Several months after I had begun training.
Or at least, that's how I recall.
The void was vision. Life. Everything.
A dark abyss with no end in sight.
Not even a sliver of light, nor a crumb of hope.
The idea of conquering the humans did not give me hope.
I was not aspiring to do so.
I envisioned humans before my fists because that was how I was instructed.
They may as well have been there. For it made no difference.
It was not training for some greater goal. It was life.
The infinite slog. Hauling myself to and fro.
Dancing like a puppet.
All for Hengeist.
That was the lowest point of it all.
The black sludge sea in which I was drowning…
I had finally reached the seabed.
Every breath hurt.
Yet still… I breathed.
It was what Hengeist wanted.
One particular night. The first bout of training finished for the day.
Limping towards my hut, dreading the next.
Not the following day, but the one I would put myself through every night.
The instructors poked holes in my form, my technique, as if it were paper.
One more hole, this piece of paper would tear into shreds.
My standards for living had plummeted even from the near poverty and monotony of my village life.
But total breakage? I avoided at all costs.
I would always dangle at the level of my standards. Clinging on for dear life.
But never rise to the occasion of my dreams. My hopes.
That was true even before Hengeist.
Only now, I had no dreams left.
And the standard which I clung to was merely collapsing under me.
To not breach the bottom barrel standards Hengeist had permitted me to have… I trained in the night.
Punching within the void. Fighting the darkness away whilst it swallowed me.
So it did not become too dark for me to handle.
Teetering on the edge of sanity and insanity.
Hengeist did not need to whip me into shape anymore.
Rather, they had trained me to whip myself.
Once inside, I collapsed into bed.
Once in bed, my mind began to collapse on itself.
Routine.
Like rotting, eroded stone houses built on shaky foundations…
I was falling apart. Not a chaotic destruction. Simply weathering away.
It felt as though it were nature, doing as it will.
My mind slowly burning a black flame.
Turning everything in sight to ash.
Engulfed in the flames, numb to them now, I tried to close my eyes, get some rest.
The flame did not flicker, it did not feel alive.
It simply consumed everything.
Burning and drowning.
The true lowest moment of Hengeist. Was that very second.
Where I simply wished Hengeist would pick one of those two, and follow through in murdering me.
I would have rather became a hollow puppet of Gimen misery than continue to watch myself become one.
I would have rather lost myself than suffered through losing.
But… like a scripted dream, a hand-woven hallucination…that is when it appeared.
A golden light.
Shining through the fire, the sludge, the void.
Whichever form it took. It did not matter.
The light pierced through it all.
Although it felt like a dream…
Like my mind trying to form an illusion that might save itself…
It was real, physical.
Emanating from somewhere in this hut.
For some reason, my heart pounded like I had swallowed a drum.
As I uncovered every nook and cranny of my surroundings.
Searching for the source of this golden light.
My vision hazy and my head light.
Delirious and desperate.
Watching myself move around and search from within my own head.
But I could not find the source.
I felt an aching anger. As if someone had poked a bruise of mine.
It did not feel alive, it did not fill me with energy.
It simply ached.
Like my body had grown sick of the sensation.
Strained from rage.
The fire arose again.
A small flicker of mysterious hope had made it seem as though I had a chance of escaping.
Only to break me over again.
But at that moment, I had found the source.
It seemed I was simply too desperate before, looking too intently.
The light was shining directly from my bed.
I looked closer.
A golden ring.
Solid gold. Pure.
I swiped it from the bedsheet for a closer look.
I had no reference for such a thing as expert craftsmanship.
However, I assumed it must be this.
An enchanting myriad of patterns sprawled across, the ring felt rough and bumpy, yet satisfying as I caressed it with my thumb.
At the top, an elevated golden disk, the distinct and intricate image of some sort of bird spreading it's wings.
And it was glowing. Pulsating with golden light, light that shone wall to wall. To the ceiling, to the floor. The bed to the cupboards. To my eyes as if it were alive, speaking to me, beckoning me. I squinted so it did not blind me, but I could not peel my eyes away from it's beauty.
I turned it within my thumb and pointer, marvelling at it, true awe.
That is when I noticed the thin ribbon of velvet dangling from it. And attached to that ribbon, a small piece of paper.
Barely managing to tear my sight from the ring itself, I picked up the paper and began to examine, holding the ring closer in order to see in the darkness.
To my surprise, the paper bore a message, even though it was vague.
'Wear and wait, Gimen.'
Who would address me as Gimen in a city populated with only Gimen?
The curiosity stemming from that question alone was enough to make me follow the instructions of the note.
I slipped the ring onto my pointer finger, and waited as it told me to.
Nothing happened.
Perhaps it was simply symbolic?
'Wear it and wait for good fortune … in general?'
Then why on earth is it glowing?
Then I noticed something.
I was… thinking?
My internal voice, the one I knew, the one I had been familiar with all my life…
The one that had been long replaced with the voice of Hengeist…
I could hear it again.
Quiet and unfamiliar. A whisper of myself I could barely hear.
But this occurrence had awakened it again.
The light had cut through.
In truth, the vortex of Hengeist was more of a thin bubble.
All it took was one ring, one piece of paper to pierce it.
And the perfectly crafted simulation had begun to unravel without much struggle.
Before I could truly register that fact…
She spoke.
"…Hello?"
My whole body quaked.
"Hello, are you there?"
I began to hyperventilate. I began to wonder whether the trials of Hengeist were truly driving me to madness.
This voice was not speaking out loud. It was talking to me through my own brain.
Just as my internal voice did.
Except this voice was far from mine.
It was a woman's.
Soft and feminine.
Warm and delicate.
While my own voice had only left me in the cold.
It spoke again.
"Uhm—if you want to reply, you just sort of…think the words? You don't have to speak out loud." she spoke reassuringly. Ridding me of a doubt or worry I had never thought about in the first place.
I was too distracted.
Her voice echoed through each bone in my body and yet soothed me, like a lullaby that transcended my ears. Ran past them straight into my soul.
Each word sent spasms down my spine.
As her near ethereal presence filled my breast with warmth.
Something I had never experienced before.
And yet…
Her voice was somehow familiar…
A voice I had heard once before, long since forgotten.
I followed her instructions once again.
"Wh—who are you? What are you?"
A brief pause, and then a soft giggle.
It had been so long since I had heard laughter.
Provided, I had heard sarcastic laughter, mocking laughter, a number of times. Nearly every day.
But never true laughter. Joyous laughter.
Her joy made me feel as though I had been sucked into a fairy-tale land. A children's tale. The ones my mother used to tell me.
It filled me with such delight, and yet, guilt. As if it were all a lie.
As if, like as a child, I would soon drift into a deep sleep of happy thoughts. But I had it wrong.
This feeling would come to wake me up.
"Who are you?!"
"…Is it truly important who I am?"
Well…of course it is.
"I don't agree."
…
Did she just read my mind?
"Oh.. yeah.. I'm sorry! Yeah there's no way to turn that off… unfortunately.. I don't want to scare you!"
I said nothing.
I didn't know how to respond.
Little to no words in the entirety of the universe appeared worthy of being used to respond to this entity, this being.
One that could read my mind like a book and cut through the deafening sound of swirling locusts within.
Intimidated by light. Startled by hope. Confused by joy.
The creed of Hengeist.
I think my silence was enough for her to understand.
"…What's wrong, Gimen? You can tell me…"
She called me Gimen once again.
The picture became clearer, as I tried to shield my level of understanding from her.
"I said… who are you?! What do you want from me??"
The voice took some time to respond.
"—I fear… I fear that if you knew who I was, you would not wish to speak with me.. but I have been waiting a long time to speak to you."
The final clue I needed.
"You… you are that… that human, from before."
A long silence ensued.
Until I attacked once more.
"What did they call you…? The one who took everything? What did he call you?"
In trying to remember her name, I had unintentionally brought myself back.
Back to my darkest memory. Back to the village. Back to the past.
Precisely where Hengeist wanted me to be.
From there… it could work it's dark magic.
Like muscle memory, I was faced with him.
The one who stole everything from me, manically laughing as he did it.
"Pandora. That… that, is what he called you, is it not…?"
More silence.
"Yes. That is my name. I am flattered that you remember—"
"HUMAN! BLASTED HUMAN! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
A short yelp from the beyond. I had scared her.
So Hengeist knew it's machinations were working accordingly.
Just as I had fought darkness, I was now fighting light.
While all my mind, body and soul wanted to be near her.
That was why the thin bubble of Hengeist could afford to be so.
That is why the foundation it was built upon could afford to be so flimsy.
Rather than secure it onto truth, all was built on lies.
And when it began to crumble
We could repair our suffering ourselves.
Filling the cracks with our own sanity.
Rechaining ourselves. Tying the puppet strings once again for a more secure dance.
Even when someone had come to cut us free.
We did not want to be free. We did not trust it.
We rejected freedom.
Intimidated by light. Startled by hope. Confused by joy.
The creed of Hengeist.
"I'm sorry! Please don't leave! I only wanted to…"
"DIE HUMAN DIE! DIE! I'LL KILL YOU!
YOU CANNOT FOOL ME!
A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH FOR YOU!
A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH! A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH!"
I wrenched the ring from my finger, flinging it across the room.
Still screaming out those words. Even when no one could hear me.
Hengeist liked to linger.
The warmth sprouting in my chest had fizzled.
I was now left cold and empty.
Part of me wanted that warmth back.
But Hengeist would not allow it.
Healing was heresy.
So quietly… without protest…I merely resumed my misery.