Runaway Dumpling.

runaway dumpling….

SynthV AI Yuma fan design

I smile in a way that is most unlike of me- or perhaps the other version of myself I’ve ever known. The other me, says that yes, indeed- I would have been the most powerful of them all. In response, I could only let my eyes flutter closed.

“Is your goal to be the strongest one?”

At my query, that ‘I’ that I could see only seem so confused.

“You are me, after all.” That other self could only note, “Wouldn’t you know, best of all?”

A cursory glance is all it takes- I look at the blood seated deep within their bloodied nails. I smile, this time, the me I was, smiled in the only way that felt right to me.

“I suppose that is which you seek.” 

The way their muscles tensed-- eyes meeting mine in a defiant yet fruitless attempt of a step above my own.

“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?”

“Forgotten what?”

Despite all the time I had afforded them, they do not continue.

“Are you a time traveler, my dearest self?” I pause, to give them an allowance of time to react. Seeing none, I continue, “Or perhaps a version of me who’ve diverged under too many choices?”

Upon a step closer, I caress their untrimmed nails, serrated from their gnawing teeth.

“I’ll kill you, and I’ll dig into your flesh and taste your blood-”

I do not cower, but smile only more. Leaning in ever close into their (my?) own body with little reluctance. 

“You will not.”

They don’t. 

To that I trace my fingertips amongst their bloodied eyes, and whisper closer than I ever could.

“Why don’t you kill me? You’ve been left with the chance.” A chance, an opportunity-- one long coming. I laugh in a small breathy exhale, “You’ve killed the others, but who were they to you?”

“The ones I’ve killed were the versions of myself too weak- too pitiful to hold my very name-”

At that, I had to laugh far louder- all too sharp for the distance maintained. Letting my hands fall into a hug, I push their head into my shoulder-- perhaps too rough, but it is how resistance is meant to be properly met. 

I glance at their hands, once after my grasp had long left them, were left limp and cold in the windy world.

“I don’t remember being so egotistical,” I snort, as a pain as sharp as the sudden laughter pierced my stomach. “Are you even me?”

It’s only the twitch of the shoulder that demonstrates the upset from those very words.

Pushing me, my other self's face no longer clear, they’re holding a thin blade that wasn’t there before. So that is what I was stabbed by, a pain in more than just the physical. I do not fall.

It takes a while, but the gradual confusion does arrive. I stand, with as much poise as if I was there to casually watch the world around us. They stare, with quite distaste.

“So you too, can not die from these sort of means?”

I decide, not to respond to that one. Which other me, who could stand- nay, recover from the same wounds does not matter much to me. Perhaps to them, this one could have thrown gripping words that could tear their insides into shreds. It would be child’s play to deal with those kinds of cruelty.

“You wanted to kill me,” with a tone that sounds as if I could care less, I lean in, “Why?”

“Does that matter to the last one I would ever need to face?”

“If I told you it would be the key to my demise?”

“Then I shall pray for you to fall before the words escape my lips.”

Acceptance, is a simple thing. Tiring of this useless banter, I allow myself to to fall to the floor beneath us. 

“Then shall I be the rock that chain you to this hell? Are you my Sisyphus, unable to find the happiness in simplicity?”

-

It takes a while. Choking, dismemberment, draining of blood. It’s greatly uncomfortable, but far easier than fighting tooth to nail to fall under the same fate. The creativity, only increased- from the onslaught of verbal cries and jostling off of buildings.

At a certain point, I wonder if this would kill them, as well as I. Or was it the hubris that had led them to survive so far.

“You couldn’t have called the other versions of ‘us’ just ‘yourself.’ Unless you did?”

Voice raspy from overuse and seething anger, “Does that matter?”

“We can see, quite clearly, that we are the ‘same person,’” I explore with great intrigue, “But does that mean we must share the same name? We hardly share the same resolve nor ideals.”

It’s the shifty eyes that had so boldly stared into my own no longer meeting mine- that was the loudest voice that could be heard from them. They probably knew sooner.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“What is this supposed to be?”

I close my eyes, pained from looking straight into those eyes. That, despite all other targets hurt the most.

“We were destined to meet, regardless if you wished to chase your initiative so strongly or not.” 

 A quiet noise from above is all the cue I had to continue.

“You hate me, don’t you?”

“Huh?” A mocking voice called out, “Are you serious? Why else-”

“But isn’t that hatred just misguided love?”

Ah. A dull aching pain by my skull as they push down on my eyes in reply. We both knew it wouldn’t kill me-- but that didn’t mean I didn’t respond to pain. I was still human, after all. Despite their doubts of the fact at least.

“You’re an idiot.”

“That would make you one too, if  you’ve forgotten.”

“We just talked about how it’s different- but that’s not the point.”

It’s odd, but I no longer feel like smiling. Since when did my other self feel so childish?

“Did the others fight back?”

“Not so much as you.” Comes the venomous spite. “At least they had the decency to die.”  

I hum in response.

It takes a while for the other me to give up. We’ve waltz both mentally and literally- tracing the world that shaped ourselves and yet-

At some point it just became pointless to expend effort.

It was suddenly far more peaceful, these oncoming days. Lying there, again with my other-self who now allowed me to go about my life. The grass fresh, and the air clean. 

But there is an elephant in the room. Staring at the now listless ‘I,’ it felt too...

Off.

All I could do was accept it however.

“Can you kill me?’

“... What?”

Eyes that had been lost in the clouds, trying to count the time as it would never end- I watch myself snap back into reality. 

“Can you?”

“Why on earth are you asking that- We both know I can’t. I won't be able to now, and haven’t been able to in the past-!”

It’s certainly an answer. For some reason it means too little to me.

“I’m sorry, but.” I pause, unsure how to phrase the next words, “You don’t want me to.”

“That’s absurd.”

“If you wanted to, I would have been dead the second you had come here.”

“I trie-”

“That didn’t matter. I’m human, but I’m also you.”

A flicker of something passes over their face, as it tries to cover it up for a realization all too wrong.

“Stop saying things we already know.” They demand. It’s... odd. Before it was terrifying- then it became a tad bit annoying- Now... Now it felt like a grief I could not accept. “Why bring this up now?”

“Other dimensions, no, that would not be ‘us-’ and time travel... Well, we seem to look the similar age, don’t we?”

“I don’t remember being so annoyingly cryptic.”

“You didn’t want to tell me why, but it’s because you didn’t know.” I hold their hand in mine, now trimmed and cleaned of blood. It’s nice knowing that at least they would know which ‘self’ had stained them next. “If you had wanted to kill me, we wouldn’t have met.”

They don’t respond, clearly both out of hesitation of the future and of what I was about to say.

“You. You cannibalized all of the other versions of ‘us,’ except for me.” 

Almost comedically angry, they stare back.

“You can’t die.”

“What?” came their outraged voice, before they hesitated and added quieter, “Did you... try?”

“I could, I know what to do.”

A beat and a pause. A tear falls from their eye. I didn’t need to hear it to know.

Please.

“You said,” I begin, “That I would have to fall myself to hear your story, but as you are at my mercy?”

They stubbornly look away. Despite knowing better, for a second it almost feels like a denial of my wish.

They start talking, minutes later. 

“It frustrated me.”

-

The first time I’ve ever met my doppelganger, they were annoying.

The second time I’ve met a doppelganger, they were cruel.

The third, the fourth, the fifth, they start to blur together. 

At a point, you lose track. I’ve forgotten, how many but it could not have gone beyond the double digits.

Some takes longer than others. Some didn’t need much assistance from me-- because they could see who I was, just as much as I could see them.

Then, came the forgetting.

Besides the cruelty I had hurled at them, I barely remembered anything aside from how I had hurt them. It was such a deeply seated satisfaction that I had easily gotten addicted to. 

The last time.

Well, there wasn’t. 

As I had gone along to chase after the others, they had all gained in strength- became far more vocal and vibrant against the blood that colored my days.

Then, someone who resembled the ‘first’ came to be.

Frustration, anger, sadness. 

Then came acceptance. I could not say it was nice, but it was peaceful.

They turned to me.

“You’ve consumed all things,” They announce in that lethargic voice of theirs, “Anger, morality, all things that you could see in yourself, because you wanted to destroy them. Destroy yourself, last of all.”

I stare wordlessly more. Then, the silence became overbearing.

“You are?”

“The hope that let you make this journey.”

That was stupid. This was all- everything about this all is stupid. 

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Hope, is nothing more than a drive.” They stare, fixated upon my neck. I’d feel threatened- if this had been anyone else. “You wish, that once this is all done, it will be better. That it will be happier. That you could do something for someone- anything.”

“That-That’s” My mouth dries out.

“These past days were nice.”

“They were.”

They bite into my neck, blossoming into pain, as they steal my consciousness. Love, I decide, shall return to hope.

They do not cry, because they never had.

But the skies feel all too cloudier.

“I hope that you will become, someone other than me.” They say.

How absurd. 

A portal opens before you and out steps a version of yourself covered in blood. “I’ve killed hundreds of you and they say you’re the strongest one. Time to find out why.”

Fire Emblem Awakening is like. Someone has to kill the dragon. Someone has to kill the dragon. This is how the story goes, this is how every story goes. The evil dragon rises and the virtuous hero puts it down and this is how the world heals. Someone has to kill the dragon. But the knight won't do it, he loves the dragon too much, and the knight's daughter won't do it, she loves the dragon too much, someone has to kill the dragon, someone has to fix this world, but no one is willing to do it, no one is even willing to try, so what is there to do? What is the dragon to do? It has no choice but to do the deed itself.

Wedding & Funeral

what if a rat said cheesus christ