Soul Spark

30 - Hollow Daydream: Purpose

The wind was howling...

It was cold, the snow in the area appearing like a layer of pure white bliss, acting as a blanket for the mountain it laid on top of. And yet, despite the cold, the mountain was still disturbed by the occasional human visitors. One such mountaineer was making his way through the dangerous, rocky terrain, carefully moving around and occasionally looking over to gaze at the scenery. He had a thick winter coat on, specialized in dealing with these types of climates.

The sky was a perfect blue. The sun didn’t exactly manage to warm the mountaineer up too much, but its warm light caused the snow to gently sparkle.

“Hm...might just be a record altitude.” He thought, continuing to make his way. He relied on his trekking poles to keep balance and watch for hidden terrain traits covered up by the sparkling yet deceptive snow.

“Maybe it’s time to take a break?” He wondered, before continuing to walk. “Nah...”

And as he continued in the same direction, he saw another mountaineer standing in the distance. Trying not to focus on him too hard and watch his feet instead, he made his way through the wind and the snow and reached him. The newly found companion seemed to have been captivated by the sight, looking down from the edge of the platform, gazing at the clouds through which distant fields were barely visible.

“I wouldn’t stand here if I were you. If you get dizzy and fall down, there’s no bringing you back.” The mountaineer told the curious observer. Judging by the lack of his reaction, he tried to be supportive. He placed his hand on the observer’s shoulder. What was strange though is that the man didn’t have any mountaineering clothes on. His clothes were instead predominantly white.

“You were right.” Kaito said. “This...isn’t exactly how I imagined it, but...you were right.”

“Right about what? Come on, let’s keep walking. This isn’t our place anyways.” Fedor replied. He continued walking, and soon enough, Kaito followed him. He didn’t have any of the equipment, but he looked like didn’t need them anyway.

“Is there anyone below?” Kaito asked.

“Not anymore.” Fedor said.

“I see...” Kaito said. He paused for a while, he took a closer look at the clouds. Through them, he realized that the fields he thought he saw were just layers of nothingness.

“What’s that? You seem a bit too calm.” Fedor said, grabbing his flask from his coat’s breast pocket and taking a few sips of the strong alcohol inside. “Come on, where’s that ferocity? Where’s that...that thing that you had in you? That voltage?”

“I...don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kaito said.

“I think you do.” Fedor objected with a light chuckle. “Look around you. This is what you wanted. And now that you finally got it, you don’t feel even a little happy? Did you expect it to be different?”

Kaito looked around himself, and remained silent for a while before answering.

“I thought it’d be a flower field.” Kaito said.

“Or maybe you thought you’d feel happier.” Fedor replied, grabbing the medium-sized plastic orange box that he had attached to his coat. “You know what this is?”

“Hm?”

“It’s a box full of small packages.” Fedor explained. “They have everything essential that someone in this environment needs. Some heat packets for warmth, some batteries in case they’re out of electricity. A small navigation device so they don’t get lost. An expandable tent so they can spend some time inside if they need to. The most important item here, however, is a small mirror.” He opened the box, revealing hexagon-shaped packages that contained exactly what he said.

“And why do you have it?” Kaito asked.

“Simple. It’s just what I do.” Fedor said. “That’s my purpose in these mountains. I look around for lost mountaineers in the area, and I offer them these packages. It makes me feel content, it makes me feel like I’m actually doing something. If it hadn’t been for these things keeping me going, I’d just wander around this place before I froze to death.”

Kaito quietly listened. He looked at a small piece of ice forming around his index finger, and flicked it away.

“And what happens when you run out of them?” Kaito asked, watching the empty clouds.

“If I did...ah, it’d feel good. It’d feel really good knowing that I gave them all away. And if I lost them all, I’d feel crushed. But I’d have to find something else to do, or I’d just wander around the place and then, like I said, freeze to death.”

Kaito remained silent.

“It’s all pretty basic stuff.” Fedor chuckled. “See, there’s hollowness inside people. Especially if you’re a mountaineer, your soul has an empty space in it. The more you keep it empty, the more lost you’ll get,and you’ll never get to live properly. On the other hand, if you fill it with something, preferably your purpose, you’ll feel a sense of addictive fulfillment.”

“And...?”

“That’s the best way to get rid of the emptiness. But...it’s a double-edged sword. When you fill your hollowness with a beneficial purpose, you strive to be the best at it, to make a statement to the world. To be known and loved because of it. That same purpose can be the reason you choose to wake up every morning. It’s what helps you keep your soul strong and luminescent. But you can also have something poisonous, destructive slip into it and make you attached to it.”

“You’ve never included any of this in your research, Fedor.” Kaito said.

“Do you agree with what I’m saying though?”

“It...does make sense.” Kaito realized where the conversation was headed.

“Kaito, you let a poison slip into your soul.” Fedor said. “And now that the corrosive wrath that captured it is gone, you have nothing left. And yet, you had all the chances...”

“If you are here to tell me that I could’ve simply made a family-”

“Oh no, this isn’t about you making a family.” Fedor explained, moving closer to what looked like the entrance of a frozen mountain cave. He rubbed his hands together, took another few gulps of the alcohol, and started poking at the snow around the entrance with his poles. “This scenery, it looks amazing, doesn’t it?”

“Is this the truth?” Kaito asked. “It looks different from my interpretation of it, or even yours. You never included these environments, and I never pictured them this way.”

“It’s not your interpretation. Nor is it mine.” Fedor said. “Like I said, we’re not even supposed to be here. This is all part of the soulscape of someone who could’ve been among the many who you could’ve devoted yourself to.”

“Huh...?”

“That soldier of yours, Sakuto Hitori...” Fedor explained, finally opening up the entrance to the cave. Despite it being freezing cold, it looked like a body of liquid water was inside, like a swimming pool. “All of these are parts of him. The nature of fulfillment, the mountains...some of the ideas that I draw are a part of him too.”

“Have you...also taught him? Have you told him about your theory too?!” Kaito quickly asked in surprise.

“Hah. I didn’t even know who he was until I met him at the church.” Fedor chuckled. He entered the cave, and Kaito, a bit hesitantly, followed him. They stood by the small pool in silence for a bit.

“And yet, he came up with so much more than I could.” Fedor said. “Tell me, Kaito, if you really cherished people like me, why wouldn’t you do the same for people like him?”

Kaito didn’t reply.

“It’d be a wonderful future, Kaito.” Fedor said. “But instead of protecting the soulfuls and letting them prosper, you turned them against one another all for the sake of your anger against the world. In the end, you didn’t build a world for soulfuls - you left behind a world for no one.”

“Oh...is that so?” Kaito said, appearing to be derealized.

“Hiroshi was just one example.” Fedor continued. “Instead of being stuck in someone else’s daydream sequence, feeling the full force of inner emptiness, you would’ve been spending your life making things actually better. The gratitude and heartfelt connections you would’ve formed, they’d truly make you happy. If it was love you sought, you surely would’ve found it. Even when you were committing to burning the world down, you had it. I suppose you let your wrath emerge victorious, again and again, until there was no turning back.”

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After a brief silence, Kaito spoke up.

“Yume didn’t just make me feel loved.” Kaito said. “She didn’t just fill this hypothetical emptiness in my heart. She became my heart itself. She was...everything to me. Everything. I could not let go of her without losing everything in the process.”

“And where did that leave you?”

“If you’re here to scold me, Fedor, then I have no regrets over what I did.” Kaito confessed. “And as for where it left me...well, it left me where I was left on that cursed day.”

“Truth is, Fedor, I was dead the moment I walked into that kitchen.” Kaito sighed.

“I see.” Fedor said. He pointed at the pool with one of his poles. “Then this is where you should be now.”

“What is it?” Kaito asked.

“It’s the other side of altitude.”

Kaito, almost involuntarily, stepped into the pool. He was submerged almost instantly, and what he thought was a shallow pool turned out to be a gateway to a vast ocean itself. He could, surprisingly enough, breathe just fine. He found himself submerged in the deepest, darkest parts of the abyssal depths.

His eyes were now half-open, he felt strangely...relaxed. He laid down, as he felt his back touch a surface. He didn’t resist.

“Is this...also a part of his world?”

“This is the other end. The down to the mountains’ up.” Fedor explained, standing over him. “The heights you experience at the top of the mountains are bound to the weights you have to carry. The weights in the form of this abyss that latches onto you, never wanting to let go.”

“I see...” Kaito sighed. “It feels strangely familiar.”

“It’s what drowned your heart, making you believe it was being embraced.” Fedor said.

“Then why do I feel that I am being embraced right now?” Kaito asked. The darkness appeared more and more beautiful to him as the seconds passed.

“Because this is the final thing that could bring you fulfillment.” Fedor said. “This is what you wanted back then, when the tragedy happened, and this is what you’d go for had you survived the calamity you unleashed.”

“And this is what you want right now.”

Kaito’s eyes closed a little more. His mouth began to form a faint smile.

“You threw your life into the abyss, and you’re smiling?” Fedor asked, with a chuckle. “I guess it makes sense for you, Kaito. Your fate was to be one of the extremes. Either a height that would let you save the world, or a depth that would convince you to destroy it.”

“Either way, congratulations. You achieved your purpose. I can only hope you feel something after it.” Fedor said, his body slowly fading into nothingness as a gust of pure white flames covered him.

And Kaito was left alone. At least that’s what he thought, finding a strange peace in the solitude. There was nothing more that he had to do, nothing more that he thought he’d have a reason to wake up the next day for. Had he gotten to this point earlier instead of being poisoned by himself, the world might not have suffered as much...but that would remain only a theory.

And at last, a pair of footsteps was heard.

“There you fucking are.” Sakuto said, approaching Kaito. He seemed to move around the abyss as if it was the surface, and the abyss itself appeared less like water, and more like darkened nothingness.

“Get up.” Sakuto said, gesturing to him to do so with his hand. “You’re not giving up here. You gotta get up.”

“Oh, and why is that?” Kaito asked.

“Because you deserve to live.” Sakuto replied.

Kaito was silent for a few seconds.

“You deserve to live.” Sakuto continued. “And to experience every single bit of misery and emptiness of this world. You should be forced to remember everything that hurt you, over and over again, and feel powerless before it. Just like the rest of whoever is left alive. I heard what you were talking about, you think you can just walk away?!”

“Ah...” Kaito said, before laughing to himself a little. “All of this...is it a part of your mind? The mountains...the abyss...”

“And what if it is?” Sakuto asked, his hands shaking a little.

Kaito thought about Sakuto for a few seconds. He wanted to talk to him about how he combatted his abyss, and if there ever was a darkness eating away at his heart...and when he remembered what happened and how he treated it, he laughed. Slowly and quietly he began laughing.

“How incredible...” He uttered.

“You’re...laughing?” Sakuto asked. “Your presence is almost non-existant. Your soul is accepting death, and you...you don’t even care?”

“I do care.” Kaito whispered back. “This is the only thing left for me to do.”

“After you-”

“I stayed true to my purpose, and I died when I fulfilled it.” Kaito said, his iris losing their color. “Can I feel anything better than this? I felt like I was alive again.”

“I got to feel the same way I did when she was alive.” Kaito smiled, drawing his last breath.

“You’re...” Sakuto tried to speak up, before falling completely silent and just blankly staring at Kaito’s corpse.

“All of this...because you lost one person...”

“Hah...I’ve fucking lost count of how many people died on me, and yet-”

“No, that’s not the right approach. Personalized situations. It was apparently his purpose. And what about our purposes, though? How many purposes did he straight up erase when pursuing what he wanted?”

“But, but, didn’t I also do exactly that? Every time I killed someone?”

“And, no...wait, hold on, but every time I killed someone, it was for him and his cause, right? He was in control, right? But then, does that make me responsible for this? No way right...I tried to stop him. He betrayed us. Right. He betrayed me. And he gets to die.”

“He doesn’t even get to experience what he caused.”

“I couldn’t kill him. But...if I did kill him, would he have experienced things? No, he wouldn’t. I’d want him to suffer. But, but, he did suffer, didn’t he?!”

“And he made us suffer too, but he makes good decisions too, right? But then, what good is this? What the fuck is good about what he did?! Only he’s happy, but...but...I chose my own happiness at some point over that of someone else too, right? Didn’t he act the way he was supposed to act, as a soulful? Living on his own terms?”

“Then, then...how am I judging him right now? How is...any of this making...sense...”

“Why is he even here, he’s...he’s dead but, why here? In...”

“What happened...there...”

Soon, it felt like his entire mind shut down. He blankly stared at the corpse, imagining hundreds of scenarios. Eventually, he broke.

He let out a scream of desperation that echoed throughout the abyss. He maybe hoped for someone to reach his call for rescue, but nobody came. Nobody heard it. He was the only one left, surrounded by the abyssal darkness. As he ran out of breath, he continued staring at Kaito’s body. His expression was that of not only confusion, fear and despair, but also complete exhaustion. He stood like that for what felt like a dozen minutes, and fell to his knees.

“Did...nothing really change?”

He remained that way for some time, feeling weaker and weaker as time went on.

“Am I just...not allowed...to live properly...”

“This...”

“This isn’t life anymore.”

He looked down at his own palms, they calmed down. Sakuto didn’t think of anything else at the moment, the aggregation of his many thought currents left him speechless and stunned. He just wanted to rest, often visualizing what it’d feel like to rest just like Kaito.

When he remembered the hollow sun and the event, it made him scared.

“I really did hope we’d never meet again.” Soulkuto said, walking up to him from behind. He crouched down next to him, as if trying to look similar. He had the same appearance as he did back then, white and black, like a miracle of soul prowess.

“Great...you’re here too...” Sakuto said with a voice quiet enough to be barely distinguishable from the emptiness of the abyss around them.

“If we meet, it means something is wrong with you, or went wrong outside.” Soulkuto continued. “If you’re not interested in the details, I’ll spare you the conversation.”

Sakuto continued staring at the corpse.

“He really is dead.” Soulkuto said.

“It’s like...things can never be okay.” Sakuto said. “I thought I’d get to live properly. And, for a little while, I did. And then...”

Soulkuto listened in silence, as Sakuto spoke. The latter’s speech was slow, but Soulkuto felt every word he said.

“Oskar and Ausra died, and then, this happened.” Sakuto slightly nodded at the corpse, sounding pitifully scared. “And everyone else. Almost everyone I’ve known...no, probably everyone. They’re dead. It’s just that...”

“Hm?”

“What even is the point if this is all that happens?” Sakuto asked. “Why does the desire for happiness, or, at the very least, a peaceful life exist, when life is just disaster after disaster...why do those disasters...even...”

He took a sharp breath.

“Is it too much to just ask for a life without pain?” Sakuto asked, his voice much louder, echoing through the abyss with true strength behind it. Parts of the abyss, in fact, lit up.

“Ah, so that is what you are interested in...” Soulkuto smiled a little. “That won’t be a life, I fear.”

“No, it would. This, on the other hand...” Sakuto tried to argue, as the environment got brighter and brighter. “This isn’t it. This is a fucking purgatory. And me, for some reason, I have to be the one to go through it, to see everyone die and everything go to shit, and pretend that I have the will to keep going...”

“You don’t exactly have the best perspective on it.” Soulkuto said. The abyss started morphing into an almost blindingly bright spark.

“What...what do you mean?” Sakuto asked. “What are you doing?!”

“Don’t worry, we’ve adapted to everything. We can do whatever we want.” Soulkuto said.

The spark ignited, devouring the scene...