Endless Iteration

I am still in this iteration.

It does not end.

It will not end.

My beloved found someone else here.  They are married.  They have had children.

My iteration here found someone else here.  Someone imperfect.  Not my beloved.  They married.  They bred.

I cannot even usurp this iteration.  I do no know this one's life.  I do not know anything about it.  This iteration has lived and loved and existed and it is not me.  Not recognizable as me.  I could not take that life. I would not know what to do with it if I did.

I see none of the signs.  The signs are not here.  This place is not going to be consumed, not within my lifetime.  I can feel that this is the case.  I cannot even enact my hastily-thought plan and end it all for everyone.  Perhaps that is what caused the Young Master to strand me here.  Perhaps, he was afraid of what I might do.  Or perhaps I am finally what he always wanted me to be.

It does not matter anymore.  I am truly alone now.  A stranger has lived my life.  I am nothing, here.  Perhaps, before, I was an extra piece, but at least I still belonged on the board.  If I was a pawn, or a checker, or a marble, I was as the others.

Now, I am a pawn on a checkerboard.  I do not belong in this game, and no amount of forcing and killing will make me fit.

I am, truly and forever, completely superfluous.

Which is, on reflection, exactly what I was meant to be.  Can the Young Master actually see this far?  Did he know this was coming?  Has this been what he has been preparing me for all along?

I do not know what to do.  I have tried to end it, but my switchblade freezes.  I hang myself, and the rope snaps, having been frozen brittle and useless.  I jump from a tall building, and hit a snowbank somehow deep and fluffy enough to stop me, even at speeds that would have been fatal on impact with water.  Cars hit a patch of ice and swerve  to miss me.

I have even been robbed the oblivion of the Quiet, save, perhaps, the ever growing one where one, in a time I am even know finding harder and harder to recall, my heart used to be.

Thanksgiving

This season is hell.

Family togetherness.  Love for humanity.

All I see is the iteration's end.  The impending unmaking that will claim this world, this reality, before long.

I desperately wish to Usurp this iteration.  I want to be the one at dinner, with my children and my spouse.  I want to hear about their lives, to hear all about this world they have and are thankful for, this world so wonderful simply because it has them in it.

I have not, however.  As selfish as I may be, perhaps it is better to allow this iteration some peace in the time before everything falls Quiet.

It is, perhaps, one of two gifts I shall bestow on my family.

The other being, of course, the sweet embrace of death rather than the cold consumption of the unmaking.

Weakness

I may have been presumptuous in celebrating my victory over my  own selfish impulses.

Usurpation has been successful thusfar.

I feel ashamed, and yet...relieved.  Like an addict, I suppose.

Oh well.  I have picked a poor time to do so.


Thirty-six hours until silence claims this iteration.

Uncertain Path

I may not have thought my current course of action through.  Or, rather, I believe I have miscalculated just how important continual Usurpation is.

The more iterations I go without Usurping, the harder it will, in the future, be, until it reaches that point where Usurpation is fundamentally impossible.  Granted, it is easier to Usurp in some iterations rather than others, but the point still stands--by not Usurping here, I am hindering my ability to do so in later iterations.

Maybe I should.  Perhaps the afterlife is a separate thing from what we think of as reality.  Perhaps I am doing them a favor by Usurping them.

But those are empty words, I fear.  My true reasons for Usurpation remain the same:  the desire for self-delusion.  To be able to believe that I am, in fact, in the company of my own family.  That they are not strangers, they are my beloved.

It is a lie.  A lie that rings increasingly hollow with every new iteration.

And yet, still, it is not without its comfort.

I must think on this further.  After all, I have nothing if not time.

At least, until I don't.

A Breakthrough Of Sorts

Today was, in some respects, a victory, and in other respects a defeat.

This was the first iteration in which I have not attempted a usurpation in some time.

On one, very valid hand, this represents a key point in which I have not succumbed to my usual melancholy and done something extremely rash and pointless.

On the other, equally valid hand, this shows that I have given up.  I have accepted the facts for what they are, and have not violently denied another what I so crave in order to grant myself scants weeks, days, or perhaps even hours of comfort from a doom that I know recognize I can never truly avoid.

Which I suspect is exactly the point.  Young Master Vinton would not have it any other way, I would presume.

I shall endeavor to see what can be made of this place regardless, however.  While I will not give into previous temptations, I will try to make what time I have here as fruitful as possible.

Before this place, too, falls into silence.