Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[A Lost Soul]

---

“The poison of regret is spread by the mind, and cured by the soul.” – Author Unknown

Torn asunder and pillaged through innumerable indignities, a lone shadow of a soul lay in afflictive disunion, writhing in intolerable anguish upon a bed of flame and desolate soil. Fires danced in discord around the spirits frail form, stretching and clinging to its rising limbs as it struggled to ascend from its cadaverous carriage. Defying the painfully enticing hold of the earth below, the spirit arose to a kneeling posture; its head arced backwards in agonizing abolition.

“The clock stops once more, pain abated, punishment denied for yet another fleeting moment. The child of flesh and war I have seeded is soon to be born; hope yet remains for one to follow its disastrous whims.”

An incorporeal melody of chaotic words hummed from the spirits shimmering lips, its wailing voice directed only to itself.

“What pain will my greed bring forth? Will each number forged dig further into my soul, will each word I scribe sink beneath the earth and shackle me to this abyssal plane? How can good spring from evil? How can blood be washed asunder by blood?”

A look of remorse crossed the spirits solid ebony sockets, its hands faltering as flames burned its very essence.

“Am I beyond redemption? Are those who I have killed, those who I have destroyed, have they forgiven me? Do their ghostly silhouettes still fall down on hand and knee, wailing in anguish for vengeance, pleading for justice?”

The flames surrounding the spirit ascended with renewed intensity, the conflagration roaring in immaterial anger, engulfing its now furiously twisting form in a blanket of agony.

“I am damned for what I have done; history holds no parallel to my admonishment. But with ultimate sin, comes ultimate redemption. Such a concept seems lost to me, scribed and stored in some forgotten tomb with only freedom of choice standing between fire and water.”

As the ghostly words echoed through the infinite abyss, the crown of flames slipped from the spirits head, pushing the lashing tendrils of fire free from its vision. Large columns of flame rose in circular plumes, adorning the cracked earthen walls of the almost endless chasm. The spirits eyes focused far into the sulfurous sky, a small spec of blackness studded the climax of the chiasms walls, an emphatically insignificant piece of void that mocked the limits of the infernos glory.

“In the end of all that is, and all that I am, I see through the fires of my prison, I see salvation. I see rebirth. I see hope.”

A sudden wailing erupted from the chiasms depths, an unfathomable intensity of millions of souls crying out in piercing accord. The flames that had once engulfed the souls form receded to the grounds below, struggling with emasculated fury, pleading for ascendancy.

“Do not forgive me; oh wailing atrocities, for I do not need the charity of virtue! My wrongs are my own, my sins are mine alone to unmake! Do not steal from me the words I have so longed to speak!”

Bowing its head in penitent reverence, the spirits form took on a radiant intensity, its eyes shifting downwards in painful remorse. The gentle caress of an unknown sensation flooded the prison of fire and ash, a cold wind birthed from unknown parentage whipped softly over the tendrils of flame, ceding their anger into wisps of dancing smoke and humbled ash.

The spirits head lowered deeply to the cold ground, as a single repentant whisper cascaded gently from its lips.

“I forgive myself.”