by Andrew Jones
Kryptonite explained as he started off into the forest, letting Blaze follow. Blaze had only been inside the Forgetful Forest a few times. She hated it and promised herself previously that she wouldn't go in there again. But she really had to this time.
Verse XIV
To Blossom the Flowers of Despair
The Forgetful Forest was more foggy and dark than Kryptonite remembered. But Blaze hadn't ever been anywhere close to the forest. She could mostly be found near the desert. However, the feeling of the forest made Kryptonite's ear twitch, his ear wouldn't twitch unless he could sense a big disturbance in the area- but said distance would most definitely be seen pretty well. This disturbance seemed to be invisible. As he hunted around the area, his head quickly peeked upward and faced deep inside the forest, he sensed something odd.
"The forest... Changed..." Kryptonite whispered.
He rushed into some bushes. Blaze gasped as she watched him dash through, and then he quickly jumped back out of the bushes, sniffing around the area with great fear in his face.
"I don't know where anything is... And I can't use my senses... Everything just smells like blood..." Kryptonite gagged as he stopped his rushing around.
Blaze scoffed as she took around the open area herself. She would peer through the bushes, look up the trees, and even watch the insects of the forest's movements, but she saw nothing amiss. She sighed as she fell back on the ground, laying back while she closed her eyes. She was exhausted, and she knew her mechanical body was winding down. She hadn't been giving her body the proper maintenance repairs it needed, so she felt weaker than encouraged if anything. Kryptonite watched her, quickly sitting next to her and faced her.
"I think this is a good time to tell me why you're really looking for the source of the Armagna Network," Kryptonite asked.
Blaze sighed, "Why now?"
"Because we could die at any moment. This world works in mysterious ways, and I'm not in favor of it. Before we know it- I could die, or you could die. There's only so much pain one can take." Kryptonite answered, looking a bit upset. "I'd like to enjoy as much time with you as I can."
Blaze opened her eyes and turned her body toward him, "I'm looking for Armagna because of Augur..."
"Augur? Who is that?"
"Someone I cared for. I feel like this network has something to do with what happened to him... He didn't act like himself the last time I saw him. I think Drenawx was experimenting on him too."
Kryptonite tilted his head, similar to the way Blaze would, "How so?"
Before Blaze could answer, they heard some ruffling in the bushes. The ruffling quickly caught both Blaze and Kryptonite's attention. Blaze even noticed that Kryptonite was frightened by the ruffling. He glanced up at Blaze as she looked back at him with a calm, but annoyed face; nudging her head toward the way of the ruffling. He frowned and moved his lips as he quietly expressed his wish to say no to her, but she shook her head and pointed toward the bushes. He grumbled, while he stood up and slowly walked toward the bushes. Swiping away some bugs that would fly near his face, he reached his little paw toward the bushes and moved them aside. He held his eyes shut and hoped that Blaze would make his return, but she did not say a word. He took a deep breath as his eyes opened. A bright green light was seen through the bushes, a light that would forcefully lure him, magically capturing his over positive curiosity. But just as he got on his tiptoes, he was knocked back onto the ground just as the light came closer to him.
Blaze looked over as she saw Kryptonite fall over. Her eyes slowly followed the green glow as it flew all around the sky above them, then coming down and floating right in front of Blaze's face.
"Oh, great. A Fairy." Blaze muttered with annoyance in her voice.
The Fairy huffed and scoffed at Kryptonite, "What a perverted little teddy bear, can't a lady take a bath in peace?"
Blaze blinked a few times as she watched the Fairy flap it's little wings. She took in a deep breath, immediately blowing the Fairy out of her face and into Kryptonite as he was sitting up and trying to take away her dizziness. Kryptonite nudged from the Fairy's impact on his back, as he quickly felt himself getting hit from the back of his head. He turned to see at the corner of his eye that the Fairy was whacking him with her wings. He gasped and rushed behind Blaze, cowering from the Fairy. Blaze looked down at him, chuckling.
"What? Have you not seen a Fairy before?" She asked.
She shook his head, "I have, but this one is just aggressive..."
"Yeah. This one is pretty annoying."
The Fairy huffed as it flew up into Blaze's face once again, "Who did you call annoying!?"
"Uhm, I did," Blaze answered bluntly.
The Fairy chuckled before looking at her with a pouting face, "Don't you lie to me!"
"Obviously not lying here."
"Well, I'll have you know that I am Evol- the new architect of my village! I was just given that role a little while ago!" Evol exclaimed as she apparently ignored Blaze. "The Queen was impressed by me when I showed these other Humans out of the area. One of them looked like you actually! It was a while ago, so my vision is sort of blurry-"
Just as Evol began to blabber on and on, Blaze sighed and closed her eyes. She extended out her hand and grabbed Evol in her hand, gripping as tight as she could until she opened her hand and released all this smoke of green glitter out of her hand like Evol had exploded in her hand's grip. Kryptonite screamed as he watched the green glitter fly away with the gust of wind, following its trail up into the heart of the forest.
"What? She was really annoying me." Blaze shrugged her shoulders as she noticed Kryptonite was freaked out by the Fairy's death.
"So you're going to kill it!?" He shouted at her.
"It was her, Kryptonite."
"It doesn't matter!"
Blaze laughed as she petted the top of Kryptonite's head, "You see? She didn't matter anyway. She was just a Fairy, after all."
Kryptonite sighed as he looked at an open trail. He continued onto the trail without answering her. He looked to have been upset from the killing, but he had understood. It was easier to kill someone in this new era than it was in the old world, where he was from. If someone annoyed you, made you mad, or just anything really- you could kill them and have no regrets. Maybe it was one of the things that made this world as bad as it was. Maybe it gave the survivors of this world more freedom. Or it just showed that the survivors had gone crazy. Kryptonite didn't know, and he just gave up looking for that answer sometime during his adventure with Blaze. He didn't care anymore.
There were mushrooms spotted ahead of them, and Kryptonite had guessed that this was the area of the Fairy's village. But it was completely deserted. As they explored the village, the tree houses had been caught on fire and some of the big trees that inhabited the village were cut down, helping destroy the village. Blaze shook her head as she looked back at the trail where the other dead Fairy was.
"That Fairy was acting like this village was still inhabited... What happened?" Kryptonite asked.
Blaze stepped to a tree, a tree that had been cut down and had smashed into an assortment of the different Fairies that lived in the village.
"Hey, Kryptonite. Is it true that the nature of this forest feeds on blood instead of water?" Blaze asked as she placed her hand on the tree.
Kryptonite nodded his head, "That's right. It started with a dying flower. A child sacrificed her own blood to help it survive and since has been feeding the flower blood from people. The flower had eventually mutated and created the Forgetful Forest. It's a neat story, but it might be just a myth..."
The tree began to lift out of nowhere and soon was thrown out into the forest. Blaze and Kryptonite watched as it flew up by itself, looking back where the tree was before and seeing two people. The familiar figures were Nova and Atreyu, Blaze still didn't know why she found them familiar, she hadn't seen them before, from what she could remember. They didn't have any clothes on, but as Synths, they did
n't have any body parts that would separate them as far as gender wise. Except Nova had sort of around chest and an hourglass figure, and Atreyu had more of a muscular build. They both grinned at Blaze as they stood in front of a doorway that was open and shedding out a powerful light.
"Who are you?" Blaze asked as she pulled out her spear.
Nova's head dangled, as if it was lifeless- or an uncontrolled puppet. But she was able to lift her head back up and look at Blaze.
"Targets acquired. Elimination is mandatory." Nova spoke in a robotic voice.
"Lilith would not approve of hackers and trespassers in her premises," Atreyu spoke in the same robotic tone, only a bit manlier.
Kryptonite tugged on the bottom of Blaze's dress, trying to get her attention.
"I know these two. They came to the huts while you had gone on your walk! They seemed normal at that time..." Kryptonite whispered.
"They're Synths. But these Synths look brand new, not hundreds of years old like the others... Could someone still be operating Drenawx's laboratory?" Blaze spoke as she thought deeply, looking back at Nova and Atreyu. "Could it be this Lilith you two keep blabbering about?"
Atreyu quickly reached his hand deep into his mouth and down his throat. Blaze raised an eyebrow as she watched him. He gripped his hand on something and pulled it out. It was the size of a Human heart, but it was mechanical. He handed it to Nova who was more than glad to have it.
"Nova, I want you to have my heart." Atreyu spoke as he took her hands, "I love you."
Nova gasped as she held his heart, and gripped onto his hands, "I-I love you too, Atreyu..."
Blaze gagged, "What the hell is this?"
Nova began to reach into her mouth and extract her own heart as well, to give it to Atreyu. The both of them smile at each other as they both place their own hearts into the other's mouths, swallowing it.
"They're entwining their data, this is not good," Kryptonite muttered as he pulled out some new swords that almost looked identical to Nova's dual blades.
Nova and Atreyu's eyes both grew red as they began to grin at each other. They leaned close and gave each other a kiss. As their lips touched, their bodies fused together. They wrapped each other up in their arms and they continued to fuse together, creating a different form of machine, one even greater and bigger than the guardian machines. The appearance took the form of Nova mostly, while the rage was inherited from Atreyu.
Blaze dashed toward the machine and stabbed the stomach of the machine, but as she held the tip of the spear inside the machine, the armor began to regenerate over the spear, sucking the spear inside as it regenerated over it. Blaze jumped back and scoffed as she grabbed her battle axe.
"How are we supposed to beat something that regenerates?" Kryptonite asked.
Blaze dodged an attack the machine did, as it tossed multiple swords throughout the battling area. She looked deep into the pattern of the machine, seeing the two faces of Nova and Atreyu kissing on the armor. She grunted as she dashed toward the machine, and slashed down, just separating the two faces from their kiss. The machine screamed and opened it's mouth up wide. Blaze quickly grabbed Kryptonite by the back and tossed him into the machine's mouth.
"Hack the machine from the inside! Separate the two!" Blaze shouted as she threw Kryptonite into the mouth.
She dashed backward, in an attempt to dodge the flying swords and other weapons, seeing that the machine had shot a red laser out of its red eyes. The laser melted the ground as it hit it, it practically melted anything it would come into physical contact with. As soon as the lasers stopped shooting, the machine became staggered as it began to recharge its lasers. Blaze jumped into the head of the machine, and swung her battle axe into it, slicing open the head. She looked below and saw that Kryptonite had found the two hearts that Nova and Atreyu exchanged and swallowed. He tossed them both up in the air, letting Blaze quickly swing her battle axe to slash them, cutting them into many pieces.
The two hearts were dead. Kryptonite flew out of the machine's mouth as it screamed by using his usual paraglider. The machine was melting, but it had also split into two pieces from where Blaze had cut between the two faces, separating the two lovers. As the machine died down into the liquid, boiling into the green grass below, the echoes of Nova and Atreyu were heard until the last bubble of the liquid popped.
Kryptonite sighed as he used a stick to poke into the liquid, seeing if there was any reaction from it at all.
"Nothing... I guess love can't even find peace in this world." Kryptonite whispered as he tossed the stick in the puddle of machine liquid, looking back at Blaze.
"Yeah, I suppose. But I kind of have a feeling that those were clones of the original Nova and Atreyu. Probably from the laboratory." Blaze answered.
"Clones... In that case, can there be clones of us?"
Blaze looked into the doorway that shredded the exposing light, seeing that the door was still wide open as if it was inviting the two in.
"Only one way to find out, I guess..."
Journal Entry VI
Machinery in the Blood
Humans are made out of blood, water, bones, minerals that help ensure their health. The nerves they have that ultimately spreads through their bodies help them feel pain. The nerves also try to help prevent the feeling of pain mentally. You get distracted with other things- like the senses a Human would have; To see, to feel, to touch, to hear, to taste, and to smell. But what happens when all of those senses are taken away, at least on one part of the body?
The day my leg was cut off was the one day that stayed with me after my death. I wasn't stuck at the moment of my death, it was not the most painful time of my life. I practically didn't even know I died, it was so sudden. Losing my leg made me think more than I should've. More than people expected me to think of it.
I got tired of having one leg. I felt like a burden for having people help me around, or just having to use a stick, sword, or anything really to use as a cane. I have never felt so weak. I grew up knowing I had to be strong, I grew as much as I could to ensure that. My father wanted me to be strong. If there was a moment where I wasn't, he would grab anything he that was near and attack me. He said it was to help me endure physical pain, but it never made anything better. It made things worse in most ways.
The moment after I lost my leg and felt weakened, I hated myself. It was like I was a child again. My body felt like it was expecting to get hit by my father. I had that terrifying paranoid feeling he was always following me, getting prepared to jump me and beat me up. Sometimes I felt like he was possessing me. He had been dead for so long, and I've heard of these beings called ghosts who can sometimes possess the living. My father was a monster, he may have died and become a demon. A demon who would try to make me hurt myself.
But as I travel this perilous world, I kept finding scraps. It got too much, to where I had to leave some of it behind. I figured after I've seen the machines for the first time, as they attacked the Human fighters, maybe I should use the scraps I found to build myself a leg.
It came with some thinking, however. I was a complete Human, but rebuilding my absent leg out of machinery would consider me half Human and half machine. Would that change who I am? Would that make me hate myself? It didn't matter. I couldn't take this feeling anymore.
The night before I started the building of the machine leg, it was like I was totally taken over. I felt so much rage as I looked at the lump leg I had, compared to my full leg. I hit my leg and felt an extraordinary pain in the area of the cutting. I saw blood coming from the bottom, where I had tied the pant leg under so the bottom wound of my leg could not be exposed to anything hurtful. I just stared, and it felt odd seeing the blood consume the bottom of the legging. I felt odd being a Human at that moment.
I began building the machine leg, but as I had attached the machinery to the bottom of my leg, the machine stabbed inside, as it felt like it was connecting to my bone and my nerves. I screamed, as I had felt the wor
st pain I have ever felt- only for all the pain to vanish within seconds. I couldn't feel anything. And soon after I couldn't see anything, or hear anything. It was like all my Human senses had disappeared. I could only sense things within my area that was easily detectable. The words of that were spoken to me appeared in crystal clear words in front of my eyes, I had to read it. I could not hear it.
It was strange though, even though I had no Human senses no longer, I could still feel the weakness I felt when my leg was cut off. I still hated myself, and it only grew when I realized that I had somehow been consumed by this machine device. I was no longer a Human, and that only made me hate myself even more. I had a strong hatred for the machines, but does that mean I wanted myself to die as well if it would help eliminate this machine threat on Humanity?
I could now only wait until I would find myself dead, as every night I'd activate my sleep mode, I would pray that I would never come out of my sleep. But as days past, I'd wake up to another nightmare.
Verse XV
To Become A God
"Do you remember when you were created, Blaze? What you told me your greatest goal was to be? Can you honestly tell me you have accomplished that goal of yours?"
A voice echoed through the rays of the painful light. The voice was deep, but it felt familiar to Blaze. I went through her and gave her extreme chills throughout her body as she would step through the enlightened doorway. The voice spoke more than it had said. The way it said it, the tone of its voice- it was warning her of something. Like there was no going back from this moment forward. But Blaze was desperate for answers. Answers regarding what was going on with the Armagna Network. Everything seemed somewhat normal before this network came alive. Life was still in ruins before then, but as it came into reality, life changed. Everyone was able to find some sort of peace in the world, there was a way to forget it all. But after the change, it seemed like every possible way to distract one's self-vanished. If you found love, your lover would be found dead. If you found a hobby, you'd suddenly become so bad at doing it, doing said hobby would eventually kill you.