Hymns and Epiphanies

Now standing on the staircase, I felt airy inside. Light and anxious... I looked down from the edge as I recounted my fall. I realized that the fear had not left me despite my efforts to cast the memory away. Space saw my uneasiness and grabbed onto my hand, squeezing it. I tried to let go of my nervous disposition. Thankfully, we were just at the gates. As we slowly approached it, I began to tremor. My adrenaline was taking hold of everything and yet, I still felt no desire to turn around and end it all for the sake of the universe, as Mr Fluff had begged me to consider. In that moment indeed, it was a selfish thing. I knew Mr Fluff would come to detest me further and possibly, for the entirety of his life from this point on, he would come to regret his decision. I didn't care... I could just avoid him for the remainder of his mortal life, waiting it out here in eternity. Yes, I was the greatest coward of all.

As Space and I now prepared to cross over, I suddenly felt something grabbing onto my foot. There was a tug, then I looked down to see what it was...

Chains. Heavy metal chains were wrapped nicely around my left ankle. I peered to see where they were coming from. Just then, I felt a pull and fell hard to the ground. Space, terrified, took large steps back. But it couldn't save him. As I was quickly dragged away into the unknown, leaving behind hollow cries, it was now his turn. The chains took him by the arm and swiftly without a thought, carried him away.

..... .....

I awoke to a sore back and my head thumping uncontrollably. I heard loud groans and turned to my side to see Space reeling from the ordeal as well. Where were we? The chains had pulled us away from the gates in the opposite direction, so we couldn't have made it in. Who was it now that created disarray when I had expected no other hiccup? Space got up and began walking around. It was clear we were in confinement.

"Who did you anger this time?" he chuckled.

"Beats me!" I said.

"Well I can think of someone..."

But it couldn't be...

"You don't mean?"

"Thou bringer betrays!" Space said, cropping up behind me dramatically.

"Noo!" I shrieked with horror.

"I'm sorry, my friend. Seems to me that Mr Fluff did not really intend for you to get back. All points to us for trying though..."

I had been so blind. There was no use crying now... my vain plan was painfully at its real end. Space came and sat next to me on the floor.

I sighed.

"What next, old boy?" he asked me.

I shrugged. "Succumb to defeat, let Mr Fluff have his way... If he really is behind this, there's no way in hell he's letting us go."

"I completely agree," Space said. He smiled. It was contagious, I couldn't help smiling myself. I sighed again.

"Well, I guess it's a good a time as any to be imprisoned forever." We both chuckled.

The light banter wasn't a lifesaver but it helped. It was sufficient enough a distraction for the time being. Just until something bigger would take over and we'd be out in misery once again.

Sure enough, a few hours later, when we'd not long dosed off, we heard loud footsteps getting closer until they finally stopped just outside our cell. We looked up. There were no words...

The man was twice my size — what Space had said made total sense now. I knew I was looking at her infamous beast of a husband when I saw Leia come and stand behind him slowly. I looked nothing like the guy! However to be fair, I looked way nicer. He looked so spiteful and bitter. It sounded familiar...

I could've been him a year ago. Without all the violence of course, my weaker frame could not support that. Now, I was just a sad man in love with a woman who possibly did not feel the same.

The man stared down at me with very evident disgust. I readied myself for what he was going to do next.

"So you're Time!" he remarked loudly.

"I could've taken you for a more viable chap, but look at you... weaker than any man I ever saw! Pathetic!" he cursed under his breath.

Well, at least we'd confirmed it; Mr Fluff had not infact betrayed me. I wouldn't call it relief, but it was a somewhat better feeling.

Then it all came tumbling down.

"Oh, before I forget," the man continued, "I relay my sincerest apologies from a dear friend. He seems to have got you here and by some odd chance, I have you now. But to be relatively forthcoming, he was complicit in my plan. A plan I conjured up ever since the day I learned your despicable schemes to take what belongs to me. I decided from them on, that the fight you wanted is what you would get. So here you are!"

Nevermind, I thought to myself, Mr Fluff had outdone me. I held my head in my hands with devout hopelessness and remembered something. Leia. Her warning... why had she waited so long to tell me? I tried to hold back my anger, for I never imagined myself to be angry with her... but I was overpowered.

Her husband scoffed. "Here in filth you shall stay and reflect upon my mercy on you. I have thought about it and I will not kill you, but many days and nights in this old mundane dungeon will. Enjoy!" His maniacal laughter stirred me up as he began to walk away, then Leia grabbed onto his arm.

"Please, Hail..." she begged.

Hail? So Hail was his name. Fitting, I thought. A worthy name befitting a vile dictator with wrath that demanded unwavering commitment, resilience, with no questions asked. Poor Leia... Hail was not about to turn around and forgive us in the least. And to that, he shrugged her off and continued on his way. She looked at us with great pity, tears welling up in her eyes, following suit shortly after.

..... .....

I felt as though the chains around my ankles tightened whenever I thought about Mr Fluff and Hail. This couldn't really be it for the rest of our lives... I began to wish for death. I tried to relive the joy I felt in the moment I was thrust up into the air with such force. It was becoming my happy place. Then a drop of something very cold, something I prayed for the life of me was just water, landed on my cloak, right below my shoulder. The awareness of my filthy surroundings quickly drifted back and shattered that tiny happy place. I let out a loud wail.

Space remained quiet for most of the time after that. So I was alone with my thoughts, and the more dreadful they had become. After what I thought had been about three days, on the fourth, came the most unexpected thing yet. Leia came back with news. She hurried in with a panic, looking over her shoulder almost every minute that passed. She came and fell to her feet right at the barrier of our cell.

"Here," she said as she reached her hand out through the metal bars. There was something in her hand. Like a medicine vile. I took it.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's the only way you're getting out of this place. It'll give you strength to defeat my husband, then you can be free," she whispered.

Space and I looked at each other in amusement.

"Strength alone cannot set this right," said Space.

"What do you mean?" Leia asked.

"We need to get back to the gate, and we don't know where the hell we are."

"I'll take you, I promise. For now, take the vile and go! You don't have much time... Hail's gone to the realm and won't be long, and I don't know how long its effect lasts."

Truly at that moment, I believed her heaven sent. We couldn't pass this up for anything. We agreed to it and foiled a plan to take us through the great escape and hoped to the skies that Hail wouldn't be back prematurely.

I opened the vile and sniffed its contents. I detected no strange smell.

Space seized it from me and quickly chugged down half of it before giving it back.

"Well, quickly then," he gestured.

I pressed my eyes shut and winced as the liquid went down in miniature gulps.

Everything that happened after that almost went by without a thought. As I recall it now, some details might just be lost forever...

Leia had unlocked the cell before she left. We dashed out with new energy and ran out into the corridor. She'd given us blueprints to navigate the dark eery tunnels but it's sad to say that still, my sense of direction was very poor. Space was not any better. Hence, we spent a good amount of time going through almost every tunnel before we actually got to the exit. Because we'd wasted so much time, it was not a total shock when we bumped into Hail just outside the main door. The fury that gradually built up in the muscles of his face was enough to kill us both on the spot. That is... if we hadn't taken the weird potion his dear wife had just given us so generously.

He opened his mouth to speak with clenched fists at his side. He was ready to swing at us with full force but Space came steadily to the rescue. He caught his hand mid air, then he pushed him back further than he had been before.

The man looked at Space with absolute contempt and disbelief.

"H-how can you do that? No one in the realm is stronger than me... what have you done to get this power?!"

"You underestimate us without a second thought," said Space triumphantly. His chest was popping out with such pride that it immediately sent me hysterical with laughter.

"What's funny?" Hail asked unamused.

I tried to speak as I struggled to regain my composure.

"Nevermind him," Space said, referring to me, "Let us leave and we will not harm you."

I felt his evil laugh tremble the ground beneath us.

"You must be off your nuts, both of you... I will never let you leave here alive!"

He was trying so hard to beat us but Space was invincible. He was more than happy to put him in his place, which was good for me, because it gave me a chance to go meet Leia at the spot she said she'd be waiting.

I went racing down the path and only slowed as I reached the bushes at the end of it. I stopped to catch my breath, then I proceeded to walk round the first bush where I found Leia crouched down timidly.

"So, is it done?" she asked with vivid expectancy.

I nodded. "It'll be over soon. Space is keeping him busy. Now, how exactly shall we get to the gate?"

I asked so not because of my distrust in her, but because as I had just discovered on my way there, we seemed to be on an island. At the foot of the slope in front of me, I saw the silver reflections of the sun dancing on an unsteady glistening surface. Water, and lots of it for miles...

We weren't even in the sky anymore, where the hell was this place?!

"There's a sky boat... But we need to do one more thing before we can leave."

"What?"

"I cannot go back to him, so I need you to help me get rid of him."

My eyes grew.

"You want us to kill him?"

"I wouldn't dare!" she said with fear in her eyes. She reached into the little sack over her shoulder and took out another vile. She handed it to me.

"You need to get him to take this, it'll knock him out so you can lock him up." I nodded in delightful agreement and quickly, I ran back to find Space.

..... .....

Hail was flat on the ground, his chest heaving with exhaustion. Space was lying next to him, dazed as he stared up at the sky. His super strength had run out just in time. I wondered what was going through his mind. Perhaps it had all been too much. The weight of it had set on him and now he was regretting his choices... or it was something else entirely. A thick cloud of dust had engulfed them and I could see the disastrous effects of their mortal clash all around. Hail struggled to get up and I saw my chance. I called to Space and we held his head up to force the contents of the vile down his throat. He flinched and his head jerked, but we weren't going to stop until the vile was empty. When it was done, Hail took one long last look at us before he fell back to the ground in a dizzy spell with his eyes closed. We never saw them open again.

We then dragged his body back into the cell we were in, locked it, and stumbled back out, reeling from the weight of the man.

Gasping, Space asked me. " So, to the gates?"

That question, at that moment, sparked something that had been lingering in my subconscious for a while now. l stood in silence as it dawned on me that I had a very big decision to make and unfortunately, I would have to make it on my own.

We hadn't rested for long when we remembered we had to catch a ride on the sky boat Leia had arranged for us off the island. We made it to the shore just in time and departed shortly after. We got to the gate to eternity and Space excitedly pushed it open, skipping through to the other side. He turned and waited for me to cross next, but his happy demeanor slowly began to change when I didn't move at all. I smiled, staring back at him.

"Come on then!" he said.

"I'm sorry, Space, but I don't think I can do it anymore..."

"Do what? The gate is literally at your feet." He pointed to where my feet appeared to be slightly touching the highly reflective metal door.

"Yes, and maybe this is what I needed, to see that I never was destined for a life without limits. It might not be as Mr Fluff put it, but I'm feeling quite more generous!"

"What do you mean? You have a reason... you have Leia!" he asked, confused.

"And she was everything to me until I realized, that Leia was a diversion I let grow to escape the basic existence I so loathed. I admit I might have thought it love, I prayed it was..." I then beckoned for him to come closer as I stretched my hand out onto his high shoulder, squeezing it.

"Leia never loved me, and probably it was never even love she was looking for but rather just an escape from the monster of a man Hail was. We are the same in that way; both with lives we hoped to change. So in the continued heart of generous giving, I wish to see her happy. I see the fondness you have for her, take it and nurture it. You deserve it."

Space looked at me in utter bafflement. What shock had just befallen him and yet he still took it in good faith as I bid him farewell. Space was a good man like that. In the end, he had turned out to be a decent chap with more fight in him than I could've ever imagined.

I had no intention of facing Leia or meeting her anytime soon for that matter. I had nothing left to say; I was over her. Space would convey my thanks and sincerest apologies for my sudden absence and hopefully that would be the end of it. I had made the decision and now I needed to forget that it had taken me this long to see what I was after all along. Freedom. Now I could see that the reigns of mortality offered me just as much freedom as immortality could. It had all been in my head, in the choices I had made. As for the matter pertaining to love, well, we can't all have everything. At least, that's how I convinced myself to drop it.

Out of the shadows now, I felt great. I decided it was time to go home, so I returned to the realm. Once I had fully settled back into my uneventful mortal deity routine, it was almost like I'd never left. I decided to treat myself. I started with one and then another. My collection of mirrors. It was my most prized possession. For some reason it made me think of Missy. I'd oddly come to miss her quite a lot and maybe, it was time for a much needed visit, especially to Nan. I had so much to tell her so I hoped she was still alive. She had to be, for me...

I'd never been one for sentiments but as I recounted this story over and over again to anyone who cared to listen really, one thing always stood:

I, Time was not meant for love. Love is a strong man's indulgence and I find that I am better than that. After all is said and done, I, Time, am stronger than anything. So in the end, this was not a complete waste of time although to some extent, it was.