《Emancipation - An Isekai Story》Chapter 8 - A Broken Heart Finding Its Goal
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Tears slowly crawled down his face. The blurry traffic lights - only their after images remaining - shined brightly on the tracks they had left in their wake. He felt his heart was being held by a cold hand. Slowly clasping on his beating heart. He tightened his, already white-knuckled, grip on the steering wheel. Pressing the gas pedal, his car sped even faster. A rush of adrenaline to keep him going. Because he knew, with absolute certainty, that if he stopped - even for a second of time - he would not live another day.
The night sky was filled with storm clouds; far far away, swirled a mighty tornado roaring in indignation. Rain poured down, beating the ground - to a slick cover - relentlessly. Lightning brightened the heavens, and thunder adorned it as well. Mirroring the maelstrom of emotion and lack of strength to change anything he felt himself drown in.
Screaming as loud as he could possibly in his zooming vehicle, he knew that no one would hear his cries. Yet, he made sure to keep his eyes open onto the road. With a jerk of his hands, he tilted the steering wheel all the way to his left; arms crossing over each other. His body affected by the sudden change of direction was almost thrown out of his seat - mind to foggy to remember to put a seatbelt on. The highway was empty this night; everyone home with family and friends. Shaking his head, his eyes blurred even more. Broken sobs of pain stumbled past his perfectly white teeth and cracked lips.
He needed to think of anything else - anything at all. The hurt was too great, he feared his heart would tear itself to pieces just thinking about it. His hands began to shake, memories of a better time flashed before him. Like a hologram made so perfect, it remained a distance before him in the empty highway. Like dreams they passed, one by one, translucent in nature. They were of broad smiles and crescent eyes. Of giggles and full belly laughter - the kind that hurts your stomach as you roll on the ground. Of times spent together under the reassuring light of the moon. Huddled together making promises of a grander time to come.
“Why?” he cried, voice distorted by the emotions that ran rampant in his body. “Why did you leave me all alone? You promised we would be together forever, ” every word he uttered was a painful experience like daggers plunging into his chest.
Harder, still he pressed the gas pedal. The speedometer rising every second matching his need to get away. As far away as realistically possible from the cause of all his suffering.
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Yet, still, he sped, every turn challenging to make and those shorter, each begging he crashes into them and passes away; maybe the pain would be gone then. As he zoomed under bridge after bridge, past city after city, his surroundings began to lighten. Not from a source, but rather likea fog of light had begun to drift into reality. Not caring for the odd occurrence, and mostly attributing it to his blurred eyes. Farther still he continued, cursing his car for not being able to go any faster. Until before him, only a few meters away, a point of light coalesced. Moving in sync with the car, it flashed to white then to black then white again; a seemingly endless cycle.
Seeing this, he couldn't help but scream. “Get away! Whatever you are, leave me alone!” He voice sounded more like an echo to his foggy mind. The blasting engine, a dull thrum in the background rather than its overbearing roars - almost matching that of the storm. Swirving his car, he tried to shake the odd light before him. But no matter his efforts it stayed there, unmoved by his desire. Growing every second, it had become a meter wide and double that in length before his car.
“I just want to be alone,” he whispered in a hoarse voice; throat sore from the screaming and cries. Swirving again, the tires of the car slipped on the slick ground. Seconds passed as gravity seemed to lose its meaning. He watched as his car hurried over towards a massive pillar of stone - holding an even more massive bridge up alone. Yet, he could not feel any sense of urgency to get away. No surprise at his apparent fate. Nor anger that it happened this way. He felt content, he was leaving everything that made him suffer and cry. Everything that made his heart beg to stop beating, and chest to burn in flames.
Closing his eyes, he accepted that he was bound with no variations to his future. Darkness consumed his thoughts as his other senses picked up what he lacked in sight. His ears heard the screeching of tires, nose smelt the odd burning smell, and touch feeling the empty air and the other hand on the steering wheel. Yet, the crashing sound of two great forces colliding sounded distant, and the flames that burned in the wreck that remained smelled like incense and a desert of sand. He did not feel the incredible jolt he imagined would take place right before his body slammed onto the pillar outside of his car. Flying out like a movie, and smacking the titan with no effect to it what so ever.
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He felt weightless, completely and utterly without it. It took long seconds for him to open his eyes, but once he did, he wished he could close them again. Try as he might, they would not shut, widening in awe and absolute fear and insanity. He found himself staring at things his mind could not handle. His sanity slipping the longer he looked. Pictures of this can be seen, but the actual thing was beyond the scope of the feeble human mind. Galaxies and massive clusters of gas floated far away each with pulsing lights that seared themselves into his eyes. A soundless scream escaped his lips, heart beating faster then it had ever before and sweat ran out like rivers down a mountain path. A weight beyond anything he could have imagined pressed down onto his very soul.
But, that was not all that was there. A thing of dark matter seemed to push itself off a painting stuck to a wall; separating itself from the image before him. It had hands, so many hands, and glittering stars and solar systems - in their entire vastness - as eyes flickering. And they too were innumerable. It seemed to take an eternity, but it eventually touched him. How it did so with hands so large, he could not conceive even in the most minute form; it was beyond his tiny mind. But once it did, pain rippled from his eyes; his mouth, parched from the constant screaming, began to leak blood and foam. His irises lost their color and pupils were there no longer; utterly white with no blemish.
He felt hot fire burning with rage inside his skull and pushing their way down his blood vessels to his heart. The pain increased folds even greater because the fire burned not only his soul but were sped across his entire body by its pumping gait. To his lungs, liver, tearing their way into his stomach and through his intestines. Find any way possible to exit his body. From the eyes, nose, mouth, and other more unsavory places as well. Little even found their way out his very pores, all across his entire body.
It remained this way for a time he could not understand, eons and epochs passing in a blink of an eye. Until finally his stubborn mind - unwilling to give in - finally broke; the burning blaze of colorless fire consuming him completely. Limp, he floated for a time longer. Until suddenly, his body lurched forward. Speeding across the galaxies, their colors started to become an amalgamation; impossible to separate one from the other.
Faster and aster he continued to move, with a massive boom a wormhole erupted around him. Sending his body across the galaxy in mere seconds rather than ages of time. To him, reality was glazed with the remanents of the colorless fire that tore him apart. In an undiscernable time, he felt himself enter an area of great resistance. What little he could make out, made it clear he entered a blue world so similar to his home. A barrier of fire surrounded him, its flames licking him at every moment it could. Yet, it did nothing to him, his body had already been introduced to what it deemed as greater.
The farther he went into the atmosphere, the closer he got to the ground. A comfort his mind began to beg for, to feel a firm floor under his feet holding him up and away from the weightlessness that had introduced the thing. His eyes watched, as they passed passes of colored greens, whites, browns, purples, reds, blues, and finally onto a lonely land of light brownish yellow. All their details were blurred to him, his eyes unable to truly see anything anymore.
His descent slowed as he finally reached the ground. The earth seemed to have been carved like a bowl for his arrival, a vast swath of earth seemingly moved, leaving only a single pillar in its lonesome; roughly fifteen feet in diameter. Reaching the pillar, his body came to a sudden halt; just inches away from the ground. Slowly, his toes pressed onto the solid ground under him. Like a waterfall, his body begged, even more, to be released to the effects of gravity, but whatever held him put him down slowly; like a mother would set her newborn babe.
After his toes, he felt his knees support themselves on the pillars sandy ground. A small smile found its way to his face, awkward and as though he had forgotten what it was like to smile; closer to a frown if anyone were to see, but he knew what it truly was. A wave of relief flooded him like a tub of water crashing onto him in the fridged cold. His still heart began to beat again, and his deadly pale body regained a semblance of color. He slumped forward, arms limp beside him as his back bent forward, face almost touching his knees.
Tears crawled down his face, “Finally,” he cried in a whisper meant only for himself. A sob tore its way out of his throat, not one of great sorrow, but of immense relief and joy “Finally, I am all alone.”
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