………

……………………

It was quiet in my little world, with only the haunted sounds of sobbing and screams permeating the distance boundary.

I could hardly think at all.

……………………………………

I didn’t want to think.

……………………………………………

If I had to think, I would inevitably think about the Surveyor.

……………

I didn’t want to think about the Surveyor.

……………………

If I thought about the Surveyor I would remember things I didn’t want to remember.

……………

The family heart was in disarray, but I was in no state to fix it. Rather, it was this way because of me.

It was my fault.

The Surveyor died because of me.

…………………………………………

Your fault! All your fault! Dead because of you! These accusations echoed around my heart if I let myself think.

………………

……………………………

I wanted to curl up and fade away, because every time I was aware I existed I was plagued with guilt.

I had gone through much with my lizards, and many had perished; it was inevitable. I always tried to help them avoid death if I could...but for the first time, I’d led one right into it.

your fault

because of you

……………………………

Really, what did I honestly think would happen but that after defying the Madness of the World? The Surveyor was injured, unable to defend himself.

Easy prey.

………~………

More anguish.

Please, something keep me from thinking anymore. I don’t want to feel anything anymore.

…………………………………………………………

Far in the distance, the echoes of cries continued. Too far away to make out clearly, but enough to color my lonely little world with sound. It was better than the static that ravaged my mind as the Madness of the World tried to make me submit, but I still wished I could just be left in complete silence.

…………………………………

I was done with feeling. It would have been better to not feel at all. Then maybe I wouldn’t have cared. His death haunted me, tormented me.

………

I couldn’t forgive myself.

………

I tortured myself, and in some small way I relished in that torment. I knew I deserved it, every bit of it.

The screams in the distance...they came from me. A hundred thousand million tortured voices blaming me, imitating the sounds of all the lizards I once knew. All the parts of my heart I tried to lock away, forced to languish in their invisible prison. Would I eventually lose the ability to hear them? If I emptied myself enough, would I no longer care?

I was tired...so tired. Tired of feeling. So many terrible emotions came from feeling. Wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t feel at all? If I could look out over the world and not have it move me, not have it crush my heart into little pieces?

Who was I to oversee these creatures? What conceited being was I to think that I could hold all those lives in my hands, lift them up, and not drop a single one? The accusations swarmed me like a hive of raging insects, biting and stinging until I was nothing but pain and screams.

How many lizards had I seen die, yet this single death threw me into so much turmoil? There was a part of me that laughed at the irony, that I would be broken so thoroughly by a single lizard. But it wasn’t just because of a single lizard, I knew that much. It was because of what his death represented. That I had just started something I was afraid to finish. That so many more would now die as a consequence of my action. That I hadn’t thought about what it meant to defy.

……………………………

A strange feeling formed in my heart, and for all my desire to distance myself from it with the rest of my emotions, it lingered. It smoldered. It started as a tiny spark under the ash of my emotions, and slowly grew until a lick of flame appeared among the desolate wasteland of my heart.

This feeling...I had only felt it once before. ...No, that wasn’t right. I had only remembered it once before. It had frightened me then, but now it warmed the darkest part of being. The small flame grew in the absence of other emotions until it began to fill everything, until it began to eat away at everything.

The haunting voices of blame and sadness were soon drowned out by the blaze. After a time, it was nothing short of a raging inferno. It coiled and spat and roared against my being, begging to break through to the light of day, to take everything that was me and consume it to feed the flames ever higher.

And for the first time I truly felt what had only been a long forgotten memory; Hatred.

((Author’s Note: Thank you so much everyone! Overseer is officially a year old today! Yay!!

Now I’m going to do two things I’ve never done before. To commemorate the year of Overseer, I’d like to first ask you, the reader, if you have not already done so, I’d love to get your rating on my story ♥ Whatever you feel it’s worth, a few stars, a comment, an in-depth review, every little bit is appreciated.

Next, I’d like to open up the opportunity for you to create a lizard to appear in the story. In a reply to this thread, feel free to tell me as much or as little about a lizard you’d like to appear in the story. As a general disclaimer, please keep in mind that I may change some details to fit the story better, and that should the story ever become published, I will hold copyright to the character in the story (so don’t enter your ‘baby’ or ‘OC’, but rather an idea you’d like to see made flesh). It can be anything like just a name, a few keywords and some traits, an idea for a family, or even a long biography. I can’t promise that everyones idea will make it into the story, but those that spark my creativity will definitely see the light of day for a chapter or two ♥

Also, thank you Xant for the Chapter title for Chapter 40. I would have added an author’s note on the chapter but didn’t want to interrupt the feels train. Happy 2016! Here’s to hoping I can wrap the story up before another year passes!))