Work Text
I am ruling the world, and I am alone in this. I know it seems otherwise- after all, I have so many people beneath me, surely they must have had part in it? Oh, sure they did. But they’re not crucial. Every single one of them I could replace. I have done so, in other universes. They can stay a little longer in this one.There is only one constant outside myself and my sanity slipping from between my ears, dripping off the side of my head like thick, sticky syrup. That constant is you. Regardless of what universe I go to, regardless of what world I search, regardless of how huge and tight my control, you always slip through my net. You are a fish that refuses to be caught, and I the fisherman eternally frustrated. You are my enemy- the only one who always stands up to me. The one who attempts to thwart my plans.I tempted you with riches when you were in the gutters. You only accepted if there were no strings attached- lower than the gutter you would not sink. You meant I was lower than the gutter, that I was dirtier than the sewers and that enrages me. I am white. I am pure. I wiped that world clean entirely for your insult. You were the last to go, crying, screaming, unable to protect a single soul and I revelled in your pain. It was beautiful, but a meal that did not last me long. I hungered. I wanted more.I tempted you with honeyed words when you were bereft of them. When there was no soul in the world that loved you, I gave you my devotion. You drank them in, snatched them from my mouth and buried them deep, deep inside you where they could never leave again. You took them, and then, when I made my grab for the world, you still turned against me. You grew with them, until your spine was steel, until you had turned my words into love for yourself, a system sustained purely by you. You carved them into your heart, carved them into your head, carved them into the hands you used to hold the blade to stab me. What I felt for you was not… love, entirely. Just something close to it. A kind of attachment. You stabbing me in the back did not hurt. No, I was proud. This was one of the rare worlds were you were so vicious as to wield blades instead of flames, as to take the slow way out. As to slice my skin, instead of burning it, not giving me the mercy of choking on the smoke. Slowly, bleeding out. I liked it. I don’t think you liked it at all. Your pain in killing me was a victory all on its own.I tempted you with revenge. I could’ve set it all up, but there was no need for it. This world was ugly enough on its own. It took little, to convince you to pick up the sword in defence of the people. It took little, to get you to steal from the rich. It took little, from me, to get you to kill. It took much from you, but everything I convince you to do takes much. You are a person that gives away too many parts of yourself until you are bereft of the what and the who of your soul. It took little from me, it took much from you, and yet still, in the end, you turned against me. ‘’You became who we fought to end!’’ you screamed in my face. You were right. It was a mask that fit. A mask that became my face in this world, a part of me. You could not accept it. I threw you off a cliff. That was a disappointing lifetime- so exciting, up until that let down of an end.I tempted you with your own personal paradise. I gave you fields, I gave you grain. I gave you flowers, I gave you beauty. I gave you your people, your own little pocket of the world, where the grass would sway in the wind, and the sun would shine forever. The brook would bubble, and it would never, ever be cold. You could rest easy. I built a wall around it so it would be safe. I built a wall around it, so you would not see. I built a wall around you so you would never want to leave. But still, you did. Like a bird cannot help but fly south, you could not help but wonder what was beyond the wall. Every day and every night you would call out, but no one on the other side would answer. Every day and every night, you would ask your people what was beyond there, but I had long taken all those who remembered. Every day and every night, just out of my sight, you would work on your ladder, to get to the other side. You finished it. You saw the world outside the paradise. You despised me and went against me once more. For once in all your lives, could you not just rest easy?I tempted you with superiority. I snatched you from your mother at a young age, grew up with you, made you believe that your own power was absolute. Made you arrogant, in that you never once struggled. You had no reason to believe a single different thing. After all, I did not plan to hurt you within this lifetime, and as such, your visions did not say otherwise. You were prideful. And still, I took the fall, because even in your goddamn pride you were still kind, if only pitying of the masses below you. You saved them. Why did you go against your visions? Why must you always be so soft? Perish the thought, you being cruel for one lifetime. God, it made the hatred burn within me.I tempted you with food. At this point, it was not even about taking over this world anymore, no. it was about making you sin. The most delicious thing on earth it is, the taste of a saint that sins. I brought it all to your table, meat, fruit, vegetables. The most mouth-watering spices, the sweetest persimmons. Truly a sin, for while we ate, all others hungered. At first, I blinded you to it, but your innocence was stale, so I could not help but… slip up. See you horror at their sunken faces, their showing ribs, their gaunt cheeks and hollow stomachs. It was grand as long as it lasted. Then you fed them, your face softening, giving and giving and giving. Giving, until you had no food left for yourself. That world made me the angriest. I had killed you countless times, but did they not know? Someone who gives is precious, and those who give all they have to others must be protected. They must be treasured like the treasures they are. They must be fed, for the hand that gives can’t live unless it sustained. Once you died, I razed that world to the ground.I tried to teach you envy, but it was not in your nature. That world, that life, did not tempt you at all.In all these lives, you have been my constant. The one who says ‘’No,’’ to my darker whims. The one who defies, even though your nature is so soft. The one who possesses six of the seven sins, and yet remains a saint. The one who builds herself a skeleton of steel, but leaves the path to her heart right open.I am alone.Am I?