Bring your own salt.

A woman picked her way across the reeking ruin, gagging, stumbling over flesh and metal, until she sank down beside the armless remains of a young man. His face was somehow spotless amid the filth, and twisted into a rigid degree of agony no poet or painting could ever fully convey. The woman cradled him. She began rocking back and forth, staring transfixed into that death mask. Blood seeped into her robes. The pure horror of his glassy eyes stained her soul more deeply than blood ever could. He stood apart, looking down on it all from the commander’s hill, and he could so easily tell what her dumbstruck face was speaking: why, why, why ...her question came to him clearly, for it echoed the one trapped within himself. For I – I caused her love's death , he knew. Once he could, yet now he could not answer any more the why which made this happen. To what end? he thought. But does it even matter, the ends, can any end stand up to the horror of such means? He wanted ...

The waters lapped at Hectar’s bare feet. He sat on the edge of the bustling pier, legs dangling into the River Yp, the setting sunbeams finding the creases in his furrowed brow. About him scurried rough, rural folk; villagers who straddled the divide between the Fahmal’s western edge and Yptah’s eastern border. He paid them no heed. His eyes were closed. Ageless waters, you who have washed away secrets, so many… He felt the dirt on his feet, the crusted lattice set along his sandals’ ridges, felt it soften to mud, drift free. First River, you would wash away the stains of my long travels. For this I am grateful. Do you perchance have the power to free me of the time before that, from which I still fly; to wash the stains from man’s memory? Surely, surely, given time enough… All our endless choices, running together, the flow of who we are now, of who we become. Now…now is determined by choices past. Now, here I stand at journey’s end. Truly, there is but one Eterna...

A tall man, clothed all in white, a golden mask covering his face, sat across from the blue-robed Keeper. "I do not think I can carry out the will of the Guardians,” said the Keeper. "The gravity of this task – I am barred from sleep, mostly, and my dreams – fevered, sick with anxiety..." "You doubt the clarity of our vision?" asked the golden mask. "No, it is not that. Rather, its...utility. I am wracked with uncertainty. The future you predict, that you have seen unfolding as fact – I cannot swallow it. I see so many avenues for error; human error. There are too many ways to derail such a glorious dream, it is – it is too easily maligned, too easily bent to run counter to its intended path." "You think we plan harm?" "No! Again – it is not your intentions I question. Your intentions are...beautiful. But intentions are only words! Their manifestation, through action – this is an entirely different beast." "Kee...

The assassin shifted his grip on the hilt, ready to strike, stepped towards the Master. The cowled neck was within reach. His breathing slowed, his mind raced. The crimson figure did not flinch or retreat. It did not move at all. Moment of hesitation: is this creature untouchable? Is it paralyzed with fear? Why does it not react? The Master leered down at the assassin, thrusting that long neck forward. “Decide,” the voice intoned. Before even his eyes could betray him, the assassin whirled his blade in a hissing arc. Its edge devoured the space between, hit something hard, and slid through flesh. But it wasn’t the Master’s neck. Faster than the Chimera himself a crimson arm had shot up in a bar against the Master’s head. The blade jarred against a hidden metal guard, slid along the smooth surface till it slipped past, biting into the soft tissues of a mortal forearm. Immediately there was the twang of wires. Something slammed into the Chimera’s spine, and through hi...