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Description
For Elysa.

I.
Silently I stared at the black abyss that was my prison cell. It seemed endless, just like the time I knew I had to spend in this wretched place. I was convinced I was going to be here forever.

I could not recall how many days had passed, I had long stopped counting. It seemed pointless. People probably forgot about him all together, or they simply wanted to forget and neither could he blame them.

Past memories had all but faded in my thoughts. Many years of incarceration had left me brittle and vulnerable. Once I had been the most powerful being on this planet, convinced of my supremacy and that nobody could cast me down, but now I have been reduced to this, a broken shell.

Strange visions clouded my muddled thoughts. Could they be memories? I did not know. I could not recall anything from before my incarceration. The only thing that was certain, is that I was losing my grip on reality. I could not see this as something terrible however, quite the contrary, it was a comforting thought. I’d rather be insane than be aware of this dark pit.

However, there was one image that kept clinging to my thoughts. Her face. A porcelain face, filled with bright blue eyes that glistened in the sunlight. She had a smile that could warm even my cold black heart. Still, he could only recall small shards of this memory, and those seemed muddled at best. I could not recall who she was or where she was from. Did she even exist, or was she merely a figment of my confused mind?

II.
Another interrogation. I was seated at a table, my pale hands chained to my back with heavy metal cuffs. My black hair hanging sleekly next to my face; it had grown a lot since last time. One of the men in uniform seated himself in front of me. He stared at me with clear disgust, but I did spot a small glimmer of fear in his eyes. He was afraid of me. Everybody was afraid of me. I sighed, not too loudly; he wasn’t too fond of the repercussions when they deemed him too noisy. I squinted, my eyes unable to adjust to this bright light.

“I can’t recall much,” a voice echoed through the room, a clear but cold voice. Then static followed, lots of static. I then focused on the tape recorder on the table, the place where the cold voice seemed to originate from.

The guards claimed the voice was mine. A previous recording of an interrogation, one that had taken place just before I got locked in this place. Not that I could recall any of it, anything from before his incarceration was unclear and vague in his mind, he was not going to put the effort into remembering this. All his other attempts had failed anyway.

“Everything was red… probably blood,” the voice continued. The voice sounded frigid and emotionless, as if he didn’t care. As if ‘I’ didn’t care, this was still me talking, right? The voice confused me. Why did the previous me know these things and why did I forget? Who was I? Or a better question, who was I before all this? The voice was there to stimulate my mind into recalling my memories. Unpleasant memories, because that’s what the guards tried to accomplish, to confront me with my own deeds.

“I was completely soaked in it.” The voice paused. With a faint careless expression I turned my head away from the glass wall, from which I knew they were watching me. “My hands, my shirt, my face. It was dripping on the floor and…”

“… And what?,” a different voice replied with an angry tone. More static followed. I now turned my gaze towards the guards and shrugged, just to make it seem like I didn’t care. That visibly annoyed the guard, judging from the look on his face.
“It doesn’t.. matter,” the first voice replied again. “No, it doesn’t matter at all…” His voice suddenly sounded different, vulnerable. Those last words seemed to be filled with emotion, something that hadn’t even surfaced in everything else that had been said. Suddenly I was focused.

“Because…” Another hesitation. “She was already dead.”

My eyes widened. She? I suddenly felt sick as memories of the girl reappeared. Her long white blonde hair waving in a sea of white energy. Her blue eyes sparkling within a face that showed tenderness. She looked like she had a passion to live life to the fullest, without anyone being able to dent her perseverance. Who was she? Who the hell was she and why couldn’t I remember more about her?!

‘Elysa…,’ I mumbled. My wayward memories suddenly surfaced, but quickly disappeared again when I heard my own voice. A gravelly voice that I hadn’t used in months. It scared me. Feeling completely shaken, I turned my head away and cowered. The guards were visibly pleased and I could hear them laughing and joking when they escorted me back to the cell.

III.
I tried to push the memories away of that last interrogation, but when I was once again locked in that cell, It seemed fruitless. I was stuck here in the dark, with nothing or nobody to save me from my desperate thoughts.

I strafed around in circles, endlessly. I clawed the wall with my fingers until my nails were gone and my fingers bleeding heavily. I would do anything just to get the euphoric feeling back, those lost thoughts, but it seemed pointless. With great distraught I leaned my back against the wall and dropped to the floor, looking at the darkness in front of me. It hurt. My ragged fingers, my pounding headaches, everything hurt. Tears were streaming down my pale cheeks and I wasn’t even sure why. Was it because she was dead? Was it because… Because I killed her?

As I tried to fight the great turmoil in my head, not knowing what to think anymore, my body had had enough and I passed out.

As I woke up, I was once again surrounded with silence. Complete silence, not even the distant noise of the other inmates was audible. It must have been the middle of the night. Looking back, this was the last night I would spend in this dark place, but I did not know this at the time.

Then, my jaw dropped, as I was astonished by the sight in front of me. Her face was just like in my dreams. Her appearance cleared away the darkness in the room, like a descending angel in the night. Her long white hair and dress waved in a indiscernible wind and when she opened her eyes, the room was filled with a bright blue light. This was too much for my thoughts to handle. Who was she? An Angel? In my dreams I had called her Elysa, but was that her real name, or just something I made up?

She didn’t speak, but approached me silently. Her pale white hands stroked my hair lovingly and then embraced my face. Her slender body pushed against mine. She felt… oddly warm for somebody that was supposed to be dead. Dead? How could she be dead, she was right here!

“Calm down,”she whispered soflty. “It’s all over now.”

But was it all over? Finally? I raised my tired gaze towards the ceiling of my cell. The light seemed to intensify, banishing all the shadows in the room. My body felt like it was floating, like I was suddenly made of air. A hopeful feeling warmed my body. The images were returning, my lost memories had resurfaced.

IV.
A pale young girl with white blonde hair and bright blue eyes stood amidst a gloomy landscape. She smiled. She smiled at me. A warm smile, filled with love and tenderness. Then the bomb struck and obliterated her from my life.

Suddenly I was at a funeral. Countless people, all dressed in black, surrounded him. She had hated the color black. Rain was pounding down on the many umbrellas above their heads. It was like even the sky was mourning her loss. People where whispering, but I had no idea if it was about her or not. Neither did I care much.

When the people finally left, complaining about the bad weather, I was the only one left at her grave. Without an umbrella and soaking wet, I kneeled at her grave, a bitter smile crossing my lips. That fake smile I used when I had people believe I could not care less about what they thought. The truth was way different. But she was the only one that had known… only her!
Water dripped from my black hair while my pale hands carefully caressed the marble stone that marked her grave. Her name had been carefully hewn into the gravestone, but it had been for naught, it wasn’t her real name. I was the only one that knew she had been an orphan.

I clenched my fists and pounded at the gravestone in front of me. I yelled and dropped my head in despair. Tears mingled with the rain and splashed on the white marble. Then I started crying, crying with an empty heart, filled with anger and sadness. I wasn’t able to do a thing, I could not bring her back.

Then, after what felt like an eternity out there in the rain, a hand firmly grasped my shoulder. Slowly I turned my soaked head towards the man behind me. He looked at me and I saw pain in his eyes. His actions were formal and cold however, as he passed me an umbrella and told me to rise. Silently I did what he asked.

From that day on, darkness had taken hold of me. There was no way I could ever forgive the people that had killed her. Slowly the sadness started forming the person that I had once been, into something else, a creature of rage, only out to seek vengeance. My powers had remained and even though I was crippled with grief and anguish, I wreaked havoc on my enemies. Then, what had started as mere revenge, became a sick form of amusement. I could barely contain my laughter as I left burning buildings and countless corpses behind me. No form of guilt excisted within me anymore, or hardly any other emotion for that matter. The person that I once was, perished the day she died, leaving this vengeful shell of a man that I had become..

My madness endured. I was hell bent on filling the world with darkness, everybody would feel my wrath and I would show them the same pain I had felt when she had died. My arrogance was my downfall however, I wasn’t as powerful as I had believed. Even I had limits. Imprisoned and locked away for good, I knew my days were numbered and that my life was over. The only way I felt that I could survive was to forget the memories of my past.

To try and dispose of everything I had once been, just to inhabit a glorious naïve emptiness.

V.
Morning broke and bright sunlight streamed through the iron bars. Even though it seemed to be comfortably warm outside, it was unable to pierce the chill of the prison interior. Cheerfully a guard marched through the hallway, whistling a tune while hitting the bars with his baton. ‘Wake up you bastards!,’he yelled laughingly. Then he reached the end of the hallway, stopping at a massive cell. This cell had no windows and a massive door that remained close unless they had to interrogate the monster that was inside. That sick piece of trash did not deserve any light, just darkness, penance for all the harm he had caused.

Then, in a sudden hunch, he grabbed his key and opened the cell-door. Stale air streamed from the black doorway as the door slowly opened. His eyes had to adjust to the darkness.

‘Well, hello there!,’ he started sarcastically, but then he gasped and stared with wide eyes at the scene in front of him. The lifeless body of the man in the cell seemed to have been thrown against the wall. His pale face staring into nothingness, showing no signs of life. For some inexplicable reason his prison uniform was gone and had been replaced with a black shirt and trousers that seemed way too large for his slim body. The guard was stunned, those had been the same clothes he had been wearing when he had first entered this prison.

There was a knife on the floor, although there were no signs of blood, or did it seem like any harm had done to the man on the floor. Then the guard spotted something behind the lifeless figure, large engravings carved into the wall. Were they words? As he got closer to be able to discern what it said, he raised an eyebrow.

It was only one word. ‘Elysa.’

Description
For Elysa.

I.
Silently I stared at the black abyss that was my prison cell. It seemed endless, just like the time I knew I had to spend in this wretched place. I was convinced I was going to be here forever.

I could not recall how many days had passed, I had long stopped counting. It seemed pointless. People probably forgot about him all together, or they simply wanted to forget and neither could he blame them.

Past memories had all but faded in my thoughts. Many years of incarceration had left me brittle and vulnerable. Once I had been the most powerful being on this planet, convinced of my supremacy and that nobody could cast me down, but now I have been reduced to this, a broken shell.

Strange visions clouded my muddled thoughts. Could they be memories? I did not know. I could not recall anything from before my incarceration. The only thing that was certain, is that I was losing my grip on reality. I could not see this as something terrible however, quite the contrary, it was a comforting thought. I’d rather be insane than be aware of this dark pit.

However, there was one image that kept clinging to my thoughts. Her face. A porcelain face, filled with bright blue eyes that glistened in the sunlight. She had a smile that could warm even my cold black heart. Still, he could only recall small shards of this memory, and those seemed muddled at best. I could not recall who she was or where she was from. Did she even exist, or was she merely a figment of my confused mind?

II.
Another interrogation. I was seated at a table, my pale hands chained to my back with heavy metal cuffs. My black hair hanging sleekly next to my face; it had grown a lot since last time. One of the men in uniform seated himself in front of me. He stared at me with clear disgust, but I did spot a small glimmer of fear in his eyes. He was afraid of me. Everybody was afraid of me. I sighed, not too loudly; he wasn’t too fond of the repercussions when they deemed him too noisy. I squinted, my eyes unable to adjust to this bright light.

“I can’t recall much,” a voice echoed through the room, a clear but cold voice. Then static followed, lots of static. I then focused on the tape recorder on the table, the place where the cold voice seemed to originate from.

The guards claimed the voice was mine. A previous recording of an interrogation, one that had taken place just before I got locked in this place. Not that I could recall any of it, anything from before his incarceration was unclear and vague in his mind, he was not going to put the effort into remembering this. All his other attempts had failed anyway.

“Everything was red… probably blood,” the voice continued. The voice sounded frigid and emotionless, as if he didn’t care. As if ‘I’ didn’t care, this was still me talking, right? The voice confused me. Why did the previous me know these things and why did I forget? Who was I? Or a better question, who was I before all this? The voice was there to stimulate my mind into recalling my memories. Unpleasant memories, because that’s what the guards tried to accomplish, to confront me with my own deeds.

“I was completely soaked in it.” The voice paused. With a faint careless expression I turned my head away from the glass wall, from which I knew they were watching me. “My hands, my shirt, my face. It was dripping on the floor and…”

“… And what?,” a different voice replied with an angry tone. More static followed. I now turned my gaze towards the guards and shrugged, just to make it seem like I didn’t care. That visibly annoyed the guard, judging from the look on his face.
“It doesn’t.. matter,” the first voice replied again. “No, it doesn’t matter at all…” His voice suddenly sounded different, vulnerable. Those last words seemed to be filled with emotion, something that hadn’t even surfaced in everything else that had been said. Suddenly I was focused.

“Because…” Another hesitation. “She was already dead.”

My eyes widened. She? I suddenly felt sick as memories of the girl reappeared. Her long white blonde hair waving in a sea of white energy. Her blue eyes sparkling within a face that showed tenderness. She looked like she had a passion to live life to the fullest, without anyone being able to dent her perseverance. Who was she? Who the hell was she and why couldn’t I remember more about her?!

‘Elysa…,’ I mumbled. My wayward memories suddenly surfaced, but quickly disappeared again when I heard my own voice. A gravelly voice that I hadn’t used in months. It scared me. Feeling completely shaken, I turned my head away and cowered. The guards were visibly pleased and I could hear them laughing and joking when they escorted me back to the cell.

III.
I tried to push the memories away of that last interrogation, but when I was once again locked in that cell, It seemed fruitless. I was stuck here in the dark, with nothing or nobody to save me from my desperate thoughts.

I strafed around in circles, endlessly. I clawed the wall with my fingers until my nails were gone and my fingers bleeding heavily. I would do anything just to get the euphoric feeling back, those lost thoughts, but it seemed pointless. With great distraught I leaned my back against the wall and dropped to the floor, looking at the darkness in front of me. It hurt. My ragged fingers, my pounding headaches, everything hurt. Tears were streaming down my pale cheeks and I wasn’t even sure why. Was it because she was dead? Was it because… Because I killed her?

As I tried to fight the great turmoil in my head, not knowing what to think anymore, my body had had enough and I passed out.

As I woke up, I was once again surrounded with silence. Complete silence, not even the distant noise of the other inmates was audible. It must have been the middle of the night. Looking back, this was the last night I would spend in this dark place, but I did not know this at the time.

Then, my jaw dropped, as I was astonished by the sight in front of me. Her face was just like in my dreams. Her appearance cleared away the darkness in the room, like a descending angel in the night. Her long white hair and dress waved in a indiscernible wind and when she opened her eyes, the room was filled with a bright blue light. This was too much for my thoughts to handle. Who was she? An Angel? In my dreams I had called her Elysa, but was that her real name, or just something I made up?

She didn’t speak, but approached me silently. Her pale white hands stroked my hair lovingly and then embraced my face. Her slender body pushed against mine. She felt… oddly warm for somebody that was supposed to be dead. Dead? How could she be dead, she was right here!

“Calm down,”she whispered soflty. “It’s all over now.”

But was it all over? Finally? I raised my tired gaze towards the ceiling of my cell. The light seemed to intensify, banishing all the shadows in the room. My body felt like it was floating, like I was suddenly made of air. A hopeful feeling warmed my body. The images were returning, my lost memories had resurfaced.

IV.
A pale young girl with white blonde hair and bright blue eyes stood amidst a gloomy landscape. She smiled. She smiled at me. A warm smile, filled with love and tenderness. Then the bomb struck and obliterated her from my life.

Suddenly I was at a funeral. Countless people, all dressed in black, surrounded him. She had hated the color black. Rain was pounding down on the many umbrellas above their heads. It was like even the sky was mourning her loss. People where whispering, but I had no idea if it was about her or not. Neither did I care much.

When the people finally left, complaining about the bad weather, I was the only one left at her grave. Without an umbrella and soaking wet, I kneeled at her grave, a bitter smile crossing my lips. That fake smile I used when I had people believe I could not care less about what they thought. The truth was way different. But she was the only one that had known… only her!
Water dripped from my black hair while my pale hands carefully caressed the marble stone that marked her grave. Her name had been carefully hewn into the gravestone, but it had been for naught, it wasn’t her real name. I was the only one that knew she had been an orphan.

I clenched my fists and pounded at the gravestone in front of me. I yelled and dropped my head in despair. Tears mingled with the rain and splashed on the white marble. Then I started crying, crying with an empty heart, filled with anger and sadness. I wasn’t able to do a thing, I could not bring her back.

Then, after what felt like an eternity out there in the rain, a hand firmly grasped my shoulder. Slowly I turned my soaked head towards the man behind me. He looked at me and I saw pain in his eyes. His actions were formal and cold however, as he passed me an umbrella and told me to rise. Silently I did what he asked.

From that day on, darkness had taken hold of me. There was no way I could ever forgive the people that had killed her. Slowly the sadness started forming the person that I had once been, into something else, a creature of rage, only out to seek vengeance. My powers had remained and even though I was crippled with grief and anguish, I wreaked havoc on my enemies. Then, what had started as mere revenge, became a sick form of amusement. I could barely contain my laughter as I left burning buildings and countless corpses behind me. No form of guilt excisted within me anymore, or hardly any other emotion for that matter. The person that I once was, perished the day she died, leaving this vengeful shell of a man that I had become..

My madness endured. I was hell bent on filling the world with darkness, everybody would feel my wrath and I would show them the same pain I had felt when she had died. My arrogance was my downfall however, I wasn’t as powerful as I had believed. Even I had limits. Imprisoned and locked away for good, I knew my days were numbered and that my life was over. The only way I felt that I could survive was to forget the memories of my past.

To try and dispose of everything I had once been, just to inhabit a glorious naïve emptiness.

V.
Morning broke and bright sunlight streamed through the iron bars. Even though it seemed to be comfortably warm outside, it was unable to pierce the chill of the prison interior. Cheerfully a guard marched through the hallway, whistling a tune while hitting the bars with his baton. ‘Wake up you bastards!,’he yelled laughingly. Then he reached the end of the hallway, stopping at a massive cell. This cell had no windows and a massive door that remained close unless they had to interrogate the monster that was inside. That sick piece of trash did not deserve any light, just darkness, penance for all the harm he had caused.

Then, in a sudden hunch, he grabbed his key and opened the cell-door. Stale air streamed from the black doorway as the door slowly opened. His eyes had to adjust to the darkness.

‘Well, hello there!,’ he started sarcastically, but then he gasped and stared with wide eyes at the scene in front of him. The lifeless body of the man in the cell seemed to have been thrown against the wall. His pale face staring into nothingness, showing no signs of life. For some inexplicable reason his prison uniform was gone and had been replaced with a black shirt and trousers that seemed way too large for his slim body. The guard was stunned, those had been the same clothes he had been wearing when he had first entered this prison.

There was a knife on the floor, although there were no signs of blood, or did it seem like any harm had done to the man on the floor. Then the guard spotted something behind the lifeless figure, large engravings carved into the wall. Were they words? As he got closer to be able to discern what it said, he raised an eyebrow.

It was only one word. ‘Elysa.’