💎A Collision of Fates💎 (Straight to Gay) (MxM) (18+)

Interlude

I was gone.

All I did was sleep. My essence, my soul, had been so diluted that it struggled to fill up the confines of my form. I didn't do a lot of thinking or feeling or seeing.

I drifted.

I waited.

Sometimes, I was awake, but it was rare. Sometimes, I was able to watch, but it was rare.

I remember one occasion, quite distinctly, when I was filled with sadness and guilt. I think I may have been overcome with a slight delirium. I kept thinking that I had taken those four men from their homes, and I remember thinking that it had all been pointless, that I was going to perish anyway. I had ruined Sally, Barbara, and Cloe's life for no reason. The feeling was indescribable, sister. It was consuming. So consuming that I used up a great portion of my remaining power to reach out to that other world, to the people that had been left behind.

I reached out, straining, straining, straining. I was up against the limits of my power, I knew, but I kept pushing. Weakly, I managed to see Alton Beach.

Sally Fulton was there. She was sitting on that small rock that the men had jumped off of. Her legs were dangling over the edge and she was gazing at the lake. I can't quite explain the expression on her face. A mixture of sadness and desperation.

Had she given up hope? Was she remembering them? Or was she still looking for them, returning to the place where they had last been? I wasn't sure.

My energy, my being, ran out very fast. In a flash, Sally was gone and I was torn back through the cosmos and shoved into a deep, exhausted sleep.

I don't know how long I was drifting for after that. All I know is that I was ripped out of unconsciousness by a sudden, cold connection. It pierced through my murky, hazy death and brought me back into existence.

There was a naked man inside of me, one I knew quite well.

"Nicholas Fulton."

The man looked around, eyes getting wider. It was remarkable how much he looked like his son. Nick's hair had a slight curl to it, and his body was hairier, but the family resemblance was immediately apparent.

He took a hurried step back, his head darting from side-to-side, clearly looking for the source of the voice.

"Who is that? Where are you?"

"I wish I could appear before you in some sort of recognizable form, human form, but I do not have the power to do that anymore. I've lost so much." Those words pained me. Creating a body had been rudimentary, easy. Now, however, I found my powers to be lacking.

Nick gulped. He looked around for another moment. "Am I... dead?"

"No. You are not dead."

"Are... Are you The Goddess?"

"Yes."

He looked down, and breathed out. "Holy shit. Adam and Chris were right."

"They were. They were right about many things. I was right about many things. You have found your soulmate, and he has activated your jewel."

"Activated my jewel..." Nick's head snapped back up. "Do... Do I have powers now? Like Adam? Like Chris?" I couldn't tell if his voice was coloured by anxiousness or excitement, sometimes those two emotions seem quite similar in humans.

Truthfully, I wasn't sure if he had powers. With the other two, their connections with the elements had been obvious, immediate. There was nothing like that present with Nick. He was not an elel, that I knew for sure.

"Our time is short, Nicholas, and I must ask you somethings." I floated around him, unable to stop myself. "The Golden Spire continues to drain me. Are we close to defeating them, to ending this? I do not have much time left. If this continues, I could be gone forever."

Nick ran a hand through his hair. "We're trying." He looked to the side, eyes shifting downwards. "It's been... more complicated than we thought. The Golden Spire has thousands of recruits, and has taken over vast territories."

"And why doesn't the King fight back?"

"He does. We.. have been moving against them."

I was getting irritated, desperation had the tendency to do that. "And yet I am still getting drained of my soul, everyday, all the time."

Nick narrowed his eyes. "Like I said, they have many people. We are doing our best."

"You must hurry, please."

"How long do we have?"

I considered that. I reached inwards, trying to see if I could give him an estimate. Nothing. All I knew was that I was fading fast, and something needed to change.

"It must be Mark."

"What?" Nick said.

"Mark." I repeated the word. "He must find his soulmate. He must activate his jewel. Fate would not have shown you four to me for no reason. You are going to save this world. So, it must be Mark. He is the missing link."

"What can I do?"

I tried to lower my voice. I tried to sound less anxious. "You need to help him find his soulmate on this world."

"I don't think--"

I didn't let him finish. Our time together was coming to a close. I could feel sleep creeping over me, tiredness flowing through me like an implacable sea.

"If I die, you four will be stuck here for eternity. You need to throw aside your petty, short-sighted beliefs about your sexualities and find your soulmates. Mark needs to have his jewel activated, as soon as possible."

"But what..."

Nick faded away. He disappeared. Our connection would be there forever, but it faded into a dim, dull glow. I couldn't hold onto him any longer, and I couldn't hold onto myself.

I began to drift again, to dream. Everything was silence. I floated through the nothingness of my own cosmos.