Chương 899: Day Eight Hundred And Ninety-Seven

Dear Diary, I'm a monster. I'm the monster that hides in my own closet. I'm the devil that tempts me to hurt those I love to get my jollies. I'm the thing that goes bump in the night, that Revels in the feel of my most beloved dissolving in my mouth as they scream. In the end, does it really matter if they're screaming in Agony or Ecstasy, when afterward there's nothing left of them left to do either?

Everything I'd worried about, that I was the villain, the big bad evil gal, the one destined to bring suffering and destruction, all of it was true. Worse, it was all me. Not some kind of cosmic horror I'd been grafted onto as a way to interface with Human sized objects. I got off on inflicting pain, on conspicuously overpowering others, on destroying the Agency of others, arrogating it to myself.

No matter how many other minor, lesser oppressors I destroyed, it didn't matter, because in the end I was a big enough villain to eclipse them all. I erased a guy, wiped away everything that had made him a person, remade him into somebody else, and called that mercy. I taunted a being older than Humanity itself by offering her Hope, then stealing it away before eating her. I've eaten people. Actual, real people. Not to mention their Souls. I'm a monster, and nothing I can do will change that.

I lay there, hidden at the bottom of the M-Space version of the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Blend pushed as high as I could get it. I felt something, heard the faintest signal over the constant staticky noise in my head, and shoved my Blend up as high as I could get it. Not to look like a person. That ship had sailed so, so long ago. Just to keep from falling prey to my own worst impulses. I wanted to run to them.

Run to my ladies and my kids, to hide under a pile of them, hide from myself, have them tell me it was all a lie, that I wasn't a monster, that I was worthy of love, of affection, of life. But I couldn't. I couldn't let myself be close to the ones I loved. The ones the darkest parts of me wanted to hurt more than anyone else in the world, because their pain would be sweeter than anyone else's. Because in hurting them, I would be hurting myself at the same time.

Even if I wanted to hurt myself, I couldn't do it that way. Nothing was worth that cost, that loss. I wouldn't hurt my family. I'd rather die. I pushed my Blend higher than I ever had before. Pushed it without any thought of restraint or limits. Pushed it with the vain hope that somehow, maybe, if I pushed it hard enough, I could forget myself, forget what a monster I was, forget how much damage I'd done. I started floating a little as what passed for gravity in M-Space forgot about me.

But I still couldn't I couldn't use that Skill to hide from myself. Maybe, just maybe, I could use a different one to protect my family from the biggest monster that threatened them. I stopped pushing my Blend and Shaped Status. I poured Mana into it. I don't know how long it took, hovering there in M-Space. It took hours, it took minutes, it took days, it took forever. Eventually, ever so slowly, that scintillating spot in the middle of my eye turned from the white of concentrated Mana to green.

An eternity after that, as I poured so much Mana through me into it that my scars ripped at me, tried to fall apart on me, the faintest tinge of yellow flickered through it. That was the best I could do. The most Mana I could hold, could Shape, could force into that Shape. I Cast it. Inspection Target: <unknown> Target Type Divine Polyped (Mor) Titles Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

None Pantheon None Attributes: Strength: 7(T12), Agility: 9(T7), Endurance: 7(T15), Reason: 0(T0), Memory: 0(T0), Personality: 0(T0) Skills None I stared at that little screen in front of my eye. That message that had told me the truth. The message I wished I could forget about, even though I knew that was just my worst impulses wanting to be set free to hurt those I cared about.

I wished that somehow I could just erase everything, erase not just the already missing 'greater' part of me, but the twisted, broken, shattered part that held the only personhood in all of my enormous tectonic scale ass. Maybe I'd missed something. Something meaningful. Something that mattered, that told me I wasn't a monster. Voices, attenuated by distance and my own Blend, tickled at the edges of my consciousness. I pushed my Blend higher and shaped Status again.

Inspection Target: Tabitha "Commander", "Goof", "Mama", "Papa", "Vlickies" Diaz Target Type Humanoid Divine Biped (Bag, Dan, Human, Vanir) Titles Black Swan with a Thousand, Thousand Young, Cadet (Phileo), Champion of Loki, Champion of Marie Aetos-Diaz, Champion of Phileo, Champion of The Inter-City Alliance, Champion of Rich Man's Port, Dragon Slayer, Elder Primordial, Godslayer, God Slayer, Legendary Champion, Legendary Slayer, Matriarch, Mistress, Mother, Priestess High Set Above All Others, Wife, Walking Ragnarok, Psychopomp, The Avenger, The Liberator, The Plague Bane, The Whore of Phileo, Titan Slayer, Young Adult Pantheon Alliance Attributes: Strength: 8(T6), Agility: 8(T6), Endurance: 7(T7), Reason: 2(T6), Memory: 1(T6), Personality: 4(T6) Skills Asses Health, Blend, Cure, Close Quarters Combat, Comfort, Dragon Scales, Elemental Control, Gift Ecstasy, Heal, Inflict Agony, Mana Blade, Mana Shaping, Kitchen Witchery, Revive, Scry, Spawn Carapace, Stabilize, Status, Strong Arm, Swift Foot, Thick Skin, Translocate Nothing.

No change. Just the same lying bullshit about me being something other than the monster that I was. I curled back into the ball I'd been in before trying to erase myself, exhausted and so deeply empty I couldn't even cry. Some impulse had me poke at that first Title. Black Swan with a Thousand, Thousand Young. Before I could react, another window popped up in front of my eyes.

Black Swan with a Thousand, Thousand Young: The unique Title Black Swan with a Thousand, Thousand Young is one of the most powerful expressions of Mimic's Domain of Change. The Black Swan with a Thousand, Thousand Young does not simply Change individuals, she does not only Change the paradigm of those whose world she inhabits, she creates Changes which themselves create Change, a never ending, ever expanding process of Change.

In addition to creating self-perpetuating and self-propagating paradigm Changes, The Black Swan with a Thousand, Thousand Young also ushers in an age of growth, an age when new Souls enter and remain in the world at an unprecedented rate. Changes, Changes that beget Changes, Souls, Souls that beget Souls, Changes that beget Souls, Souls that Beget Changes, an endless, ever multiplying, self-magnifying tsunami, remaking the world in the image of her perfect paradise. Fucking hell. Fuck. It got worse. It always does.

It always has. I shouldn't be surprised. After all... I'm a monster.