Nihilist: Volume I

Chimera, Part II

After a tranquil hike through the city, Keir meets her destination in minutes. She presses her boots on the rubble of another building that couldn't keep its weight above the beaten earth. She kicks a small pebble with the side of her boot and sends it flying to the base of a marble pillar. Several ticks emit from the rock as it bounces off the column and falls back into insignificance as it rests with a pool of others. Keir steps over the debris without a single misstep to her stride. The structures of the kingdom have remained as fortresses of war for years now, and the harsh cries of the dead roaming in the winds drag them down. Most people look to the monarch for hope against this decay, but this kingdom is still as fresh as the cinder beneath it. A heavy burden of failure has brought this kingdom to crumble, and the noise happens so often that the people have only grown accustomed to it. As a princess to the nation, it's not uncommon to hear the rumbling of destruction lurking over the horizon. She'll only be unfortunate enough to carry the weight of that burden on her head in a crown of gemstones and steel.

Keir ascends the glossed steps of a monument that maintains its strength despite its chipped pillars and thick holes in its walls. Hints of gold string over the walls as decoration. Pieces of the ceiling rest on the broken ground. Glass scatters among the rubble of the entrance and crunches inaudibly beneath Keir's boots. The large doors of the structure, however, are untouched and perfect. The wooden gloss of the entrance opening mocks the stone in its untainted appearance. Keir wraps her fingers around the gold bars to pull herself from the door to swing it free. To her dismay, the door doesn't budge. She hauls once more with greater force but finds the same result. Ashamed to see such a beautiful piece of history lack its true purpose, Keir steps back from the door and leans her chest forward. She presses her foot against the marble ground, drags it further from the entrance, and dashes to the center of the two doors.

Keir lets out a heavy grunt and sends her foot to break the unbroken. The doors split open with a heavy crunch but remain frozen in their place, with a c***k two inches wide for Keir to slip through. She wraps her fingers around the edge of the door, dragging its limp wooden face aside. Her grasp slipping from the door, Keir steps through a larger c***k as it swings itself further from her. A bright chandelier stuns her as she enters the building. Keir covers her eyes from the ceiling with a grunt and walks through the foyer of the building.

Taking the view in after adjusting her eyes to the glare of perfection, she looks to her feet to find scattered papers ripped from their leather homes. The walls ornamented with paintings of an old society tower over Keir without a single blemish to their display. The warm light of a dozen candles soaks into the gloss of a long wooden desk and dozens of empty bookshelves. Approaching the desk from a dim hallway that leads to the center of the structure, an ample woman glares at Keir and rests her hands on the desk. Keir smiles cheerfully, standing with an intent to hide the woman's view of the front door.

"It's a little dusty up here at the front," Keir calls out to the woman.

The woman averts her diamond blue eyes away from the door and brushes her fingers through her short, silver hair.

"I'd blame you if you weren't challenging the throne," the woman responds. Her voice is smooth and gentle.

"C'mon, Sonata, you know it's not much of a challenge," Keir leans against the desk. Sonata stares down at the princess.

"It's your sister that you're against," she states softly. Keir rolls her eyes and grips the edge of the desk, throwing her legs over to the other side. Sonata steps back uncomfortably and watches as Keir passes through the hallway and into a room full of knowledge and secrets. She takes in the glistened surroundings, and the bookshelves of a distant past stand with pride to hold what remains of history. The collection of thin papers and worn leathers is the only thing left of humanity that hasn't yet buried itself under rubble and time. There is little light left in the kingdom where Keir resides, but the chandeliers merely get brighter as they sit above the tomes of the past. Every book is in its place. No craters fill the shelves, no stone divided by shaken lines, and no papers litter the floor as they do in the foyer.

"This place is gorgeous," Keir calls, stepping slowly to the center of the library to take in the foreign sight of perfection.

"That's just because you haven't stumbled around in it yet," Sonata jokes. The librarian follows Keir and takes pride in the princess's admiration. Although destructive and reckless, Keir has been a loyal friend to Sonata. They had been friends ever since they were children after meeting in a kingdom much brighter than this one. They were raised with confidence and held each other when the earth around them began to shake. Their memories together could fill these shelves all the same.

"My sister won't be crowned. She's too illiterate and arrogant," Keir shakes her head in denial. Sonata watches the wind creep through broken windows to sway the chandelier above. She holds her hands in front of her and moves up to Keir's side.

"Many of us are, Keir. The only relation we have to humans remains to be our physical appearances. Their intelligence has buried with their souls," Sonata mentions. Keir tilts her head up to watch the waving light.

"Some of us must've gotten lucky then, huh?"

Sonata tilts her head down in confusion. "I don't understand."

"You and I can read and write. We have an understanding of human traditions and routines. Why?" Keir explains. Sonata ponders on her question. Although they hold the bodies of a species no longer alive, the people of this kingdom are much different under the skin. Sonata and Keir appear human, but the bodies they wear once held another life. Deep within the body, a disease in the form of a creature has taken control of its organs. These creatures, collections of vague smoke, are ghosts born from a tyrant of history. These phantoms, known as inners, were carriers of wretched emotions used as a weapon to haunt the leaders who ruled over the world. Following the tyrant in their mission, these creatures guided the wind and planted seeds of corruption into the minds of other rulers.

"Perhaps we learned it at a young age," Sonata says, "Some of us have been around since humans had still been fighting for their lives."

"I don't remember much of that time," Keir says. She runs her fingers over the face of a book lying on a center roundtable.

"Many who remember that time want to forget," Sonata suggests gently. She briefly remembers the dreadful events that formed this kingdom. After the tyrant had succeeded in her domination, the phantoms had decided to abandon her and pursue their own. As they continued to study humanity in silence and watch without a single witness to their activities, the inners had become the very blight that buried the species they valued. Long after these events, the knowledge of the old world has since become a lost memory.

"Regardless, your father had taught me how to read when he asked me to keep up with this library. In time, I got to share that knowledge with you."

"That's where I have the advantage over my sister, though," Keir lifts a finger as she speaks and begins to pace, "I want to research on how humans fought. I want to know their strategies and their motives. That's what I'll take to the battle for the throne."

"Your sister has just as much strength as you, and the battle is in three days. The fight will be equal regardless of what you learn in such a short time," Sonata says, pity bearing her words. Afraid to follow in humanity's fading footsteps, inners now roam the earth with a steady, undying love for desolation. To the people of the new world, books are just another item to torch and bury. As for Keir, however, Sonata has gifted her the ability to read and write throughout their life-long friendship.

"She doesn't have you," Keir stops herself and faces Sonata, "I know she doesn't visit you."

Sonata scoffs. "You both are very busy people with important decisions to make."

Keir crosses her arms. "Her decisions don't align with the people. She doesn't have our citizens in focus when she chases the throne. She wants gold and glory, no matter what happens to the kingdom beneath her. I need your help to keep that from happening."

Sonata looks down at Keir's boots for a moment, considering the truth that the princess spoke about her sister. She bobs her head gently and glances her eyes up again.

"Very well. I think it's time you've learned what humanity was all about," the librarian says, stepping aside from Keir and walking to the back of the library. Keir strides through the dust in the air and follows Sonata closely. She stares into the floor as the gloss of the stone reflects the light of the chandelier above her. Thin strands of gold run through the marble floor intricately and swirl symmetrically to the center of the room. Books layer over one another without an order to their placement, yet they all display so perfectly together. As Sonata opens a door hidden behind another shelf at the back of the room, Keir doesn't take her eyes off the foreign beauty until she steps through.

When she turns to observe the room for the first time, it seems the beauty was left behind. Cobwebs string across dark, crumbling planks of wood. A dozen candles flicker around the smaller room on empty shelves and worn crates. As Sonata steps forward, the floor below her lets out a gentle whine. Keir avoids following in her place and steps to the side before making her first step. Studying the odd change of scenery, Keir runs her fingers along the edge of a crate and finds dust floating from her palm. Sonata drags out a chest hiding discreetly behind a wall of boxes. She kneels to unlock the two drawbolts on either side of its face, hoping not to get the bottom of her snow dress dirty as her knees near the floor. Keir steps close behind and watches Sonata lift its lid free. Peering down into the darkness of the chest's interior, Keir squints her eyes to find three books within. All of them have exteriors different from the other books in the library - their spines are polished in metal and leather, their fronts designed with intricate, symmetrical decorations that catch the light of the candles. Several inches above their centers, each book bears an emblem within the lines of their detailed covers. Both sides of a crescent rest on two books, with one waxing and one waning. On the last, a crystal star sits over the fabric.

"After the war, your father left these tomes behind before he left the kingdom," Sonata says, "He made me promise to hold onto them and give them to the daughter that would inherit his throne."

Keir raises her brows and snaps her head to Sonata, kneeling down with the librarian. She hasn't seen her father since the birth of this kingdom. He told her many years ago that he had unfinished business outside his nation, but he never came back to her. It has been years since he left - so long, in fact, that the people have decided to replace him with one of his daughters. The crown can only remain untouched for so long.

"You were there when he left? Where did he go?" Keir asks sharply. Sonata smiles softly and reaches for the books in the chest. She lifts them one by one, stacking them on the crate next to the chest.

"He hadn't told me or anyone else, but these books may hold that secret and more," Sonata mentions. "I haven't read them out of respect, but you should know how much I crave to find what hides within those pages."

Keir stands with Sonata and stares into the gorgeous, unscathed secrets in front of her.

"Will these tell me what I need to know about how humans battle?" Keir asks, reaching out to grab them.

"These books will tell you what you need to know about humankind in its entirety, Keir," Sonata says with a gentle sigh, hoping that the books will rest in the right arms. Watching them hide in the princess's arms below her chest, Sonata knows she handed the weight of the world to her. Keir lets out an eager smile and passes by Sonata as the door opens again. They pass by the walls of shelves again and make their way back to the foyer. Their footsteps echo across the vast library as they approach the center of the room again.

Keir glances proudly at the gifts in her arms and takes another gaze to the collection of tomes resting upon towering shelves. The library has a distinct, obscure beauty that many overlook as bleak, barren, and repetitive. While the authors hold sand and dirt in their palms, the words they planted into the pages of perseverance remain. Keir saw the lessons of humanity as hope for the future of her kingdom.

Her people were quick to bury the species after their downfall, but her father saw humanity as an admirable triumph to the universe. He taught her the meaning of passion and purpose. He guided her fingers as she wrote and learned to read. He told her stories of what humanity had done to survive against all odds and succeed. He showed her a different perspective on the history of a determined species - one that gave her hope for the future of his kingdom. As one of the few who grew up vaguely learning human emotions beyond that of despair, she knows her sister will only drive that hatred further. The feeling of happiness is such an unfamiliar feeling when it isn't woven with malice.

Under the gleaming chandelier of this library, the souls of the defeated float as dust. The papers scattered around the floors are ragged and crumbled, but within them lies a purpose that this kingdom lacks. Her people want to burn the library and complete their reign over humanity, but Keir grows aware that her species will fall all the same if they don't learn from the mistakes of those who last stepped over the ash. Looking out to a hidden beauty mistaken for a wasteland of wood and paper, Keir feels a wave of purpose flood through her veins. Within her fogged heart, she has a quiet plea to the single star in the sky that her people may feel the same.

"Thank you, Sonata," Keir says, nearing the desk of the foyer as she prepares to leave. Sonata nods, lifting the sides of her dress gently as she bows to the princess.

"Be careful, Keir. Knowledge can be a destructive weapon," the librarian warns. Keir scoffs, turning to the front doors and tightening her grip around the books her father left behind.

"That sounds like something you'd say," Keir says, another smile growing on her face.