Revelation 1:1
||Welcome to the City, love.||
Rosewitha had barely a moment to register the sharp pain in her head, the run of warm blood into her hair and the cold hard feeling of steel meeting flesh before darkness engulfed her. It was a different darkness than she had ever felt; more cold, more alone, more permanent. She waited, trying to feel something, anything, but there was nothing to feel.
Is this death, then? She thought to herself. It is not like the Messiah of The World That Was said it would be. There is no kingdom.
Rosewitha waited, for what she did not know, but she knew that there must be something to wait for. So, she would wait.
Time is a difficult thing to keep track of in a vacuum of nothingness. There is no passing of day to night, no energy to loose and no rest to take. It seemed like she had been waiting for a lifetime, but it could have been a mere moment. Either way, Rosewitha did not like this waiting. She had to do something.
So she sang. Rosewitha could not actually hear her voice, but she sang none the less, just to pass the time. She sang old songs that her mother had taught her, songs that she was told where from The World That Was. All we are saying / Is give peace a chance... She sang the sad, lamenting song that Meinrad had used to calm her after nights plagued by images of her mother's death. Do not cry, my child / For life is but a fleeting moment / And each and every one is precious... She even recalled the melodious timbre of Gabriel’s voice as he spoke to the crowd moments before her death. Look now, upon the savior of your kind, and realize, even she will fall to those who are greater than her!
Soon, as was her way, Rosewitha grew tired of singing and waiting for nothing to happen. She tried to move her arm. She could not feel her arm, but it had to be there somewhere. After all, Gabriel had shot her in her head, not torn her arms from her body. Slowly, she could almost feel a movement- like a soft whisper of cloth against her skin.
Now we’re getting some where.
Encouraged by her slight success, Rosewitha pushed and pulled with all her might. She could feel cold clammy hands around her arms, her legs, her throat, but they only made her fight harder, pushing her way through a mass of cold and death.
She could hear something, far off in the distance, and a speck of light appeared. She grasped for it, never stopping her fight against the hands that tried to drag her back to death. The noise grew, becoming loud and overbearing after so much silence. The light began to spread, blinding in its brilliance, so Rosewitha continued forward blindly.
Suddenly her scent returned to her. For the briefest of moments she could still smell Gabriel on her, and then it was gone, replaced by the rancid smell of rot. She could taste; the repulsive taste of death clinging to the back of her tongue, gagging her with its potency.
She opened her eyes wide, waiting a moment as her vision adjusted to stark contrasts in light. She was not dead any longer, and this was certainly no kingdom. Before her she saw corners darker than the blackest night, bright lights in every color she could imagine, people staggering about in various stages of decay. Hell.
Rosewitha turned, running as fast she her legs could take her, trying so hard to find her way back to that sweet nothingness. The further she ran the brighter the lights became, the stronger the stench, the worse the felling of despair. Her lungs began to burn, screaming for more air, less movement.
When she could run no further, Rosewitha slumped herself against the side of a loud and brightly lit bar. Curling tightly in on herself, she cried.
Oh, Meinrad. What have I done? She would never be reunited with Gabriel here. The Messiah had lied.
||End||
I cannot stay here. This bar has food and drink, but it all tastes as though there is film of death around it. The lights threaten to blind me, and this noise will surely make me deaf.
I must find away out of this place. I know I cannot return to Gabriel, what’s done is done and my life is over, but I will not remain here for the rest of eternity. Dearest Meinrad, if you can hear my prayer, please help me.