"The best way to not get your heart broken is to pretend you don't have one."

-Sheen

━━━━━━━━┓ ? ┏━━━━━━━━

There was complete darkness.

I still am conscious but, I don't know if I'm dead or not. All that I'm sure about is that three bullets were fired, all aimed at a thirteen-year-old body, and what would you imagine for the soma to become? Of course, lifeless.

Yet, as if my consciousness stands too corrected to be moved, I heard something. A piano, yet again, was gushing forth these melodramatic sonatas that are second to none, that not even my revered brother's musical artistry could rival.

With the superlative musical notes as the arch stimuli, I tried to feel my arms and my legs and there they were. Surprised that I'm still alive, I slowly opened my eyes and there, a few inches away from me were bullets that were floating on air and a meter away was my brother, still and frozen... as if the time at that moment completely ceased.

And hovering in the room are these musical notes unlike any other, which I first heard prior I opened my eyes. I turned my head to the direction where it seemed coming from and there she is. A lady-like image playing the piano that my brother recently skylarked in.

Her noble fingers starked across the piano keys. Her long silver hair symbolizes this Junoesque visage, while her facade lit by the beaming moonlight was indescribable in beauty and her sable apparel made her seem to be of noble stature. She has this majestic bearing that makes her easier to be likened to the noble deities of old. To behold such facade...was truly phenomenal that describing the picture through ubiquitous words would be deemed a crime.

"Be careful now. I did not stop time. I just slowed it down a bit. Stay away from the bullets' trajectory young Jaiden", she gracefully said mentioning my name, with this sweet, calm and tender voice that is truly incomparable.

I was mesmerized. There are so many questions to ask.

Why did the bullets' stop mid-air.?...

Why did my brother freeze?...

Who is she? ...

How did she get in here...

Why am I still alive?...

No, I'm dead, aren't I? There's no other explanation for this necromantic turn of events...

These thoughts came to me, boggling my thoughts to the maximum perplexity there is, but, as if she read my mind, she stopped her gracious piano playing and said...

"You're well and alive young man. Hehe." She replied with a little giggle escaping from her cerise-colored lips.

"Oh and uh, I believe I did not introduce myself yet... I am Dea Lacrimosa." She added with her hand at her chest, slightly bowing in a manner of a noblesse.

Lacrimosa? That's not a name that seemed to be from this generation. I thought to myself.

"My. Of course, it's not. I am a living Goddess, existing even before the almighty highest created you, humans."

Highest? Wait...

"Are you perhaps reading my mind, or I said that aloud?" Wondering why she could hear my thinking and can answer my questions that I only presented on my thoughts, I asked her.

"Whatever it seemed to you, let it be", she replied calmly with an innocent smile on her face.

Wait... Going back. Did she just introduce herself as a goddess?

Without any doubt. Without having second thoughts, I believed her words as the evidence was lying live in front of me. The 'frozen-in-time' fired bullets.

"Yes. And I came here to...."

Interrupting her words, I directly found myself kneeling at her with both my knees and my face kissing the ground as if she's the only one I got hoping that she was there sent by the most omnipotent God himself to revive my family, or to turn back time to the way it should be.

"Please I beg of you... "

"You came here to save me... After all you, deities are once heroes, right? You're going to revive my family, we could start all over again. "

Having such implausible thoughts crossing my mind, with the sadness, despair, and confusion all combined, I uttered those words without a spark of sanity left, believing that it will happen.

"I am here not to do those things. I came here to make you mine Jaiden. I will rid you of your freedom, yet I will obliterate your sorrow and your despair. After all, I am the Goddess of Disambiguation."

"Make me yours? Obliterate my sorrows? Don't kid around! Human beings as you deities designed are far too weak to not feel such trivial things! " Out of anger, I said it. Not a typical line that a teen can say, facing an elderly self-proclaiming Goddess.

"My my... There is a way for you to eternally say goodbye to your sadness. If you want it I can give it to you. And... my authority is not limited only to annihilating sadness. I can get rid of every single emotion if you want to. " She replied.

"Then give it to me quickly...please..." I want to have it. If it is the only means to eradicate my emotions right now, I am more than willing.

"I have to say some things first", she insisted.

"Oh. The conditions right. I don't care. I am not one of those who go with cliches. "

"My my! What resolve! Affirmative young Cendrillon." Having said that, her hand gave off this violet light engulfed in this dark-umbral flames, and out of it came a single piece of paper, embedded within a stygian scroll. The mundane-acquainted surroundings, reacting to the surreal phenomenon, the piano started playing by itself while the wind also became vividly strong.

"Sign the contract with your blood..." She directed.

As I looked at how the paper was, I knew that this might be a bad idea. Yet the sadness that night was far greater to be subdued by the doubt I felt that moment. I looked at my dead family, and on my frozen brother. All I cared about that time. Was to make my sadness disappear. That is of utmost priority.

Without further adieu, I pinched my finger on a sword being displayed on the living room's wall. And as I was signing the paper she was saying...

"You see the moon outside? It's beautiful visage? That will become of your heart. Colorless. Your heart will neither be red which is full of anger, nor yellow that is full of passion, nor blue that is set for peace. Your heart will utterly settle on the black... the monochromatic, and void perspective."

I stopped Midway from signing the contract and asked a question of folly. "What do you mean? Isn't black and white, colors? "

"No, they are considered as outcasts on the spectrum of colors. Each is deemed obsolete by the existence of the opposite. This is how abstruse your life will be." she responded.

"What is she saying". Not heeding attention to her words, I fully signed the contract without reading any of the conditions encrypted on it... And then, a scene as if I'm in a profane sorcery movie shoot...

"The contract is complete. You are now my 'Herrscher', the monochrome of my canvas. No power on either heaven, on Earth or the deepest pit of Gehenna will, or can revoke the contract! Oh and Cendrillon. In contrast with what you said earlier, that we deities are once heroes. That's not true, and will never be true. Humans are so simple-minded that they have grown too familiar with the world. And those types, the Highest hates and so do we ranked deities... In other words, human beings did not consider us even once, as heroes, or saviors that will guide them to salvation. For we are in fact, considered as the hindrance to their self-claimed salvation. We are the villains in this story...Crime. Wars. Hate. The love of money. As you already witnessed, these things are the beloved of mankind, and they can't let go. We deities are greatly opposed to it hereby deeming us as the villain of mankind's selfish desires and wishes. The world is the main headquarter of all evil and the good are being mixed up in it too well. lAnd what's worse is that, those deities can't seem to bare having to watch over you guys for the next eon anymore... Now, that is rather unfortunate don't you think?"

As she uttered those words of confusion about salvation and whatnot, the paper which I signed suddenly clung into my hand and frantically begins to engulf itself in those black flames as it showed earlier. It was burning intensely as if it's slowly incinerating my palm... I closed my eyes and screamed in agony and pain with sweat running down my entire body as if I am being melted by the unquenchable black flames.

The wind outside became even more aggressive, that some of the sturdy trees that were encircling the mansion begins to fall, and the things situated inside were drifting all around, and not able to hold back the pain that the scorching flames is giving me, I rolled down the floor with screaming and with gnashing of teeth...until the pain subsided...and the flames slowly quenched in its own will. I was, at first unable to stand up. I took gazes all around only to witness that there is this clock-like tattoo in my left hand. I stood up still heavy with breaths while trying to brush the symbol off but I can't.

"That is now what testify that you are in contract with me. Your insignia. From now, henceforth I, Lacrimosa, declares you to be my 'Herrscher'. "

The contract was effective. I was feeling nothing. I looked at my parents and my sister who is lying the floor lifeless, yet I did not feel anything at all. It was too good to be true and yet...is this the path that I really choose to take? Yes. It should be... There's no possible alternative that I can endure.

"Oh and Jaiden, what do you suggest to this frozen-in-time brother of yours who was the same imbecile who got you through this?" the Goddess exclaimed.

I was expressionless. All I knew was that he did me evil and that he should be punished as retribution. It's not like I felt a sense of vengeance. But...

I slowly walked as to where the three bullets are frozen mid-air that could have killed me if it wasn't for a goddess's unprecedented intervention.

And I, as someone who has lost a part that makes human, a "human"...

Went as to where the bullets are, and reversed their position, changing their trajectory.

So that it will all hit...my brother.

"Lacrimosa, could you unfreeze the bullets, and my beloved brother now?"