently…

It seems even those that have withered can still speak.

Although it’s just little things, very rarely do I get to hear a fully coherent sentence…

They’re all so sad. They fear death as much as we do.

But they are broken beings. Left with only one way that’ll make them truly feel alive again…

That being, the unbroken Soul of a living being.

It’s their final desire, their final meaning to exist. Living in order to fight, and fighting in order to live. That is the way of their existence.

Since it is so, maybe King is in the correct mind…

…

But, still that doesn’t feel quite right.

While he sees the withered as monsters to be destroyed. The withered likely see him in the same light.

Both of them are doing the same thing, they’re both just trying to survive.

And here I am. Still something but not mindless and withered, nor could I be called a human. I’m not trying to take another existence’s Soul, or anything so grand.

Although my body slowly is eaten away by the storm of withering swirling around me. It doesn’t change anything about me. It doesn’t give me some greater purpose.

I could end it all here. Step into the spire and become another piece of the Demon Lord’s grand design. In a world built for humans, a doll like me shouldn’t be able to exist anyways. I could give my vessel away to someone who has some sort of desire.

Right now I really don’t know what I want. The more I hear about the world the more I despise it. There will never be a home for me to return to, since that place has died.

My father was murdered. The only person that treated me like a real person.

The only friend I’ve made was a suicidal maniac, that always charged head first into the most dangerous of battles… And yet always managing to overcome any losses that he faced from it.

But that’s really it, that’s all there is in this world with no real name.

I’m just a piece of nothing here, just existing to exist.

Aimless in a nothing world.

What’s the point?

How did I come to be in the first place?

Am I a creation of withering? Did the destruction of Earth lead to my creation?

It's a believable theory. This building isn’t made of something I can recall ever being used in the village. Was it brought over from the withering? An entire building copied over into this world. If that is the way it is, then maybe… just maybe there are others like me on Earth… Dolls, aimless dolls with no meaning behind their eyes.

…

I’m just a monster in a world full of greedy humans, whether they’re fleshy or engulfed in withered darkness.

There’s no right answer in this war.

But if I had to choose…

I’d rather live in a withering world.

…

An alarm horn blares out, as the large gateway on the far side of the room slowly pulls open. There were three great doors, I thought they were impassable. They made it here so fast, faster than I thought they could ever go.

“Eryth! You need to stop this! I’ve come to take you home!”

What does he think that word means to me at this point?

END CHAPTER 35