Live, Love, and Hate – by Orpheus

 

Week 26 – the Oblivion (based on concepts and/or themes from Wraith: The Oblivion by White-Wolf publishing)

 

Orpheus stood on the brink of the Nihil. He could still hear his Shadow’s voice echoing in his mind from his last Harrowing, he couldn’t remember how long ago that was, though. It might have been just a few days, though more likely it was a week or two, maybe even a month. He hadn’t heard from her since, but her words had never stopped echoing in his head. She preferred to wait and watch, to strike at him when he was at his weakest and most desperate, and yet he had affectionately dubbed her ‘Eurydice’.

 

“When people run in circles it’s a very, very mad world…” Orpheus whispered to himself, feeling the winds of the Tempest blowing up from the Nihil and through his hair. The Harrowing had been mind-numbingly horrible, and yet given him so much pleasure. Eurydice had been cruel and uncaring, yet so very loving, so warm and welcoming. Had Oblivion any eyes, he’d have stared straight into them after his tryst with his own Shadow, his own darkness, Oblivion given voice. As it was, once Eurydice had retreated back into his mind, he’d found himself deep in the Labyrinth, poised on the edge of the Void.

 

She’d been almost predatory, Orpheus reflected. “Filthy, filthy beast,” Eurydice snarled as she reveled in everything she was meant to keep at bay, her freakish desires and obsessive love that never faltered, it was almost parental in that manner. It was the sort of thing that one usually entertains at the back of one’s mind, he mused, not the sort of thing that one grants free reign like that. Of course, he knew that was the easiest way for her to drag him into the Oblivion, on a golden chain that he would forge himself, at her whim, of course.

 

“Maybe going back into the Tempest won’t be so bad, though,” Orpheus murmured. After all, there was no telling what lay on the other side of the Nihil. While it was true that there was a great possibility that a pack of Spectres was on the other side waiting for someone to fall through, it was also possible that Stygia lay just beyond the fissure. He stuck his toe through the crack to the underworld and felt the cold winds blowing on the other end. He left it there as he pondered which side of the hole to the underworld he’d be on at the end of the day. “When people run in circles…” he whispered.

 

For Week 26, this is Orpheus, signing out. Send topics to [email protected]