pretentious bullshit 1000

Once again, he is alone in the infirmary, the taste of salt and poison still on his tongue. Regret is bitter. The faces of his classmates keep swirling to the top of the turbulence. No time to think about them now. He can regret his actions all he wants when he finally burns in hell. But first he must see his own plans to the end. No use getting bothered by this useless thing called regret. He has to [[sleep.]] He can monologue all he wants when he gets to hell, too, to whoever that would hear that pretentious rubbish.

(live: 3s)[(goto: "dream start")]

<img src="https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/662677582747271168/889924531010035782/morning.png" alt="Sunrise."/> Morning comes too soon. The last vestiges of sleep fizzle away into gold dust and molten wax. Pity, the dream tasted delicious. He could drink it all up and never be left wanting again. Ah. There are still drops left.

Two [girls]<c1| are playing nearby, barely old enough to be out alone on the field.(click:?c1)[ He knows them. The one with short hair turns to him as he gets up, with a look of innocent curiosity in those round brown eyes. She turns back to the other girl, whose hair was done in twin buns, her name called and a question of what she was looking at hanging in the air.] One giggles to the other, remarks that it was getting late and they should be going home for dinner, and the two speed off in their little race. He knows the [[route.]]

The field dampens down into mud, and mud into a town. The girls skid to a halt near one of the houses, and they both trip over each other as they clamber onto the [window]<c2| to wave at someone before dropping off the sill, still laughing. They help each other up and continue their race, and the doorway to their house was not big enough for two bodies shoving themselves in at the same time.(click:?c2)[ He nears the window. It is small and looks in to a dark room, but was now occupied by a man looking out of it, waving back to the two girls before returning into the house. The man then attends to the patient on the bed, an old man just as equally wrinkled and weary as the doctor's hands, under the unrelenting [steely-eyed gaze]<c1| of another child. The old man is smiling, shaking his head and muttering about having to cook dinner for a bunch of rascals, and the doctor chides him for not taking care of his health better, and the old man wheezes in response.](click:?c1)[(replace:"another child.")[his young daughter.]] He [[carries on.]]

He knows which house the children ran into. He would [know.]<c1| (click:?c1)[Once upon a time he had been the child that grumbled at his two sisters when they came home from playing in the fields, when his face was only marred by dirt and a frown, and the brightest blue eyes. The boy would scold the girls for being late, and that he had to make sure they were home before their grandfather got back, before packing up his things and running out of the house. Today, he would go to the edge of town to gather firewood, and maybe pick some wild roses to impress the pretty girl in the doctor's house with. (live: 3s)[(transition: "dissolve")[He does not turn around as the boy dashes past his legs with his little axe in hand. He does not turn around when the sound of marching nears. He does not turn around even as the screaming gets [[too much to bear.]] ](stop:)]]

(text-colour:#efac28)["Afraid, are ](text-colour:#73eff7)[[we?]](text-colour:#efac28)["]

The [voice]<c1|(click:?c1)[ - voices, it sounded like a chorus as one -] boomed, drowning out the noise of war. Feathers drifted down around him with the clinking of gold plate. He looks up. Ah. This must be the [primal]<c2|.(click:?c2)[ The angel descended in front of him, his golden wings spread with manifold blades tucked under it like a bird's feathers. The tips of his ethereal boots barely touched the ground, and the grass bleached itself pure white. His halo of sun-kissed hair curled around baby blue eyes full of question, of regal endearment.] (text-colour:#efac28)["Come. There is more, isn't there?"] The angel gestures to the ruined town. And there [[was.]]

The young boy's footsteps returned to the sounds of war, stopping just short behind them. The boy's breath hitches, he calls out a name, then names, questioningly, then alarmed. (text-colour:#efac28)["But nobody answered,"] intones the angel with a hint of [sadness.]<c1| (click:?c1)["No," he replied.(live: 3s)[(transition: "dissolve")[ [["Everybody did."]]](stop:)]]

The screaming begins again, begging for the young boy to turn tail and run. To escape with his life intact. The boy sees the soldiers that drag out his friends and family, to be claimed as spoils of war. And the boy falls to his knees, clutching the axe to his heart. A soldier drifts from the pack, [gloating]<c1| at this sad little child. (click:?c1)[Look at this pathetic thing, said the soldier. Thinks he can be a little brave hero. We don't want you to grow up and get some silly thing like revenge or anything, now do we? Let us nip this in the bud before it- (live: 3s)[(goto: "chop chop")]]

The boy's face remains impassive even as the others look up. Red boils off the blade of the axe as he yanks it out with a horrible splurt. Armed soldiers against a child was not a battle he would [[win.]]

That is alright. He understood, but the young boy did not. And so the young boy lies battered in the dirt, as the soldiers pick up their injured fellow and move on. And then the boy lies in the mud, holding [[anger]] in his heart.

A cry sounds out. Four tiny dusty hands climb out of rubble and drag the boy to the pile of the dying. The two sisters wail and slap at the boy, demanding that he wake, demanding he not be dead. (text-colour:#efac28)["Anger, borne of an innocent heart smothered by injustice,"] mused the angel. The boy and the man say [[nothing.]]

Mud turns into slurry beneath all their oblivious feet, and by the time it burns through their straw slippers it is too late. Their wails turn into screams as the ground sucks them down, along with the multitude of dying hands that reach out to save them, only to sear their prints into flesh when the angry earth boils over, sending up embers to lick clean everything that survived. [[Wide fields of gold grain that blazed in a sea of red fire, around a child marked with the caresses of the dead.]] Unlike what the angel thinks, he relishes his scars. Every last one of them.

(text-colour:#efac28)["You have buried all that by your own hand,"] finishes the angel. (text-colour:#efac28)["Why?"] "The past is nothing but ash to a child assumed dead. I want only one thing." A new set of footsteps arrive, quick and quiet. A hand grasps firmly the limp body of the child. [Mother.]<c1| (click:?c1)[(replace:"Mother.")[Clymene.]<c2|](click:?c2)[(replace:"Clymene.")[Mother.]<c1|] The angel grasps him, the same way she did. (text-colour:#efac28)["And I offer you that single thing you have always ](text-colour:#73eff7)[[desired.]](text-colour:#efac28)["]

And so his feet [[follow]], bending not a stalk of wheat as he cuts silently through the field.

And the axe cleaves the soldier's face in [[half.]]

<img src="https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/662677582747271168/889919456715894794/stare.png" alt="He could nearly taste it."/> That insatiable lust. Taking the angel's hand is folly, that is certain. (live: 3s)[(transition: "dissolve")[But it will be on his own [[terms.]](stop:)]]

<img src="https://imgur.com/9WFbdaE.gif" alt="Jonathan - yes, that is him - looks up. A field sprawls out all around him, the stalks of golden wheat swaying lazily in the afternoon sun."/> The distant sound of [[laughter]] rouses him.(stop:)

He extends his hand, and grabs the angel by the [[neck.|morning]]