Molten liquid bubbles and boils within a great vat. We have been here before. Vision sits alone, feeling the heat that chokes the air from his words.
“Choices…”
Vision’s voice comes slowly as he processes the path that led him to this moment.
“Our lives are a series of choices lain before us. These choices fashion us, and as much as we make choices in our lives, our choices make us.”
“The fire shows the memory of a choice made long ago, one that illuminated a path to more choices laden with hatred and suffering.”
Tears fall down his face as he chokes on the words.
“Yet, he spared me. He made the choice that I never could.”
“The Third Eye is a light, shining in a dark world as one chooses the path they walk. But light can only illuminate what it touches, nothing more. If that light had illuminated more of the path ahead, would I have made the same choice?”
“Would I have spared you, Walther?”
Vision stands, holding up a golden coin. He runs his fingers over its surface.
“Foresight is the ability to perceive that path. If I had only had the foresight to see what Grimskull was preparing, would I not have ended this war sooner?”
He runs the coin through his fingertips.
“Your customers, Lamplight, seek your ability to illuminate their own paths. You’re only too happy to shed some light on what they desire.”
“Yet you illuminate just enough for them to strike the deal you want. They get everything they truly desire, yet you keep shrouded in darkness the tainted fine print of their choices.”
Vision tosses the coin, listening to the sizzle as it is swallowed up by the molten liquid.
“A love potion that will cause the beholder’s muse to fall in love with them, only to ruin their life in the process when they find out how abusive their muse truly is.”
He tosses a second coin into the vat.
“A book that grants all the knowledge of the world, only to be driven mad by an insatiable thirst for everything contained within its pages.”
Vision’s hand, empty of coins, balls into a fist.
“You illuminate just enough for your customers to be taken as fools. If they had the foresight to see the true consequences of their choices, would they still cut a deal?”
“If you had the foresight to see everything you were taking on, the deal cut to get your shop back and the consequences that will ultimately come your way… Would you still take that deal?”
Vision shakes his head, finding resolve in his voice.
“The thing about choices is that once we make them, we’re stuck with them. Our choices are irreversible.”
“I have faced the consequences of my choices, and found my life spared. The Third Eye illuminates that which you hide in darkness, allowing those blind to the choices they are making to truly see.”
“The time has come for you to pay the consequences of your choices, I will shed some light on your little pathway of tainted desires.”