A small room. Walls coated with black ooze, bile which erupts from a weakened Vision. Lying in amongst the putrid substance, he feebly sits up.
“They say you are never more alive, than when you are facing your own demise.”
Vision’s voice comes hoarse, weakened.
“In truth, the closer you get to it, the more your mortality consumes you. It eats away at your very being, and leaves you trapped.”
“Fighting to merely survive, so this pestilence doesn’t kill me. That is not living.”
The Awoken One pulls himself to unsteady feet, feeling for the walls that contain him.
“I see a cage.”
“Built to trap something within, but why do we lock things away in cages?”
Vision slams a palm into the bile-covered wall, feeling the substance beneath his fingertips.
“Fear?”
“While it is contained within the cage, it cannot pose a threat to us. While it is caught, we are safe.”
He slams a second palm into the bile-covered wall.
“Control?”
“It makes us feel powerful to control that which we have dominion over. For if we hold something captive for long enough, we will break its will eventually.”
Vision brings his hands towards his face and lets the bile trickle off his fingertips.
“You have caught me in your cage, Gemini.”
“Infested, I see my demise loom at the doors to my cage. Demise that you are responsible for.”
Vision coughs another mouthful of the putrid bile out.
“I’ve been trapped before, spent my years barred away, isolated and struggling to survive, only to find freedom. Yet this cage is unlike any other I’ve been in, you have trapped me now within this cage of bile.”
“Yet, through it all, I seek something that you will never understand.”
“Inner peace. For all you know is suffering and sorrow.”
Vision spits out another mouthful of the black ichor, yet this time out of defiance. His voice gathering strength and vigour.
“You think that your cage will insight me to violence? That I will break under the weight of your pestilence.”
“Your blackened heart hopes the darkness of your cage will swallow me up, but where the night is darkest, there remains hope.”
Vision slams his fists into the ichor coated walls, which begin to crack from the impact.
“This week, I’m not fighting merely to survive any more. I’m fighting to live, to thrive. The Third Eye grants me the power to escape your cage of suffering, in order to find my peace.”
Continuing to pummel at the wall, the cracks give way and light pours into the cage. Vision basks in the feeling it gives as the black ichor drains from the cage out of the hole.
“I may not see you, Pestilence, but I know your presence. I sense the stench of your malevolence, and I will not be overcome by fear.”
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. No more will I be trapped within cages, fighting for freedom. I’ve found my light, one just has to open their eyes to see it.”
“Embrace the Third Eye which frees us from cages.”