The roar of the crowd swells and falls like the ocean’s tides as Triple walks away. The leaping and crashing emotions that filled my mind with tumultuous activity just moments before are silenced by cold rationality.

I need to practice interacting with others more. I am like a candle flame flickering in the wind, strong enough to start a wildfire yet weak enough to be sniffed out with a whisper.

The anxiety that grips my heart when conversation grow stale, the dread and terror of uselessness that crawls up my throat with the taste of bile, all of these sensations weaken me, but do not break me.

These are familiar tormentors, ones I have grown accustomed to, but have not yet mastered.

I have pondered too many phrases possessing of the word “yet.” I think in contradictions ingrained in the past and speculate on futures not yet come.

I shake my head briskly from side to side, my brown hair moving with it. I refocus my eyes to the sights in front of me.

Clashing human bodies fill the arena floor with the stink of blood and sweat, and with the sweet power of devotion.

I wallow in their self-assurance and seem more alive, even to myself, in the reflection of their fiery and gory display.

I clench and spread my hands. I can see the tendons move, my skin stretch, my muscles twitch. Like the puppet master’s strings, my thoughts use my soul to create life and movement where before there was none. 

These are the hands that can shape the world into one fit for my Master. The cure for both the past and future lies in  the actions of today.

My plan begins here, among those desperate enough to beat other humans half dead for a bit of coin.

My plan to create this world’s Ouroboros, the snake that consumes its own tail, will start from the most humble and despicable of beginnings.

I remember the old stories that Master and the Wise Woman would tell me as a child, tales of monsters and heroes in lands that exist worlds away.

Everything must come from something, even souls and deities. And yet, the world has been operating with no thought of whence it came.

The souls saved by the Deity of Victory? They are anchored down by the power of the strongest concept born of Will and Hope. They are like drops of water held back from the river by a man-made Dam. Over time, the Dam fills, the water rises within, but the river runs dry.

The water of the Dam grows still and stagnant, breeding filth within it’s supposed safety.

There are only two ways to rectify the current situation: discover a source of new souls, or free the old ones to begin again.

Heaven help those that would attempt the former.

Freeing the old souls…. such a phrase is a pretty euphemism for killing the hosts, but it is the simplest solution.

The question that is left, then, is who should be killed and who should do the killing?

Perhaps, as one already cast out of the system of soul rebirth, I am more sensitive to such things. Perhaps, I ought to do the killing. 

I am hesitant, per the usual. I always am. I seem to relive the same battles with myself each day, forming my own cycle of consumption and rebirth.

Should I ever lack the strength, Master could always take control. 

I feel a tinge of pain tweak my soul as the voice of a spoiled child sings in my soul. “Other Deities claim their Holy Imanjar! Why does Master not claim us in our entirety? We ought to be under their control, bowing, serving, groveling! We ought to be at peace, with no consciousness but that granted by Master!”

I do not rebuff the call within me, selfishly allowing myself to experience the want.

I reach a strand of my own soul out to tangle it with the remnants of my Master’s power. Their own string is within me, anchored down by my greedy desire.

Sometimes I wish I could consume the delicate strand, become one with my Master. I can feel my chest tighten with anxious excitement even at the thought. A hazy warmth fills my body, yet I gasp and imperceptibly shiver as if I found myself suddenly possessed by the chill characteristic of the arctic wilderness, home to tundra swans and snowshoe hares. 

I grit my teeth and pull myself together, withdrawing my wisps of soul so audaciously seeking to grant myself and my Master’s keepsake the solace found in the joy of devotion. 

I seem to grow more dangerous with each passing day. Master loves me, but not in the all consuming way I need them. 

And yet this is the way that I know Master has not truly united with me as Deity and Holy Imanjar. 

I am much, much, much too blatant in my thoughts, feelings, soul for Master to not notice such desires within me. If I were a full Holy Imanjar in truth, such desire would be swept away and dulled by the separation of Self and Being.

Knowing the reality to be as such, I also know that Master will never be threatened by me. I am the dog on a slack leash that can be choked, strangled, controlled with the flick of a wrist. In that knowledge I find peace, and in the protection it offers I allow my twisted self to fantasize.

Master will never admit it, but I know that there is something broken within me. Or, perhaps, I was broken from the start.

Maybe I wish I was broken, so that I cannot be blamed for my own failures.