The End of the World

There is no word for “death” in True Reality. The idea of finality doesn’t exist when you are dealing with things that always were and that always will be. The closest words we had for the concept of nonexistence were things like “synthesis” or “amalgamation”.

To give a very loose mental image of how this idea works, imagine a river. If it rains really hard, that river may overflow and cause a small stream to form outside of its original form. However, if the stream grows too large or too small, its existence will shift back into the river again. Either the steam will dry up as the waterflow stays only in the river or the stream will grow back into the river, expanding it out. No water is created or destroyed, its form just changes.

True Reality is like that river. Surges of energy cause shifts and changes and result in offshoots like this particular plain of existence. Eventually the offshoots lose their structure, merging back into the reality they came from.

That I need to use the word “had” earlier implies that this view is probably flawed. I always was in True Reality and now am not. Unless I break this mortal form, an idea that seems increasingly unlikely, there will be a time when I don’t exist.

This idea is frightening and so counter to everything I know that I was able to willingly reject it until recently. Even Huntstone existed after he “died”, after all. But, when the Wraith took over my body and was researching how to merge into Tobias’s body, I learned that the magic required ended the target’s existence. There was no way to come back from something like that.

Then Robin’s mom died. I don’t wish to write much more on the subject. I feel in part responsible for what happened, if only because I should have gotten the police involved with Vincent sooner and not tried to solve such supernatural problems myself. But would the police listen to my story that my best friend’s boyfriend was possessed by a demon and needed help? I could have used the Truth on them, but the Truth only works for so long when the mortal mind is so much happier accepting a falsehood.

On the other side of the discussion, there are people like my classmate Nate. Nate is a ghost, stuck in the misery of endless high school. But posing as a high school student is the closest he can be to being a full person. He hides the truth of being a ghost and goes crazy when others in the school use their supernatural powers freely. Nate should be free to pick whatever life he wants, but he worries about what could happen when people learn he’s a ghost.

In the middle, there’s me. Leanne has often asked me what is it that I am - an alien entity out of sync with this existence forced into a mortal body or a teenage girl with the powers of a being beyond human understanding?

I didn’t have a good reply until after Leanne nearly died - it shouldn’t be a question of what I am. She should have been asking me who I am, and that answer is now “I’m Chantel Conet. I’m the person who’s going to end this world.”  

Not an end of fire and destruction. I want a synthesis of the mortal world and the supernatural world.

I used to think it was my duty to protect the mortal world from the supernatural because no one else would. I felt that mortals needed to be protected or else they would be taken advantage of by things they couldn’t understand. Except, they can understand. Robin is proof of that to me. She’s managed to stand up to Vincent, despite their past.

And mortals aren’t blameless in this mess either. Nate hides that he’s a ghost to avoid telling mortals the truth.

I am a champion for the Truth, am I not? Then how can I stand by when the world is divided out of fear of the Truth?