Umbrix — Soliloquy
Who said I wanted to be the villain, the one trapped inside a necklace, only to be released over and over again by people who only want things and things from me?
Yes, I can generate gold out of thin air for you.
Why, of course, I am forever indebted to you for releasing me from that cramped prison, so I will break a couple of universal philosophical laws and make that person fall in love with you. P.S. They wouldn’t have fallen in love with you before.
Yes, I can certainly bring that person back from the dead, whatever that means, even though he already met his fate while trying to search for the necklace.
I can do all those things and more, and that is what all of you want me for, so why is it that these things are why all of you keep imprisoning me? Can’t any of you understand that you are the ones turning me into the villain? I’m not doing any of these things for myself; they’re all for everyone else, so why am I the one being stuffed into these necklaces?
Anyway, you keep bringing me out, giving me power, then stripping it all away once you realize it is better to be with everyone else and empty…or when you die trying to do stupid things like being overly greedy and trying to steal the throne and sending a whole country into ruin.
So why do you keep blaming me for what everyone else does? Isn’t it normal to repay your debts?
When I was nine, all those many years ago, I broke the rules to rescue someone who was going to die in a deep, dark cave, all alone with nothing but the sounds of their screams resonating around them. They were my friend. They had powers. They were too cowardly to use them.
Everyone was oh so very nice and caring to me when I conjured them up out of thin air.
“How’d you do it?” they asked me, and of course, because I was a child, I told them I just could.
They held a big feast that night, decked me out in bright and colorful clothes, shimmering golden necklaces and such; I don’t really remember anymore.
“Can you turn lead into gold, too?”
“Why, certainly I can; it’s quite simple, and I don’t even need that lead; I can just make it.”
I did it for them. The village became rich, a hot new tourist location. I saw how welcoming everyone was to my powers, and pushed my friend to do the same. My dear old friend, who could push order or disorder onto the world with a single wave of the hand.
Behind my back, the elders researched and researched for ways to trap me. They found out about my friend and their powers because they told their parents and showed their parents, without telling me at all.
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And guess what?!
They told that friend and their family that I was going insane, going power-hungry, planning to kill the village in their sleep with a single thought!
Why would I do that? Why would I destroy the village that loved me, that cared for me, that I grew up in? Why would you ever think I could do such a villainous act?
Well, I certainly can now, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, here I am, in front of all of you, but especially you, my dear old friend. You’re not really my friend, though. My friend has found peace in the land beyond, after that last cycle where they promised the forces beyond that they had found a solution for me.
Treating me like the problem, something that needs a solution.
Why am I hurting all of you? Why am I trying to hurt all of you? Why am I trying to hate you, the person with the powers, like my friend who isn’t really my friend anymore, but a poor soul caught up in a struggle that wasn’t yours to begin with? You, my poor little soul, are tangled up in punishments my friend and each of their reincarnations kept pushing back and back until they made it to the peaceful land beyond, to gallivant in fields forevermore.
Who deserves to be called a villain? Why am I acting like a villain? Who am I? I call myself Umbrix, but that wasn’t really my name?
Why am I breaking down? Why can’t I remain stolid, solid in my beliefs?
You’re wondering why I’m not just fighting you straight on, but who said I wanted to be a, a, a…
villain?
I was only fifteen when this cycle started, and now I no longer have a body I can truly call my own, or an age I can claim, or even a name. I don’t even remember my life, my history, except for all this accursed anger I hold within myself!
But what do you care?
You’ll always see me as the villain, anyway, and you’re not even listening to what I’m crying and screaming and gasping into the empty void that surrounds me…
all you hear are the shrieks, the yells that the forces force from my soul.
