Epic of Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh looked around at the Forest of Divine Cedars-- mostly destroyed by their chaotic battle. He looked at the all-but defeated beast, Humbaba, laying on the floor beneath him with his foot on its massive neck.

He turned to Enkidu, whose eager expression of triumph hung on his face as he awaited Gilgamesh's killing blow.

None of it felt real.

Yet, all of it was.

Gilgamesh mind, for the first time in a long time, picked up where it left off. It continued the process of detachment, splitting further and further from what it was, and leaving emptiness in its wake.

Gilgamesh's soul reached out to him, but there was nothing he could do to hear it.

As of right now, his soul did not actually exist. How could something non-existent be heard? How could it be felt?

Gilgamesh knew it was there, but knowing it was there was not enough. There had to be more to it- something to give it life and meaning and substance.

But what?

He began to deconstruct his surroundings in his mind, and in his sight the entirety of the Cedar Forest began to unravel. Pieces of reality broke away and scattered in clumps of space, giving way to the quintessence of where Gilgamesh was.

A white-hot world of light, with nothing else in it.

All that remained now was Enkidu, the beast Humbaba, and Gilgamesh with his bloodied axe.

Enkidu had come to realize that Gilgamesh was not going to deliver the final blow, and so he regarded his companion with a questioning gaze.

"What are you doing!? Hurry up and kill him, before he recovers! This is our last chance!" Enkidu tried to urge Gilgamesh on, but the latter was in too weird of a mental state to even hear him.

Gilgamesh wondered about where he was, and how he had gotten there. He could not remember anything. His mind was trying to convince him that where he was, right now, was where he had always been.

There was no past he could recollect, yet he was certain that he was forgetting something.

"Gil! Are you listening to me!?"

With a twitch, Gilgamesh's eyes darted across to Enkidu, even as he felt Humbaba's chest rise and fall with each breath it took. When he saw Enkidu, the green-haired man was impatiently motioning with his hands, signaling for Gilgamesh to be done with it once and for all.

Humbaba noted Gilgamesh's silence and disregard for Enkidu's words, and took it for something other than what it was.

The beast chuckled in spite of its pain and exhaustion. "Do you not seek to be a man of renown? A Great King in this land? Then be done with it. Kill me, and continue your foolish bout with the Gods."

Gilgamesh's eyes widened at that, and his mind tickled him with traces of remembrance. Still, nothing came to him, and he was left more frustrated than anything else when he tried to remember and couldn't.

"You don't care about any of that, do you? Even if this is a blatant challenge, we owe it to the souls of the mortals that have perished by this beast's hand-- all those innocent lives lost in the Great Flood!"

"Have you forgotten them!? Have you forgotten the reason we fight, Gilgamesh!?"

Enkidu heaved with each sentence, but did his best to stand tall, proud and strong.

"If mortals perish," Humbaba sneered, "it is the Will of the Gods. Their will is absolute, and cannot be rejected. We, as their creations, have no choice in the matter-- no say. Accept your place and be content, you fools!"

"Tch!" Enkidu moved, pulling Gilgamesh's axe free from his crushed hand and preparing to kill the beast himself.

However, in that moment, Gilgamesh's body acted of its own accord, and he intercepted. Humbaba's fleshy eyes widened amidst the writhing flesh of its ruined face, watching as Gilgamesh acted against Enkidu to spare its life.

"What the fuck are you doing!?"

Enkidu raged, and tried to pull the axe away, but Gilgamesh did not let go. Though uncertain of why exactly he did what he did, he knew that he was making the right decision.

What he needed, was to know why.

What was being clouded from his mind? Why was he convinced that the world around him wasn't real? What was the significance of this moment? What choice should he make?

Gilgamesh was bombarded with questions. He grew annoyed that the answers eluded him yet.

"Hello! Gilgamesh!? Why aren't you saying anything!?" Enkidu glared into the bloody pearls of Gilgamesh's eyes, desperately trying to understand what he could possible be thinking.

"Perhaps this is an act of the Gods to protect their humble servant," Humbaba made an expression that could possible be interpreted as a smile, then closed its eyes and whispered a gratuitous prayer.

"Would you shut up with your Gods already! Your life is in our hands now, not theirs!" Enkidu snarled like an animal, and gave the axe a tug.

Gilgamesh looked at his ruined hand, with crushed bones and twisted fingers, and knew that he should feel intense pain. However, even as he tightened his grip around the handle and Enkidu pulled the axe, he felt nothing.

The pain was not there.

"Blind fool. My life being delivered into your hands, is an act of the Gods. If that is how I am meant to die, then so be it. I will not object." Humbaba continued with its prayers, seeming ready to embrace death.

"And I'm the fool? I would never lay down and accept defeat just because it was the will of some god. I would never stop fighting against such a fate, not until I drew my last breath!"

Gilgamesh watched as Enkidu and Humbaba had their back and forth, and he came to realize that there was something about their conversation that poked at that empty space inside of him.

A point could be made for either side of the argument, but there was more to it than that. There could never be a resolution to his problem unless he made a decision.

He just did not know what decision he should make.

"I'm tired of this, Gilgamesh! Go back to reason and finish what you started!" Enkidu snarled at Gilgamesh before aggressively pushing the axe in his direction, as if to say 'Hurry up and do it!'

Humbaba scoffed, "It seems the Imperfect One embraces more of his divine heritage. You should give up this dream of yours, and worship the Gods. They shall surely accept you."

As Gilgamesh listened to both of their words, he could feel a distinct stirring within him. Revisiting his mind was the feeling of remembrance, however it was far stronger than it had ever been.

This time, he remembered many things, and saw everything that he had forgotten.

Gilgamesh saw the birth of a semi-divine son, born of Ninsun and Lugalbanda.

He saw that boy grow to a young man, and achieve great things in the world.

He saw that young man become corrupted, and receive punishment in the form of a challenge by the Gods of his world. He saw a great battle, and the emergence of a most unlikely friendship.

He saw the very battle he had just taken part in, an act of retaliation for the Gods that dared to punish him for his deeds.

He saw his own foolishness reflected back at him, and the beginning of his life in constant war against the Gods.

He saw himself lose his father, all because of his own decisions.

He saw his mother suffer, because he could not be there to protect her.

He saw his desperation for power, and his own fears begin to eat him alive from the inside.

He witnessed his own pointless quest for eternal life, in the hopes that it would grant him an edge over the enemies he could never defeat.

He saw his failure, and experienced his own death once again.

He saw his countless years of cursed agony in the Netherworld, where he forgot more and more of himself with each passing moment.

Gilgamesh saw the beginning and end of a story unlike any other.

His story, the way he had lived it. His story, the way it would always be, immortalized forever in the pages of time, written across reality like the waving banner of his identity.

This was who he was, because it was the story that gave birth to him. It was the essence of the soul that he had begun to reject. The core of the character that had been created, long ago.

The Epic of Gilgamesh. Written by the hands of the Mother of Scriptures, long before it was ever documented.

Gilgamesh understood everything in that moment, and his glistening eyes looked between both Enkidu and Humbaba as tears welled up in them.

"What will it be!?" Enkidu roared.

"What do you choose?" Humbaba smiled warmly.

Gilgamesh took a single deep breath, and looked to the cracked sky of the illusory world he was in. A torrent of emotion surged from within him, and he began to weigh the choices he had made, and the choices he would make later in his story.

Finally, he laughed. A sad, pained, self-deprecating laugh.

"I don't choose. There is no longer a path for me to walk. I may be Gilgamesh, but this is not who I am any longer."

"I reject it all, so that I may become someone new."

"A new Gilgamesh. A new story."

Then, he took the axe... and dragged the blade across his neck, splitting it open. As his blood sprayed and covered the stunned faces of Enkidu and Humbaba, his final thoughts failed to become words.

'Gilgamesh... Untold...'