[network][video] @Enoch; Day 241 [open] [blood and bones and human skin leather, Hell Tower]

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch speaks from behind the camera as it is raised from pointing at his feet, having turned the video function on in some amount of haste. The camera pans over the grisly scene of building 264, and all of its "blood, broken bones, scattered teeth, human skin turned to leather and used to decorate the walls". There are prophet symbols all over the cubicle walls and the walls of the building itself.]

Look at this...what did they do, all in the name of some "prophet" who was only a frightened, blinded girl? [He speaks to someone farther behind the camera:] Quark, perhaps you should go back up to the bridge? This place is... I don't want to subject you to it.

[When Quark has gone, after whatever discussion ensues, he resumes talking to the network.]

The air here... [He swallows heavily.] It's awful, thick and foreboding. Oh, it's like breathing vileness in all over again... I should follow him, get out- no.

[He tucks the tablet into his makeshift belt and goes outside, finding a spot away from the door and beginning to dig in the snow, unslinging his backpack and bringing out a large, flat piece of scrap metal to act as a crude shovel to help.]

I can't leave it like this. This is wrong, to leave these people like this. I can't bury all of it, but-

[He's interrupted as he hits ground beneath the snow. He can't dig through it no matter how hard he tries.]

...That isn't ideal. But it must suffice.

[He returns inside, shuddering as the atmosphere rolls over him, and begins gathering as many remains as he can carry at a time, moving them to the grave he'd just dug in the snow and clearing out snow that had fallen in. He tears a piece of leather off the wall and reveals a prophet symbol, which he pauses at with a wordless noise of surprise.

He comes back to this uncovered eye after finishing his crude grave and the doors have locked for the night. His breathing is heavy from the labor and distress as he removes the camera from his "belt" and switches it to the internal camera to show his face. Despite all the activity, the oppressive atmosphere and gruesome task has him looking sickly pale, the healthy flush draining from his face rapidly.]

I wonder why...what significance did covering these eyes have, and why human skin? Why such a macabre scene? I hope I've brought some comfort to whoever belonged to those remains I buried...they must be suffering in here.

((Anyone else staying the night here is free to come down and drag him upstairs where it's marginally less hellish. Or just announce their presence because he thinks he's alone in here.))

Comments

[warriorscribe]

You say that, yet you are - I presume - immortal, and also speaking to one who is.

[He's amused instead of insulted. He understands, he thinks. Angels had issues understanding humans more often than not.]

Innate immortality tends to belong to those with an odd perspective on the lives of mortals.

[absentconstellation]

How could they understand? They spend no time among mortals, and form no true bonds with them. They care not a wit for the struggles and joys of mortal life.

[warriorscribe]

How true that is... [He sighs.] They aren't beyond learning. The angel who is now my closest friend, we didn't get along. He was always so...standoffish and cold. But as he traveled on Earth with me, he began to understand, and I saw his attitude only came from the lack of it.

[absentconstellation]

Perhaps.

[ He yawns. ]

None that I know have ever shown any interest in mortal affairs. And I have little interest in them.

[warriorscribe]

You care so much about mortals. How did that come about? Were you intended to?

[He's used to immortals - those "born" immortal - being made for a specific purpose. It's the situation he defaults to, more or less.]

[absentconstellation]

I have always been more active than my constellation brothers and sisters. It happens that the Mortal Realms have much to entertain me. I admit, I have become quite partial to humans.

[warriorscribe]

[Oh, this is perfect, he loves talking about the virtues of humanity! The angels fight to protect their potential, after all, and seeing that has made him appreciate his own species so much.]

We certainly are unique, for better or worse. What is it that draws you to us, if I may ask?

[absentconstellation]

Your passion. Humans care about things the gods are hardly even aware of. Your lives have meaning and intensity that they cannot understand.

[warriorscribe]

[He laughs now, the room's air reduced to a slightly nauseating pull at the back of his mind. He's had a talk like this recently, about the state of being human and what makes it special. It helps him. Reminds him he can still fight.]

Of course - give a reasoning being mortality, leave him to carve out his own niche in the world with only the directive to take care of it, and the capacity for language to express himself, and what can you get but unrelenting passion?

[absentconstellation]

You can get a great many things. That's what makes them so interesting.

[warriorscribe]

Yes - the improvements on the tools I know of were to be expected, but inventions like phones or these tablets? I never would have thought writing letters would somehow turn into this.

[Phones...it's strange to think now that the idea should still be mostly alien to him. A device only his angelic companion had, and only used to talk to God. Nominally a human invention, yes, to talk to other humans, but never used by a human in his own experience, until Norfinbury.]

[absentconstellation]

There are advances, yes. But there is also selfishness, greed, compassion, generosity, hate, love. Humans are unpredictable. Some of them are worth a great deal, some of them are worth very little.

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch tilts his head. Considering the other party is a cat, it makes it seem vaguely doglike in contrast. There's judgment of a sort in it, but not necessarily instantly negative. He's dealing with a being from beyond Earth, who knows what lens this one sees humanity through? He learned his lesson dealing with angels. Ask questions before getting defensive.]

How do you measure a person's worth, exactly?

[absentconstellation]

It is Mithros' job to judge.

[ But the Cat does it anyway, because he is a cat. ]

Value is primarily meted out by how well one treats their fellow humans.

[warriorscribe]

[Hmm. That's a good metric to measure a person by but he's not so sure it's right to judge overall worth by it.

...or at all, really.]

There are people who do good for other people as a whole but mistreat them horribly individually. What would their worth be?

[absentconstellation]

Rather little, I imagine. In the end it doesn't make a great deal of difference. Very few are punished by the gods before they are given over to the Black God's Peaceful Realms.

[warriorscribe]

All go to a place of peace?

[His tension breaks with a relieved smile.]

Finally, another world with sane treatment of its departed souls. I was beginning to think mine was the only one.

[absentconstellation]

Mithros judges, and the Black God forgives. That is how it has always been.

[warriorscribe]

With so many who say their worlds see to some of their departed suffering for eternity, it seems ours are in the minority. Heaven casts none out of its own volition where I am from.

[absentconstellation]

Eternity? What a waste. After a time of rest in the Peaceful Realms souls are given another chance. Nothing lasts forever, after all.

[warriorscribe]

[It's like a drink of water after the point the body stops paying attention to its thirst. He's so relieved, and seems more so with every new reaffirmation of it. Finally, something that makes sense...]

Isn't it? What is the purpose of punishment that doesn't end? What can be corrected if nothing may be attempted again. I should hope this Black God of yours allows those who wish to remain to stay, but...this is...so much better than what I've heard of other worlds. Nobody deserves that sort of torment.

[absentconstellation]

They rest. When they have rested, and let go of what made them who they once were, then they are born anew. For some it takes decades, for others only years.

[warriorscribe]

Are there any who do not let go?

[He thinks of his own world, or what he remembers of its reincarnation, at least. He knows some remain in Heaven forever, and some do not. But he doesn't remember which was the majority. He didn't spend very long with the souls of his fellow humans during his time in Heaven.]

[absentconstellation]

There are not. Those who would try give it up after a century or less.

[warriorscribe]

That seems...hm.

[He's vaguely uncomfortable about that bit of information - it could be the situation he's in at the moment, but it makes him uneasy in a way he can't quite define.]

...Do they attain something by reincarnating, or does the cycle perpetuate itself for its own sake?