“Akli…it has been quite a long time,” Dushyanta said.

  “…” Gusts took Akli’s suit like chutes, yet his grounded feet moved not an inch.

  “Doctor…?” Otie asked.

  “Ayihcah…ah, I forgot about him. Matters not. Akli, how do you like the world I am brewing?”

  “I don’t understand any of this, but perhaps Horo would have a clue.”

  “Hmm, Horo? He’s still alive?” Dushyanta scratched his chin. “Then it was just a clone then, fault only of my own.”

  An hour earlier:

  “Dushyanta, you have cursed us all,” Willow said, his arms of blood stretching, cladding the waters, coiling around Dushyanta’s figure. Threads of black and gold opened up a shaft in space, sucking in the ghastly horror. “Damn you Dushyanta, you will pay for this!”

  “Tell me again when you return,” Dushyanta sewed the portal shut as his body was flung across time and space.

  Unbuckling his coat, Akli rolled up his sleeves. Music began to play throughout the streets, where from was unknown. Synth beats—uncommon—blared as Akli punched through reality, pushing on the fabric of space-time. Dushyanta coughed blood as his body flew down the street, the heavy gusts pushing his momentum. Skidding along, black threads poured themselves along the sky as golden lines ratio the space between dimensions. Clasping his hands together converged the threads. Decimation, the city diced in an instant. Swinging from blackened clouds, Dushyanta flung himself to the pillar Akli stood on.

  Akli threw Otie up into the wind as his fist clashed with the sonic collision approaching. Akli’s eardrums burst as his fist shattered into a million pieces. Tendrils appeared from his shadow, stabbing into his back and thighs.

  Why Dushyanta…why? What is the point of this all…?

  In a crater of his own misery, Akli struggled to stand. Otie blew across the sky, flopping to the grassy pastures outside the containment field of the oncoming aliens.

  “Same reason as you becoming mayor. I want a world where we don’t need to rely on nobody but ourselves. However, I am no fool to your plans Akli, I see the vision. Sadly, the vision is no different from King Schizo of before. Of course with your abilities and Horo’s intellect, you may come up with some solution. I would have agreed, if not for one slight miscalculation. You don’t know everything…you can only compete with what is right in front of you. Akli, I have seen things…things that I know you would ignore.”

  “Then…tell me…talk to me. You’re my friend…are you not?”

  “I am, and that is why I must purge your existence, so that the next you can rule a just world.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “I’ll simplify it for you, as is the act of our old friendship. This reality, universe, whatever you wish to call it…is flat. A three partitioned cylinder, that at the bottom funnels back to the top. This is complimentary of the system of reincarnation, and is manipulated by those who claim to be of Heaven’s citizens. Now imagine that there is a being outside this cylinder that dictates all that is allowed…we can call them God for now. They dictate who may be blessed with reincarnation as well as the filtering of the pillars. If you have a connection to a higher forming soul, you will inevitably die, and end up stuck in Gehenna. Folks like Horo would get a free ticket to Elysion, to enhance their souls, while people like us would rot in Hell.”

  “I’m beginning to understand…but then why all this violence, this death?”

  “None of us are real, we are mere puppets. I’ve been working with a rebellion group in Elysion to challenge this practice. However, their goals and mine are deeply different. I wish to free us from the Pillar, and provide us with true freedom. Immortal bodies not dictated by anything but our own will.”

  “No…that won’t work.”

  “I figured you would say that…”

  “That would only lead to absolute chaos, the human mind could not handle it. We would break, and become something entirely different.”

  “That’s what they said…however I doubt you would have agreed with their plan either. To merge all three layers into one, would in theory provide immortality as well…”

  “But it would bring the dead back to life and rid all powers from existing…the chances of that working…”

  “Are slim to none. My plan at least gives us an opportunity to escape the confines of our own prisons. Rather than posture vociferously in a hell-scape.”

  “That still isn’t right…we as people can not dictate our fate without destroying others’.”

  “Fool…you just want to play god, you think you’re so just to dictate how we should all live.”

  “And yet you would have evil exist, and give them all the power to do so!”

  “Precisely because absolute good would exist just the same. If one steps onto another, they can retaliate without some outer force choosing if they will suffer or not!”

  “Why must we fight, when I can stop the conflict from ever needing to be?!”

  “But you can’t Akli! You failed back then, and you will fail now, and you would have failed in the future too! You are human, molded by the model that created this reality! You have no control, you have nothing!” Dushyanta lashed out an encapsulating shadow, running across the devastation. Akli couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell, couldn’t feel.

  I can think, but nothing else. Only my thoughts…is this perhaps…death?

  “Taiga, are you sure this is the right way? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place before…”

  “I think a war is happening…”

  “That’s…”

  In the faint distance they saw five figures approaching.

  “I sense his presence,” Jean said. “We’re close.”

  Captain opened a flask, taking his shot of warmth before clearing the clouds of dust. In the faintest of all their sights they saw two shifting figures running beneath collapsing buildings.

  “Found ‘em.”

  “Father!” Raido shouted. Priest Cauldwell opened his book of songs. Like the soft glow of a firefly, beams shot forth, ensnaring the two boys.

  “Damn…” Urjohar said.

  “…”