Chapter 99. Searching for Eternity, Into a Deeper Dream.....
Chapter 99. Searching for Eternity, Into a Deeper Dream.....
I had thought about it endlessly.
What life truly is.
What it means to be alive.......
I had pondered it my entire existence.
To be alive is the process from birth to death.
A process that, because it began, must see its own end.
Even a child who enters this world knowing nothing feels the instinctive terror of its cruelty and struggles against it all the more desperately.
And yet, rendering that resistance utterly meaningless, the end foretells its own eventual arrival.
Feeling life gradually ebb, surrender takes hold.
My father, Hei, walked that same path before my eyes and faded.
Leaving only me behind, urging me to seek bonds unlike his own.
As if hoping I would feel once more the ordained farewell that awaits at the end of such bonds.......
"......Truly?"
I know.
That this is simply how the Natural Order of the world has always been.
"Is that really what you wished for?"
Everything that exists fades someday.
He, too, knew he would fade. He could not possibly have failed to know that I, too, was a being destined to meet my end someday.
He only wished to depart carrying as many memories as possible before that end arrived.......
Yes, just as he himself had bettered a life once mired in regret through meeting me.
"No, Father was...... simply unaware, wasn't he?"
It is simply inequality.
The fact that not all fading is equal. That the flow of time felt by one who lives a fleeting instant and one who lives an eon inevitably differs. That the eyes with which they behold the world cannot avoid that difference.
"Everyone except me, all of them......."
He simply did not know, and so could not teach me.
"All of them fade."
How could he, who had learned only the ways of a brief lifespan, possibly fathom the eons of time that awaited me?
To one who mourns the end, this might be considered a blessing. But to me — at least to me alone — this could never be anything but a curse.
Because to watch over something, to reflect upon it, to remember it — that was my intrinsic nature.
Happy memories, searing pleasures,
pain, the memories of suffering through pain, the foreknowledge that such pain would continue — all of it. All of it. Every last bit.......
"‥...pffh."
Unable to let go of any single one of those things, how much more agony must I endure as I live on?
How much more of that agony must I suffer as I continue to live?
Any solace I find is fleeting at best. To mend the ache in my heart, I seek out more bonds.
Experiencing more farewells born from them, aching with grief, piling up those memories.......
"Heeh, ahaha......."
Even so, not wanting to forget even those piled-up memories, I could not even dare to abandon myself. The sight of myself like that felt so unbearably pathetic.
Though that wretched condition felt laughable, I knew no other recourse. So I resolved to be faithful to that emotion.
Without restraint, letting it all erupt.
"Ahaha, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!"
Yes, truly....
Is it not truly wretched?
I thought I had finally found the empty space that person left behind, yet even an experience that intense ends so miserably.
Within a void colder than the chill of that day.
A future is foretold where I alone remain, laughing senselessly, repeating nothing but laughter — this sorry state is the epilogue that awaits me.
"...Why."
And it doesn't end.
No, it will only grow worse.
As if responding to the emotion surging from within, the rain pouring from the sky only grows more violent.
"Why does everyone leave me?"
Unable to bear the cold born from that knowledge, I unconsciously sought warmth.
Warmer than the heat my father had radiated in the days I knew nothing...... holding in my heart the warmth of someone I myself had wandered in search of.
"If this is how it would be, you shouldn't have appeared before me in the first place."
The moment I felt that warmth flare hot enough to sear my heart, I clawed at my chest to tear it out.
"You said you did it for me! But if you meant to make me suffer like this, you shouldn't have taught me what love was in the first place!"
Even as the resentment that burst out with those words echoed through the space, no one — not a single soul — offered me comfort.
Because they've already left, haven't they? Those who no longer exist in this world — how could they possibly comfort me?
Even if I sought out someone else, it would be the same. Whoever I meet, they will all leave in the end and make me feel this exact moment again.
"......I hate it."
If only I had never felt this from the start.
If only I had never known that meeting someone could be so intense, that a person's warmth could be so tender.
"I hate being alone anymore......."
But I have already learned it, haven't I.
Unable to even shake off those memories, what must I do now? What must I do to be freed from this agonizing fate?
"Please, tell me. I......."
Unable to find that answer in the end, I could only hurl the question at the sky. "What on earth am I supposed to do?"
Anyone will do.
I wished for someone to deliver me from this hellish fate.
'So you were lonely all along, Heira.'
As if answering that wish, a voice began to tickle the inside of my ears.
Exceedingly gentle, yet intense.......
A voice I could never possibly refuse.
'Born knowing nothing, and knowing nothing you learned the preciousness of bonds. Unable to cast off those memories, you will wander forever in search of love's sweetness.'
He understood my sorrow. He sympathized.
'You are fated to wander eternally in search of people and grieve over their farewells.'
Amidst this cold rain, he alone embraced me and sought to teach me where I must turn.
'If only there were a companion who could share your entire lifetime by your side. But such beings do not exist in this world.
No one can know what awaits at the end of that path, but does that even matter now?
In a situation where no one remains beside me anymore.'
To me, who had spent such an agonizingly long time yet realized nothing, someone who would finally show me the way had come.
"...Then, what should I do?"
Seizing upon that voice as an opportunity, I asked.
What path exists to be freed from these shackles of suffering I had no choice but to accept?
'...Time flows, but it cannot be reversed.'
The voice answering that question began to grow more distinct.
As if drawn by that voice, my head naturally began to turn downward through the space.
"But it is possible to remain endlessly in the past. By falling into eternal sleep."
A cliff, sheared away terribly deep.
The landscape spread below it looks overwhelmingly familiar to me.
Is that not strange?
Where there surely should be only pitch-black darkness, the form of my memories' homeland is painted completely intact.
"Sleep......."
"Yes, all you have to do is fall asleep."
But it didn't matter even if it was strange.
Because everything that existed there was deeply precious to me.
The nostalgia — the desire to return if I could go back to that time, to feel that happiness once more — was an indelible brand upon my life.
"So come here, my daughter."
I could experience it again.
By throwing my body into this abyss from which I could never again rise. By once more grasping the hand of a person whose presence could be felt even within such darkness, and feeling that warmth.......
"You'll stay with Daddy forever."
If I could turn my back on the flow of time and live in eternity, then —
"......Yes. Daddy."
Yes. If eternity were founded upon happiness, there would be no more suffering.
That place alone was the only path I should take. All the time I had spent until now was proving it to me.
"I'll come to you now."
Knowing that only this was the sole way to soothe the emptiness I carried.
Feeling that only this was the way to swallow down the pain yet to come, I slowly readied myself to take a step toward that place.
Seeking happiness that would never end.
Towards a darkness from which I would never emerge.
***
Even a child who enters this world knowing nothing instinctively feels terror at its cruelty.
And so struggles against it all the more desperately.
Yet, rendering that resistance meaningless, the end foretells its own eventual arrival.
Feeling life gradually ebb, deeming even resistance futile — the instant when surrender takes hold.......
Because they foresee such a wretched instant, those with finite lifespans try to burn their lives to make that end meaningful.
More brilliantly, more grandly.
Those who live eternally understand the lives of such Short-lived Species. For they, too, have lived the same time as them at the start, have experienced those same instants.
It is merely that a span of eternity to some is but a fleeting instant to others. Because they collapsed repeatedly across such fleeting instants, they taught their descendants to distance themselves from pleasure and to excise emotion.
Though their efforts defy the Natural Order, they are rendered meaningless. For a girl separated from the herd by unfortunate accident, all that awaited was starkly hopeless reality alone.
Unable to forget the intensity of those days, seeking ever more intense stimulation — or for the sake of an endlessly lasting happiness —
plunging into wretched delusion rather than cruel reality could only be a foreordained conclusion.
This young girl's fate, which she must walk even knowing this.......
"Heira."
But even knowing that, he appeared in this place.
To break through the strata of memories from a life spanning beyond an entire lifetime. To stop the girl who was about to step into the inescapable abyss that remained at its end.
"...Come this way."
In that cold place he had thus reached, he extended his hand toward the girl and spoke.
An utterly resolute voice.
But the girl, steeped in nostalgia, remembered it.
Unlike in the days when she knew nothing, she could not possibly forget the traces of the bond she had found through her own will to soothe her emptiness.
"De...."
More vivid than the illusion tempting her from below.
Even within this cold space, the sole being who radiated warmth was gesturing toward her.
"Dave......."
Even knowing he, too, was a temptation.
Even knowing that what awaited at the end of that hand was ruin.
Why had her steps stopped at that outstretched hand reaching toward her in this moment?