Ether: Way of The Blade.

Episode 3: Ethereality.

Ceremonial chirps of birds flocking west coincided with the vermillion rays of a sun, forehead peeking out from beneath the earthen clouds, an orange, purple, & red infusion shading in the regional skies; sunrise arrived in sanctifying breaths of life, the rays like lips kissing the empyreans awake . The shadows of buildings danced & flickered; dew tinted a healthy emerald-green sparsely swaying in patches. Zephyrs patiently whistled along the cityscape, gently moving through hordes of murmuring denizens  -  Pangea bustled with activity even at the earliest roots of morning. The city was likewise in a state of intense vitality  naught foreign to their culture: Pangea was, in many ways, influenced by the Greek -  its pulchritudinous scenery being one. Most structures adopted similar if not identical symmetries, with doric, ionic & corithian colum orders freely sprawled across the city. What made conurbation prevalent was its vastness, stretching across several thousands of acres, each branch of civilization living in seemingly blissful harmony with one another. A sun arisen at its apex smiled at civilization -  the plants smiled at beauteous rays which they cherished biologically. The cycle of life continued... Parents, children, occupants  -   all of Pangea found themselves living to see another day endlessly, akin to a golden age of sorts...

Piercing, obsidian eyes lingered over it all, face sweat-ridden, his hasty climb up what seemed to be a local skyscraper as impressive as it was discomforting. A high-pitched, kiddish voice escaped maturing teeth  -  a particularly maturing sense of achievement accompanying it.

"In record timing!"

A terse creak caused his body to jolt a bit -  enough to catch him frenzily wailing his arms back and forth before auspiciously regaining his balance. A subtle huff of air followed; adjusting, he placed his left hand on an iron bar, while bringing his free hand to his brow, scouting the city: | 'If I can climb this far up... I wonder: what are the limits...!?' |

The landscape was mystical: he spotted a late murder of crows, rearing near enough to evoke caution -  nay, motion. He was visibly panicked at the sight as he veered right: "WAAHHH!" He bellowed; he instinctively leapt off foot-first into the ether of space, before transmogrifying into a crow, himself, before his boyish instincts kicked in. Curious of their course & excited for the grandiosity of adventure presenting itself before him, he found himself joining them as they flocked away elsewhere.

Meanwhile...

Footfall percussed along a once-vacant stairwell. As the one spearheading the group's hand rose to perform an impending series of knocks, he, as well as the deluge flooding the floor with life, were halted  -  revealing a suited, slender man, hands lodged in his pockets. His social & economic stature preceded him, as, he donned a blazer & dress shirt tailored to his physique; his bushy, furrowed brows plastered a constant face of disdain on his face... Despite the light of day outside, the cubical of an office held some shades above pitch, with its furniture prepared in a way that the premise looked to be vacant, stripped of the latter, only holding a desk-full of papers  -  and pills. Hair as white as winter, eyes as cold & spiting as frost; his demeanor reeked of condescension, albeit the significance flaring off him. He glared at the quintet of sillhouettes exposed by the excruciatingly bright light illuminating the hallway.

His only words were impactful, nonetheless.

"Sit."



Succinctly, he softly nodded; footfall erected dutifully after, & so did the snow-haired male's room-reverberating baritone.

"I'm sure the lot of you are curious as to why you've been called here."

"...let's talk on the basis of humanity -  for humanity's sake."

His gaze veered toward the spearhead for a second, before darting toward the ceiling, empathy still seeping from their irises' sparkles.

"For some, at the most unfortunate of times..."

He then flyingly soared into the topic at hand  -  to him, equivalent to the elephant in the room.

"...let's talk on the basis of humanity -  for humanity's sake."

Nods of concurrence were almost remedial to the rigid, almost fretful atmospheric tension.

Floral white dominated the room, as domineering as the contemptuous nature of his brows as he looked onward. His hands rested at his chin, one curled beneath the other's knuckle. A sign of regality.

"Let's cut to the chase: humans have never stopped being human."

A statement so simple, yet oddly mystifying. It caught the room astorm  -  all ears wide open, all eyes were on him.

The silence was deafeningly loud. But that was the world of Ether: a constant game of mental chess.

"..."

"Humanity, however, has always been shackled by their own lack of solidarity... We ARE the only species on this planet that could lust its destruction nonsensically - consciously, but without reason, motive...never thinking about our impact on a globe-wide scale - never minding the droplets of impending doom trickling down our rear-view window - until we go blind to the truth."

"We must repent...don't you think?"

If silence held lips, they'd be reverberating their symphony across the office-space. It rippled through attentive ears & eyes, collectively stilling, bereft of any motion or for that matter nuance: it seemed the prime minister had the room in an impasse of sorts, kin to the sapient speaking to the novice or innocent - it just so happened, however, that this verbal deadlock wasn't about disagreement, but rather percipience.. They hadn't fully grasped the same understanding of the world as their minister, and it unveiled itself once the words exited his ashen-gray furnace for lips. The eon's worth of stillness lay about... Heartbeats freely lub-dubing in a harmony conspicuous - familiar, even - to the premier, as a graceless sigh imbued in disappointment was interjected by the officer posted amidst the shadows.

"Repent?"

He, as aforementioned, remained in solus on his island of a corner: until it came time to decipher the wise - tersely presented in a manner bound to either shock or appal - words spoken. From folded arms and back slanting onto the wall, to an erected, formal, even commanding posture, he sniffled back his initial words before ensuing.

"Respectfully, Minister: what are you trying to say?"

If truth held eyes, it procrastinated its stalk toward the minister, forever beholden to the islander's inquisition. He weaponized his silence once more, this time in accordance to the intrusion of thought. He was visibly shaken, the burden of others' curiosity getting to him; his pale skin miraculously turned paler by the second. The human in him writhed in agony... It was only a matter of time before he croaked up his secrets.

"Well, Isaac..."

The reactions were nuanced across the room. The officers sitting near the door's hinges at the back-left of the room sat in solemn silence - one in particular sat the length of his index finger at the crevasses blemishing his right palm; the tip of his nail scratched into the surface layer of skin until a streak of cobalt made itself apparent, before tracing down the line. There within his hand appeared a glowing sheet of paper, vanilla-white energy materializing from out of thin air.

A gaping sigh filled his ears as he dutifully jotted his thoughts; looking left, he saw the culprit, the source robbing him of his concentration. However, he was suddenly snapped back to the minister's gaze - and soon, down at the table.

The Prime Minister's riposte started with his slender fingers nimbly laying across the table; each acted as points of conveyance for exiguous spurts of azure-blue bubbling over, which, with spiteful brows, he deployed something mystifying. Blue veins turned black, bereft of all vitality; the minister was a corpse of himself. Each finger ejected an inky goop which oozed until it lathered both hands in a sticky, black viscosity - utterly alien to the vast majority... A fascinating sight to the prime descrier, the sole pair of eyes capable of dissecting the organic life created. The desk was quivering - not in fear, but spontaneous awareness; demonic growls & grunts sounded like the ululations of wolves during the twilight sequencing the rise of plenilune - an awful union between wicked souls, all having treacherous desires evoked forth. With a tap of his index finger, thought warped into reality, through the conduits, damned souls conveying his message through accursed words etching into bare skins, & thus onto the table's surface.

Scrolling pupils analyzed the words inscribed...

' The ends may not justify the means...

But the means can never justify the ends.

Choose the lesser evil. '

Disconcerted stares halted in their tracks. Some tried desperately to understand - Isaac, however, reacted differently.

The coruscating light in his eyes was quite familiar; it was radiant, as brilliant as he, himself... Insatiably, as though hungry for more than what he was fed, Isaac's face scrunched from squinted eyes, brows lashing their pure ire forth with the concussive hissing of a whip hitting back-flesh; on the contrary, the minister's hues - cerulean, with the subtle serenity of the ocean - washed over the lot, tidal waves of knowledge gradually waxing into the front of their minds, illuminating into view. His jaw opened almost autonomously, his voice following suit: he spoke to alleviate the confusion amongst his audience.

"There's always more than what meets the eye...and yet, us humans favor what we can only see."

His words were serpentine: once their vile fangs latched ahold of pivotal veins, they ejected their lethal toxins, plunging them deeper down the rabbit-hole. There was a common understanding in the room: once the minister spoke, there was no telling when he'd halt his articulation. Especially when it trickled down to human nature.

"...that is the case with truth in evil. In every truth, there is a smidgen of evil just waiting to lash out. Occupying every human body is a moral compass, orienting one down the behavioral paths they set out to pave, themselves. When one trots down a path opposite of their predetermined directions, it takes many conscientious decisions to deviate from these set values & principles they set for themselves. In this world, it is when they overtly choose these paths, they are - or their deed done is - considered immoral."

"The wicked and sinful - immoral - thrive most when mayhem and dismay once foreign to them knocks at their front doors, barking like hellhounds. This is to say: once a sinner, always a sinner; a society once put in a place of chaos and confusion will remain susceptible to their pestilential status in quo... In environments where monsters are plentifully seen, they are also plentifully born. That is at the core of my concerns..."

"Let me tell you all something: our forefathers erected on this Earth with the ultimate purpose of creating legacy - meaningful & world-altering legacy at that... Here we are, living out their biggest fantasies, enjoying the fruits of their labor..."

"...seems they didn't take into account that replicating their frugal nature & laborious way of living wouldn't hold up to the test of time..."

"Now we amble to their finish line - knowing we're lightyears more competent, can be just as resourceful & responsive to the stimuli put out by our environment - yet, merely amble. Why?"

"It's a great conundrum that even I cannot hope to find the quaesitum to..."

"...but the one answer I do have, is what I'm most afraid of: we're running out of our most valuable commodity..."

"Time."