Hao Xuan fell into a sort of trance.
He was a little afraid. More than a little in fact. The Mind Palace was still blocked and he couldn't use his Qi. He was in so much pain that it had almost become numb. There was a sea of undead creatures in front of him, squirming like maggots trying to get to him.
And between him and them was a single row of mercenaries that had all but given up themselves. He could hear their cries and whimpers as they weakly held up their weapons for god knows what reason.
Some asking for their parents, some asking for forgiveness for some past sin they had committed. Some asking for another chance and some that just wanted it to end.
'I'm afraid. I don't want to go out..'
'Why am I fighting? Is it really worth going back? Is it really worth fighting through all this SHIT? What….is my reason?' Hao Xuan couldn't help but ask himself.
But then something unexpected happened.
'Why does it matter?' a voice answered from somewhere deep within. A voice he had buried a long time ago.
Hao Xuan woke up from the trance and looked around, "Who…are you?" he asked out loud but everyone else was too busy to say or do anything in return, or maybe no one cared.
Yet the voice echoed in his ears with stark clarity.
'You know who I am, even if you don't remember now. We have been together since you opened your eyes, and we will be together until you die. But tell me…why are you afraid?'
The voice sounded familiar. Hao Xuan could hear it as clear as day and he was aware of it. It didn't belong to Hyde and it didn't sound like himself, but it wasn't foreign either.
"Am I having a…mental breakdown?" he couldn't help but ask with a self-deprecating chuckle.
'Why.are.you.afraid?!' the voice repeated, sounding a little angry which for some reason made Hao Xuan mad too. Why a voice in his head was getting angry at him for no reason?!
"Why can't I be afraid?" he retorted in a sharp tone.
'Are you afraid of death?' it asked, silencing Hao Xuan. When Hao Xuan didn't respond it spoke up again.
'No, it is not death you are afraid of. That is just a temporary moment of pain in a long life. You have already experienced more pain than any death will make you feel, so why are you scared? Scared of what you yourself are capable of?'
'Your woman is a liar, your friend is a stranger. You keep helping others but no one is helping you. You are being used, for one reason or another. The people that laugh with you, that eat with you, would they spare you a glance if they didn't need you?'
'Every day you get weaker, your sanity lessening by the minute, yet that is still not what you are afraid of.'
A short moment of silence followed.
"Why am I afraid then?" Hao Xuan asked.
'Why indeed. Do you not remember? All those years ago? When you were but a fledgling, even then you didn't know fear. What scared others only pushed you forward. When other kids were scared of the dark, you welcomed it, even frightening those so-called responsible caretakers of yours.'
'You…did not know fear, you were TAUGHT it. Taught to be afraid of the darkness but that's where we prospered. That's where we flourished, along with those things that are far far worse. So let me ask you again, why are you afraid?'
Hao Xuan stood there listening to everything the voice had to say, looking at the nightmarish creatures in front of him. Some of the things the voice said did not make sense, others Hao Xuan did not agree with.
But that fear he felt when looking at these monsters was quickly replaced by an itch. An itch originating in the palm of his hand and spreading to the rest of his body.
His lips parted, mumbling one sentence.
"I'm not," he confirmed.
'You are not. Not of these piles of bones and dead flesh. There is nothing TO be scared of. So what are you waiting for?'
What Hao Xuan never realized was that all those pleas for help and relief he was hearing from the guards weren't actually being spoken out loud. They were thoughts, mere ideas in the back of their heads that he could listen to normal conversations.
It felt like a long conversation but it didn't even take a full second from start to finish.
Hao Xuan heard another familiar voice to his left, repeating much of the same things that others were. Asking to be sent home, asking to be saved, dripping with weakness.
'What a Coward,' the voice commented in his head. But this time it sounded just a little bit more like Hao Xuan's own voice now. As if they had one more thing in common. The left most door in Hao Xuan's mind palace opened, just a little bit more than before.
Hao Xuan threw a disdainful glance towards the crying boy and extended his hand towards the squirming undead in his embrace.
The undead looked up sensing someone there, pushing its forehead into Hao Xuan's palm.
Even though it was dead, at this moment when it looked at him standing over it without much emotion, a tinge of dread that it should not even be capable of feeling flashed past its white pupils before Hao Xuan muttered, "Devour" and its entire head disappeared, like a bubble popping.
