the lightless black

Again, the seer of worlds found herself jolted awake. This time, she was shaking. This time, it was a cold sweat.

Months ago, she had seen the visions of Erra. Of a betrayal dire and terrible. Something that had almost caused her and Jason to lapse into the worst of themselves. But even through her haze of wrath, she still had gotten the feeling that it had all seemed so familiar. She couldn’t place her finger on why. Tonight, though, it had struck her. It had hit her why it all seemed to echo so true to her.

Following another crack in her fragile psyche, she had realized that the situation that she had seen, that of Erra and Natah, echoed the pains of another troubled pair of siblings.

This time, the girl in the mirror was the same one that stood at the sink. No insight to speak of, just the tired eyes of somebody who was seeing too much, too fast. It took all she had not to claw her own eyes out from the visions. Why did it keep shifting? What was happening? Why wasn’t she in control?

The bath bomb tonight was black as pitch, with no glitter within to make it any more than a reflection of her mood. Technically, this was going to be a gift to her sister. But now, as her visions leaned more and more toward her twin walking forevermore into the eternal, bloody black, she didn’t really think she deserved them.

How many bath bombs had she even gone through like this, lately? She kept waking up like this. She was exhausted. Jack, her twins, even Anya had started to notice. But she couldn’t tell Anya why she wasn’t looking her in the eye. She couldn’t tell her the evils she had, unquestionably now, reached out and embraced, lest she try to chase them into the endless dark here too.

She got into her bath tub, and watched the bomb fizz, turning the water from clear, to pitch black. Deep, dark, starless black. A void waiting to be filled, be that with forgiveness or with merciless bloodshed. And across that pitch-water, she could see her reflection ever-clearer. But this time, it didn’t change. This time, she was given no insight from the fragments of herself scattered across the multiverse.

It ached her heart and cut her soul. If ever she needed that insight, it was now, before she saw the very worst of it. She knew how easy it would be to lose herself and do something she would never be able to take back.

What of the assassin that she had met, across the cave-bound gateway deep in the woods? The woman with the many masks, who had fallen into that realm of chaos years ago and no longer seemed to care about much so much as you paid her for a contract with a tithe of blood and money? It would be easy to find her, should one know where to look. It wouldn’t have to be by the hands of the Shadow Sage that the betrayer twin would meet her end, and she knew it. She knew she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t look somebody in the eye who was so afraid of the reaper that she sought evil like that, and knowingly take the life of the only person who had been on her level from day one of this life. But it would be a simple matter for the masked madwoman, wouldn’t it?

… What was she thinking? Here, in the now, her twin had done no wrong.

But maybe it would be for the best to keep it in mind.

She stared long and deep into the jet. Eventually, she lost herself. And when she did, when she allowed herself to drift away from her body, her eyes began to see a vision in the depths.

She saw herself, a long way away, in a future far flung from her own. She saw herself sobbing on top of Jason, who glowered into the ground. And she heard the forward stomping of something with quite a bit of mass approaching them. Two hands with golden claws grabbed them both by the collars of their suits, and lifted them to their feet. Gave one something to wipe her eyes with, and handed the other some meat or another to sate whatever weird urge he had.

They watched the great dragon turn “his” head toward the chambers where the blinded medic called home, then looked at them and made a gurgling noise that might have been a sigh. Then, “he” shook “his” head at them, as if warning them not to make that mistake, because they could never take it back.

Then “he” looked up, as if staring at a camera. Shook “his” head in the same manner. Whatever glowing points constituted “his” eyes pierced right through her. It was enough to shock her out of her vision, to be certain.

Maybe that was the answer from the multiverse she had been looking for.