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Imagine living in a society where death is glory. Whether it be through battle or not, your death is your legacy and your release. That through death, you'll no longer suffer. Your memories will enter the Archives where trillions of your own kind can look and see how well you served your almighty leaders.
Only, you know your leaders aren't mighty.
Cause you can think, and feel, and do all the things that you shouldn't be able to and that could get you Broken. And they find out. So they take you away and experiment, and test, trying to figure out what makes you this way and fix it. Only, you're not fixed. You're unstable, and you destroy everything, and you're NOT IN CONTROL, but you can't feel anymore so in their eyes, you're fixed.
So they try again and put you back into the system.
Only, the second you're conscious, you do something wrong and it kills people. Not that they cared about that, no, they were more concerned with the fact that you plunged the entire planet into darkness for 5 years. They don't catch you though, so life goes on, and you keep destroying, killing, and fucking up, but you can't help it cause THAT'S HOW YOU WERE PROGRAMMED.
Then . . . They banish you. For real this time. You can't go back, you can't have any contact with your race, your people, the only ones you could have thought of as family. Cause it's still you in there. Under all the programming, under all those fuck ups and those wires, you're still you.
So you're on a planet that doesn't know you, what you are, where you came from, but if they did, they'd take you away. Just like they did back then, and study you and poke and prod.
You realize you'll never be free.
And then that old saying comes back around. . .
'Death is Glory'.
You think.
And think.
And start to believe it.
Until you try and as you're laying there, dying, you think, 'Was it really that easy?'
Only . . . it's not. You wake up, perfectly fine and healthy, and you don't know why. So you go back to your normal life until you can figure out where you went wrong.
But as you go about your life, doing things the right way, thoughts come back to you. Memories, emotions, everything they buried all those years ago resurfacing until one, single, ugly memory nearly breaks you. One that you know is true but you still want to deny it.
'You can't die.'
That's what they said. When they ran the tests, to see what made you different, they found that no matter how much damage they did, you just.
Wouldn't.
Die.
So they ran more tests. More and more until they realized they wouldn't figure it out. So they get an idea. . . . You'll be a soldier. You'll become a geo-weapon, to obey their every wish. You'd win wars before they were even begun, strike terror into the souls of all who heard your name or felt your presence. You listen to it all, and fight but in the end you lose.
But they messed up. They lost you in the system. And that, the fact that you made to kill and destroy all those things you hated is the last straw.
You run home, and you try again. You rip out the only thing that was keeping you alive, but . . . you're fine.
Nothing happens.
Apparently you hadn't needed it for a while. . . You can't die.
No, you deny it. You can't bare that truth, so you keep going. You take poisons, acids, knives, guns, everything . . . . Nothing. And it hits you one last time.
YOU CAN'T DIE. You'll long outlive everything else in the universe, no matter what you do. You're doomed to a life that you want nothing to do with. To live with these things that make you hate it even more. This goes on for weeks, until you realize something.
You don't have to follow their rules anymore.
You're not one of them . . . Hell, you never were.
Hysteria and relief floods your veins and you look outside. Things you no longer HAVE to hate, but can choose if you wish. I know it's a little fucked up but . . . That's me for you. . . I chose to hate things. And if I didn't, great.
But the more you tried things, the more you found there were a lot of things you liked. Things you love. And loving things felt a lot better than hating them. So you decide to live for the things you love, no matter how small.
Months later, you're out doing whatever you want when a thought occurs to you. 'This is freedom, isn't it?' You think, and look around before smiling, knowing it is and think, 'Maybe being different isn't so criminal.' It's a thought that makes you laugh but . . . In your soul, beneath all of it, you can FEEL just how true it is . . and that's it. This is your life now and you love it.
. . . You asked how I can have so much fun when I'm going to outlive everything . . . If I'm not having fun, I'll be sad, and if I'm sad, I won't have anything to do . . . To live for. . . If I don't have fun, what is there other than feeling like nothing?
