《A Flawed Premise》


 000 - Prologue

    "I wish I didn''t hope for a better future.


    "I wish I didn''t want to live.


    "I wish I didn''t want to love.


    "Those are my three wishes Genie. Grant them."


    The hardened visage of a stoic figure cut a silhouette in the dim light. A keen blade held to his own throat, while a very different figure recoiled in the mirror, bound as it was to the seemingly emotionless man.


    It watched the man closely, and spoke softly.


    "For your first Wish, I take your threads of Fate. Hope no more, for you have no Future."


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    The blade pressed deeper into his neck. It wasn''t enough. He still wanted to live.


    "For your second Wish, I take your Heart. Want no more, you have no Meaning in life."


    The world turned grey. The blade slipped in his hand as he stumbled forwards, fist cracking the mirror. A hollow sensation in his chest. Wetness bloomed in his hands, around the blade and where shards of the mirror cut into him.


    He fell to his knees. He didn''t care about the pain! But the emptiness in his chest was growing, and an animal instinct, a panic to live set in. It wasn''t enough. He still wanted to live.


    The Genie peered out beyond the shattered mirror beneath his hands. With an almost gentle sadness, he spoke.


    "For your third and final Wish, I''ve already taken your Heart. Without Meaning, the Void already in you will consume you. Without a Future, there is no one to love. For you?


    "I take your Past. Know not the love of a mother. The love of friendship. Want no more for love.


    "Rest."


    The man slumped to the ground and the Genie fled.


    But the Void remained.

 001 - Void

    The man, a shell really, had shambled on with life, moving from one ''milestone'' to the next, drifting through time till now.


    To the Genie, the man seemed just like all that came before him. The beginning of yet another cycle. They went like this- everything that happens before it was freed, wishes three granted to its finder, its freedom and thereafter the world was it''s plaything. There''s more to the cycle, but as the Genie granted the man''s wishes, it felt a dissonance as its powers seeped into the man to grant his wishes. A curious anomaly, but not unusal over innumerable cycles. It peeked into the man''s heart, and realised it had lapsed in caution in its eagerness for freedom. So wretched was the man, that no mere Wish could fix him. Even the Genie had to draw back from the Void that lay within him, lest its'' power be drawn into him, lost.  Too late, it realised that the true wants of the man was imprisoned within a Void that had never been fed. It had granted the man''s wishes.


    Fate. Future.


    Heart. Meaning.


    Past. Love.


    Meaningless words it had spoken, save as ritual to guide its power to the man''s wants. The power to fulfill three wishes sank into the Void, and the Void started to grow.


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    Between the blood loss, the stress of being in the presence of the Genie and the burgeoning Void that had begun growing within him, the man passed out. Shards of glass squealed briefly as he shifted into unconsciousness. His blood flowed freely weaving a dark, crimson river across the shattered glass beneath him. The shards, each a tiny reflective island, gleamed starkly against the spreading pool, then dimmed, as though the darkness within them was screaming to break free. Now empowered, the Void fed on man''s subconscious, leeching concepts and ideas.


    Prison. Chains. Oppression.


    Fear. Loneliness.


    Acceptance.


    The world rippled. The darkness within the glass stilled completely and seeped out, dancing across the blood like smoke on water. It thickened into a dense, motionless fog that simply built up around the man. At some critical point, it condensed even further into chains that coiled around him and lashed into the walls and floors of the room for support as it pulling him upright, before suspending him off the ground entirely.


    The Genie, now unbound, saw no reason to stick around so close to the growing disaster it had inadvertently helped to create. It would watch... from a safe distance.


    The Void grew, and by the time the man awoke bound in chains of his own making, the world knew an Old One had been stirred awake.


    His eyes opened in a single, smooth motion, calm and unhurried. Soon, others would come to take his chains. Everyone would, eventually.