When Gerard woke up, he was in a black void that consumed everything, and he had no recollection of how he got there, what had come before, or if this was even an unusual thing. He had no memory. Just an understanding of what his name was. He floated along endlessly, not sure of what to think of what he was seeing, or rather, what he wasn't. With nothing to compare it to, everything around him seemed normal. In a life where nothing else had ever existed, why should he feel uncomfortable being alone? And yet, deep inside, there was an aching - and emptiness - that he couldn't explain.
Eventually he came across a face in the darkness. It was small, almost dainty, but its pupils were a bright red and burned with a light that was nearly blinding, but impossible to look away from. "Hello, Gerard," the face spoke to him with the voice of a young boy. "It seems you simply couldn't walk away from the carnage that you left behind. I suppose it is somewhat difficult, seeing as how there is nothing else left in this world anymore. Not after what you did."
Gerard blinked, looking at the face, unsure of what the words coming out of its mouth even meant. "Carnage?" he asked, unsure of what such a word could describe, and only further puzzled by the dirty feeling it left in his mouth, as if it were somehow displeasurable. "What I did? I don't understand."
The face laughed at him. The laugh was cold and sharp, and struck a nerve in Gerard's core. It made him want to strike out against the face, but something else in him told him not to. It told him that doing so would make things only worse. "Did you destroy your own memories along with the rest of this world, idiot?" the face mocked him. "You don't remember the vicious slaughtering you did? You killed everyone, Gerard. You killed everything. You left nothing behind in your wake. Every living thing you encountered, you erased. You took the wrong lessons to heart, and you paid the price for it."
Gerard looked around at the void. The face's words were raising something inside of him. Images of... something. He wasn't sure what they were. He couldn't bring them far enough forward to make them out. "Why would I do that?"
"Because you're an imbecile." The vitriol in the face's words was palpable. "A complete and utter buffoon that somehow convinced himself that death would bring life, and entrapment freedom."
Other faces. Creatures large and small. He hadn't known them. Not really. But they had attacked him... Hadn't they?
"Boy, I had you going though, didn't I? How many people came through before you that hadn't fallen for my words? What made you different? What part of your brain were you missing that made you believe me? Was it the same part that made you forget all that you had done?"
Gerard's fist clenched tight. He hadn't even realized that he had curled his fingers. Something in his heart was burning. Frustrated. Angry. "How do I make it come back?"
The face's laughter was so loud and sharp it made Gerard's ears ring. "After all you did, you want to bring it back? Fine. I can make it come back. But not without cost. Great cost. And even then, it will still be scarred by what you did. It may never fully recover."
"But it will be back, yes?"
"Yeah, sure, it'll be back. Just forfeit your soul to me. Give me everything that makes you you. Become a soulless puppet that can't even think for himself, and I'll bring it back for you. It can't be that bad. You clearly couldn't think for yourself very well before hand."
Gerard nodded his head, and in the blink of an eye the face had a body, and that body was mere inches away from him, its arm pierced elbow deep into Gerard's chest. He couldn't breath. He could only watch as the arm pulled slowly back out of him, clutching a blue fire in its grip.
Gerard only had a few moments of consciousness. In that time, the hand crushed his soul, and an explosion of colors and sounds erupted into the air. An entire world was born before his eyes. But he couldn't smile, or frown, scream, or cry. He blacked out as his body realized it was emptier than that void had ever been.
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