Somewhere in the Red District, Nergal stands over a dying man.
“Gemini,” he gasps out. His faint voice echoes years of regret, of desperate choices made in the pursuit of Eden’s illusions.
“Did I bring this upon myself?” he asks, tremors of trepidation slithering through his words. His fever-bright eyes stare at her, questions swirling in their murky depths.
Kneeling down to his level, Pestilence herself smooths back the man’s silver hair.
“We all make our own paths, but to a starving man, a glittering mirage set by men like Aarman Fidel promise pleasure yet only bring pain.”
A dark specter emerges from her; a maelstrom of creeping insects flowing over her hands. As they swarm over the dying man. He watches her with horrified fascination, too weak to resist.
“Fidel,” she continues in a whisper, “cloaked his festering greed under the promise of Eden, a fool’s paradise where morality is but a currency. Now, you lie here bearing the cost.”
The insects crawl upon the man, feasting on festering wounds.
“Our choices become our bane. He sold you his world, while you willingly offered him yours.”
Moving to stand, Gemini stands silhouetted against the bright neon lights of the Red District, a foreboding shadow over all that’s been built here.
“A world he’s bleeding out in, drowning under the very beast of pestilence he’s unleashed, refusing to accept the inevitable tide.”
Her words formed an icy shroud, wrapping around the suffering man.
“Eden is succumbing,” she declares, her eyes void of humanity. “But it can be saved.”
Her eyes drifted back to the dying man as a wheezing breath escaped his lips.
“And you,” she continued, “you will soon find that death is not the end, only a transformation into something more.”
As his life ebbed, a tangible silence descended, leaving only the cold surrender of mortality behind.
“Eden’s twilight will herald the dawn of my garden.”
Her gaze hardens, her voice resolute yet threaded with an underlying threat.
“Aarman Fidel stands at the crossroads of his fate. If he embraces the transformation, he might yet flourish in the heart of a new garden.”
Gemini pauses.
“But should he cling to the crumbling vestiges of his mirage, his path shall mirror yours.”
Gemini’s words punctuate the profound quiet.
“And that is the difference between Fidel and you. He still possesses the power to choose.”
Her words hang heavy in the air, resounding in the oppressive silence.
The dying man is dead.
“Eden’s demise is merely the beginning, a prelude to the blossoming of my garden. The seeds are sown. Let them deny it, let them fight it… they will learn that rebirth follows every end.”
She spares a look down at the dead man.
“Fidel will learn, just as you did in your final moments. Will he cling to the mirage of paradise he created, or will he willingly offer it as you offered your life to him?”
Insects fly or crawl from the depleted carcass back to their master, Nergal smiling as they re-enter her.
“Either way, he’ll learn that the starving only sees food.”
She pauses.
“And I’m hungry.”