The Lord of Rot

He dreamt of an angel. Seraphim in appearance. Human at its core. 

He dreamt of an untouched landscape. A world free from rot. A different world. 

His dreams were not blurred, there were vibrant colors, vibrant enough to seem like reality. For all he knew, this was reality.

But reality ends when you wake up from it. 

Upon waking his eyes were dreary. He felt well rested, like he had been sleeping for months. 

But unlike a person who has slept for months on end, his body felt full of vigor. A mirth that he had not felt in his entire life. 

He could barely recognise the ground around him, distorted pieces of memories slowly reaching towards him. 

All of his memories remained in place, but they were pushed around. He could not recognise all of them, and he doubted some of them. 

He felt a dim recognition of the cement ground around him, but its barren appearance without a single spectator seemed odd. 

He felt that he had been on a long journey. He also felt that he had been here for years on end. His contradictory experiences burrowed pain into his head. 

[ You have chosen a project of rot... ]

"Who said that!" he yelled out sharply. 

Then his fear faded, he recognised the voice speaking from nothingness, didn't he? 

"Right, it was Aphaim's Remembrance that spoke..." 

"Aaphaim?" he said, repeating himself, a bit angered and confused.

"Aphaim lured me here, didn't he..." 

"Yes he did, that bastard Aaphaim." 

He pushed himself from off of the ground, tried to stand up but his head started to hurt. Nonetheless, he stood up and tried to survey his surroundings.

'There isn't anything here...'

He set his hand on his face. Trying his very best to remember something. 'The underground arena... The fight with the man... The spectators...' 

Then he continued by saying, "Yes, the fight with the angel, the cage, Viktor, my journey here." and then he uttered a bit more sharply, "Yes, the fight with the beast slayer..." 

He started to walk towards one of the corners. 

Before him he saw the netted arena. But there wasn't a net at all. There was nothing in it. It looked barren, sand which was stained, and nothing else at all. 

The seats around him, food splashed on the ground. 

'Everyone must have ran, right?' 

The whole place was in a wreck, but there wasn't any signs of entrance, there was no sign of a massacre. The man walked around, his clothes falling apart with two big ragged holes in the shirt he wore. 

Light shone through to the arena, the doors were open leading up a long staircase. But there wasn't anyone there. 

Clothes were on the ground. 

Many clothes were on the ground. 

A sudden urge came over the man, a familiar feeling made him ask a question to the void. "Show me the, the status thingy..."

[ Name: ???? 

Contract: ???Aphaim???

Volume: 300 tons 

Progress: 171 / 200 

] 

'What...' 

"What!" 

His body felt incredible. He had never felt such strength before in his life. He was unsure at least. 

Flashing images entered into his mind again. '71...?' that number seemed odd. He could not comprehend it. 

He felt a phantom pain through his stomach. He felt the viscous fluid flowing down his hand, his hand slashing through countless bodies. But as he looked at his hand, it wasn't covered in anything. 

'No...' 

His strength could not compare to feeling rising within him. The flashing images wouldn't stop, they wouldn't stop at all.

The man vomited on the ground. 

Red blood came up...

'I killed them... I killed all of them! Over seventy people, I killed over seventy people!' 

A deep regret seeped through him. His mind could not bare the images flowing through his mind. His body seemed to move without his control, tearing and eating through the... 

'No...' 

In his lucid state of terror, he wondered why they had registered in the contract if they hadn't been monsters... but something worse happened... 

"It's fine..." a part of him urged. "it was my choice! It was my burden to be greater!" 

Then he gritted his teeth on the ground, his mind revolving around a single moment, but then he forgot it. 

In blaring confidence he whispered, but slowly in came out as a yell. "I... I was chosen... yes... I am the belief... It was my burden... It was for providence...!" 

The vomit that resided in the back of his throat slowly disappeared. In strange contradicting ways he felt relief - paired with nausea which slowly went away. 

"Yes... I can't stay here for too long" He said, pushing his memories away. An ambitious part of him taking control. 

In his mind, he didn't know whether he had killed seventy people or not. It wasn't for him to decide. He remembered all of it, and he remembered nothing of it. 

He shouldn't think of it. That is the answer he came up with. 

He wanted to leave, leave more than anything. 

In a decision of escaping reality, he instead pondered over the status which the Contract and Remembrance had shown him. He deeply pondered over those question marks riddled through his name. He wondered too why he could see the status, and not simply hear it. 

The voice from nowhere seemed like the most familial thing, and the strangest thing at the same time. It was like another voice had spoken with him. 

'Who...'

"Am I...?" 

He looked at himself, "Still scrawny..." His hands looked no different than they had done months ago. They were still thin and frail. For some reason, he insisted they were different.

One of his hands looked as rotten as it had done before... but for some reason, the strange pigment wouldn't go. It would stay... 

'But I'm not even focusing on it...' 

"The clothes, I'll go to the clothes..." 

It was against his feeble morals to take clothes from dead men. But he had to hide himself somehow. He realised the two round rugged holes pierced through the back of his shirt. 'How did they get there?' 

He changed his shirt to another. Then he put on a jacket worn by a man - a man whom he did not know whether he had killed or not. 

Luckily the man also wore gloves, and so he put on the gloves covering the hideously discoloured hand.

He went up the stairs of the underground arena... 

Feeling the scorching sun for the first time in...