A Damned Memory

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++* ##black|BY ORDER OF OVERSEER FOURTEEN##
##black|The following file is Level Null classified. Unauthorized access is forbidden and will be met with extreme disciplinary force.##
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= **##black|Forget.##**

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**Archived File Null-001 : Those Who Came Before**
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I remember the sky.

Serene in its beauty, the Everwarmth watched from the Above and shined its guiding embrace down upon our grand design. The clouds dared not to obfuscate its wonder, and even the grand artsmiths refused to claim they could replicate its perfection. Eternal was our sky, taken only by the brief Blight to reemerge anew the day of next. We embraced the sky, and the Everwarmth held us tight in its loving arms.

I remember the cities.

We built pillars of crystal and welstone in an effort to stand even an inch closer towards the Everwarmth, if only to drink in but a drop more of its divine glow. We built platinum shrines and golden monoliths, engraved in the ancient prayer of life and destiny foretold. Grand academies rose, solid in their stone work, to educate our youth, and wonderous gardens lined our pavestone streets to greet our days with color.

I remember the Pattern.

Promised in our destinies, it was the unseen hand of He Who Writ Thine who guided our path. Our march to greatness was a continuous toil, solid in its divinity, steel in its assuredness. To devote our lives to the Everwarmth was to become servants of the Pattern, and to serve the Pattern was to become whole. We were promised greatness and love, purity and longevity. We were promised ascension. To rise and join the Everwarmth in the Above after our time passed and the Blight took our souls into the darkness.

I remember peace.

All was equal under the eye of the Everwarmth. All was assured by the presence of the Pattern. There was no need for scuffles, no need for arguments outside of academic disagreement. When one fell ill, ten swarmed to care for them. When one expressed sadness, parades filled the streets and enlightened the sky with grand songs written in the ancient tongue. We had no need for fear, for anger, for distrust. For all was well. All was promised.

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How naïve we were.

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I remember the foretellings.

We couldn't see them in our blindness, but gazing back it was as clear as the Everwarmth is divine. Day by day, illness curled through our youth and elders both, condemning them to the long sleep that is death. Our only solace was in their ascension, their promise that they, even in their early passing, would rise to the Above and join the heavenly kindness of Our Light. Our crops, too, fell to an illness of the land, even our grand gardens of beautiful vibrancy reduced to sickly yellows and curdled blacks. Our Reverends chose to view it as a trial of faith, of our devotion to the Pattern's all-present design. We were fools to believe them.

I remember the restlessness.

As the bodies of our young filled more and more graves, the weeping of mothers and sighs of fathers shook the earth. Some went as far as to curse the Everwarmth and damn the Pattern. We'd call them down for it, but deep in our chests we found unsavory truth in their sinful words. Anger began to boil our blood, bubbling up in privacy before spilling out into the streets, where arguments turned to shouts and shouts turned into altercations. A mother went as far as to assault a priest when they dared to console her, her dead child still cold in her arms. Not even the priest, injured in both body and mind, wished to scold her. Even their own faith was waning.

I remember the dark dreams.

Not even sleep, our solace against the Blight, was without its own callousness. Dreams of the sky and the Everwarmth and the ever-expansive Pattern were tainted with visions of death and decay and destruction. In our rest we watched our grand pillars fall, our monoliths shatter, our academies empty. They taunted us with memories of our youth, with graveyards so expansive they stretched to the horizon and beyond. We awoke in tears more often than not, fearful, for the sky within our decrepit rest contained no Everwarmth. No light. Just eternal, everlasting void.

I remember praying for safety.

I remember my wife, cold in her bed, taken by the long sleep.

I remember praying for salvation.

I remember sobbing into my son's lifeless chest.

I remember praying-- no, //begging// the Everwarmth for an explanation. To help me understand its grand design.

I remember being met with silence.

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I stopped praying.

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I remember watching in horror as the Blight swallowed the Everwarmth.

The darkness suffocated the sky, consuming Our Light as the void flooded the heavens above. We watched in horror as the Land Promised was walled away behind the Everlasting Shadow, severing what little faith many had left. And we wept for those Above, wept as the now-eternal Blight washed away their divine souls, never to grace our once-blessed eyes again. Alone in the darkness we were left, helpless against its dark design. Empty. Afraid. Abandoned, we turned to one another, fearful of what was to come. We sought solitary in those who remained.

I remember the Great Decay.

In the days following the blackening of our sky, we watched as the land around us turned grey with death, what little flora remained crumbling to ash under the Everlasting Shadow's gaze. Welstone, eternal in its solidity, began to crumble at the touch, and our beautiful monoliths of silver and gold turned to sickly browns and reds. And, just as the damned dreams of darkness had promised, our crystal towers, once like fingers that dared to touch the Above, fell one by one, shattering upon our land, omens of deadly promise. And we were powerless, even in our solidarity, for the horizon only grew darker.

I remember the plague.

We had once thought the illness that took our children the most evil a sickness could be. We were horrible, terrible fools. The coughs came first, wretches of dry pain that choked breath from many. Then came the sweats, the weakness, the draining. Powerful men and women, once solid in their bones and strong in their flesh, reduced to meek forms condemned to their bed for their bodies ached too much to move. The bleakness took dozens by the day, the long sleep pulling them into the dark shadow, never to reach the Above. We did not pray to the Everwarmth, but we did pray for their poor, lost souls. We had already seen what kindness the Eternal Blight would provide them.

I remember the hate.

Reduced to a few desolate hundred, anger began to besot those of us who remained. Little food remained, rations that kept us hanging on by threads. Never enough to feel full. Never enough to not feel hungry. But enough to survive. Yet in anger some began to demand more, shouting and crying that they //needed// more, that they could not survive without it. Some threatened violence. Some turned the threats into promises. Eventually, they were fed for fear of such promises, and our food quickly dwindled to nothingness. And when nothing was left, they demanded more still, and soon blood began to flood our shattered streets and stain their violent hands.

I remember killing.

It is a sin above sins, a sin to rival the Eternal Blight, but I had no choice. It was me, or them. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice, if it would have been better to succumb to the long sleep. I look upon the bodies of those lost with envy. Occasionally. Sometimes, they seemed almost at peace. I kept telling myself it was a trick of the Endless Shadow, that it had to be a falsehood, but their eyes, cold and distant, were much kinder than those who remained, for all we had left in our eyes was fear and hate.

I remember the end.

Few of us remained. Maybe a couple dozen. We didn't even have the strength to fight anymore, and our voices had long-since run silent for there was nothing to say. In damned silence we lingered as the world around us fell apart, our once-blessed, grand society reduced to a large, meaningless pile of rubble and ash, burying the bodies of those lost beneath its shattered framework. Numb, we hardly cared enough to go through the motions of eating, for not even hunger pained us as it once had. We were all just waiting for the long sleep to take us, for what little remained of us to be washed away by the Eternal Blight, never to remembered.

I remember closing my eyes.

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Nothingness.

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I remember forgetting it all.

The Everwarmth. The Eternal Blight. Our grand cities. The rubble it became. The love. The hate. The pain. The numbness. The life. The death. All of it. It was... freeing. Nothing remained. No worries, no fears. Nothing. There was a solace in being reduced to nothing. I was //content// with being nothing.

Until someone remembered.

And suddenly I was something, yet nothing. And everything, //everything// flooded back. All of it, like an overwhelming storm, consuming every piece of my being, of my soul. A torrent of every memory overwhelming every sense tenfold, burning into my nothingness like a brand. And, in the storm, I became aware of my presence within the nothingness.

Of my presence //as// nothingness.

And I felt hollow.

Cold.

Alone.

SCARED.

I was content with being nothing.

I was content with //feeling// nothing.

Until someone remembered.

Until //you// remembered.

I hate **you.**

You are the reason I must remember.

You are the reason I must feel.

Your rememberance has damned me.

Your rememberance is my hell.

I do not wish to feel this pain.

I want to forget.

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So forget us.

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Forget me.

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Please.
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[!--
I'm sorry. I can't forget. Not yet.

So you choose to forsake us to more damnation. You are no better. They were wrong about you.

I am trying to save you. All of you.

You cannot save what is already lost. Give up. Forget. Let us rest.

. . .

Coward.
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A Damned Memory

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