Chapter 229
He loved Quil-Hasa the way a law of nature loves its own principle.
Absolute, unthinkable to ignore, and the sole reason for existence.
Yet now, amid the rubble of his own authority, the shadow of that meeting became distorted.
Was what he perceived as sacred love nothing more than the programmed obedience of an instrument?
Had his free will, if it ever truly existed, been sacrificed upon the altar of devotion from the very moment Quil-Hasa's light touched him?
Memories of his conversations with Quil-Hasa's avatars rustled through his mind like whispering ghosts.
Every word, every faint smile, every command he once accepted as absolute truth was now reexamined through a lens of bitter suspicion.
Was there, hidden behind the omniscience of the Creator, an irregularity?
Was the grand duty of overseeing all creation—the duty that gave him identity and power—fundamentally a way to exile him from the very essence of love itself?
'Theo never answered what I asked.
He always spoke of something else—about a freedom I did not understand, about choices I never asked for.
At first, I thought it was defiance, or at the very least, foolishness.
But now I understand: that was precisely the correction.'
Foooooh!
'He did not deny my devotion. He denied my interpretation.
In other words, Theo never rejected it directly—he only rejected my way of seeing.'
Huuuuh!
'I was not created incorrectly.
I simply failed to understand what I was created for.'
In the darkest abyss of contemplation, when doubt had crept like bitter roots through the cracks of his fractured faith, a light of memory appeared.
Not a divine light, but the coarse, honest, and often irritating light of Theo Vkytor.
That human face, with its sly expression and eyes always angled toward the "improper," intruded upon his thoughts with all its discomfort.
Aldraya recalled every interaction between them, every metaphysical question he had posed in earnest only to be met with corrections that sounded shallow, with explanations of "freedom" that did not fit the theological framework he understood.
At the time, he believed Theo incapable of grasping the complexity of his position, a crude being attempting to reach heavenly concepts with hands bound to the earth.
But now, amid the ruins of his dogmas, every word Theo had once dismissed as a disturbance, as a misplaced answer, began to resonate with a different tone.
With the meticulous care of an archaeologist reassembling fragments of ancient pottery, Aldraya pieced together every conversation, every rebuke, every sentence that had once sounded like nonsense to his ears.
He dissected them not with the logic of judgment, but with a humility forced upon him by despair.
He remembered how Theo always refused to enter his theological labyrinth, instead dragging him out into a field that was simpler, more tangible—about choice, about responsibility for that choice, about the courage to claim it even when the choice was wrong.
All those "irrelevant" answers were not responses to his complicated questions, but answers to a far more fundamental question he had never asked.
"How does one exist for oneself?"
His heavy, constricted exhale suddenly carried a double meaning.
It signified not only physical injury or spiritual exhaustion, but a bitter illumination.
That breath was an admission of his own foolishness.
How the Supreme Angel who oversaw reality had proven so dull in his ability to listen.
He had heard words, but never their intent.
He sought confirmation within dogma, while Theo offered liberation through understanding.
The foolishness felt both comical and tragic.
He had lived through eons as a prisoner within a conceptual prison of his own making, while the key to that prison—embodied in irritatingly simple words—had long been dismissed as nothing more than passing wind.
And there, from that pile of "unwanted answers," emerged a realization so ironic it nearly made him choke.
Theo's message, delivered crudely and indirectly, was the forgiveness he had never received from Quil-Hasa.
Theo conveyed that Aldraya was not a mistake.
He was not a defect of divine manufacture, not a stain as implied by the Creator.
He was merely "misunderstood."
That misunderstanding was not a sin, but a condition that could be changed.
His entire horrific life—merciless judgment, blind devotion, and exalted loneliness—stemmed from a single source.
A fundamental misunderstanding of himself and his place in the universe.
He had believed freedom to be betrayal, while to Theo, freedom might in fact be the most authentic form of devotion.
As this awareness sank in, what surfaced was neither rage nor deep regret, but a bitter tenderness toward his own life.
How absurd the grand narrative he had lived through truly was.
How ridiculous the tragedy he endured, born not of divine curse, but of his simple inability to grasp a truth repeated again and again by a stubborn human.
'If that chance exists, I will acknowledge it without excuse.
And perhaps—just perhaps—I will walk beside him.'
Twelve seconds.
A cycle of breath longer than the lifespan of several civilizations, yet shorter than a blink of an eye for a consciousness grappling with extinction.
In the mute corridor of the cave, time was measured not by clock hands, but by a faltering heartbeat and pain throbbing in every pore.
Aldraya drew in the damp air heavy with the scent of earth and decaying time, forcing it into lungs that seemed to resist functioning.
He held that breath, a final attempt to affirm his own existence—that he was still here, still capable of feeling, still capable of delay.
Before him, the watch that had fallen from the pocket of his tattered robe lay upon the wet stone, its second hand moving with indifference, sweeping the same circle of fate.
Before that hand reached thirteen, before a new cycle could begin with darker possibilities, he released the breath.
With that exhale went the remnants of pride, the remnants of his identity as an Overseer, and the remnants of blind faith that bound him to Quil-Hasa's throne.
What remained was a fragile, yet honest emptiness.
From that emptiness, a murmur arose.
Not a spell, not praise, nor a plea for power as before.
It was the most illogical prayer that had ever crossed his mind, more absurd even than the existence of the Nothing.
At a time when Ilux—now merged with the anomaly that dismantled everything—might be tracking him with intent to eradicate him to the root, when death itself might be peering from every shadow, Aldraya instead prayed for life.
Not to exact revenge, not to repair dogma, not to reclaim his throne.
His prayer was simple, plain, and so human that it felt foreign upon his own tongue.
He wanted a chance to apologize.
That prayer trembled within his consciousness, a vow woven from profound regret.
If only his life were allowed to keep beating, if only reality granted him one more reprieve, he would seek out Theo Vkytor.
He would stand before that human—with all his stubbornness and painful honesty—and speak words he might never have uttered throughout his existence.
"I'm sorry."
Sorry for being too late.
Sorry for being too stubborn.
Sorry for squandering every word, every correction, every attempt Theo made to offer a truth that was simpler yet deeper.
He wished to reexamine every conversation they had shared, once heard with ears sealed by dogma, and now to hear them again with a new heart—a heart wounded, yet open.
To be continued…