It was midday outside the monastery; the bell had tolled a few times, signaling the hour. People bustled about, going through their daily tasks. Some sat atop blankets with trinkets laid out before them, clearly selling items to tourists visiting the area.
In the center of it all sat two figures: a tall, chiseled man carved from stone, and across from him, a short, sickly one whose fragile frame seemed barely able to hold him upright. Even the sight itself was somber, casting a ghostly mood over the nearby space.
"…"
"My grandfather once said that man speaks of virtue and weakness, yet craves power,"
The short man coughed out, each word harshly laboring his frail body.
"That we condemn villains for evil, yet the common man commits the greatest sin."
He toyed absentmindedly with a small rock on the ground. An almost imperceptible expression of pain flickered across his face as he did so.
"…My grandfather was a fool,"
He said, finally, bitterness lacing his breath.
"It was his pride that made him cling to his ways no matter the people around him, rigid as a stone sculpture."
"But an idea that no longer fits the world around it becomes poisonous if kept. He may have lived as the same man he had been in his youth, but he suffered greatly for it. His pride was his downfall, and he died a miserable death."
The short man coughed yet again—a rattling, hollow sound escaping his lips, as though bones were loosely clattering inside him. Discomfort passed through the man's eyes before he looked toward the stone sculpture once more.
"It pains me to think my end will be just as miserable."
A heavy silence seemed to settle around them as the sickly man lost his place in the world, staring off into some distant, unknown realm. His trance was only broken when the monastery bell rang, its sharp sound echoing through the area.
"You know, my grandfather—after he took me in—named me Icarus."
Icarus laughed briefly, but it faded, leaving his expression sullen.
"I never really got it. Why name a child after the greatest example of hubris? I thought it was meant as a warning for a while, but then it finally dawned on me."
"The old man wanted me to succeed where he failed—to live a glorious life, with a death just as glorious to match it. To die knowing I touched the sun, laughing as I fell to my doom…"
He fell silent.
"I don't wish to face death, though..."
"Can't I just succeed without any downfall? What's so wrong with that?"
His voice trembled, bitter and hollow.
"Can't fate give me a break? Can't it let me live long enough to enjoy my accomplishments?"
He looked down at his hands, shaking with a sea of unspent emotion.
"I did what no other man had, and yet I have nothing to show for it."
He looked towards the sky, voice breaking under the weight of his words.
"Others will reap the rewards of my discovery, and I won't even taste the aftermath of my accomplishments."
A hollow laugh escaped him.
"You know all my life that's what I chased? Success, that is, and the power that was needed to reach it."
"But I could never reach it."
"Because power can only be obtained through effort— for something to be gained, something must be given in return. Power must be earned, granted by a source unknown."
"And I never could be granted it."
Icarus glanced at the stone giant, a knowing glint in his eye.
"But if something can be given, it can also be taken… right?"
"So why not steal the power you want from the hands of the individual with the most power of all?"
"Why not take power from the universe itself?"
He stretched out his hand.
It was a horrid sight—charred and cracked, as though plunged into an inferno. Yet it still functioned; his fingers moved, trembling but intact. Sparks leapt from his fingertips, arcs of electricity dancing along the stone man, flowing through its cracks. The faint smell of ozone hung in the air, and heat radiated from his hand like a dying sun.
With a loud crack, a piece of the stone man shattered, falling at Icarus's feet.
Slowly, he withdrew his hand, staring at the jagged fragment.
"Have you truly forsaken me, world?"
Icarus looked towards the sky, awaiting an answer that would never come.
"…Then I truly am alone."