The truth that is left

(Tyler's point of view)

A while after Camilia's death, the doctor finally arrived. After a moment taken to take care of Camilia, the tests to determine which kind of artificial arm I'd get were led on me. I don't remember any bit of it, I don't even remember if it was painful or not. 

After that, Ethan arrived and brung me to my room, before leaving after realizing I'm feeling even worse than he thought at first. Ahh... if I'm honest with myself, I don't really hate or even dislike him. It's just that right now, any presence is insuffurable for me. Including mine, obviously.

Without any strength left, I crumble on the bed and abandon the idea of restraining my thoughts, which I did every second since my resurrection, finally letting them run run wild.So that is my life now. A criminal arbitrarily chosen to be a puppet leader. Without thinking, I approach the fingers of my left hand near my right elbow, now the end of my arm. As the tips of my fingers brush against it, I clench my teeth and groan under the atrocious pain. Is this what people call phantom limb pain? Argh, that really sucks....What is gonna happen now? Even if my existence has been deemed so many purposes, as much by me than by other people, be it according to my will or not... after all of this, they all feel hollow.I died. I really died. It is a miracle that I could come back, but it doesn't change anything about it. This feeling I experienced... and then, this feeling of navigating across the spatial void as my body was slowly torn into pieces upon my revival.. am I supposed to act as if it didn't happen? AM I SUPPOSED TO ACT AS IF ALL OF THAT WAS JUST A DAMN, FUCKING NIGHTMARE?Gods... Angels and Great Sins... saints and... apostles... so what if some superior entity I didn't even know about made me one with its Blessing? I am human! I am not a fated hero, so why be so cruel and make me this kind of chosen one? It's not fair...But has the world ever been fair? Yes. Toward me? Of course no.Yet the only one I can blame is myself. I should have known better, I should've just stolen this damn ship the moment John and Erica got outside. Erica... where was she, in the first place? I died trying to get us out alive, and she wasn't there!Now, I escaped my greatest fear, being to be the one to cause a war between the Stellar Grand Order Republic and the Paradise Council... but in the end, I will still be used to cause a civil war inside the Andromeus-Silveren Empire?Maybe that's what a realistic chosen one is: someone who is chosen, but never get to truly make their own choice.The phantom pain is still there, persistent. After a bit of research, I manage to find what I want the most at this moment: a bottle of beer, that I immediately snatch away. Well, that sure is not really on par with what I got to experience in the last month, but it's not like I'm a taste-enjoying drinker anyway. Right now, I just want to feel at peace.I pour myself a glass, and look at it. I see the deformed reflection of my own face.Tired, pale, and even my beard and hair are messy. Most of the time, even before leaving Glactia-62, I always made sure to look decent but, ironically, that is actually a more appropriate appearance. I look at the reflection of my dark green eyes that I got from my mother. I gather my will and close my eyes as I take a sip and, when I open my eyes, I see that they turned gray."FUCK!"In rage, I throw the glass at the floor, where it shatters in a hundred bits. I look at the puddle of beer at my feet, but I can't distinguish their color in it. I grab a long shard of broken glass, and head toward the bathroom. I sit in front of the mirror, and look at my eyes, still gray. Am I even human anymore?"No... no longer... I'm a monster"I approach the shard close to my throat, as its tip brushes against my skin, making a small drop of blood flow out. With the Blessing activated, I clearly feel every aspect of the pain, even for this small, insignificant cut. I keep pushing the shard, millimeter by millimeter, as I keep looking at my own eyes."I don't want to die, not again"I take the shard out, leaving only a small trail of blood to run down my chest, and this time I approach it near my eyes. My hand shakes. Should I just gouge these abominations out? This way, at least, I wouldn't have to see this horrible world anymore.But that is not what I want. What I want... no matter how ugly it is, I just want the truth. Why should everything that isn't useful to other be hidden from me? I refuse it. They gave me these demonic eyes, I will use these to see, I refuse any other possibility.I get up, walk out of the bathroom, walk past the puddle of beer and look at the cosmos through my room's window - or the digital board simulating a window. Stars, beautiful stars...Often, instead of gods, it's the stars that people pray to, simply because they have the certitude that they exist. How many times even I said 'dear stars'?I look at the puddle of beer. It is reflecting these same stars perfectly. That's what the beauty of the stars amounts to, a puddle of shitty beer spilled on the floor.I then look at the digital board showing the outside of the ship. Stars were venerated for their might, the nearly endless amount of sheer power and heat they embodied, and the conversion of matter and the apparition of life on Earth they permitted. But now, what uniqueness is left of this? Fefnir technology can convert, change any matter into any energy, and the other way around. And I have no doubt that not only the Paradise Council but also every leader of every Stellar Field already participated in god knows what experimentations to recreate any form of life with success. Most likely, it has already been achieved a good while ago already. And if somehow they didn't, then there is still Romulus of Love, the Angel that can use the Sacred Field of Life, ready to fulfill this duty... at least when he's able to move again, hehe.It is a weird thought, really, that even deities themselves prove to have limitations. People still tend to worship them despite it but now, when I know that they too can struggle, it seems like nothing more than blind faith. An empty hope to avoid complete despair... No different from when I was denying my past.My eyes light up with realization:"So this is it"I see it. I see the truth now - or is it really the actual truth? It might be nothing more than yet another illusion I inflict on my own sick mind. But at the very least, it won't be yet another illusion whose sole purpose is to give myself hope.Hope. Isn't it a funny concept? In the end, hope is no different from despair: it can fuel a man to continue when no reason to do so is left, and yet proves to be one of the most dangerous feelings one can feel. Just like a strong feeling of despair can make one give up on his life, purely and simply, a hope that has grown to its highest point only to eventually shatter, will also cause one's will to shatter.Despair is a deadly poison. Hope is a poison that is just as deadly. But if we take both of those away, what is left?Goals. Nothing but goals, pushing us forward. Goals pushing me forward.But actually, what is my goal?I don't want to save people anymore, hell, I don't even want to save myself anymore. Is there even an interest, trying to go against Gods themselves? No, of course, I'm a simple human. Just a slight push of an Angel was enough to lead me to my death. I now fully understand just how powerless I am in the game that other powers were having with the Paradise Council, and also understand that the only place I can take in this game, if I actually want my actions to matter, would be as a pawn. And I am done being other people's pawnsHaving my revenge? Against Ellis Dentes? Glenn Keters? Cain? What would be the point? Ellis Dentes is simply a man that did his job, nothing less, nothing more. In the end, besides distracting myself, I have no interest left to hunt him down, or even to see him again. And I don't want to take such an easy way again. Glenn Keters is just another greedy, corrupted man, the ones that fill the entire galaxy. One more or one less would not make the slightest difference, except to add to my own satisfaction, to make myself feel like a hero as I do nothing but put more blood on my hands because I can't refrain from my own impulsions. Ans I don't want to take such an hypocritical way again.Cain? He is an Angel. What could I do? I am powerless. Not only physically, but also morally: unlike me, he is someone that would never act out of emotion instead of acting for his own interests. He didn't betray me out of resentment, or evil, but simply because it was the best thing to do for him. My own mind, my very self, ended up betraying myself. I, I betrayed everything I believed in, choosing to hide behind new names and counterfeit values all the time, until it led to a deserved demise.Haha, how can I even save myself? There is no myself! There is just a grotesque amalgamation of shards of personality I stuck to each other, to act as if I am an actual person, and not some sort of broken puppet. Ulysses, Tyler Rochemord, Gentleman, the Timewalking apostle, all these are just facades. Fakes. ALL FUCKING FAKES.That is my own truth: I can't become anything, because I am nothing in the first place.And if my own truth has betrayed me, then what can I do if not seeking for a more satisfying truth? Not in myself, because any other truth would be a lie, and I am tired of lies as well.The only truth left for me to discover, the only one that could satisfy me, is the truth of the world that I exist in. All the secrets of history, I have to discover these. What was the true nature of deities? How did they influence the Earth, and then the Milky Way across the millennials? I love history, it is such an interesting topic. There is always new things to discover, no matter how deep and thorough one's research is. Causes and effects are infinite. I want to know. I NEED to know it all. How many things are left to discover? I can't even imagine, how wonderful it is! Things that are set in stone lead to despair, mysteries coated in mist lead to false hopes. But the mysteries of a world hidden by the world I know? That...I think... I think that is the only thing left for me to really be excited about. No absolute despair, no delusional hope I'll cling to, just a primitive search for truth, a simple goal, and at the same time a path on which I'll fall so as to not fall in the abyss of death.It reminds me of this quote I saw in one of the books I stole, back on Glactia-62. 'I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration'. I don't remember the book's name but, in any way, I remember it marked me for quite a while. Back then I just found it cool but now, in many aspect, this quote is true.But if fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration, I believe that delusion is the great death that leads to a fate even worse than obliteration, a total shattering of the soul, an inescapable fall into madness.Because myths and science now reached the crossroad, people delude themselves into thinking that things will change overnight, and that everyone will be saved. They believe in the power of the stars.I watch through the window, admiring the beauty of the endless cosmos. The beauty of these same stars, these suns that bring life in the galaxy, and hope in the heart of people.But in the end, it is nothing but blind faith. Stars are just that, blazing suns. If one tries to reach it for help, they will only end up burning themselves. Just because things are changing doesn't mean that the change will lead to a happy ending. By failing to understand such a thing, people are led to their own demise.That's why everyone always ends up living for others, in one way or another. Because they're unable to live on their own, and eventually are stripped of their free will by their own dependency, that's the true reason why humans and deities both failed to create a correct world. Cecilia was right.And yet, I refuse this reality. I won't fail anymore. Be they my own lies, or those of the people around me, they all form a web of vicious lies that act as a layer of its own, in the view of this world that everyone has. It's a promise to myself, I will weave my way through these lies. I'll let them slide past me as I keep walking forward, aiming for the bright light of truth with what determination my human mind can muster among the hells that are myths and science.At the advent of this era of madness, I don't care anymore about the consequences. It doesn't matter if my actions cause war, or if they don't, as long as I can finally learn everything about history. That is my truth.That is the only truth left about me.End of Volume 2 - Lichtkrieg