Chapter 9:

Closure

FICTION: If you held the power of god in your two hands, would you save the world? Would you doom it? Or would you watch from the sidelines, just as you had done before?


There they were together, hiding out in a home to which they didn’t belong. The Chosen I could stand to watch the least, and the girl he had been madly in love with for over a century now.

It was funny, how the stories that we hated the most were often the ones we were the most drawn to. Perhaps I was curious to see how it would end; if his and her story would ever properly end.

Perhaps I was just looking for some closure; some hope that their infinite loop of hurting each other would resolve itself, or if either was able to force change within themselves.

Perhaps I was just looking for a happy ending.

Either way, I was surely projecting.

My human brain’s mental state was beginning to deteriorate, as I felt that the end was drawing closer and closer. I had left the two unseen without intention of coming back for over thirty years, but after The Record first broke the news to me about my face-off with The Ego, it was the first place I came back to. And then I began returning regularly again to check on the dysfunctional couple.

Even then, I probably knew that his predictions were going to be spot on; despite the fact that I convinced myself otherwise at the time. But as the truth of inevitability, and of fate, slowly dawned upon me, I began to become aware of the fact that he could never be wrong.

Of course, I fully had a grasp now of the reason why I felt such a way.

But unfortunately, I can’t spoil that yet.

“Wake up, Misaki.”

No response.

“Misaki?”

He got up from his bed in a quick panic, and looked around to see if his girlfriend had been wandering about in the confines of their hideout. Continuously calling out her name, there was only slight echoes of his cry from the metal around the room.

“Misaki? Misaki! You’re here still, aren’t you!? Please, answer me!”

He felt awfully sober. It was a bad sign.

“I… am. Just barely...”

“Shit shit SHIT! Don’t you dare try to hide from me! Don’t you dare think you can just up and leave me again! We talked about this!

He fumbled down the stairs from their bedroom, and then again down into the basement floor where his lab slept. Still half asleep with a pounding heart beat, The Chemist pushed various beakers and tubes around in pursuit of some leftover serum.

“I should still have a little bit left around here! Hold on for a bit longer, Misaki! Please!”

“I really…should let me go…Please don’t…”

Her voice faded in and out of his eardrums. He could just barely hear her over his own repeated curses to himself, as he located his last vial of the drug.

Down the hatch, and then he waited for her, while slowly beginning to calm down.

“I’ll have to make another batch. That was the last of it, I think.”

He assessed his leftover ingredients from the last experiment, which he had been closer than ever to perfecting. Of course, he would have no trouble procuring the ingredients he needed to produce more, considering his near-infinite sum of money gained from donating his own cells to various governments around the world.

When Misaki’s figure came back into his vision, she was already sobbing.

“You should have let me go.”

“I… I can’t. No matter how many times I try, I can’t.”

“This; what you’re doing to yourself; it’s poison. You know that already…”

“But Misaki, I’m a god! I’m invincible! Nothing can hurt-”

“Not just the drugs; not the chemicals. ME! I’m the poison! Of course I wanted to see you too! Do you think it’s easy for me to resolve to let you go each and every time?! I tried so hard to act like I was already gone this time. I thought I could really do it. But I couldn’t… I’m sorry.”

“No, this is my fault. I can’t give you up. I have nothing without you. I am nothing without you.”

“I don’t want to hear it…”

“I love you, Misaki.”

“I love you too.”

So they were still at it after all.

Despite her claim, this was how it always was whenever I would come to see the couple. Of course, she had nothing to do with his ascension. He had originally created the girl as a tulpa in his head; a coping mechanism to handle his own crippling loneliness. But then the drugs came in. And he began to experiment with everything he could get his hands on, all in pursuit of making her more “real”.

Well, that much I hadn’t seen personally, but once he had ascended, with the ability to grow and alter plant life at his will; that was when he dropped off the deep end. Sometimes, The Chemist would go on month-long benders of half-consciousness, so overloaded with different types of narcotics or psychedelics that he couldn’t even comprehend reality as more than an abstract array of colors and shapes.

Whenever I peeked into his mind at those times, I had to quickly shut myself out. Otherwise, I’d become overwhelmed with feelings and ideas that were beyond my comprehension. It would rattle my brain up.

But he always endured the mind-breaking experiences, all in pursuit of chasing Misaki. He wanted to bring her into reality; to be able to feel her breath, and touch her skin, like they were another human’s. But when things got bad, and when his lover watched him suffer so, she would try to convince him to straighten himself up. But even if she wasn’t more than a figment of his own ill brain, her complex, fabricated love was far to real to be called an imitation.

It was as if two whole people were stuck in his singular mind.

But the downfall always began here, with the two’s failed attempts at withdrawal. They were stuck in an infinite loop of despair.

He hugged her tightly, glad that she had fully returned to him. It was a more relaxing, and more ecstatic drug than anything else he could ever hope to try. Her love was his addiction.

“If I can’t die, then you at least have to stay here with me. We can suffer through this together.”

“But I’m not suffering at all… I’m happy just like this. It’s- it’s not fair to you!”

“Then it’s fine. As long as I can be here with you, I don’t care about the side effects. Just please, don’t leave me again.”

He lied. With each passing trauma, The Chemist’s mind became a little more warped. His human senses couldn’t perceive things properly; his thoughts couldn’t organize; he couldn’t walk around or talk normally, like he used to. It was only when he was holding Misaki that he could even mimic a human. Otherwise, his composure seemed like that of a scared, confused animal.

And he knew that eventually, he would lose himself forever. No more than a near-infinitely powerful body, but with no proper mind to control it. I sometimes wondered if that would spell destruction of the Earth, but The Record assured me that such a fate wouldn’t come to pass.

Unfortunately, that gave me hope for the two.

The most ironic part of it all was that The Chemist had done more intricate study of his own superhuman senses, capabilities, and limits than any other Chosen. He was the one who discovered that our powers were a reflection of our innermost desires; that they would change and grow with age and experience, just like a human’s wisdom.

He knew that if he really thought with one-hundred percent certainty that she was real, then his ability would be to simply will her into existence as her own being. But he found himself unable to do it.

He knew that she was just his escape from reality all along, and that deep down, that was her love’s ultimate value to him. His ability to grow genetically unique plants to make drugs with was also stagnant, and reflecting of his desire to get away from sobriety.

He, too, considered her just a part of himself.

For the first time, I had wished for The Chaotic to intervene in this situation; to fix it somehow. But I knew that wasn’t possible, nor did I think that it lined up with her motives. She had her own personal goal, and though I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, this wasn’t it.

Eventually, I did go to visit them and found that Misaki was gone for good this time. However, it was only due to the death of The Chemist.

He hadn’t known about the Ego, or her conquest to kill the other Chosen.

But perhaps it was a happy ending in its own way, for them to have passed together, and at peace. Like they always wanted to be.

That in itself was its own sort of closure for me. I can only hope I’ll be able to deliver the same for you, when the time comes.

Makech
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WALKER
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