“Janus,” came Oblivion’s voice. “It has been a pleasure.”
Oblivion’s voice died into a cacophony of screeches and squeals. My body shook. I forced myself to stay as still as I could on the ground, mimicking a corpse. Oblivion’s is screeching. The harsh, endless screeches and pig-like squeals did not stop. I did not know how long they lasted. I could not count the seconds, in which I lay still, unmoving, hoping and waiting for the noises to end.
They did. After what felt like eons, the noise ended. The colors of the world faded. The sounds, muted. Something within me felt wrong. Wrong. The world felt wrong. The grass died, came back to life and died again. The night air was stale, and despite the cloudless sky, thunder cracked and left the air with the faint smell of ozone. Ozone… and copper.
Oblivion…?
A thick, heavy burp reverberated through the forest. Rhythmic beeping followed up. “Masssssster,” a serpentine voice spoke. “I have taken care of the disssssssturbance.”
“And?”
“Jusssssst a low-tier deity from the concrete jungle world. They were a good sssssssnack.”
“Anything else?”
“A ssssssssskeleton isssss here. A sssssstalker sssssssskeleton.”
“Destroy it and leave. Every human and nightmare within a thousand fields have no doubt sensed your presence. Do not draw any more attention than necessary.”
“Of coursssssssse, Massssssster.”
I could not see the creature. I could not see it, no matter how hard I tried. I could only hear it, its nasal breathing, it’s thick, pounding footsteps. The manner in an inexplicable weight centered down upon my skull and locked me in place.
“Wait –” I said, thinking, thinking. “Let me join you –!”
“Can you ssssssssee me?”
“Y-yes, I – I –”
“If ssssssskeleton cannot even ssssssee Apophisssssss, sssssskeleton is too weak to be of usssssse.”
“Wait, I can still –”
My skeleton shattered like a ceramic plate against concrete floor and everywhere went silent.
Chapter 2: From Oblivion
I was too optimistic.
[The title {Phoenix} has come into effect.]
The forest clearing was silent. The smolders of the campfire were long since dead. The air was thick with the scent of the decaying carcasses of the chameleon-panthers, slowly being beaten by the harsh glares of the mid-day sun. My skeletal body was as it always was, the voice of Oblivion was long since gone, as was the snake-like, hissing sound that came from the invisible thing that killed me.
Apophis.
I died, there was no mistaking it. My [Duality] had not been active. There was only one reason I survived, and it was because of my title: [Phoenix].
Title: [Phoenix]
Details: A mythical title. Grants a 0.9% chance to revive from death with complete immunity to what killed you. Every brush with death you survive or near-death experience you have adds +3% odds to the chance. The odds are reset upon each successful resurrection.
Current Chance of Resurrection: 3%
Immunities: [Acid Immunity] [Fire Immunity] [Disintegration Immunity]
Disintegrated. That was how I had died. Disintegrated in an instant.
[Installation Complete!]
[You have (5) Messages From Admin: Oblivion]
Words floated themselves across my vision in the familiar blue box. Words danced and I read them.
Message: [Apologies]
Janus, if you are reading this, then I am likely no more. In my folly of reincarnating you into Alamir, I created a trail which connected it to your world. I believed I had little cause for concern, due to the weak nature of the trail.
I was wrong.
Powerful beings reverse-engineered the trail and created a doorway back to your world. I, alongside others like myself that govern your world were able to thwart their advancement by redirecting them into the ancient past, but this was all we could do as a last resort.
Already, their presence alters history. Janus, if they are not stopped, not destroyed, then the world you knew will never come to be.
I stared at the words. The floating, damning words that stared at me. Apologies, Oblivion said. Apologies.
Oblivion said he considered me his friend? Me? All I had ever done was have two conversations with him. One of those two conversations was me goading him into hoping he killed me. Was that all it took to become the acquaintance of a divine being? Goad them?
I stared at the message with a mix of indifference and irritation. What did it matter to me that the world I knew would never come to be? I was no longer a part of it.
Due to the nature of your soul, you will not disappear from the alteration of history, however, your memories will. You will lose all memory of the life you lived on earth, because for all intents and purposes, that life never happened.
“Lose… my memories?”
I would like to say that I was not bothered. Say that I shrugged off the information without care. Pretend as if I did not read words that sent a dagger of emptiness into me. To lose my memories was to become a different person. It was to die, yet live. For everything that made me who I was to be gone, replaced instead with an individual who was superficially me, yet not.
True oblivion, in a sense. Without any memories and logic, would I become some mindless monster, going about killing and destroying without a lick of intelligence? A mindless monster with the ability to slip in between timelines and choose the most favorable one, relying on animalistic instincts to hunt and destroy.
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to rage. I wanted to curse. I wanted to swear. Strangely enough, the only thing I did do was chuckle.
“Even in death, Oblivion, you arrive like an inept god-from-the-machine to
