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Chapter 196 - Beautiful

"If I decide that I\'ll save someone, then I WILL save them. No matter the cost."

Hmm, no wait, that came out a bit wrong, I think.

"To be more precise," I spoke before Tristan could. "If I decide that someone should be saved, they WILL be saved, no matter what kind of \'saving\' they need. It\'s like a natural law at this point. Just like how death follows life, anyone who fulfils the criteria of being my comrade will get my protection. Of course, there are some more rules here."

"Even this has rules?" Tristan scoffed.

"Everything has rules it must follow. In this criterion\'s case, let\'s say one of my comrades is about to die. Saving them would mean to prevent them from dying. However, if that comrade desires death from the bottom of their heart; not by some misguided ideal, but because they truly feel that they should die, I will respect their feelings and not save them."

As I always say, to each their own.

"That makes no sense."

"Perhaps to you, it does not."

As an Eternal Being, I feel anyone that truly desires to witness the beauty of death should be able to. To deny them the chance to do so would be incredibly presumptuous of me.

I mean, let\'s say that I save someone who \'truly\' wants to die (emphasis on the word truly there). Then what?

What will I have saved them for? Because I thought they have so much to live for? Because the people who love them will be sad? Because such a beautiful life should not end so terribly? Because dying like this would be a shame?

Those are all excuses, because in the end, each of those reasons is something I just personally believe; it does not take into account what that person wants.

A man who truly wants to die, a being who truly wishes to see their life end, has absolutely nothing to look forward to in their life.

Of course, it\'s not like they are just meatsuits who mutter \'I want to die\' every 3 seconds.

It\'s possible that something might temporarily grab their interest. Perhaps they might meet someone and end up wanting to see them every day.

But for a man who truly wants to die, that will all be pointless.

When all will be said and done, when they\'ll come home and be alone, sitting and staring at the night sky or lying in the bed gazing into the nothingness borne after turning off the lights, they\'ll ponder at the futility of their life and how deeply they wish for it to end.

Because no matter how interesting the thing or how delightful the person, they will not be able to overwrite the base desire of wanting to die.

That\'s what it means to \'truly\' desire the sweet embrace of death.

Wanting to die because your life is difficult is different; that wish will go away once your life becomes easier.

Wanting to die out of depression is also different; depression can be cured, or at least learned to live with.

Wanting to die because you lost a loved one is also different; no matter how profound grief is, it\'s nothing in front of the unstoppable march of time.

Just having a reason to die itself is different, because the moment you take away that reason, the desire to die also vanishes.

To truly want to die is to be at the peak of nihility; it\'s when you have absolutely no will to live, no reason to live, and have no reason to die.

And no matter what you and those who love you do, no matter how hard all of you try, the will to live simply cannot be replenished.

It\'s like pouring glasses of water inside a black hole; no matter how many glasses your pour, the black hole remains unchanged.

You just want to die, because you just want everything to… end.

That\'s the kind of person I won\'t save, because not saving them is exactly the saving they need.

Saveception.

"And what, it makes sense to you?" Tristan brought me back from my reveries.

Fuck you, Tristan. I was having a moment there.

"Yup, but any further discussion will just devolve into an argument about whether euthanasia should be allowed or not, and I have no intention of doing that."

After all, changing someone else\'s viewpoint is more often than not worth the trouble.

Oh, you think Chocolate Shakes are just dogshit? Well, you do you chief, you do you.

Just know that there\'s a special place in hell reserved for you.

"Right," he sighed. "I still don\'t understand one thing, though."

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

This stupid fucking piece of shit. I swear to fucking God I have seen literal pieces of rock with more comprehension abilities than this troglodyte.

Fucking anti-vaxxers can understand things better than salted-walnut-for-brain organism. Goddamnit.

"And what might that be?"

Say some stupid shit and I\'ll punch your jaw so goddamn hard it will yeet you into another plane of existence.

"The way you define your comrades… you clearly don\'t care for them. So why are you so adamant on wanting to save them?"

…

Aight, albeit a bit philosophical, that IS a genuine query than most people might have, so I\'ll give him a pass this time.

Fuck.

"Well… why shouldn\'t I? They are my comrades, and I can save them, so I might as well just do it."

It\'s the same concept as picking up an ant crawling up a wall and dropping it at the place it wanted to go to.

"Yeah, but no one would save someone they don\'t even care about regardless of what it cost; they\'ll do it only till it\'s easy and convenient for them to do so, or when they stand to gain something from it. Yet you say you will save them no matter what it costs. Why?"

I wonder how I should answer that.

"Hmmm…. Probably because it\'s… beautiful?"

"Beautiful?" He raised his eyebrows.

Did he not expect that answer? Gotta elucidate, I guess.

"Well, I mean, their struggle is beautiful in a way. I really have no idea how to explain it to you. Hmm, uh, think of it this way; in the Grand Scheme of things, everything they do has absolutely no meaning."

Tristan frowned slightly.

"In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that their existence itself is meaningless. Yet even in their insignificance, they continue to writhe and struggle, trying to fight for what they believe in. I think that\'s beautiful. And me wanting to save them is just me rewarding them for showing me that beauty."

Of course, Tristan would probably still be confused. He would not be able to understand me, and that\'s because we are two completely different beings.

He has lived for only a few years while I have been alive since before the Universe itself. The time he has spent existing is so insignificant compared to mine that it\'s practically non-existent.

What\'s a life and death struggle for him is nothing more than one of the countless trivial experiences I have already had.

As living beings, we earn scars as we live. Those scars signify the experiences we have had; happy ones, sad ones, weird ones, all scar us in some way or the other.

There is much we learn and much we regret, and none of us ever emerge unscathed.

And as long as we live, our scars continue to grow, and so do we.

But there is a limit, a certain threshold after which the scars lose their meaning, after which we just surrender ourselves to the motions of life, mindlessly living, without any will to do anything.

I\'ve been alive since the beginning of time, which means I have earned the most scars. I might as well be a glorified collection of scars at this point.

That\'s why to me, these so-called comrades are like newly sprouted flowers.

As someone who\'s covered from head to toe in scars, those buds with just a few scars, who have yet to surrender themselves to the motions of life, seem fascinating and beautiful.

No matter what scar they get, they grow with and continue to live on, looking forward to the next day.

Full of childlike wonder, they fearlessly look towards the heavens, until the moment their tiny, insignificant lives are burned out.

And because I\'m so fascinated by them, I continue to save them.

That\'s all.