Annihilating Sorrow

The first thing he saw was a woman.

She had golden hair that fanned out across the floor like spilled light, and a face so beautiful that the word didn’t quite fit it. Cain had never seen anyone like her. Not in the tribe. Not in any of his dreams.

But none of that mattered.

Because she was lying in a pool of her own blood on a cold marble floor, and she was dead.

“...”

‘What…?’

…is this?

He never finished the thought. Something broke over him.

‘Ah…ah… AHHHHHHHHHHH….’

Even if he’d been asked to describe it, Cain wouldn’t have found the words in a thousand years.

It was so all-encompassing that it felt as vast as the sky, and then there was more sky beyond it.

Cain reached for words to put a name on this feeling, but every word he grabbed came apart in his hands.

Sadness?

Too small. A pebble beside a mountain range.

Grief?

Grief had a beginning and a place where it stopped. This had neither.

It went down, and down, and down, past where the floor of any person should be, into a dark that had been dug out by hand, one shovel at a time, for…

For…

He couldn’t finish the thought. Numbers rang loudly in his head.

1302

1303

1304

1305… 1306… 1307…

He didn’t know what they were. But he soon did, like one recognizing their own name.

They were times.

They were the times she had died… as well as the times this emotion assaulting him was multiplying.

They were the times he had watched her die. The times he had held her and felt the warmth leave her. The times he had woken up on a throne to a voice saying my lord, it is to my utmost happiness, and known that in three months he would be watching her again, a cold corpse, and there was nothing, nothing, nothing in the whole wide world he could do to stop it.

Over. And over. And OVER.

‘AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—-!!!!!’

For three hundred years.

‘AHHHHHHHH—!!!’

Anguish came first, so sharp it had developed a taste. Copper, and ash, on a tongue that wasn’t his.

‘Heukk heukk… ahhh… please…’

Then wretchedness, crawling underneath it, the slow rot of a man who had begun to feel complicit. Who had let her die endlessly, and stood there watching, deciding that was the only way she’d learn to stop

…he, who hated himself for every one of those deaths and kept watching still.

‘Die… please… let me die….’

Desolation and inconsolability grabbed him by the throat, denying him an iota of comfort. Only her dead, flat voice remained now, saying I hate you.

I hate you.

I wish I had never met you.

Let me die in peace—!

Thud—

And under it all, holding everything up like a black mountain rooted at the bottom of the world, lay a solemn, vast, mournful, dolorous emotion, beyond any heart’s capacity to contain.

A sorrow that annihilated.

Cain’s mind made a sound like glass under a boot.

Crk—

Crrk—

Then his body began to move on its own.

He hadn’t told it to, for he was barely there to tell it anything.

But his feet started to walk, slowly and leisurely, around the dead woman on the marble floor. Around and around. His head bobbed to a tune he had never heard. And his mouth opened, and from it came a voice that was his brother’s.

“...the more you put me through… The more it pulls me back to you ♪”

His face was wet. Though he didn’t know if it was tears anymore.

“♪ You say you hate me, I just love you more. You don’t want me, I still want you more”

His feet moved languidly as he sang. Inside him, everything festered.

A small corner of Cain’s mind came loose and drifted away, watching the rest of him from a little distance.

‘Ah… no,’ it thought, very quietly. ‘I understand what you meant…’

“...the more you put me through… The more it pulls me back to you…”

‘This is truly… a hell… not even a demon deserves to go through…’

The rest of his mind was coming apart in pieces, fragment by fragment. First his name. Then his face. Then the memory of his mother’s hands. Then his memory of Lapis.

Then… nothing.

He was seconds away from becoming a shell. There was no way he could survive this. No matter how much of a demon he had made himself into, he was still only a man. No human will in the world could carry this.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Then, in the very last second…

A hand caught his shoulder.

And yanked him back.

◉◉◉

Cain gasped.

Cold air rushed into his chest, rough rock under his palms… a faint, dusty smell of silk.

He was in the cave.

No, not exactly. He was at the entrance. The narrow crack in the rock was right behind him, and the pale silk around him was cream-colored and clean, without a trace of red.

He looked down at himself.

His arm was whole without that splinter of bone, no blood or strips of skin hanging from his palms. Every wound from the fight was gone.

His still-fractured mind couldn’t even begin to make sense of it. He looked around wildly, searching for anything that made sense.

His eyes found his brother first.

Ashen was sitting on a low rock a few paces away, and he looked like he was one step away from death.

Blood was running from his nostrils, the corners of his eyes, from his ears, even from the corners of his mouth. His whole body spasmed every few seconds in a violent shudder from head to toe, and he was gripping his skull with one hand as though trying to hold it together.

And despite all of it, his expression was only… mildly annoyed.

Ashen sighed.

“You’re such a fucking handful, brother. Making me rewind just to save your sorry ass from offing yourself in the most pathetic way possible.”

“...”

“For all your swagger, you’re kind of pathetic, aren’t you? I mean, who dies from seeing a few memories?”

“...”

“Look.” Ashen pointed. “You even shat and pissed yourself. Pfft.”

Cain looked down. He had indeed.

“...Seeing… memories…?” His voice came out cracked.

“Yeah? Isn’t that your skill’s condition? Why are you acting so surprised?”

Cain’s mouth hung open.

He couldn’t even begin to describe what he was feeling.

Memories?

How dare he call that mere memories?

No. In the first place… how was he still sane, carrying all of that in his head, every second of every day?

And the worst part was that Cain had felt it, in that last moment when their minds had touched through the ritual. That woman on the marble floor… she had only been the first trial of many.

When his thoughts reached that point, his body started to shake on its own. And when he lifted his head and met his brother’s eyes, irritated, bloodshot, looking at him as though he were a chore to be done, the shaking became a full-blown spasm.

When he came to, he found himself crawling backward across the floor on his hands, scrambling away like an animal.

“Where do you think you’re going? Stay still, will ya? Your antics are getting on my nerves.”

Cain stopped.

…Just like that.

“Good. If you’d kept flailing around, your punishment would’ve been worse than that beating from before.”

“…?”

The word slowly worked its way through the fog in Cain’s mind.

Punishment.

“...What punishment?” he croaked. “I’m not going to die?”

“Hah?”

“No… I should already be dead. The ritual is a one-way road. Either I die… or I become you…”

There was something else, too. His brother had said rewind.

Rewind what, exactly?

Surely not…?

‘No… even if it’s him… that’s just too absurd…’

“Become me?” Ashen raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were actually such a fanboy behind all the snarking and posturing, brother. Don’t you know tsunderes are out of fashion these days?”

Cain didn’t understand a word of that.

But when Ashen stood, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and started walking him back into the cave, he understood one thing perfectly.

His fate had come.

‘To die in the cave I prepared myself… what a fitting end.’

Strangely, as his end approached, he didn’t feel afraid.

He felt relieved.

‘In the end… I wasn’t able to hurt you… good…’

◉

He hung limp in his brother’s grip the whole way down.

Ashen walked him through the passages, and as they went, Ashen burned every red strand he saw. He snapped his fingers and small, tight flames bloomed from his fingertips, and the red silk shriveled and fell away in ash.

When they reached the deepest chamber, the doll was still sitting on its shelf.

Ashen looked at it for a moment.

Then a fist-sized ball of fire, so compressed it glowed white instead of orange, left his palm and struck the doll dead center. When the light faded, there was nothing left on the shelf, not even ash.

“Damn… what a waste,” Ashen grumbled the whole time he worked, setting fire to strand after strand. “Look at how much silk we lost, Cain. If I tell the women back home you smeared it all with your blood, they’ll eat you alive.”

Eventually, every trace of the ritual was gone.

“Phew. Finally.”

He dropped his brother at his feet like a sack of grain and sat down on a low boulder.

He propped his chin on his hand and looked at Cain in silence.

The two of them looked at each other for who knew how long.

Finally, Cain spoke.

“...What are you doing?”

Why am I not dead? That was the real question. He was sure Ashen understood it.

But Ashen chose to play dumb. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m deciding your punishment.”

“...Punishment? Isn’t it obvious?”

“Oh? You have ideas? I’m all ears.”

“Death.”

Ashen tilted his head. “You want to die? Why?”

“The real question is why you won’t kill me!” Cain’s voice cracked. “I’m a demon, Ashen! A monster that will only hurt you if you leave it alive! What kind of madness is it to let me live?!”

“Woe is me,” Ashen sighed. “Such is my brother. A real headache, but what can I do? I can’t kill family, right?”

“...You really are mad.”

Cain laughed a hollow laugh that didn’t last long. He gathered every scrap of killing intent he had left and glared up at his brother.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll stab you in the back? What if I hurt the rest of the tribe? Their blood would be on your hands as much as mine if you let me go! Don’t you understand the most basic rules of survival? Are you really that naive?!”

He was shouting now.

“Kindness won’t get you anywhere! It’s poison! Just KILL ME!”

TWACK—!

The butt of the spear cracked against the back of his head.

“Why are you glaring at me so disrespectfully? Lower your head, you piece of shit.”

TWACK—!

“Ugh—!”

“And lower your voice while you’re at it. Hurt me? Who? You?” Ashen snorted. “You’ll hurt our family? With what qualifications? You can’t even wipe your own ass properly. Stop overestimating yourself.”

He rose from the boulder.

“And don’t you dare lecture me about kindness.”

STOMP—!

“GHK—!”

His boot came down squarely on Cain’s back and drove him flat into the floor.

“What do you even understand about it? No… it’s normal that you don’t. So let me, your magnanimous big brother, teach you another life lesson.”

STOMP—!

“Kh—!”

“It’s not just you, you know. It’s a notion plenty of people get wrong. They say, never be kind to the wrong person, or you’ll regret it! But regret only exists when your actions depend on outcomes.”

Stomp. Stomp.

“Agh… haa… guh…”

“They say, kindness is weakness! Never show your weakness! But I disagree. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite.”

Stomp… stomp…

“Ugh— gh— AAGH—!”

“True strength lies in doing something because it aligns with your will. I’m kind when I choose to be. Not because you deserve it. Not because I expect anything in return. Because it’s my choice.”

Cain coughed, and blood spattered the silk.

The sheer absurdity of a man reciting such a beautiful idea in the bored tone of someone explaining the weather, while stamping on his little brother like he was flattening dough, was something to behold.

But Ashen didn’t seem to notice the contrast. He kept imparting his wisdom on kindness, one stomp at a time.

“Betray me. Lie to me. Take advantage of me. That’s your nature. But my kindness? That’s mine. And I don’t change who I am just because the world fails to meet my expectations.”

“In a world full of schemers and backstabbers… to stay untouched by all of it, to be kind by will and not by hope… that isn’t weakness.”

“That is control.”

STOMP—!!!

“GAAAH—!”

“That is strength.”

He stepped back.

“…Things you seem to be lacking at the moment, Cain.”

“Haah…” Ashen wiped the blood from his forehead with the back of his hand and looked down at his brother, shaking his head with an expression of deep regret, like a man looking at a ruined harvest.

“Alright. I’ve decided your punishment. Since you want to die so badly, your punishment will be living.”

“...”

“It’s obvious you’ve still got a conscience buried in there somewhere. Isn’t that what’s really driving you to throw your life away? You can’t handle the guilt, hm? It’s eating you up until you can’t think straight?”

“...”

“Good. Then live with it.”

He crouched suddenly and grabbed Cain by the front of his bloodied shirt, hauling him up until their faces were inches apart.

“But let me tell you something. The moment you throw that conscience away is the moment you stop being human.”

His golden eyes didn’t blink.

“And the moment you stop being human, you stop being my brother. I’ll treat you like any other Narkal out there.”

“...”

“So keep regretting. Don’t push that torment away. For both our sakes. I’d rather not become a kinslayer if I can help it, after all…”

Cain stared into those golden eyes for a long time.

Behind the irritation, behind the bored, annoyed mask, he could see it now. A swirling, bottomless madness. The same black depth he had fallen into for a few seconds in that marble hall, and barely survived.

His brother lived there. Every day.

He let it engrave itself into his mind.

Then, slowly… he nodded.

“Wonderful.”

Thud—

Ashen dropped him back onto the floor and dusted off his hands.

“Now let’s go home. This farmer has a tree to tend to. Haha.”