Page 73 of Remnants: Disruption
A god cannot realize its potential unless properly motivated. Yet, even then, deities are fickle creatures.
Darkrend, 1030 A.D.
There is a clear path that led me to this moment. From the very first use of my powers in the Badlands to this final portal.
What began as the unearned black mark only ever brought me to this—to my death at the hands of a god.
Running into the two of them in less than two minutes. A damned record.
Darkrend takes a step towards me and the air itself seems to reverberate around him. The universe quakes as he tilts his head to study me. He’s tall, like Mary, but armor makes it difficult to discern how much of him is really flesh and bone.
Maybe none of him is anymore.
The darkness fights back as I try to summon the simplest of shadows. The spark of power sputters and dies—wisps of ink trail uselessly off my fingertips.
“Your powers won’t work here, child,” Darkrend says taking another step forward. “Nothing goes unless I say so.”
The infantilizing term would have set my nerves on fire if it weren’t so true. In the wake of this being, I am nothing more than a fly. Nothing more than a speck to be rubbed from existence.
I don’t see the strike. Probably because I launched myself at his legs. But the power hits me square in the chest and I crash into the opposite wall with earth-shattering force.
Pain radiates down my spine and seeps deeply into my bones. There’s nothing for it, though. Nothing to soothe it. My body has switched sides and taken every ounce of healing with it.
Every smidgeon of my power is gone.
I roll to my hands and knees, slowly pushing myself to sit on my heels.
Darkrend strolls towards me like he has all the time in the world.
Which he does.
Again, I leap for his legs. The move is met with a knee to my jaw which spikes pain through my entire body. Something cracks in my lower back, which seems silly for a strike to my head.
But I careen backwards into the wall, ricocheting off it again and landing on my back.
Blood. I taste blood.
How human of me that my final moments are met with the rancid, coppery taste. The irony is beautifully tragic.
Heh. Iron-y.
There’s a snicker of laughter from someone at the other end of the room. Maybe Omen. They’re a sick fuck like that.
“What are you doing?” A voice echoes from somewhere in my mind. Or beside me.
I have no idea now.
“Dying,” I whisper. And Percy’s face leans over mine, her eyes that were normally amber now look translucent.
“Who’s she talking to?” some in the room asks.
“I have no idea,” Darkrend answers, a perplexed note in his otherwise discordant, godlike voice.
“You’re giving up?” Percy asks, she makes to grab for my hands to pull me seated but remembers too late that she can’t.
I grin stupidly, knowing she can’t even see my face. Maybe she should. It’s the end, after all.
The mask hisses with angry warning signs as I release the clasp. I toss it aside and finally sit, feeling something acutely painful in my back. Something that will definitely not heal in time.
