Last night was the first night in a long time that I prayed.
Both my cohorts have died in the past few days. I know that they have been responsible for the deaths of villagers. To label them as criminals and murderers to try and put a moral wedge between them and myself would be a fool's task. I knew what they were doing and I fullheartedly approved even if I wasn't the one killing with my own hands.
This world has fallen, so why wouldn't I want others to fall?
I devoted the first half of my life to "the way" and to protecting the sacred meteor that Arceus came from. Arceus was my father, the life bringer, and the meteor was its own womb. With the blessing of Arceus, I lead a happy life. I had a family. I had a son. I was alive.
But then everything changed. A mafia group infiltrated my village. They caused chaos and disorder and us villagers had no way of knowing who was responsible for these attacks. Eventually the sacred meteor was even shattered and I did my best to preserve the few shards that weren't pillaged. The village elders gathered and tried to figure out a way to defeat the mafia, a way to save the village.
The solution that they came up with was hellish beyond my imagination.
It was decided that every day, all of the villagers would gather to lynch one person suspected of being a mafia member. Who would be lynched would be decided by a simple majority vote. The solution for the village to purge the mafia was for the village to kill itself. And on the second day of the lynchings, my village betrayed me. My wife was lynched.
During that night, I fled my home with my infant son. We found a new village, a new life, in a far away land.
I tried my best to follow the path of Arceus, to honor the few shards of the mother-meteor that I kept with me. But no one in this new place followed Arceus. I was alone in my religion and I soon began resenting myself for it. Why would Arceus let my innocent wife be killed? Why would he make it feel impossible for me to honor his name? Why was my old life shattered? I dreamed of the imaginary, I dreamed of the real, but I could never escape the symbolism of her death, the symbolism of faith through struggle, the rhetorical dilemma of starting anew while being rooted in trauma. I was stuck within an interface that denied both the reality of the world and the reality of my "self."
I watched my son grow up. He seemed unworried, unconcerned, and well-adjusted and I was happy for his sake. But I felt so empty.
After a few years... tremors of something new spread throughout the village. A few people mysteriously were killed at night. The air would fill with poison on the rare morning. The mafia whispers were circulating once again. But the events seemed isolated and eventually things calmed down. But I knew. And for whatever reason, this time I wasn't afraid. I was still numb and angry and resentful, but afraid I was not.
I fell into a new group of people. People who understood my pain. People, who like me, had lost faith in not only the gods but in humanity as well. And it then became clear to me. If my wife had been lynched for supposedly being in a mafia, then it was only fitting that I join or start my own group. I was destined to be in a mafia. I found that thought to be very warm, soft, safe. I felt like I could have control over my own life. Team Meteor was then formed.
My son couldn't grasp what we were doing and as he got older he tried his best to resist me. Why would he ever want to harm the village that raised him, the village that he knew his whole life? He was too young to remember. Too young to remember that the village was the enemy, the culprit for his mother's death. Too young to realize that the only way to stop a corrupt village was to corrupt the village again in order to fight it. And in the end, he chose to protect his village rather than protecting his own father.
Team Meteor was going to change the world. ZEL was an unknown, but I wasn't concerned with him or it or whatever it is. Maybe that's why I never climbed to the top of the mafia. I never tried to understand the organization behind me, I just wanted what I wanted.
Everything was going smoothly. How fitting for the village to kill its innocent all under the guise of Team Meteor's influence. How fitting for my ally Fern to kill the hero, to rob him of his armor and wear it as his own. As a piece of loyalty, he even gave the armor to me.
But it was a miscalculated move. I always knew that Team Meteor had formed after the village's original mafia. I knew we were not alone. Fern was doing a marvelous job masquerading as the village leader, allowing us to kill the village from within. But then the other mafia attacked. Fern died. We lost control. Then our leader Lin died. I was alone again.
Last night, I was approached by a shadowy figure at night. He raised a knife in his hand with a blade that gleamed in the darkness. He did not know who I was, but I knew him. I only survived by making a deal. He told me to kill the village clown if I wanted to live. And I did. And even now, that shadow has betrayed me as he now has voted for me to be lynched.
It was the first time I had ever killed someone. The clown was just sleeping there out in the open. It was easy, easier than it should have been. Looking at the lifeless body before me, it didn't feel real. The corpse was familiar but completely foreign. I imagined that his lifeless arm was my arm for a second, that his leg was my leg. My own body seemed not of me. The clown's body seemed not of this world.
Last night was the first night in a long time that I prayed to Arceus. As I see all of you around me, it is very clear now that I never deserved for Arceus to grant me my prayers. A fallen priest is fallen forever.
I don't understand this world anymore. Did anyone ever really understand it? Why do we let a village do this to us? Is it safer to be the same while schizophrenicly searching for differences that threaten our unity? This structure, this system, this village... it is all not real. It is an interface. It is a system of perceptions that only aims to make sure it as a system stays alive. The people in the system abide by it, make it so, give it life. But it takes the life from anyone who even sees it. We created the system out of our language, out of our rules but now it has created us. We are not real anymore.
I came into this village hoping to be Reborn. I wasn't. A young child can be reborn because he still has an inkling of a memory of being born in the first place. My son, Taka, was able to be reborn when brought to this village. But I was not, I was too removed from birth. Even with the shard of Arceus's womb in my pocket right now, I was too removed from birth to be reborn. I never could start anew, my life and the death of my wife were too unforgettable.
None of this excuses my actions here. But likewise nothing can excuse the actions of the village; of any village that lynches or any village that perpetuates its own structure at the cost of the people. As a village becomes thought of as real, then the people are just pieces and not real themselves. There is no self, there is only structure that binds the self to language in a constant system of referrals. The village is a constant system of referrals but it only refers to pieces of itself and never to what is real.
To my son, Taka... I ask you to see what is real. You are the only person I have ever known who was Reborn. Please... I ask of you... After my death and after the death of the one last mafia man left... end this system. See what is real. After your task is accomplished, don't ever let this village or another village perpetuate its structure at the cost of the lives of its people. Taka... to help you make my wish come true... I leave you with the armor that Fern gave me. Use it to survive the night. Use it to defeat the last mafia. And then please figure out what is real and live a life worth living, something I was not able to do.
I raise a shard from the sacred meteor, a shard from the womb of Arceus, to stab my own heart... Maybe this way I can be Reborn again and live in an era where the village doesn't mask what is real...