Chapter CCXXI: Pain ~Mazzic

Floating...

There is an experience of floating...

Nothingness is all that permeates the senses, an aura of insecurity, unfamiliarity...

Where is here?

Here is now.

How is here time?

This is a mystery.

What's happening now?

Death?

---

Mazzic looked up at a clear sky.

Stars twinkled in his vision, weather in the sky, or in his mind were a mystery to him.

Electricity crackled across the tiles of the mutilated library, fire cracked in the background, and pieces of what little remained of the ceiling fell to the ground with resounding crashes.

The sounds were comforting, though semi-grotesque.

Then the memory of...power filled all thoughts, and pain, and, something else.

Voices arose and bickered and argued in the back of his head.

Usually, these could be suppressed, but now they reigned over his tortured soul.

Heartless bastard! Perverse excuse for life! Fiend!

Torn and beaten, Mazzic lay on the ground, sanity fleeting.

Tears welled up in his eye and he blinked, attempting to clear his vision.

The memories continued to flow back at an alarming rate. People slain at his hand from years past, before his fated journey to Zolott and on the Spectrum danced in his vision.

Every face seemed to stare at him.

Mazzic closed his eye but the apparitions appeared even stronger forcing it open again.

The scars across his hidden wounds burned; lifting his eyepatch for the first time in years he rubbed his only true permanent injury.

The pain of his action drove away the spirits for a blissful second.

But a second was all he needed; focusing on the pain he pushed all other feeling from his body.

Flipping down his patch he struggled to his feet, and immediately collapsed once more to his knees.

Gasping for breath he coughed up blood and grabbed on to a conveniently located column, well, half column, and forced himself up. Clutching his side he shuffled off in the general direction of the Spectrum.

Squinting and trying to clear the haze that flooded his vision he went onward.