Rebirth...
What a treacherous word. They sell it to you as a new light, as if the whole world would open its doors and let you pass into a clean future, free from the stains of what you once were. It makes you believe you can fix what's broken, that you'll have another chance to choose right. That this time, you won't fail.
For a moment... you believe it. You breathe and swear the air is different. You feel the ground beneath your feet is where you always should have been. You tell yourself that now, yes, the life you longed for is in front of you and you only have to reach out your hand. An eternal dawn... right?
A lie.
Because what shines is only the skin of something rotten. And what they call "destiny" was already written before you were born.
They call you "hero." They say you are the one who will save the world. They fill you with weapons, allies, promises... and you accept it, like a hungry fool who believes the dinner is for him.
But no matter how much you bleed, how many times you get up, how many vows you make — it's all useless. Because your role isn't to save anything. Your role... has always been to die.
Deep down, where not even light dares to descend, sleeps a parasite that wasn't born here. It arrived long before you learned to say your name. It fell from a place where stars are not suns, but open wounds in the skin of the universe. It buried itself in the core of this planet and since then... it waits.
The life you know, the one you think is yours, is only a calculated mistake, a planned accident. Your bones, your blood, your memory... all are the work of that infection. Your ancestors evolved because of its poison, not a miracle. Your victories are crumbs it lets you eat to fatten you up before the feast.
And now, the hunger has awakened. The heartbeat coming from the center of the world grows. You feel the trembling under your feet, the whisper in your chest that isn't your heart, the thick air tasting of rust and old flesh.
There is no way out. Because for the hero, the true hero, only one end awaits... to return to the mouth of the thing that created him.
And at that moment, everything you believed was yours... will cease to be.
~~~~~•~~~~~
It was not a dream. It was not an illusion.
It was his second life... and nothing remained of the ordinary boy he once was. He believed, naïvely, that second chances were a reward, not a trap.
He awoke in a world he knew by heart, one he had traveled countless times alone in the nights before a screen.
He knew where to walk, whom to help, whom to defeat. He was no longer a player, he was part of the story... And he thought that made him invincible.
He traveled through centuries collapsing and devouring each other; made promises he believed eternal and forged bonds so strong he swore neither time nor death could tear them from his hands.
He spilled blood in more than one era.
In the Middle Ages, he fought side by side with his friends against the most feared wizard history remembered.
In a distant dawn, with the sky still young, he annihilated the reptiles who tried to inherit the Earth.
He ventured into the End of Times, where the air was so dead that only the echo of his breathing remained, and there he learned to master magic.
And in an era suspended in the sky, where arcane power reigned, he saw wise men crown themselves arrogantly, believing they had chained the very power that would end up devouring them.
In that Floating Kingdom, where magic was breathed in every stone and cloud, he felt for the first time that maybe... just maybe... they could win.
He invaded the oceanic palace with his group, passing through halls that seemed to beat unnaturally and repulsively, seeking to uproot the madness of a Queen surrendered to the parasite she worshipped like a god... an abomination fallen from beyond the stars.
All the blood spilled. All the scars. All that journey... was for this, to prevent the year 1999 from becoming the date of the world's tomb.
But the script broke.
Why?
He knew what had to happen. He had memorized it, lived it a thousand times in another existence.
Then why was his body paralyzed before the final monstrosity?
Why was the fear so thick he could taste it like rusted iron in his mouth?
He stepped back unknowingly, feet slipping on the shattered floor, his gaze shifting between two fallen figures...
His best friend, with purple hair and broken glasses, and the blonde princess who just minutes ago was still smiling.
A few meters away, kneeling and exhausted, the princess of the magic kingdom barely held herself up, with the wizard she had defeated not long ago staggering by her side.
All... friends, rivals, strangers... lay prostrate before the presence of the invader, as if their bodies surrendered even before understanding it.
The air was distorted.
The Palace was no longer the same... Neither its light, nor its architecture, nor even its reality. Everything had been torn apart and reshaped in a foreign space, suspended like a bubble in the void, where each of them was no more than a dish served for the invader awakening for the first time in this era, in the year 12,000,000.
Upon the monstrosity stood the Magic Queen, her long blue hair flowing like ink, and a smug smile painted on her face, looking at them like cattle.
"You are called Crono, right?" — her voice was calm, almost maternal, but every syllable dripped disdain —
"Listen to my daughter Sarah... and run." — She leaned slightly toward him, looking at him with contempt —
"After all, that's the only thing you and your little friends know how to do. Keep challenging the great Lavos only proves the stupidity tattooed on your bones. Or do you lack the most basic instinct of survival?"
She laughed. The echo of her laughter mingled with the deep roar of the parasite vibrating in the air.
Crono clenched his jaw, tasting his own blood from biting his lip. With trembling hands, he raised his sword. The blade reflected the monstrosity before him, distorted, as if even the metal was afraid.
"Nadia... Lucca..." — he whispered, and the tremor in his voice betrayed the lie he tried to believe —
"Everything will be fine. I won't let anyone die. This is my responsibility... I won't lose anyone who trusted me."
He lied. He knew it. But he needed to hear himself say it to not break. He forced himself to believe it, to think he could fulfill it.
That with his sacrifice, the thread of history would continue... that his death would be a bridge toward victory.
The golden electricity began to envelop him, the air crackling.
But before he could take the first step... Lavos opened its mouth.
And a yellow, unnatural glow exploded from its jaws... an aura that consumes, that erases, that devours everything that was ever real.
There were no screams. There was no pain. There was nothing.
And Crono couldn't move. Couldn't attack. Didn't fulfill his promise. He died before even convincing himself he could be unafraid.
~~~~~•~~~~~
Sometimes, knowing the future doesn't mean you can change it.
Time is like a tree that branches endlessly, and there is never certainty that the branch you remember is the same one you walk.
But in his case, fate did not branch. It closed like an iron trap.
In his first life, he was an ordinary young man.
A university student without glory, with small fears and equally modest dreams... until his heart failed without warning, in a room with no witnesses.
In his second life, he lived as a hero. Or at least, he believed that.
He became the protagonist of one of his favorite games and adapted so much to that world that he stopped distinguishing where he ended and where fiction began.
He was convinced that, as in the original story, he and his friends would triumph. That they would defeat Lavos.
He was wrong. And that mistake erased him from the world.
If there is a third life... if he wakes again... maybe he will fight again. Maybe he will run. Maybe he will be someone else.
But to what world would he go? What mask would he choose? How many more times would he be willing to fight, only to lose?
Time will tell.
But even worlds that dream... sooner or later... wake up.
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To be continued...