S17 - Respawn

Able sat cross-legged on the tomb floor. The cool stony surface had been long since rendered lukewarm as his body heat slowly seeped from his skin, to the point where there was no meaningful difference in feeling for Able at all. At times like these, when he sat still for too long, he felt like he might even melt into stone. Of course, the moment that this thought occurred, the stone would solidify again, pushing him back to lucidity and returning him to the same reality he came to every single time— that he was trapped here, and he was so bored he could kill himself if doing so wouldn’t just bring him right back.

He shifted. What separates man from beast? Man felt time more acutely than beast, certainly. The furthest an animal could think into the future was its next meal; the past might as well not exist save for painful lessons encoded into instinct. The present, then, was all that beasts had and with that beasts were content. Not Able. He replayed his defeat again and again, he fantasized his revenge again and again, and all the while he resented that he was not in either moment instead of the present.

---

Able awoke from his sleep. He felt lethargic, worthless and empty. He wanted to go back to sleep. Before closing his eyes again, he briefly glanced around the same four walls that he’d been in for… years now? It may have been years— And he saw something unfamiliar.

He sat up. Before him stood a woman with red hair. She regarded him with a half-smile, slight but knowing.

Able’s first instinct was to kill her, as there was no way another living thing should have been able to enter his tomb, but what separated man from beast was the ability to actually think about things and not act on instinct. So he didn’t.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Who are you?” said Able.

The woman stayed standing. Able resented being looked down on, yet some strange, oppressive force, prevented him from getting up.

“That’s not particularly important, is it?” she said. “Will telling you my name change anything?”

Able supposed not. So he asked the actually important question: “What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to talk,” she said. “Before you go out into the world.”

Able’s heart skipped a beat. How could she possibly know that? Not even he knew when he'd be let out.

“I just know these things,” she said. He didn't recall saying anything out loud. And that concerned him.

But Able did not push further. She was committed to being vague. In fact, asking questions was probably useless. So he leaned back instead.

"So. Talk then,” he said.

The woman leaned forward. “What separates man from beast?”

Able blinked slowly. “I ask myself that every day,” he said. Frankly, he was kind of sick of it. It felt empty to ask when there wasn’t man or beast to slay.

“There are a lot of differences, of course. But in my opinion, there are three big ones. The most significant of these is that man is so obsessed with his own importance that he feels the need to ask the question.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, Able, unlike most of mankind, you happen to actually be important." She walked to the far wall. “And it’s because you’re so important that you have to leave.”

As the woman stepped away, Able felt the oppressive force dissipate slightly. He could finally stand. “You said I leave soon. Tell me when.”

“From the outside world’s perspective, about another day. So from your perspective… double the time that you’ve already spent here.”

Able summoned a blade.

“But.” She continued undaunted. “I can let you out. Right now. On one condition.”

Able put the blade by his side. “Name it.”

“When you go out there, you’re going to see the Avatar and a couple of her friends—many of whom you’re acquainted with. When you see them, it's very important that you kill them. Can you do that?”

For the first time in a long, long time, Able grinned. “My pleasure.”

“Good,” she said. She placed her hand on the wall. “Are you ready, then? They'll be arriving soon.”

“Not just yet," said Able. "There’s still one more thing I want to ask.”

The woman raised an eyebrow.

“You said there were three main things that separated man from beast,” said Able. “You only said one. What are the other two?"

The woman smiled. “Religion and politics.”

- Season 17 Round 4, /u/Ragnarust