Memory of a world that never existed

There was a protagonist who sacrificed his existence to save the world from a villain that vows to destroy it because the only person he love was taken away, forcefully.

As he’s lying on the ground, the protagonist musters:

“I couldn’t care about the world.”

His enemy was strong. In fact, he was so strong that their battles had always ended up with the protagonist’s defeat. But both knew that the only way this ends is in destruction. Either of the world or of themselves.

The protagonist didn’t care about the world, but the world happens to be a place where the woman he loves is living in. So he made the deal with the devil, exchanging his existence for the power to defeat his mortal enemy. But nobody dances with the devil and walks away.

In exchange fo the power, the devil will devour his existence. In other words, he will be written out of history. Every memory about him will be erased, as if he was never there. His mother and father never had a son. His friends never got to know him. Even the woman whom he loves will soon forget that there was even someone who loved her. He’s willing to betray the self-preserving instinct that governs every fiber of his being.

The people that he cares about will surely be sad. They will reminisce about something that had never existed. Perhaps they will feel that there is something imperceptibly wrong with the world without him. The world that was fabricated and reconstructed without their consent or awareness. But that, too, will fade away, and the existence known as “him” will surely be no longer.

“Perhaps by some miracle, I will be briefly remembered. But then they will get sad for no reason. Hmm, it’s better if they don’t remember.”

For their final fight, the two had decided on a rural area. The protagonist insisted on that because he wanted to minimize the damage, and his enemy agreed, perhaps out of respect for the only person who was destined to cross his path.

And the protagonist won. He danced with the devil, after all. But his victory is short-lived, as the victor, too, will be short-lived.

He’s lying on the ground, looking at the sky that’s now cloudy due to the shockwaves from their final fight. It disrupted the natural order of things It was a nice day this morning, but now it’s raining. The raindrops tumbling down on his body make him feel alive. Such bodily sensations will be among the last that he got to experience.

His vision becomes blurry. He can barely recall the face of the woman to whom he never confessed his love. But he didn’t care, because he knew deep inside that she didn’t love him. But for all the love that he claimed to feel, her face only flashed by momentarily. He desperately tries to hold on to that image, but his consciousness forced him to let go. It’s slipping away.

“But It’s not because of you that I’m here.”

Her name slipped away. The disintegration process also begins. His body starts to disintegrate. Bits and pieces. Crumbling away like a burnt piece of paper gently touched by a breeze. By the end of this, he will have completely disappeared.

There is no one besides him to witness his victory. He feels a little bit lonely facing his imminent solitude, but that feeling also disappears quickly. He has always felt lonely, because he was made to see the darkest corners of his heart. He knows how evil and malevolent human can be, how evil and malevolent he can be. And he knows fore sure that he, too, was capable of destroying others. A being with such capacity for malevolence had better be an anomaly. Otherwise, perhaps there is something intrinsically wrong with humanity.

He always felt that his perception of a tainted world somehow meant that the world is tainted. Even though he could intelligently claim that the world merely exists and we’re only doing the representation. But he was unfortunate to be occupying a place in time where it was impossible to see anything other than through a tainted pair of glass.

So he didn’t particularly mind the deal when the devil stated his term of the deal. To him, it’s a win-win anyway. An existence such as him would be better off never have existed in the first place. That’s what a part of him thought. But he didn’t regret his life at all. No, not in the least. He did everything that he thought was right. In this final moment, as the last remnant of his consciousness becomes less and less tangible, he has no regret.

“In the end, I did it because I wanted to.”

Right, who cares if no one remembers what you do. That’s not the point. In the end, it isn’t about everyone, it isn’t even about the person that you love, it’s about doing what you think is right. Recognition is nice, but fundamentally irrelevant.

So, he is fading away. Happily. Because he lives his life in the way that he wants. It just so happens that his way of living will not be allowed to continue past this point. That’s fine. Who can better embrace the fragility of life, the tragedy of existence and one’s own free will, all at the same time?

And now it’s finally the time for the last bit of him to disappear. But this thought hasn’t disappeared yet. Right, this thought is not slipping away. It is the truth, after all. He disappeared. But his truth didn’t.