Chapter 7: Chapter 5: The Old Hedonist

Another gray day. I took a look at the sad old man in the mirror. No hair on my head, a huge wild beard and eyes so tired it looked like I might fall asleep at any moment. You could still see hints of the handsome young man I used to be. A strong jew, high bone cheeks, but altogether I just looked sad. A fitting day for me, I'm gray too.

I used to be "Arakash The Gimps Trainer", so colorful back then, eyes wild and hungry for more. More drugs, more pain, more playthings. What a fool I was. God promised us a party that would never end, Red blood, purple wine, a shine of hope crushed in the eye of a young maiden. Always new and deeper colors.

I know the truth now. The lucky ones are the ones who die early, their party ended but at least it still had color at the end. My party ended yet I was still here. I dedicated myself to pleasure, but pleasure is a cruel mistress. At the start it is easy to please her, giving you the high of a lifetime with the smallest of actions. I remember when just punching someone in the balls gave me such joy. Smoking but one cigarette gave me the serenity of a baby in Its mother's hands.

But then when you fall madly in love with pleasure, she starts to be greedy. She wants more drugs, more drastic actions, and for what? A fraction of the high you got the first time. You bitch, I curse the day I fell for you. Now I followed her like an old dog out of habit, I guess I was the real bitch here. Well, time to get up you bitch.

The room of Arakash The Gimps Trainer was as magnificent as he. A circular chamber with stands of combat gimp suits. The leather was mixed with black plate armor and each one had a unique helmet. One had one horn like a unicorn, another the beak of a bird, My favorite had a gas mask. I made these prototypes myself. Such a passion I used to have for crafting and smithing. All gone now.

The red walls looked like the walls of a dark temple, full of odd glyphs. Like the hedonistic life I lead, they may look cool but they lack meaning, just gibberish. In the middle of this temple to my ego stood my bed like an altar. The frame of the bed was black with sheets and curtains the colors of flame. The curtains danced in the wind making the flame come to life. The old gray man I'm has no place in this room.

Someone knocked on the door. A familiar knock.

"Come in Pal!" I said.

Opening the door with a fancy teapot and mugs in hand, came my left-hand man and only true friend, Pal. At the start the name was a joke, he was just my slave then. Now it is perfect. Pal wore a classic gimp suit with one eye hole by the shape of an X and covered with stitches at the side. He lost his eye in one of our old battles. He refused my gifts of lavish clothes, wearing his suit with some sort of twisted pride. He was middle-aged and relatively high and skinny. He had a small notebook to communicate as he was mute, not because his tongue was removed like many slaves in this cursed city, but from birth. Not that Pal ever gave me a reason to remove his tongue even when he was just a slave to me.

I only give him a nod and a warm smile and we sit in chairs by the desk beneath the mirror. For a moment we just drink our tea in silence. Just relaxing for a bit with another that understands my struggles made me feel a little less despair. "War is coming again, a big one. And we are even more divided now than last time, can you believe that? Of course you can, it is just-"

Pal wrote with impressive speed and showed me his notebook. "It is hard to accept that this is the end." It said in neat handwriting.

"Yes, exactly. But why? I hate the hierarchy, I hate our doomed ways, I hate myself. The end should be welcome, no?"

I tried to imagine it, my end. Memories of near-death experiences came up.

"It is fear, fear of my absolute end. Better the devil I know, Inexistence is unthinkable to me. No, unthinkable in general." I took a sip of my tea. Perfect, just like always. "You know what they say about old dogs. Perhaps I'm giving myself too much credit. I don't even feel my fear anymore, maybe I am just a bunch of habits and nothing more."

Another knock at the door this time quick and impatient.

"FUCK OFF, I WILL BE READY IN 10 MINUTES" Stupid younglings, so eager to march to their deaths. I got up and went to my closet. I swept aside fancy suits and comfy shirts to reveal my old armor. It was almost as cold as me yet aged much more gracefully. Beautiful crimson color and full of symmetrical black spirals, it was perfect as always. The helmet made the wearer look like some beast, with sharp teeth as eye slits and many eyes failed with fire like gems.

Pal helped me put it on. An old man in a young man's skin. I look ridiculous and not the good kind of ridiculous like in the old days.

"You don't have to sink with the ship, I can send you to a quote-on-quote scouting mission far far away from here." I knew he wouldn't leave, but I had to try. Maybe I shouldn't have given him a choice in the matter. But my strongest habit is selfishness after all.

Pal started writing, for once taking his time. When he finished he gave me the paper to read up close. In beautiful and precise handwriting he wrote "When I asked you to go on The Path to Personhood it was a test. You and I both knew that most who chose the path never earn their freedom, if you said yes I would have died as a meat shield in one of The Hierarchy's many wars. I wanted to test if we really become friends over the years, if you would risk letting me go by setting me free.

Without a moment of hesitation, you set me free, making me a person in the eyes of The Hierarchy instantly. You didn't care that to set me free in front of the other slaves may make you look soft. You just did it and with a smile on your face, like saying, "Is that all? why didn't you ask earlier?"

I will stay not because I'm your slave, as I'm a free man. I will also not stay because I feel in debt for what you did for me. I will stay because I'm your pal, simple as that."

Reading that made me smile. Most of your "pals" in The Hierarchy will stab you in the back the moment it benefited them. Even the ones that truly care might stab you in the back just to feel the shame and pain of betraying a true friend, and most of the betrayed will see it as a gift of unique pain and sensation as well. We are just a bunch of sensation junkys, and nothing more. Well, not all of us. A true pal ha? Seems like mistress pleasure didn't take all I have.

I placed my hand on Pal's shoulder and said "Thank you", the most honest one I ever said. "Let's go, my pal. We have a war to die in."

As I opened the door I saw the architectural atrocity that was the staircase to my room. It had this hypnotic black-and-white design that made it hard to tell if you were going up or down. It used to give me endless joy to know that a subordinate not meeting my expectations had to walk through this endless nightmare to get to my room for personal punishment time. The fear they must have felt, I even had one man die from a heart attack on the way up. Now it only tormented me, not in a fan exciting way like before, it is just tedious now.

By the time I got to the bottom, I had to throw up. By God, I should just burn my home to the ground and build it up from scratch. Like always, Pal gave me a lemon to help me not throw up. I smell it and then eat it. I took a deep breath and was about to open the big red door with screaming faces on it. I know how you feel. But I stopped because heard little metal clicking from above me. I looked up to see a disciple of the cockroach king hanging from the ceiling.

The thing used to be human but now only vaguely resembled one. Its human limbs were all gone and its greyish-brown skin stretched over an extremely skinny body. Stuck all over his body, were slender metal insect legs it somehow uses to walk. It also had two straighter ones plunged into the top of its head endlessly moving independently of each other. Its eyes were small entirely black spheres barely visible in the middle of sunken mostly empty eye sockets. Its mouth was small and thin-lipped. The secret of how humans turn into these things is one maybe even God doesn't know. All I know is that some desperate slaves escape deep into the tunnels under the city and some come back up as cockroaches. Maybe I should try that.

The roach spoke quickly with short shallow breaths between every couple of words, "we will FIGHT *breath breath* for you *breath* but not DIE for you *breath breath*"

"Yes yes, you said that last time," I said impatiently. "Or are you even the same one from last time?"

"Doesn't matter" *breath*

"Right, how much of you will fight?" "Fight" might be a stretch, the cockroaches only care for their own survival. The only reason they even "fight" for us is some kind of deal with God in return for leaving them alone most of the time.

"1620" *breath breath* "not one more"

I closed my eyes and thought for a while. "Good, we will need your resilience and trap-detecting ski-" When I opened my eyes the thing was already gone. It was always a bit surprising how quick yet stealthy they could be. I took a deep sigh and opened the door

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By the other side, was my lavish guest room. it had a wooden floor and golden chandeliers powered by souls. The flame changed colors like the eyes of God. The soul flames always made it feel like he is watching you were ever you go. In the middle stood what might have been the most comfortable couch in the world. The sides of it were made out of human bones so my guests won't get too comfortable. The room also had two big mirrors to the left and right that made it look like the room stretched out Infinitely.

I gave my guests a gimp I trained to juggle. Apparently, they didn't find him entertaining enough as he was now hanging from one of the chandeliers by long chains that connected to his body by hooks.

A black imp with golden eyes and one enormously big right arm dug an arrow into the gimp's gut. The gimp screeched in pain like a wounded animal. To the left of the imp stood his master, Lady Arrow. She wore a shiny black human heart mask and a mostly red fancy dress. she had black shoes with high heels that ended in the shape of an arrow. It is a miracle she managed to stand at all let alone walk in those things. She had long black gloves and stockings so no skin is shown at all. Pleasure was not the grease moving the gears behind this mask. She served a different master, vanity? Obsession maybe? Does it really matter? We all serve at the end.

Why do we insist on wearing these ridiculous heavy clothes in the desert anyways? Vanity over practicality. We are infantile fools.

To the right of the imp stood M3 himself, The Maestro. He had long hair one-half black, the other white. It was made into braids that ended in a trinket in the shape of musical notes. His face was that androgynous kind of handsome. His skin was black with not even one scar on it, a rare thing in The Hierarchy. His eyes were a cheap imitation of the eyes of God, having many colors but not moving. I didn't know how he achieved the effect, but I knew he was lying about being born with this eye color. His suit was black and white like his hair but on the opposite sides, and going back from black to white in the pants and shoes again.

That arrogant prick. If I somehow come back from this war I have to make sure he does not.

"A bit left!" ordered the prick.

The imp looked at his mistress.

"Do it Bow," she said.

The Imp moved the arrow a bit making the gimp scream.

"Inspiring, Scream, did you get that?"

To the right of the prick was his minion. A small ball of fat with dead small eyes and a suit to match his master. Scream opened his almost lipless mouth making the exact scream the gimp just made.

Then they noticed me. Arrow gave me a respectful bow, the prick on the other hand only put on a cocky grin on his face.

"I deeply hoped to hear the music of you falling down your steps with a finale of a loud deadly bang."

"With the failure of The Burned Man, I became M2, I outrank you now. Start showing me the respect I deserve or suffer the consequence of disobedience," I said giving him a cocky smile back. Not being promoted to M2 must have hurt his fragile ego, one of the small things that still gave me some pleasure.

The face of M3 was now full of anger. "You are just a placeholder, old man. Nothing more."

I whistled in a specific code with clicks and other sounds mixed in. The room fell into darkness. The sounds of wood creaking and steps could be heard, a quick struggle was happening in the dark. When the lights came back The Maestro was pinned to the floor by two short yet muscular gimps with bull masks. Scream was held by a gimp in a gas mask with a red dagger to his throat.

"My gimps infest the walls of this city like rats, they are never far away from me," I said, still with a cocky smile. "Scream, repeat the sentence before the last The Maestro said!" I ordered coldly.

"I deeply hoped to hear the music o-"

"SHUT UP SCREAM!" screeched the prick.

"By the laws of God, I can kill you right now," I said.

"On paper you are right, but God won't like that one of his best generals is dead before a war, right?" Even with my jaded senses, I could feel that he was terrified of me, I got my point across.

"To show that you are truly sorry for your disrespectful words I will take Scream as a gift. Next time the punishment will be much worse, remember that."

Before I could order my gimps to release M3, it turned unusually cold. The room in the reflection of the mirrors changed to look like it was made out of red bleeding meat. It was the home and prison of The Bloody Messenger. All of the others in the room disappeared in the replication, it was only me. Well, not exactly me. The mirror me didn't look old but ancient. My armor was extremely rusty and locked with small locks like a cage. My skin was gray and dry, I looked as dead as I feel inside. The image in the mirror didn't scare me, I accepted it long ago. It just depressed me.

It affected the others very differently. Some of my gimps panicked opening the secret entrances in the floor to run for their lives. What the prick saw in the mirror made him much more afraid than I did. He started to shake. The imp looked angry and his mistress probably hid her fear under her mask.

As the only one not paralyzed by fear in the room I spoke "What do you want Bloody?"

Before the demonic reflection could speak, a large armored thing charged it from my left. It may have been a man but it looked more like a beast of rusty metal and bloody flash. Without looking at it, the demon snapped its finger. Bloody intestines came for the meaty floor and quickly wrapped themselves around the armored thing and dragged it off view, with the thing screeching in horror.

Without giving any explanation for the odd display, the demon spoke with my voice yet somehow more tired and depressed. "My lords, your armies are ready for war. It is time."

"Thank you for the message Bloody. NOW FUCK OFF!"

The mirrors turned back to normal reflecting the frightened faces of The Maestro and his minion. I whistled a signal and the wall in front of us opened with the clicking of gears to reveal a balcony. You could already hear the mad mob of pleasure junkys that we call an army from outside. All screaming and running around impatiently.

I know I'm tired but it is time to do my job, let's just get it over with. I stepped outside and grabbed the mutated baby thing full of wires that was sited in the middle of the balcony. I got its big ear near my mouth. It was relaxed, pumped full of drugs, and ready to amplify my voice. The mod beneath me was pure chaos. Time to go to war again, hopefully for the last time.

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