Harmony

My eyes shoot up to her still closed eyes. Have I imagined it? I shake my head and sigh. "I'm going crazy."

No, Harmony. It is in fact me.

"But how..." With eyes wide open, I stare at her, as her unmoving lips whispers words into my mind. Because it's you.

Because you are the only one who can reach my thoughts and theirs. You are the only one who can save this land, Harmony. Help me, help us protect our home.

"But what can I possibly do? I am weak. Unlike you-"

Unlike me, you hold a gift, a power to write our ending. You are the key to our future, the only way to stop this war. Without you, it is impossible for us to win. To end this war.

I remain silent. What were these weak hands of mine capable of except misfortune? What weapon can it wield? What door could it unlock?

I may have been able to keep them off from entering the land. But they will never stop trying. They will always be on our door, waiting for us to eventually fall.

Then I think back to the golden circles and my heart surges with hope. "We can all leave. She can make a way out-"

And go where? Do you really think that he will stop just because we abandon a land?

I bite hard on the inside of my cheeks. I knew one's hatred could not be easily dismissed as I was a victim of such hatred, or the actual source. Just who knew.

"Who is he?"

Why did he hate the land so much? "Who or what made him harbour a hate so pure that he will not stop until he sees our end?"

Silence replies me back, but I still wait to hear her answers.

Vyncent Artino...

I feel numb at this point. Ah, the Artino again. When will their hatred ever end?

Revenge.

Why did everyone have to take revenge? The dead has left long ago, the hate too left their body, forgotten from the world. So why can't the living just let it slide? Why can't we ever live, in harmony?

I scoff in sarcasm. I had forgotten, Harmony was cursed in this land, in this world.

I'm sorry it was all because of me. Because I was the one who caused Anna's death. I'm sorry, I made you lose your mother.

"But I am not sorry." I shake my head as an empty smile takes its place on my face. "It was all my fault to begin with. It happened all because I exist. If only I was never born."

Then I will never have a sister like you. I look back at her face as my heart squeezes tightly and my throat becomes dry.

Hear me out Harmony. We can stop him, stop this cycle of hatred. And I remain quiet as I listen to her, unable to say anymore.

Although I have lost my body, but with my life now flowing within this soil, I have gained a complete access to every corner of this land. Use it, use me to reach them, control them, force them upon their own army. Every man that steps a foot on our land, turn them against their own kind who sits on our sea.

She had thought hard. She had thought far.

You have always been his weakness. Your gift is the only thing that can subdue his gift to bind one's soul to his. He has not and will never be able to win against you. Hence, he kept his distance from you even though you are related by blood. The only remaining of his beloved sister.

And I wonder how she knew of our past for it happened before her birth. Vyncent, my uncle, we used to be close in the past, inseparable, until the day I could call forth my so-called gift. And he was never the same again. Always distant, always wary. Of us. Of me.

I'm sorry I'm asking for too much. I know I am being cruel, after making you lose both your parents, I am asking you to fight against your own blood, and even lose him too, but help me sister. Help me protect lives. Help me save his soul in doing so.

I smile sadly as I think of those people that she had called my blood, people that she thought I cared for. But I guess no one knew the truth. I hated them more than anyone else ever could, or more than the word 'hate' could hate itself.

Let those that wreak havoc on our land, war against themselves. Let the land be free of them. Let the end of them, be themselves.

And she had thought of victory from the very beginning. Although she sacrificed herself, a chance to live in the present, in a body of her own, she didn't plan to die.

Let us create a different ending.

No.

She planned to come out of this very much alive and breathing. Because she knows she can heal, and she will heal, even if it takes her a millennium. But the question was me. Was I strong enough to stand up to her expectation? Did I hold that much power in my hands to control the ending of a tragedy?

You are stronger than you think, and you are powerful. She tells me as if she heard my doubt.

This land is your home just as much as it is mine. Raven will do anything to protect her home so, tell me sister, what will Harmony do?

There is no hesitation as my other hand comes up to rest beside my hand already on the bark of the tree. I close my eyes and take a deep breath in. Expanding the horizon of my mind, I allow myself to flow within her, into her. One thing I knew for sure, my heart and soul knew the only truth.

Harmony would do anything to protect her home.

She left the land she loved so much, she spent her centuries alone, she lived as though she perished. Just so she could protect the purity of this land.

With the sweats now beading my forehead, I exert my everything in the roots of the land and flow within them along with her. I feel the earth crumble, its defence fall.

Sorry, I cannot do so much at once. I cannot protect the people, defend the walls and guide you, all at the same time.

I smile as I think of all the powerful beings fighting alongside one another. And there was the little goddess and Aries. And he was there too.

"Don't worry, they will be just fine." All will be well at the end.

Through her, I feel their presence on land, and branching my conscious, I hold onto each and every one of them.

Now.

With her command booming over my mind, I pull the thread on each and every mind. Hundreds of thoughts. Controlled at once. It took everything in me and much more...

I knew what I was doing.

Sacrifice.

But I know I did right this time around. I was born for this day. I was exempted from death so I could live for this day...

A seer pain in my head makes my knees weak but I hold on, my hands latched tightly onto the bark, strong and firm. But with my ears ringing and my eyes burning shut, hot liquid soon pours out of them.

Not yet, I tell myself as I bite my lips hard until I taste the sweetness of the blood, although in pain, I was content.

"Stop."

I command as I pull hard onto their empty minds, to stop the movement of their enraged body.

"Stop this war."

I shudder as more blood spills through my eyes, ears and lips alike. The pain becomes too much for me, but I hold on regardless until they all still.

"Protect this land from the ones that mean it harm. Tear their limbs, their heads apart. Show no mercy."

I offer my life for the sake of ending this carnage. Although he had tied their souls together with his, I always had the upper hand, for I controlled their very thoughts, hence their body.

"Kill... let none of them live."

And soon I feel the sole of their feet marching on the ground, charging towards the ocean, only then I fall on my knees. My head hanging low, my chest heaving hard while my hands desperately trying to keep my body strong by holding onto the ever so strong trunk of the tall tree.

I had no more strength left in me. But somehow, I manage to place my back against it and let it carry all my weight.

As more of the rich earth surrounding us starts to crumble, I feel the vines softly wrapping itself around my body like it did the rest. I manage a small smile out of my weak body. She was trying to heal me like she did the rest.

"It's okay..." I manage a whisper but cough out more blood.

My eyes, ears and mouth alike were continuously bleeding a river of red. I have thought of this Harmony. I will heal you too. Just don't speak, it will cause you more pain.

"I cannot be healed..."

Shh. You are going to be o-

"It's..." Cough. "-okay-" I cough out more blood.

A broken body, she may heal. But this tore my soul apart or what was left of it.

I wasn't strong like her. I could never control nor exert my gift like this, like she did hers. And with my body still weak from nights before, there was no saving me. This body would never be able to bear the damage, it was just too much.

And I knew that from the very beginning.

Over the centuries, I have tried, experimented my so-called gift. It's limit. Its competency, my own capability to see, re-arrange, manipulate ones very thoughts. But I was never strong enough to completely house this gift. Because I was never whole.

I knew the end of me. I knew what would end this miserable cycle of living. I knew it all along. But I was afraid of the end.

Of what awaited me after I close my eyes forever.

For Harmony never really existed. Her tune never reached too far. Harmony too would be forgotten. But she was never really remembered, was she?

"Alex..." One last name whispers from the gaps of my lips before I feel myself falling into the deep abyss.

Then I finally see the truth. I finally know who I am as I see his face morphing into something else, as he soars high up in the sky, behind my fluttering eyes, heavily dosed with red.

And as I see the silver light fluttering behind his back, I know just where I belong.

I don't know why I, now wished to live. But I know now why I had to leave. For I have found my way back home, a place just for me.

I feel the slowing of my heart, abandoning the life it once held heavy and my thoughts too leave me empty. I let the darkness take me, reeling in the healing that it gave in return for the immense pain.

And now Harmony will be erased.

For no one remembered. For there was no one left to sing the sweet melody of Harmony. Of her meaningless laughter as she lived her days in happiness.

But she was content that she was erased just so she could be whole again.