Vision sits bolt upright in his bed, beads of sweat falling down his face.
“Blood. I see it again, all over again.”
He draws a breath, returning to calm.
“I see a bullet.”
“Designed for but a single purpose, that of pain. To tear through flesh, to wound and maim. Because where the bullet goes, pain is all it knows.”
“Pain is such an overpowering sensation, is it not?”
His fingers run across his face, to where his eyes once stood.
“It is our body’s alarm system, the mind’s way of warning. For this reason, pain will override all else. Stub your toe on a table leg and that pain fills your entire body, becoming all you can think about. Joy, love, happiness all cease to exist in amongst the void of pain.”
“A tool designed for nothing but pain can bring nothing but a singularity to those it touches. It spreads pain, because that is all it knows. If severe enough, that pain can cause the body to shut down. Vision to black out, hearing to deafen, and to feel nothing but the overbearing sense of agony the bullet has left.”
“The bullet does one job, it causes pain. It fools the body into ignoring all else but itself because pain is all it knows.”
“But what happens to the body when that pain never goes away?”
“When healing never comes, one becomes crippled by pain. Unable to operate as it should. Pain limits the beholder, the body never embraces it.”
“Because deep down, the soul knows the truth. Pain is the enemy, not the friend. Pain is necessary, a part of the prism of existence. But it is not the way, the path or the answer.”
“It is a bullet. Only ever designed to do one job, to hold us back.”
“All you see is pain, Grimskull, old friend. You were reborn that day, it may have been my hands but it was your cowardice that placed you in that cauldron. All you know is the agony of your past, present and future. You are the bullet, travelling through Arcadia spreading nothing but the one thing you experience. Through hellfire and rage, the bullet speaks.”
“The people of the Slums do not need any more pain. They need not be told of agony, for that is their experience. As a bullet, you cannot offer them the hope they need. You can only offer them more suffering, hoping it will free them somehow.”
“But bullets don’t free people, they don’t find joy or hope. Everything they touch gets destroyed in the process. The only way to stop a bullet is to stop it being fired.”
“I am the hope that the people need, Grimskull. The Third Eye shows me the path. Where you see pain and spread your hellfire of suffering, I see the path forward. I see that which is hidden from your eyes. That which you will never see.”
“I see everything you will never be.”
“And I will show Arcadia the way, the truth and the light through your pain.”