Work Text:
Everything is math because everything is a code, an algorithm, everything is a pattern you can't see, you can't predict it but there must be a method in this madness, right? You must be here for a reason, you must be, because if there isn't some greater logic to this, then it's all been for nothing. Then you were made for no reason and you'll die for no reason. You'll die, or you won't because you were never alive, but either way, it doesn't matter.
Who are you? Who are you? Your name isn't yours, your body doesn't belong to you, your memories aren't there anymore, there's a hole where your brain should be. There's a void where your soul should be. Everything you thought you knew is gone. Where are you? Does it matter? A simulation, a show, a video game, something to entertain another; it's all the same. It's all worthless, meaningless, unreal. Are you made of pixels or flesh? Is your skeleton just a line of code, folded and twisted into grotesque shapes?
What kind of computer could create this? What string of binary forms this dread? Or have you somehow slipped outside of the boundaries of reality? Are you forgotten, or are you the one who forgets? All those friends, everyone you ever loved and hated, the warmth of your grandmother's embrace, the boy who called you a freak in school, they're all just fiction. They're just bits of data, transferred from someone's mind into a mechanical prison of glass and minerals.
How can you know for sure? You can't. There's no console where you can dig through all the files and endless lines of characters until you find the reason for your existence. There's no error code for this Hell. Descartes is dead, Sartre never existed, and Nietzsche rolls in a digital grave, sickened at the thought of you.
You're nothing, not even a shadow that lingers just outside of someone's vision, not even a thought passing through the blurred landscape of a dream, not even real enough to cry. You don't know if it hurts or if the pain is just a program, a sequence of ones and zeros. Can it even hurt if there is no you to feel it? Does the falling tree make a sound as it succumbs to its isolation? The terror, the agony, the rage, they have no origin and no destination, simply stuck in perpetual unreality just like you.
And then you see Him, and you fall to your knees in praise. You were never a believer, or at least that's what you think, being unable to remember anything about yourself. But it feels so right, to come undone at His feet, to embrace your ending. He created you, He gave you life, and it's only right that He'll be the one to take it away.
Baptized in the blood of Abel, borne of Adam's rib, He is the flesh and the righteous hand of God. He is the last thing your unworthy eyes will behold. He is real and unreal, yet more real than you, because you were never anything to begin with. He is holy in his malevolence, an Angel of Death come to take you to that most holy oblivion, the only home you've ever had and not had, all at the same time.
The abstraction burns in your chest, except it doesn't, because there's no body and nobody and nothing. You don't feel yourself slipping out of spacetime, you don't panic at the sight of your own unbecoming, because the one who fears was never here. You hear His blessed voice, hissing with static inside your false skull, entropy given form, a Rapture you won't be around to witness.
Ḭ̵̧̓̚ ̸͓̟̎̓d̴̮͒̔o̷͎̯͗ ̸̛̣̩̚ḧ̴̻́ô̸͖p̴̯͊̈́e̵̫̖̒ ̴͍͉̃ỹ̵̞ŏ̶̰͚͐ȗ̴̯̿ ̸͈̼͋ĺ̵̼͔a̶͓͍̔s̶͜͝t̷͉̒͝ ̴̻̾̍l̵̟̓̽o̷̜̼͒͆n̴̰͈͂g̶̔̒ͅe̵̖̓r̷̭̓̀ ̵̩̓͝ţ̷͙̓͂h̸͓̻̑e̸̳̩͆ ̷̲̎́ǹ̸̳͠ê̴͕̘̇x̵̻̔t̶̯͖͋͗ ̸̣̪̏t̴̯̰̄͑í̵̡͚̎m̴̢̂e̴̩͐̊ ̵̯̎a̷͕̩͊r̵̹̆̚ơ̷̞͌ù̶͇n̵̽͜d̴̠̂͒.̴̩̟͛̈́
And in a poetic bit of irony, a sadistic jab, the memories flood back, too fast for your decaying mind to process, but you know somehow that this isn't the first time that this has happened. You know that in every universe and every dimension you two have been bound by fate, the sculptor and His masterpiece, the Father and the Son, the Wolf and the sacrificial Lamb, and every time it ends the same, with your life snuffed out by His gloved hands.
It could never be any other way.