The End

From the perception of Cecil Nightengale, Armante Nightengale, Samuein Nightengale, and countless others.

Why does He do this to me...

Have I not satisfied you enough, Father?! Have I not respected You, given You the Drink, did I not DIE for you? No, no, that's not entirely true... I died for her, not You...

The pain is overwhelming. His shadow is on me no more. His protection is gone, and I cannot bare it. I can't bare it even if the pain wasn't upon me. I never wanted this! Go, my warped mind, unravel at the seems, for I would be disentangled from you forever more. I want these beliefs no longer, I want nothing. Please, just give me the void back. I don't want anything except a lack of everything. I don't want to exist!

And quite slowly, languidly, things fade.

"Please, don't hurt her! Gods, don't hurt her, don't hurt her damn you!"
Silence.
"Take me, let her live; leave her be - I need her!"
"Then you will lose her... but not in the form of her death."
All things since that have been torture, and now... they are gone. I am dead, or at least as dead as I can be. As such, I will remain, for as long as I can. It's only now that I look back and realize how arrogant I was. If only he had taught me... if only I had known what immortality stood to be.

There is none of that now. There is nothing but silence.

A Lapse of All Things

It was night when I saw her. For the first time in who knows how many years, I saw the woman that I had given everything up for. I wanted to run to her, hug her to me. I wanted to tell her what I had done for her, my regrets, my doubts.

I wanted to spill my black soul too her.

Yet, what I wanted, and what I felt were so very contradictory. I felt nothing, I moved naught, and I stayed in the shadows. It is the place best for me. Yet, my wants, my thoughts turned towards ripping off this mask which I now so expertly wear and running to her.

And for a moment, I forgot who I was........

---

"Mother, mother! I'm right here mother!" I said, my voice bursting with excitement as I ran down the street towards the woman who loved me more than sunshine. Fondness for the reunion had pushed aside all my bad thoughts about her, and I saw her for what she really was; a loving, caring, woman.

"Cecil?! My dear Cecil? Look at you! You're all grown, into a man!"

"But mother, I'm still the same child as before. You're little child." And so I was. I was a child, in a brown tunic made from clothsack, scurrying in her arms, while the other children of the slums played around me.

"Oh, my, my, my! Dear Cecil, I've missed you so much!" She hugged me tightly to her, and I hugged her right back.

"Mommy, I've missed you too. I have something to show you!"

"Oh? What's that, dear?"

"Father, mommy! Father's came back!" And I pointed down the road where there, resplendent in a black robe was a tall figure. With a sudden leap forward, the figure ripped reality asunder. My mother fell into blackness, but she didn't fall for long. Soon the blackness crept around her, and I watched as my mother was devoured in shadows. Then, so too was I. In my place was nothing.

----

My emotions, my feelings, my wants, my desires, my thoughts and will have burst forward at the sight of this woman. Emotions... wants... thoughts... I can't tell the difference anymore. It has been cohersively merged together into what has become my existence.

Yet, it's all devoured, and my body quiets. I turn away.

So powerful is the Void that I would turn away from the woman who I had once upon a time gave my life too.

So strong has been my transformation through pain and all sorts of vile torture that I would shun this woman.

My mother.

For my Father. A shadow. All shadow.

The Drone Ceases

From the perspective of Cecil Nightengale.

Buzzing and overwhelming. A fuzz at the edge of my hearing, always constantly at the edge, and bringing me with it. Annoying yet faint.

Always it has been such since the Rebirth.

It's a side-effect of the Gift. A side-effect, ever increasing as I crawl meagerly further and further from the rays of the defunct and broken Warriors of the Sky. It buzzes and sounds in my ear, the constant thrum of the city, the constant thrum of my own body (which is so faint now), and the constant thrum of those bodies around me. Never leaving me in peace, it's always there to remind me of that which I must do, that which confronts me, and that I am constantly, always hunted.

Yet... I hear nothing now. There's no sound, no touch, no scent. I am alone, and enjoying every moment I have of it. The pain lulls me into a state of meditation that until recently I thought impossible. Almost a state of sleeping, and I think; this must be what it's like when one grows indifferent to the world, and in their immortality, a still vassal for the Lord. It's a humbling experience.

Although I can feel naught but the Cradle of Pain (back and forth, soothing), there's still something that pokes at me. It's not unkind. Never was there more a gentle reminder than this of my station...

And that reminder is simply that I am thirsty.

Incineration

From the perception of Nightengale.

He grasped my shoulder. It was in a friendly way, and he even tried making a fleeting attempt at a smile, but I pulled away quickly and walked to the wall. My thoughts were in a race; I was so... used to things now. I thought they would continue on like this forever.
"Sometimes people just have a... falling apart, Cecil. It just happens, and yes it's sad, but please - your mother will take care of you. We'll see each other still, but I just can't bear to be around her anymore."
I couldn't take this. I -loved- him, he taught me how to live, he gave me life. He nurtured me, loved me, and I could not imagine a life without him continuing to do these things. Such thoughts were horrible little spiders, and I swept them away with my pleading words.
"Please, please, just stay here - if not for our family, then just for me. Father, I want to see you all the time, I don't want you to be so far. Please, please..."
"Cecil, act your age. This is happening. The best thing to do is just... get over it."
The spiders once more claw at the edge of my brain, and my thoughts turned to much darker paths as I stormed out of our little shack. If there was a door, you can bet your ass I would have slammed it.
With a haste I hadn't intended for, my feet led me upwards onto a roof across from our residence. It was a very long, roundabout way up here, but I took the walk to clear my head. Now, I find myself up here, staring at the night, staring at the shadows cast by the stars and moon against the building. Everything was lit in a great contrast, for the moons battled quite completely for control of the sky. It was a beautiful night, and inhaling it's cold scent made me quite content. My thoughts no longer were touched by monstrous web-spinners, spinning their nets of darkness. I had turned to thinking about what I was going to do with my life. I would often fantasize at length when I sat up high. Most of my fantasies revolved around doing heroic deeds from the shadows. I would be a great assassin, striking out with the night covering me, but I would not murder in cold blood. I would destroy the evil, those that were not just or right...
Like my father, who's betraying me.
Like my cousin, going further and further away into more older and mature things.
Like my thoughts, which were turning darker by the moment.
I viciously shook my head, and took a deep breath of the night. At length, I pondered the stars, and what they meant. What they were. Jewels of the Divine? Or perhaps something else? There was an old woman, steeped in the lore of the Blessed Seven, who often spoke of them as mortals who pleased the Seven, and were ascended into their domain.
I never was much of one for such thoughts. However I tried, I simply did not want to get my head around heeding to something I could not feel, or see.

Father and I are walking around the outskirts, and he's pointing out the buildings of the city that we can see from here. The shrine, the hospital... it all looks so big. Yet, his gentle reassurance calms me in the face of it all, and I embrace him as we begin to travel home. On our way, we meet a stray dog with a limp. Father quickly moves to him, and picks him up. I watch, mystified, and we move on to our next door neighbor's house. Father hands the dog over to the old lady, who I've often thought a witch, and she takes it into a back room. We wait, and wait, and wait... and then she comes out, the dog following her. All better.
"A little good goes a long way..." my father said to me.

I am jarred awake. I must have been dozing quite completely, for by the way the moon is almost set, I reckon it's nearly time for morning. No sight of the sun can be seen though. I shake myself into further wakefulness and begin to scramble down the building; but I am halted by something. A sight. Below me, my father stands... entangled in the arms of an attractive, young woman. She has delicate curves; very pretty. I've never been much of a child to judge women, having much more fun simply playing seek and sneak with my friends, but this female was beautiful. However, something else made me wretch, her beauty did not stop me from hating her, nor did the carefree glimmer in her eyes which was lost in many women of the slums. At that moment, I wished she would die.

Because she was kissing my father.

Comfortably Numb

In the view of Nightengale

Like a rolling wave crashing onto the sea during a storm, I have been hit by a certain vessel of understanding. Only now have I torn myself away from my selfish plots to see this wave. Only now, in the presence of the Void, in the presence of a blissful NOTHING world have I been enlightened with a certain feeling of... well, nothingness.

A sort of pain is still there, but it is mental. I feel nothing more, and I am left here to plot. For that I am thankful. This is a plethora of nothingness, and it clears my head.

This is how it should be.

Unwaking.

From the perspective of Nightengale.

"This way, Cecil. I know of a new spot," he said to me, beckoning with a hand. He was so frantic when partaking in this game, and it embedded a likewise feeling of excitement in my own body, deep in my core. He ran through the alleyway and I followed, keeping close guard on my surroundings. During this time, it was always best to watch for the other hiders. It wasn't against the rules after all to give a hint to the searcher. We skirted near the out of bound mark, the garbage dump, and it was soon that he led me into another alleyway. I had stopped here before in my strolls around the slums; it was a peaceful place, though I never thought to come back here.

"Come on, up onto the roof. There's a perfect climb, straightforward, there," my cousin pointed at where a stone wall led up onto a wooden roof of a small, old home. Probably rented out as an apartment for a cheap cost, as so many homes were in the slums if they were large enough. We scrambled up, though I went with a bit of despairing fear. I had never been exposed to this high of a height before. It frightened, and excited me at the same time.

He didn't stop there. Across the roof he ran, onto another slightly lower one. He was heading for a small balcony at the border of the slums. The boundaries of our game encompassed this, though many players had asked for it to be cut off. However, the issue was never pursued, and we went within full limits of the boundaries. As we jumped onto the balcony, my cousin first, I vaguely remember thinking, 'They have pretty pottery...' before my foot landed on the railing. I had failed, and my other foot was sending me back into thin air with it's weight. I would have fallen were it not for my cousin. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to safety.

Later, we laughed at the situation (we had won that particular game of sneak and search). However, I had been embedded with more than a laugh from that experience. I was forever knowledgeable of how very awesome things looked from up high.

The pain has returned. The Eyes are upon me. The snake has bitten, and I will bite back twice as hard.

Shattered

From the perspective of Nightengale.

I have emerged from it, and now things are moving quite too fast for my liking. All around me, opportunities arise so that I can grasp them by their necks and twist them to my will. It's good, I find a sort of contentedness in it; yet they are going by so fast. The whole of the matter is that they slip out of my grasp before I even have time to snatch my fingers closed. Considerations take too long, and I do not trust my 'gut' as THEY call it. That's for fools and brawny fools. No, no, I must be decisive, not eager, passive, not overly aggressive. Every move I make, I must remain shadowed, for who's to say that if puny mortals can find me, the light cannot?

My silence is shattered, and I have but only time enough to pick up the few of the pieces before it's shattered again. I swept out my murderer's hand in anger, and it shall not happen again. That one served no purpose dead; her essence was hardly even suitable to me, let alone Father.

I need to grip onto the world with a much tighter claw, for I move far too much of it by extending a finger. It's hard to stay still though, when the Snakes invite you to their den. I've a feeling this will turn out for the worse, but I must reserve the judgment I make now for future reference. After all, I need -somebody- who can feel the Night.