Nihilist: Volume I

Fracture: Act II

Viewing Branches, Pt. II

I have to find the branch

I have to find the branch

I have to

"Aries?" My sister tilts her head as she calls my name. Looking at her with a frozen gaze, I smile worriedly and lean back into my chair. I dart my eyes around and scan the room to return myself to reality. People make conversation in the lobby. The waiters rush to deliver plates of food to the visitors resting under black marble with white gowns and suits. "Aries, you're dissociating again."

"I'm sorry?" I ask, proving her point in confusion. Libra rests her hands over the tablecloth. The flame of the candle in the center illuminates the sea blue in her eyes.

"You're searching your branches again, dear," Libra whispers, leaning her head forward to keep my focus. I shake my head and readjust. "Your eyes were bouncing to the back of your head. Are you alright?"

I squirm. "Of course, sister."

I keep my eyes off of her, as much as I wish I could enjoy her company. She sinks back into her chair and holds a squinted glare in response. It must've been the hesitation in my voice, or perhaps the heavy weight of worry in my throat. I hold the glass in front of me and carry it to my lips. Closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath, I let a wave of neon blue bury my lips and clear my mind. Opening my eyes again, I watch the lobby as a couple leaves the room and nears the balcony.

A beautiful fountain adorned in white jewels sits near the entrance and entices new visitors to stay as long as the water flows. The views here are stunning, but there is a future that will choke the fountain dry. The oceans will rage, the people will fear, and the glass I hold will shatter with my sanity. I will not stop searching until I know this facade of safety may be as eternal as the fountain ahead.

Neon Drinks

A neon diamond

Drags its color in the water

Pushing the ice to the surface

Little, cold shards

Melting into a glass

Sustained, controlled

Shaped with the purpose

To hold anything it is given

I’m leaving the water there

I’m never letting it pour from the edges

For holding something only means so much

When it is taken from you

I won’t let you go

You won’t stop me

Will you?

You won’t work with time

And be the tick that counts itself

Absentmindedly

To let the neon liquid fade

The glass sparkling as it shatters

Finding hearts to slice

And the little glass in front of me

Tipping over

With the head of the skyscraper

As the water of a greater body

Swallows it away

You’ll stay with me forever

Won’t you

Fountain (of Youth)

They said it was mythical

A place to be healed

They had always turned to religion

They had always strived

To reach beyond their dreams

I am staring at a waterfall

That has a meaning much greater than me

That holds the power of a deity

It rages with an infinite pressure

Flowing below a thick layer of mist

Known to be a barrier

A wall of names

A shield of unbearable humiliation

A division of thoughts that run with the water

Weighing down every creature that trails itself here

With the gravity that brings the waterfall from the heavens

To heal and to cleanse

Every imperfection and every fracture

Every impurity and sin

I wish to be healed

I am running

Desperate to cross the wall of divine water

That will compress anything that attempts

And blend their blood

With the crystal shine of the river

I am a fool

For I have taken the chance

I have reached perfection

I have crossed the line

I have been scarred no longer

And now I am gone

For having not a single scar

Is equal to being covered in them

For my emotions had led me to sin

And now my emotions have been washed away

For my memories had brought me tears

Tears that fade with the mist

With my mind

My faults had once made me

Who I once was

But now

I am nothing,

I am perfect.

Blind

To see everything

Is to see nothing.

To know every action

Before it is done

Is equal to losing curiosity

Venturing into the unknown

The motivation of the human race

To move forward in time

But isn’t that what brings time its meaning?

If we sat

In the same place

Forever

Time would lose itself

For it gives a reason to cherish

And if we lived every moment as the same

Cherishing wouldn’t be necessary

And neither the need to exist

The desire to look behind you

To see how far you’ve come

Rather than to continue

For knowing when your end arrives

Where your branch stops

Defeats the unknown

Leaving you with a ticking clock

Running black hands

Around numbers created from humans

An illusion of darkness

Letting you spiral yourself into dread

Constantly spending the time

Thinking of what to do

How to best use what seconds you have

Rather than to actually do something

To make your life worth it

To leave a mark on the world

Somehow

To let someone

Anyone

Know that you were there

That you existed

To let your name be spoken

After the life it was attached to

Had wilted

Gone away

Not when the end came

But when it found out

It would end at all

Knowing how much time they had left

And using it to count down

What they could’ve done better

Who they could’ve seen instead

What was wasted

If this poem was really worth the time

If something else

Could’ve been more productive

How valuable time really is

And

And sometimes

It’s better

To know nothing

Because nothing

Time will never be able

To touch.

Innocence, Pt. I

“Careful, sister.”

Under a pale star that brings the day to melt life into the earth, I trace careful steps across the cracks of a field made from ice. The winter has never been this harsh before. The skyscrapers have raced to tower over feet of snow that bury the glass of the city roads and the doors to the downtown shops. Every step is crunched and remembered, and I leave a trail for travelers to know I was here before them. We pass through uncharted territory with ease, using each other as crutches over sharp pits of blue.

“I’ve got it,” I exclaim, stepping over another pit of ice that has dented itself into the perfect surface of the earth. She takes my hand anyway and helps me stabilize as I press into cracking ice again.

“The sooner we get through this ice field, the quicker we can find those blueflies.”

The fireflies have turned blue to adapt to the weather that has turned home into something of another world. This season has gone on for far too long, and we’re making the better of it by finding a few and catching them.

We trail through the last cracks just on the outskirts of our city. After reaching the field of snow just beyond, hundreds of hidden little blue pulses scatter around the white. The trees that surround the field play as a barrier in black, the wood being the dark to the constant light that shines with the horizon.

“We’ve made it,” Libra says. Her voice is soft, and she uses her heated breaths to take in what sits before her.

“That we have,” I say, standing next to her, “It’s not far, but it takes a while to get here.”

“Isn’t it crazy? It feels not long ago when the snow started to fall, and now it won’t stop. It’ll be burying us all before we know it,” she lowers her backpack hanging from her shoulder, “It’s like the sun has glazed over. The heat isn’t doing anything.”

“I’d say this is beautiful,” I contrast. She pulls out two containers in the shapes of spheres and hands one to me. “Winter has always been my favorite.”

“When something is constant, it becomes repetitive,” she reminds me. “Don’t you remember what they taught us?”

“You should know I don’t care much for our guardians,” I grab the sphere and open it with a twist. The glass is sturdy enough not to shatter with a single press.

“They’ve given these gifts to us. We’re not human anymore, and we should be grateful,” she says.

“We’re experiments of gods, Libra. Our names are taken from those of greater power, and we shouldn’t be. We’re a danger to society,” I growl. She leaves the backpack to be bitten by the snow as it tries to freeze the handles dangled out. She sneaks toward one of the fireflies beaming around aimlessly, without an ounce of worry, and waits for the right moment to act.

“We’re here to protect society. We’re the future of the human race,” she says.

“We’re the end of the human race,” I say.

“The end lies in the future, little sister,” she reminds me, jumping to catch and enclose the firefly in the sphere. “We’re only here to drag it out, you understand? We just have to listen to our guardians. They will tell us what to do.”

“They’re human, too. They want power and control, and we’re the epitome of that.”

“If they wanted so, they would’ve taken your branches for themselves. They’ve given them to you, instead. You hold something they don’t.”

“Why did they give them to me, then? What makes me valuable to them?”

“Innocence,” she says. She raises the sphere to show me her capture, and it brings me a realization I’ve had yet to understand. The branches never tell me everything.

Within the glass ball in her palm, a fluttering firefly with a blue, gleaming pulse swirls to explore its cage. It shines with a purity that doesn’t allow darkness to find it. It doesn’t know pain like we do, and like a child, cries for happiness. Just as it does, I find I am the one locked in the cage, equal to the insect. I’m trapped inside, my abilities concealed, and only the ones who gave me my abilities can maneuver my actions.

I was once a child before I became Aries. I was different then, my thoughts human and irrational. I was innocent, with little knowledge of fear, and was perfect for holding the decisive, delicate persuasion of time. I follow branches to lure decisions, and I am the master of manipulating the dangers that come with the unknown.

I am the only one that knows where the ends of the universe hide.

Blind, Pt. II

We play with time like children

A sandbox at a park

Digging to see where the bottom rests

Where the leaves on the trees change

With the help of a friend

We forgot how to accept

Saw as an enemy

A holder of grim realities

And turned our backs

Only to know

It has followed us

Until the day

We sunk under the sand

And found the bottom

Not with our hands

Or our plastic shovels

But our bodies

Innocence, Pt. II

“We are the fireflies within the jars. We hold the purity of this world in a greater form, yes? We’ve been given these powers to cure the earth from sin,” Libra explains, letting the blue glow peer out of the edges and into the soft wind once more. With every little insect we catch in our palms, that reminder always seeps out of our fingers. We are guardians to all life that lives beyond this field at the cost of our innocence so they can keep theirs.

We catch twelve. Following the names of signs that come from the stars, we watch over the earth while rotating with a sparkle of hope. We shine only when the darkness arrives, and during the day, we blend with the others, looking to be nothing more than ordinary civilians.

We place the twelve gathered insects into a single sphere, one at a time, together. The glow shines brighter than it did before, becoming an orb of light that gleams through the glass.

We are what lies under the snow.

We’re the center of humanity.

The phycologically divine.

Our orbits on the earth leave more than a tattered footprint and a trail from frozen soil, but instead the hints of prophecy and revelation. She places the orb back inside the backpack sitting just a few feet from us, but doesn’t cease her desire to catch more.

We run through the field, wanting to be the fireflies, without care of what lies beyond our warmth. We swirl and dance, happy to exist rather than to know when we won’t. We laugh and cheer, the clouded skies above beginning to c***k and show the light of the sun once again.

And then she finds a c***k.

Another fracture in the earth,

Frozen in place,

Hidden under a blanket of snow.

She falls and falls, slipping down to the bottom like the world went hollow. A small stream of red blends with the blue, and she screams in pain. I run to follow her and pause at the edge, finding her again as her bruised body crumbles to the enclosed darkness at the end of the fall. The imperfections in the ice caused her to be cut up in several places, but the vapor from her heavy breaths still rose to my gentle reaches below.

She calls out my name, scratched and anxious, and I fear my small body isn’t able to grasp her. Her blood sinks into the ice, getting darker and darker as it swarms into crimson and maroon.

“Libra, use your shifting!” I call out.

In an instant, she remembered she wasn’t an ordinary being without the ability to change physically into anything she wanted. Libra’s ability was used to manipulate physicality as mine was for time, and we both grew a love for each other past the relationships of the other ten celestial users that roamed.

She grew large wings that held the color of the ice when it shadowed at night, a collection of glossened, dark blue feathers that outstretched and helped her soar her way back up after a set of winces.

She rolls back onto the snow, and I instantly warm her with a careful, tight hug. Her abnormal winces make me let go, but she smiles after meeting my eyes again.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she grins. She stands after a few moments, eager to forget she fell and continue pursuing careless happiness. This is the world telling me that happiness comes at a cost. It is never truly gifted without the wrapping of sadness, and we are the balance between the two. We are the shelter that upholds the divine scale of existence. We are the weapon against nihility.

Horn of Silence

"Libra!" The child echoes her sister's name in a frozen void. Each faded plea crawls into the darkness without a sound to return. Alone and afraid, the child returns to her feet in a cage of her own creation. Looking ahead into her bleak future, she continues to chase the pulsing knocks beating through the cave. The mouth she had entered has faded into a distant speck of white, but the child is too far in to reach it again. Her head spins as her blood freezes under her veins. Her breaths are short and swift, her eyes falling under their lids, and her feet are ready to fail once more.

She tightens her grip around the bear she holds and continues to fight against the numbness in her body. She reaches her hand to the walls of the cave to help carry her weight and feels the damp of bleeding ice run through her skin. Squinting to the crevice ahead, she notices the ice dripping down her wrist. She pulls her hand back, takes a step away, and glances at her palm. A blanket of crimson rolls gently over her hand.

The child screams and jolts further from the wall ahead. She runs her palm against the fabric of her pants and keeps her fingers tight around her plush. Looking up with what little sight she has left, she discovers this crimson has scattered across the ice of the cave. Like a bleeding virus, the color of blood has blended into the ice. Tears of fear begin to crawl from the gaze of the child. She looks further for a source of the color. With every step into the abyss, the crimson of before fades into a sable tar that obscures her path. She reaches out her hand again, although afraid she'll touch something less frozen, and fears that her sister may already be smeared upon her clothes.

She keeps chasing it. The sound of her sister's heartbeat. It still thumps, louder than ever, and it doesn't cease. She must still be alive.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

The pulses rage through her as if they had come from herself. As the color around her fades into nothing, her entire body follows the same journey, and she begins to trip over the abandoned weight of her body. In moments, her entire being is swallowed by the depths of the cave. Her legs give in, she collapses to the ground again, and drags her limp, small body across the ground.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

The voice of death melts into her eardrums. The throbs of her sister's heart begin to silence her own. She keeps crawling, despite her condition, and chases everlasting life in her path. She can see her freedom reaching out to her. Her eyes close in solace, the thumps echoing away, and her body gives in to the cold. Her breaths slow into the silence. For a moment, she feels the agony of her past fade with her senses. The weight of her body has been lifted. The warmth of her blood remains no longer. The walls of this crevice may finally take another wave of crimson. Once again, the child is frozen in time.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

"Libra," the child calls out. In the midst of her final breaths, she hears the echoes of her voice return to her. Her eyes seal as she rests her head against the void, but open slowly within the depths of her mind. Lost in a new world, she visits the fractures of her memory and discovers her sister across the frozen bridge to the afterlife. She takes a final, deep breath against the cold and accepts her fate in peace.

Blood Ice

I have traveled among a million lifetimes

Searching for a truth that doesn’t exist

Hoping to find the meaning of it all

"Alright, it's been long enough," the tyrant turns

her glare to the guards standing behind her. She gestures for them to step forward from their vehicles. Looking to the mouth of the cave again, she feels a breeze of worry slice through her body. "Find her and bring her back."

I am a soldier of the cosmos

Watching the drops of divinity

Freeze below the surface

That holds a thousand years of evolution

Lost by man, but never by the earth it rests within

The soldiers behind her unholster their weapons, afraid of what might lie in the cave ahead. They draw near the entrance, their eyes peering through their scopes, and they maneuver themselves beneath the mouth. They enter and face the unknown with a pride that will soon be devoured in darkness.

I have found it

I have found where her heart is

Hidden behind everlasting ice

Deep within a cave, reflected by a black hole

As the light that may find it

Is consumed into nothing in an instant

Man requires a light to survive

As being surrounded in the dark

As if floating in space

Will kill them not because of the temperature

But rather the knowledge

Of how insignificant they are

To the vast universe that suffocates them

In its indistinct and devastating beauty

Stepping over the frozen cracks

Blinded for her safety

And seeing not with eyes

Nor anything in my body

But with my control

And my dying hope

That I will truly see once more

The meaning of my existence

The soldiers reach their hands to their helmets. They flick the flashlights attached above their ears to scan the opening. Pressing their boots against the ice, they leave the promising light of safety behind. Lurking ahead rests the greatest enemy they may ever face: nothingness. The soldiers continue deeper into the void. They watch as the walls change colors the further they move. Their eyes widen to the view of crimson, yet their sight has been stolen by the cave that breathes. Soon, it will choke them of their warmth and leave them alone with their nightmares.

I can feel her blood

Dripping from the icicles

Flowing through the walls

I can hear the faint pumps

Thumping below my feet

Captivating any other noise I’ve ever heard

And taking its throne as a vibration

I will never forget

I keep walking

I keep walking

Each step only seems to drown

In the beat of her heart

Hidden deep through a million layers

Of ice

Of ice

The soldiers shake their heads as they try to ignore the pounds that draw from the depths of the cave. The pulses are constant and ruthless. They try to call to their comrades beside them, but their voices drown in the vibrations that shake them into a violent dysphoria. The faint hints of death drip from the ceiling and fall onto their visors. They feel their heartbeats racing with the one beyond them, but fear only one will survive.

Getting louder and stronger

Bringing a reminder to those who dare to hear her

That she will rise one day

Her knowledge incomprehensible

To the minds of all creatures

For she is the queen of our reality

And she awaits the moment

We realize

What we really are

Who we really are

And whether we can find our purpose

On our own

The soldiers never halt their march. They begin to believe the crimson surrounding them may have come from their comrades, and they shiver with the haunting thought that they may bleed the same. The heartbeat pulses with greater intensity, swallowing the ones that come before it. It is because of them that their enemy may be eternal.

Because until we discover

What lies in the unknown

We fall beneath the cracks

Never to be seen again

And drift into an endless void

Only to join all creatures

That roamed a thousand years before

And to connect to the source

That brought her to life

For their blood is hers

Artifact, Pt. I

The child opens her eyes again

Death passing by her body

And ignoring her life for another

She looks around to the same scenery as before

The bleeding walls surrounding her

The cracks of her skin

Against the slices over ice

The weight of the world

Crushing her

Yet something new unveils itself

From the void watching over her

A faint, distant light

A speck of bright white

Frozen at the center of the cave

The mouth of this nightmare

An escape awaiting her

But not a path to freedom

She cannot rest in her thoughts any longer

She crawls up with what little strength remains

Her will to live greater than the want to die

And she steps to the light

Slow and steady

With the heartbeat that mimics her own

As she steps closer

She sees the light thin

As if the mouth of the cave

Had begun to collapse

She draws closer

Her ears wanting to bleed

From the pressure of the pulses

The vibrations seeping her strength

And pulling the winds to its desire

And she arrives

The light brighter than ever

Bringing the child her shadow again

As it gleams over her skin

A staff

Standing tall

With an end stabbed into the ice

The surrounding surface she walks upon

Shattered and sliced with her thoughts

She looks upon the thin, beaming rod

The warmth of hope shining into her pupils

And she finds the source of the pulses

As she watches the light of the staff

Dim, brighten, dim, and brighten again

And as she reaches for it

She fears her final breath

But her fingertips wrap

Around the selenite weapon

The light gets brighter

The beating heart within

Meets with hers

And she opens her eyes again

Not to the darkness of before

But to the secrets of the unknown

The paths beyond eternity

And the branches of infinity

Blossoming with the cracks of the cave

Crawling beneath her feet

As she lifts the staff

And humanity soon to find its solace

In her arms

Artifact, Pt. II

The soldiers near the end of their search

Fearing they have failed in saving the child

They turn their backs to the void

Searching for the light again

And as they near their escape

From the haunting black hole behind them

That consumes all that cannot accept

Their true purpose in the void

They feel the warmth of a greater light

Flooding the cave behind them

The crimson of before bleeding brighter

The ice of the ceiling cracking above them

They rush to the mouth

Holding their weapons firm in their fists

And slam new cracks into the floor

As they flee from the light of truth

And they witness

As the light consumes them

A warmth of safety holding them tight

As their bodies fly out of the cave

And roll to the ground

Their weapons left behind with their pride

As they collapse before their leader

Who stands with an arm over her eyes

Watching the inside of the cave

Shine brighter than the sky above her

And a young child

Carrying an artifact twice her size

Held tightly in her hands

A plush worn from the search

But surviving the same

Standing under the mouth

And finding not her sister

But instead

Herself

"Come, child," the tyrant kneels in satisfaction with a widening smile on her face. She reaches out her arms as the child steps closer, wobbling as she holds her own weight again, and hugs the child tightly. "You're safe with me, darling."

The child looks up to the woman. "I couldn't find her."

"No, not yet, but you've found something much greater," the woman grins. The tyrant stands and reaches for the staff. Taking a small hand in hers, she guides the child back to the vehicles, and proudly walks with a newfound future in both of her hands. The woman helps the child climb into the seat of the vehicle and feels the comforting heat within. The child looks to the dark of the cave once more, then returns her stare to the woman in front of her. "Let me get you home, my child. I have a warm place for you to reside."

"What happens now?" The child asks. The woman tightens her grip around the staff as if it were to vanish from her hold. She brushes her fingers through the short, ivory hair of the child and kisses her forehead.

"We find your sister," Autumn says. The child smiles with a wince. "Together, you're going to bring light to this wasteland we call home."