The Window on the West: Part 5 - At the End of the Fray

At the End of the Fray

The enemy cannot lose. And neither can I. Who will be the shadow on the wall. Or is this the end of eternity. The closing of the curtain. Gentle smile curled up.

Do you fight for salvation?

The Sword of Dreams, the Blade of Smiles! Lend me truth beyond illusion! Slay the veiled villain!

For glory!

Oh, all the people! All those I’ve known on this beautiful sojourn. All those I’ve glimpsed into for a momentary fraction of eternity. All those I’ve passed by on the road, a nudge, perhaps a careless glance, like a bloom on the breeze. 

Or the highest of ideals? But you’ll never truly see, will you? Just like the rest of them, you fear the Nameless, you are blind to the Faceless, and the truth of it all eludes you. Ah, what sweet illusion! Now!

No…not Fate! Never the nightmare. Aaaaaaaaaaaah!

Oh, Humanity! The searing pain. It is your eyes I look into as I kill. My mind is no more. Not mine. Split, gone, vanquished. As I break, stab and end. To die like a dog. To die, die, die, die, die, death, death, DEATH! No more. Why, O nameless adversary! Wherefore is this your face? I will not kill thee. No! Yes! In the greying river will I submit. To always yield. 

Yes. Feel the power of the Faceless. Feel it now. Feel it ripple through. Feel it cast aside the unworthy. Feel it purge. Feel it now!

Oh, ere I go, for the Window on the West! Ah, momentous sorrow of lost friendship!

The Veiled Adversary fears you not! All that you have so pitifully wrought, I am here to unmake.

Dark star, take me. I fain would lie down. Now. Fain would lie down…drift away.

The hum almost takes me…

And softly spoke the hero.

There is neither good nor bad, only the Zeitgeist.

Light beyond compare! Flash of it all!

Such radiance! Ohohoho, such radiance! Laugh, can’t help it. Oh, laugh like I’ve never laughed before! Can’t see anything, the blinding light. The binding light. It blinds me. Binder of destiny. Turner of it all. Keeps getting brighter. Dazzling, dazing, reviving, illusory, now and forever. To see this day! The Whiteness! The beginning has come, or is it the end. Hahaha! I don’t need to see anymore.

Oh…! I feel it! Though my eyes be unseeing and my heart all a-flutter, I know that welcoming warmth. In this world and the next.

The Window on the West!

You will never prevail! You cannot. All that has been wrought since the spread of Time has decided this. It is written onto the Rock of Eternity.

And…gone! 

Like the drifting scent of water on a sunny afternoon. 

Life-giving Window, I shall question thee not.

And this? What…what is this? Is this freedom? Oh my friend, oh my love! Oh…! That face comes to me now, passing through the ironworks of Time. The first face. Freedom! Truth or illusion, freedom under the windswept plains, I bow to thee!

Freedom! Peace!  Life!

A rumbling laugh that echoes through the seas of Time, through bounds unknown. Through the greying fray.

I am Randomosity! The everlasting, undying hearse! The controller of it all, unyielding all the way down! Master of the consciousness, now and forever! To have cast the waterfalls of infinity before Time itself. To know truth from illusion! To rend, to annihilate – to the last shall I find my peace. For it is only I who am real!

Come! Face the darkness of eternal despair, it awaits thee! Here do I show thee the Spear of Spears, the Ender of Time, the Bringer of Infinity! Let us together end it for the last time!

And so turned the hero.

To face him one last time. Or was it merely the second. Or perhaps he faces him yet. Looming figure, unseeing and unbidden in the darkness. To look upon the face of the nemesis, squarely, till the last.

 

“There is no truth. Only the zeitgeist.”

I smiled.

And raised my hands leisurely. Time was a friend from before the beyond now. I could feel it in me! The fray, the Window! All that I have wrought.

The universal consciousness stirs. The Beast of Ages. How long has it waited for the Hero’s return.

Darkness and Light alike fill me, pass by me, as I pass by them. Instants rush by, photographed by the all-consuming. To seek!

Ah, the ties that bind! The chains of the universe! 

I am everything.

And I am free!

Ere the end have I become the master of this universe! The Zeitgeist. The blade that forms itself. The momentary master of eternity. Ah!

I raise the Zeitgeist. Harness it all. Unbridled power. Consciousness beyond compare! 

Dash of crimson, flight of soul. It cannot be…

The Window! The Window! My friend! The Window on the West! At last I have found thee.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

To live.

And then all was blue oblivion.

[End transmission.]