Princes and Horror Show

Can you even sleep while being inside a sleep and dream while being inside a dream? Sometimes, I wished that this stupid Divine Dream’s logic behave just like Christopher Nolan’s Inception. I am tired. I wish I could escape this layer to another layer, and there, I would find my sleep. I kept wishing for the same wish for the last decades. However, as tired as I was, peace did not come, nor rest, nor sleep.

I am exhausted and yet, as long as I am still trapped within this Divine Dream, rest will not come.

While Death was the creator of this Divine Dream, Fearless was the reason why it became an endless dream. Sometimes, I imagined that I could sneak behind Fearless and put him down with a rear naked choke in the same manner that Merleon’s old man has taught me, getting back at Fearless and making him rest, two birds with one stone. Not that I had the strength nor the mean to do that.

Sometimes, I wished that I had enough strength and energy to convince these immortals, Gods, Goddesses, and Demon Lords to leave Fearless and me out of their game. I could not comprehend the reason why they would include Fearless into their game.

Perhaps, living an endless life as immortals have made them suicidal, it was almost funny how my mind tried to find the most logical reason to defend the action of these immortals. And yet, I could not laugh. I was laughing without laughing.

Sometimes, I saw what happened, what could have been, what should have been, what shall be, what might be. The past, present, and future. Illusion and truth. Desire and reality. Living in this lucidity of an abyss, I have realized again that my mind worked too fast. A parting gift from Thùy Dương. My mind arrived at places that I did not even intend to go to. To cope with Thùy Dương’s willful and whimsical tyranny, my mind worked fast. The more unpredictable Thùy Dương was, the faster my mind would race, trying to predict her intent and thought. My mind worked fast, too fast. Even when my thought was fractured, I could see and hear things. Too many things.

“What a miserable boy you are,” sometimes, I heard Thùy Dương’s admonishing voice, arrogant and playful. “But fear not, no matter how miserable you are, I will always love you,” I remembered her bright smile.

“How are you going to live without me?” I heard her teasing voice and that small pain on my cheek whenever Thùy Dương said those words.

“You know what sis? You were right.” I replied. But I did not think Thùy Dương would hear my answer.

I saw the pasts where we were there, both Fearless and I, stopping tragedies before they happened. I saw futures where we are still on Earth, living our lives in a small and self-contained blissful happiness. And then, they came, without fail, the reality, the truth to remind me that I was but a wishful thinker. I felt small and helpless as usual.

I wish I could close my eyes and when I do that, Thùy Dương would be there, a part of my life as before. It did not matter if she was not real. It did not matter if she was just an illusion, a phantom of the past, a dream that was already broken, a tiny happiness that will never be realized. It did not matter if she wasn’t real. It did not matter to me because I want to see her, whole and beautiful, even now. I had no wish to forget Thùy Dương.

“I’m sorry for your lost.” A simple line of condolence, a gesture of kindness, and that are about it. Your wound is yours to bear. Your wound is yours to heal. While she meant the world to me, Thùy Dương was just one human among billions. Even if she was special to me, to the world she was just one woman among billions. “I hope you will move on.” The world is sorry for her death but it will not stop and mourn for her. In time, she would be forgotten.

If I forgot Thùy Dương, nobody will remember her.

“You have to let go. You have to learn how to let go.”

Thùy Dương did not matter to the world. Neither do I. So why must I listen to the world’s opinion? We do not matter to this world. With or without us, life goes on, the world will move on. And yet, “Let go. Move on,” the world expected me to fall in line.

Let go, two words, Move on, two words, easy to say, anyone can say them, which prompted that insidious thought to appear at the edge my mind. I pondered that if I repeated what that demon did to Thùy Dương on their entire family, those who spoke those two words, would they speak those two words as easy as they did. And I hated myself for letting such thought appeared on my mind. Therefore, I rather am asleep than awake.

“Talk to me. Share it with me. You will feel better.”

It was as if the entire world believed that I did not realize Thùy Dương was already dead. It was as if this world believe that I was merely deluding myself into believing that she was still alive. I knew she was gone, better than anyone else, better than Fearless, better than that demon, better than those forensic analysts. I knew that she was gone from the moment I first saw that trail of blood. Thùy Dương loved playing all manner of mean jokes on me. She loved bullying me. But she would never play that ugly kind of a joke.

“Drink this.” “Drink that. You will feel better,” those doctors said it like medications will resolve everything. They said those lines repeatedly as if Thùy Dương’s death was a curse and those medications possessed a holy power to lift that curse. They said those lines as if those medications worked in life as well as they worked in video games. “Just drink them.”

Thùy Dương was no curse and I had no need for anything holy to enter my life.

“Man up and move on,” they said such words carelessly. Strong men. Tough men. The very image of masculinity. Perhaps, they were right. Men move on and grow up from their wounds. Men are made of scars. “So, man up and move on, stop moping,” they said as if their value is the only truth in this world.

Whether I move on, or not, should not be of their concern. I am me and they are them. Why must my value be identical to theirs?

The funny thing is they did not even realize that I had already moved on. I had already moved on from living. Since I could not off myself, I slept. I cut myself off from Fearless. While sleeping, I was no nuisance to anyone. I hurt nobody while sleeping.

But inside this strange space, this abyss, sleep did not come. Sleep did not visit me once. There is nothing else to do to deter my mind from racing ahead, filling with dark thoughts, making calculations and predictions of the matters that did not even concern me. Within this lightless abyss, my thought was more lucid than ever and I did not even want that. So, I kept my mind occupied with those letters. I reread FY’s letter many times, imaging of a world without me and Fearless, and then reading the older letters.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dear Mr. Fearless,

I know what I am doing is strange, because unlike you, I am a non-believer. Even now, I don’t believe in god or the existence of any almighty beings. And here I am, writing this make-believe email to you, knowing well that you could never receive it.

This is a good joke, isn’t it?

So, laugh.

I hope you can at least have one final good laugh at my insistence on being an atheist while being the manager of your followers. I thought that this group would become unmanageable with your departure. But they held on so well that I am actually surprised. It’s like nothing has changed. It’s like you are still here with us. I’m not sure if I should take more pride in myself for keeping them in the line.

Mr. Fearless, I’m writing this letter to inform you of my future plan.

There is no longer the need to keep this group going. It is as we have deducted back then. Even without you, still, I’m working toward that goal. I have stopped this group from growing in number as best as I could since your departure. Many people are leaving. Some have come to term with themselves. Some have finally understood what this group is all about and have moved on since. But some, unfortunately, took drastic actions without my acknowledgment to be with you. I am doing my best to spread the message and keeping these groups in check.

And once in a while, things became hectic when my attention was elsewhere and the number grew again, but that was just the usual.

I hope I can disband this group completely within the next five years or so. I know that our current progress is four years behind our initial schedule. But that does not mean I should stop working toward that goal. We have to disband this group because it is the right thing to do. I know that it is the right thing to do.

Without you, it is going to be hard. But I hope that we can finish what we have started back then.

An old friend,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

To Mr. Hunter,

May the doors of hell open wide to punish us,

We, those who have sinned,

We, those who wished to be punished.

We must be held account for our sins,

Lest the Lord bear our sins, for He is truly good and innocent.

O Hunter, thy demons burri'd with thee, worry not.

O Hunter, I hope you shall find what you seek in the land beyond the living.

Yours truly, Keeper.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I read the unread messages, all of them, regardless of whether they were addressed to Fearless or me.

Goodbye, Fearless. Thank you. Dear Phúc, Rest in peace, dearest prince. From a fan. Dear Fearless, Sorry, The last letter, no more, I promise.

The more messages that I read, the clearer the world where neither I nor Fearless existed became. That world was real, very real, so much more real than this one. So were these emails. These emails were real. They were written by real people. They were not magically conjured by some immortals to toy with my mind. If my mind had any shadow of a doubt before when I read FY’s email for the first time, there are none now, I sighed without sighing.

Even though I knew that it was FY’s email without a sliver of a doubt, I was wishing that it was not. I was wishing that some malicious entities have written that email instead. Because if that letter was written out of malicious intent, that meant this world was merely an illusion, a lie. That meant there was hope for Fearless to return to that world, to live and find his happiness among the presence of Alice and our family. That’s why I kept rereading it for over a thousand times. That’s why I knew FY wrote that letter for real while reading the other letters as well.

I wonder if these emails came to this world because the fans wished for it to happen. I wondered if URLOX, those people were even human, to begin with. They brought both Fearless and I to this world. They did not bring just Fearless or I, they brought the two of us here.

This feat is truly inhuman.

This world made no sense, nor my current situation. I could not help but wonder if this was just a dream within a dream within yet another dream, and the two of us, Fearless and I, were being trapped inside the craziest illusion that we have ever conjured.

Would it change anything if I know the truth? A question popped up within the sea of doubts of my mind, this question, Fearless too must have asked himself already. Would it change anything if I know the truth?

“No.”

“No.”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the answer to that question, because knowing the truth changed nothing. Our current situation would not change for the better. I still could not off myself without killing Fearless. And war is inevitable.

I could already see the paths that Fearless was going to travel. I could already see the place where he would arrive. Since I have been with Thùy Dương longer than he did, my mind has always raced faster than Fearless’.

Death gave him something truly dangerous for free.

The speed of the mind is no longer a concern, as long as this dream remained. Fearless was taking his time to plan ahead. There was no need for him to rush. A thousand years in this dream can be as short as a second on Escana. Fearless currently possessed all the time in the world, the ultimate luxury that any planner and schemer would drool to have. Death has given away the most dangerous weapon in the world to a man who knows how to use it correctly. I wonder if she had any inkling of an idea of how dangerous this weapon would be in the hands of Fearless.

Fearless has already fought malice with malice, injustice with injustice and time with time.

How to combat stupidity? With Stupidity.

How to kill Demon Lords? With Demon Lords.

How to win against insanity? With Insanity.

How to win wars? With Wars.

I felt completely drained the moment my mind arrived at the strangest of destinations. Since I had no strength, I wish FY or Merleon is here to punch sense into Fearless. I wish Alice is here to beat my other half out of his nonsense.

“Fearless, read the letters,” I told him with the loudest voice I could mutter while he mounted on me and beat me.

“Rise,” he cried while raining down his punches.

“Fearless, read the letters,” I repeated.

“Rise, I beg you…”

“Read the letters,”

While he was babbling some nonsense about turning Death into an example for the children of Naharis to witness since she was the strongest immortal, “Fearless, read the letters,” I was already at the limit of my strength, “Read the letters.” I begged. He did not hear me as usual.

“Good talk,” he said.

“Read the damn letters,” I was tired that I have to repeat myself while he could not hear my voice, tired of his shits, tired of knowing the inevitable.

The first stratagem has already been played.

Honeypot is a most ancient form of a stratagem. And here I am, about to become the most infamous honeypot in this world. I sighed a motionless sigh, a soundless sigh, with it my hope of stopping Fearless from turning everything into a bigger mess.

Death came and took me, as I have expected, fell for the most obvious ploy in the world, not even remotely realizing what she had done. With the grace of a merciful savior, Death slowly descended to the bottom of the abyss in a bright pillar of light. Death could not make a better dramatic entrance than this, unless she incorporated a slow-moving cinematic effect into this scene.

“Dear,” Death cried out, half-hiding her open display sadness behind her long cadaveric fingers. Her ghoulish dark eyes seemed to crumble into shreds of sorrow at my sorriness. Death immediately waved her hand and the watery abyss disappeared. There I was, lying among those dandelion-like flowers inside of Death’s garden. Death took me into her arms and pulled my head into her bosoms, filling my nose with her smell that resembled spring flowers.

She has just unwittingly taken the role of the Paris of Troy. And I am going to be blamed for the chaos to come, even though the role of Helen and the Trojan horse is forced into me.

“You got the wrong person.” I tried to tell Death as I did to all the women Fearless has courted while pretending to be me. I wondered why he kept using this same move.

“Poor you, you should have turned back while you could. Why must you be so hardheaded?” Death berated me in a voice full of pity as if she was about to cry.

I did not think Death heard my voice. She squeezed my head into her deep cleavage and tightened her winter-like hug on me. “It’s fine. It’s fine. I would hurt you no more. It’s fine. Just stay by my side, I will keep you safe.” Death comforted me, kissing my hair, patting my back.

The Harlot of Kraig’ondor could bring down an Empire with her beauty.

Me? My name will be attached to the destruction of Kharigan. What a mess!

Death waved her hand, a small wooden cottage magically appeared in the middle of her flower garden. There, Death kissed me and whispered sweet nothings into my ears, telling me that she would heal me with the power of her love.

I’m tired. I don’t care anymore.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I gaped, my eyes rolling white.

The very scene that I have anticipated for such a long time did not provide me the entertainment that it should have. I have expected myself to break down with holler, laughing at the ridiculousness of this scene. And I was surprised, but far from being pleasantly surprised.

Death’s demeanor was ridiculous. She was the one who condemned us to this fate, this punishment… Well, I played a part in engineering it, a rebellious part of my heart corrected me inwardly.

But, it’s still true. Death has sentenced us to suffer in this endless abyss. Therefore, it was ridiculous that she would show such compassion and took pity on the sorriness of my other half like that. Her demeanor was so ridiculous that it should be a foul. It was brainwashing for what brainwashing is. She executed a “Rough him up and then comfort him routine,” obviously trying to trigger a mental defensive mechanism that is commonly known as the Stockholm syndrome.

However, I have already predicted that Death would make a move like this. She was just that readable of a woman. I should laugh, mocking Death for her underhanded character and her predictable tactic. Because if her tactic was this apparent and if I could see through it, Phúc too, could, easily.

The two of us have gone through this routine with Thùy Dương long enough to understand it.

Yet, I could only gape in silence.

“You got to be fucking me,” a hideous scoff escaped my lips the moment realization entered me. “Your character is horrible.” I could not help but curse. Death was just pure horrible and underhanded, even though I am not one to judge her character. The two of us were pot and kettle.

Niwdar’s body aside, Clariciel’s voice, aside.

While I was creating a dreamland and preparing myself for war, Death used her time to study three women in my memories. She studied their demeanor, their rhythm, their kindness.

Mrs. Hạ Đông’s healing rhythm.

Thùy Dương’s demeanor.

Alice’s kindness.

Death did not just thoroughly study them. She perfected their rhythm, demeanor, presence and incorporated them into her acting.

It was a sheer miracle that I did not spoil my own strategy and came down there to give Death a thorough beating. “You have all the time in the world to learn something meaningful and yet, this is what you have decided to pick up?” My teeth clattered by the surging waves of anger. This is a fucking miracle. I had to applaud my perfect self-control.

Death took Phúc back to her garden of white flowers. There she conjured a small cottage, playing a dollhouse game and living newlywed life with a doll of a human. As I watched, I could not help but ask “What’s going on inside your head?” I could not understand how Phúc could take all of that nonsense with a bare despondent face and let Death do whatever she wanted with him. I could not help but wonder just how much more insults my other half could take until he snapped.

As for Death, I started to doubt her status as “The strongest and most ancient Immortal.” She did not aware that she has already lost the control over this Divine Dream. She did not aware that the flow of time has been altered. She was so clueless to realize that the display of that meeting hall that she kept peeking at once in every now and then was fake. She did not even aware that I was merely reusing my stratagem one more time against her. She played dirty. But, I was even more of a dirty player. I whored my other half for the victory.

I sighed, admiring Phúc’s mental fortitude for keeping up with his acting, keeping up with his own lie, keeping playing that dollhouse game with Death.

I left my working table and opened my wardrobe, my own wardrobe reconstructed from the memory back when I was still on Earth. I stopped and pondered on which version of The Alliance’s uniform that I should put on for this special occasion.

The Alliance’s uniforms were designed by Fantasy, all of them, from the oldest version to the latest one. Fantasy was the sole fashion designer for The Alliance as stated in his contract. His contract and mine were special in the way that ours had a special additional clause that nobody else had.

My contract always had a silly clause, “Receive a matching sum of FY’s annual salary + $10,” which was my way of telling FY that “I am always better than you, even if it’s just $10.”

Fantasy’s contract, on the other hand, had a special clause, which stated that he will be to be the only fashion designer for the entire team.

Looking back, it was like we were playing with fire, considering how horrendous Fantasy’s fashion sense was and how much of a troll that he was. The first set of The Alliance’s uniform that Fantasy handed to me and everyone else was a tight bodysuit made of black fishnet. I don’t think that I could ever forget that, ever. Merleon was literally hauling Fantasy into the air, asking, “Tell me that this is a joke.”

We were thirty minutes away from our match.

Fantasy had that look of surprise and confusion. It was as if he saw nothing wrong with his nightmare of a creation. It was only until everyone has given up on entering the arena on matching uniform, Fantasy would reveal the real uniform with an impish look, “Common guys. That was a joke. Obviously.” That set of uniform became the Classic version, which I arrived at Escana with it.

For the sake of merchandising, Fantasy would often release a new version of our uniform every once in a while. As a result, my wardrobe had over twenty different sets. I would say that Fantasy can design some great “normal” clothes if he tried. Among the different designs that Fantasy has made, I took quite a liking to the Classic version and the Redeem Version. Misery’s favorite was the Tyrant (Winter) Version and the Challenger Version, the one I hated the most, the version which composed of a dark and tattered trench-coat, fingerless gloves, worn out black jeans with a golden belt and a tight sleeveless black shirt underneath. Merleon’s preference was the Conqueror (Summer) version, which was inspired by the in-game cloth of the Sword Saint. FY had no preference over any set in specific. He was fine with whichever as long as they were not too flamboyance.

It took me thirty minutes to decide to take on one of Misery’s favorite, the Tyrant (Winter) Version. I slowly put the pieces of the set on my body. I could snap my fingers and magically put the suit on. But these days, I preferred staying away from the magic of this dreamland as much as possible. Being a nearly omnipotent being made me lost touch with reality and myself, and I have to prepare myself for that moment when this dream would end.

The Tyrant (Winter) Version was one of Misery’s favorite due to how mean it looks. Fantasy designed this set after we had won a back to back championship. A person could wear this set of uniform and blend in perfectly within one of those modern vampire movies due to its elements of Punk Gothic. The top part of the Tyrant (Winter) Version composed of a dark leathered long coat buttoned in Craxus’ dragon golden coins with a rough feathered collar. With black metal-padded pants for the bottom and that long leathered coat for the top, I stared at my mirror reflection, sighing at how close my current appearance resembled those emo vampires that I hated.

“Here come the horror. You thought this is a comedy show? Too bad, it’s a horror flick,” a delightful snicker escaped my throat, “Brainless fools, when it’s finished and done, you will remember me as your boogeyman.” I seriously doubted if these brainless fools would ever dare to enter and mess another man’s dream again after this.

Donning my battle uniform, I entered the checkered hall, putting an end the arrogance of these immortals.