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A Gamer's Guide 293
🕑 Added 2024-07-19 13:00:12 +0000 UTC<Tutorial stage,
Hell Difficulty Thirty-Fourth Floor:
Cocytus, step four: Judecca.>
<[Clear Condition]
Move on.>
I continue moving. As the temperature drops and the air becomes colder and colder, the fog begins to fade. I can’t see anything in the ice anymore. There’s nothing but darkness, ranging on for what seems like miles.
It’s gotten cold to the point where even though my body barely produces any warmth of its own, my breath is turning a milky white. I can’t smell very well anymore. My nose feels strange, and my eyes hurt. Beads of ice have frozen onto my eyelashes and nostrils.
My eyes follow my feet. Left, right, left, right. One step after the other. I can’t stop. Never stop. I have to…
There. A foot below the ice, hanging in suspended motion. Still clad in his regal robes.
The king of Acheron. His dark eyes stare up at me, listless and cold. But he’s in there. I can tell. As I walk across his form, his gaze follows me.
A while later, I spot the emperor. His eyes follow me, too.
And then, just as I’m about to baselessly hope that that might be it, I find Coda, laid on his back, as though in a crystal coffin, right below me. I fall to my knees above him. Without thinking about it, I press my hands against the cold, dark ice. He can’t respond. He can’t do anything. All he can do, and all he does, is stare at me, with eyes as black as the ice around him.
Tears crystallize at the corners of my eyes. I wipe them away. Bowing gently to him, I whisper “Sorry,” and stand up. Then, even though it hurts, even though walking feels like torture, I move on.
I limp listlessly atop the ice for hours and hours. My breath burns coldly in my throat. The fog is gone now. It’s so cold that my breath isn’t visible anymore. My chest aches. My feet hurt. But I have to keep moving on. I have… to keep… moving.
Endless black around me. So above, as below. I’m moving forward, but it feels like I’m going in circles. The same black eyes stare up at me, passing by intermittently below the ice. My joints creak. My ribs crack. But I have to keep moving on. I have… to keep…
I freeze in place. Below, in the ice, there’s a new silhouette. His eyes are closed, his hair is shorter than I remember, but it is him.
Going down on my knees, I press my fists against the ice.
“N—no,” I say, my voice cracking from the effort. “No, Moleman isn’t… He’s alive! I—I saved him, he can’t be—”
Below me, unmovable, in a coffin of glass, lies Moleman. He isn’t wearing his robes, or his uniform, or his formal outfit. He’s wearing a hoodie and jeans. But it still isn’t right. He shouldn’t be here. This is wrong!
“I didn’t kill him!” I cry at the eternal darkness. “He’s not—he isn’t really…”
Panting, trembling, still on my knees, I thump my fist against the ice. Thump, thump, thump.
“Haah, haah, haah…” I lift my hand. It’s bony, pale, clawed and a deep, unnatural purple at the fingertips. “I can—I can save him,” I whisper. “I can still save him.”
I put my claws to the ice and begin scraping. Like a man unearthing a coffin from the ground, I claw at the ice, my hope rearing pathetically with each piece of ice scratched away. I can do this. I can do this. He isn’t gone. I can still save him.
I paw desperately, my fingers turning an even deeper purple, hypothermia bringing a fever to my hands and arms. But it doesn’t matter. I claw and I claw and I claw and I claw. Below me, the black ice is chipped away, mounds of sheared ice piling up beside me as I fight against the ice and the water to bring him back. One by one, torn off my effort, my claws fall off, but it doesn’t matter. I keep going. I have to keep going.
And, in the end…
My hands touch something soft.
“Oh, oh God, Moleman, oh, God,” I mumble weakly as I push off the last of the ice, grabbing his stiff clothes and pulling his body out of that horrible black hole and into my arms. “Moleman, oh, God,” I continue muttering into his cold, stiff hoodie. He’s so cold. Even colder than the ice. But he’s okay. I’m sure he is. I didn’t scratch a bit of his body. He’s alright. He’ll be fine. All he needs is a bit of warmth, and love, and…
As I hold his stiff body, a silhouette approaches from afar. I can’t smell it. I can barely see it. Even if I look right at it, it doesn’t feel real. Its form, hazy and blurred, fades into the darkness around it like a shadowy mist. It doesn’t look like anything at all. All I can see are three pairs of eyes, glowing like those of a cat’s.
I press Moleman closer.
As it silently walks closer, its form hunched and gangly, I finally understand what I’m looking at.
<Shade Lv.159>
It halts, a dozen or so meters away. And there, it simply stands, watching me with animal curiosity.
It’s me. Clad in the same tatters of clothes I’m wearing, its hair as long and greasy and tangled as mine, its claws torn off as though it, too, had unearthed Moleman from his icy crypt, just across the ice, stands a copy of myself, with a single striking difference. It has three faces.
The central face has stark, red eyes, its lips curled into a show of eager bloodlust.
The left face has eyes of pure black, its brows furrowed down into an animalistic expression of contempt.
The right face wears eyes that are so white they don’t feel real, with a look to it that says absolutely nothing at all.
All three pairs of eyes are turned to me, though despite the looks on its faces, it shows no intention to attack.
<Tutorial stage,
Hell Difficulty Thirty-fourth Floor
Boss Stage>
<[Clear Condition]
Defeat it.>
“Haah, haah, haah, haah…” Breathing heavily, I look down at Moleman. He looks so young. And that wrinkle isn’t pinched between his eyebrows anymore. He looks… At peace. Ah, but there’s a little… I tuck a loose strand of hair behind his ear. There. Now, he’s okay. Now, he can rest for a moment while I handle this.
I lay him down gently atop the mound of shaved ice I formed. It looks like he’s lying on a pile of feathers. Soft, and calm. I stand up and face that thing.
It watches me, silently, alertly.
“Did you do this?” I ask. “Did you hurt Moleman?”
It draws back slightly, hunching down.
“That’s it,” I say. “You did. Just like you did everything else. You’re some… some kind of amalgamate of all my misdeeds, aren’t you? It’s all you. It’s always been you.”
All three faces shift as it moves down, bobbing its head, preparing itself to strike. I can tell. It’s looking for an opening. Some crack in my defenses that it can go for.
I chuckle bitterly. “I can’t believe they’d make it this easy. Downright simple. Quai—”
I bite my tongue. Wrong. wrong word.
It doesn’t seem to mind. The red-eyed face draws itself into a terror-inducing grimace, grinning pathetically. The black-eyed one frowns, nose wrinkling up. And the white-eyed one merely stares.
A giggle crawls out of my throat. It’s so stupidly obvious. Red, black, and white. Anger, hatred, and apathy. Are these my cardinal sins? Ridiculous.
As I grind my teeth, it retreats further away. Cowardly. Pathetic. “You’re the worst,” I mumble, ripping the tattered remains of my clothes from my body. No use in showing sympathy to this thing. All I have to do is get rid of it, and I’ll be alright. This has to be the easiest floor I’ve ever faced!
Laughing, I throw myself across the ice, aiming my claws for its stomach. But I miss. Ah, what’s this? Oh, yeah, my claws fell off while digging Moleman out. Silly me! So, instead of slashing it up, slash slash slash, I slug it right in the stomach, grinning as I feel ribs crack under my knuckles. “There we go!” I cackle gleefully. “First strike, it’s my point! Come on, come on, it’s your turn, three-face!”
Whimpering, it stumbles back, two of the three faces contracting in pain. “Aauuhh…” As it touches a hand to its stomach, it groans painfully. I’m not sure what else to do, so I stare as it mewls pathetically, tries to straighten out, and runs at me, fist raised and ready. Here we go, now here’s a proper fight! Finally, some action! Go on, hit me!
It punches me in the stomach. It doesn’t hurt at all. No bones cracking, no organs rupturing. I frown in confusion.
“What was that?” I say. “What the hell was that?”
Drawing back again, it pulls its right hand to its chest, almost as though the mere act of punching me was enough to hurt.
“What the hell,” one step forward, one kick to its side and it goes flying, “was that supposed to be?! Is that the worst you can do?”
“Ahh, aahhhh!” it moans, trying to pull itself to its legs despite its knees shaking like maracas. Storming up to it, I help to make the analogy more fitting by directing a swift kick at one of its knees, cracking the kneecap and forcing its leg to bend in the wrong direction. “AUUUUUUUU!” it cries as it goes down, but that’s not enough. Stepping on its other knee, I scoff at how absurdly brittle it is. A single step and it cracks like an egg!
“How pathetic can you be?” I growl at it. The creature, this supposed incarnation of my most despicable traits, merely blubbers and tries to crawl away, frail arms pulling a frail body along the ice. “I thought this was going to be an actual fight,” I mutter, clambering over its tawny form to seat myself atop its stomach. It howls in pain, merely from that. “This is just a beatdown.”
Terrified, it tries to claw at me, but it's so weak that it’s pathetic. I bat one arm away a little too hard and it breaks, becoming utterly useless.
“Auu, auu, auu!” it yowls, like a stomped cat.
“This is dumb,” I say as I start to half-heartedly punch its faces with my right hand while holding down its remaining arm with my left. “This is utterly stupid. If this is supposed to act as some sort of encouragement from the gods, in the vein of ‘overcoming anger, hate and apathy is super easy!’ then it’s not helping. This honestly sucks. This is supposed to be hard, damn it! Hellish, even! And yet, it’s… It’s…”
I stop beating it. Below me, the creature sobs, shivering from the cold. I blink at it. Slowly, my bloodied fist unfolds.
My hand falls on the cheek of the center face. It’s warm. Its blood is warm, and its face has color to it. Gently, I wipe away the tears from its cheek. Leaning in closer, I let myself look at it, fully. After some time, it stops crying. Hesitantly, it opens its eyes again. A pair of trembling, red eyes watch me, frightened.
“Who are you?” I ask.
It blinks at me, face moving into dozens of different expressions, frowning, brows furrowed, raised, eyes squinting and moving up and down. Then, chin trembling, its mouth opens. The red-eyed face speaks, in a small voice.
“I’m Love.”
Nodding, I turn to the black-eyed one—the one that stares at me with dark eyes and snarling face. My words come out easily. “Who are you?”
Its lips flash up, exposing its teeth, baring its fangs and its horrible, unwavering hatred.
“I’m Hope.”
Silently, my eyes fall to the final one, the white-eyed face, which sees me, unfeeling. Even bloodied and beat, it doesn’t cry. Its icy white eyes send goosebumps across my arms. “And who are you?”
There’s a shift. Just the slightest one—a little quirk to its otherwise stone-carved lips. It smiles at me.
“I’m Faith.”
I see. So that’s how it is. Clambering off, I sit beside it as it rises again, taking a seat beside me. My eyes move up and down its scraggly form. “I look like shit,” I mutter.
The middle head smiles at me, like a small child would.
Turning away from the creature, I look at Moleman. I sigh at myself. How stupid can I be? It’s not Moleman. And not just in the sense that it’s nothing but a shade. That over there… It’s LetsFraternizeTogether. The person I ‘killed’ four years ago. The real Moleman… The current Moleman… He’s alright. He’s alive. If he was dead, I’d have seen him down here in the ice. But he’s not.
I just…
The creature leans in and hugs me, putting its one usable arm around me. For a moment, I’m unable to move. The arms are bony, the chest is hard, and its breath smells like rotten meat. So, this is what it’s like to hug me? What an unpleasant sensation.
I hug it back.
“Will you hold me, even when it’s hard?”
“Yes.”
“Will you let me love you? Have faith in you? Hope for you?”
“Yes.”
It holds me tighter.
“Thank you.”
It…
He dissolves into dust in my arms. The wind blows him away, but I don’t feel alone.
Even though the ice is cold and the howling winds bite, deep in my chest…
I feel warm.
Comments
mark harrell
IM LOSING IT AHHHH. THE CHARACTERAZATION RAAAAHHHH. NOT REALIZING THE SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE OF WHAT HES DOING RAAAHHH CONFRONTING A CERBERUS OF THE ASPECTS OF HIMSELF HE BETRAYED. GRAAAAHH
Nogardnoir
Huh. Didn't see that coming.
