CHAPTER 11.2
Lesley's Diary - Suicide and Logic - July 25, 1909
I hate being morbid about everything. It’s suffocating. Despite all appearances to the contrary, I’m a happy person! And being without reasons to be happy is like having ants crawl around in my head, always threatening to sting, but never getting around to it.
This time, it’s an ethical dilemma:
Do I have a moral obligation to kill myself?
Not that I want to, nor am I going to (I don’t care how guilty I feel, guilt is never going to equal death for me). But I do, all things said and considered, have an ancient demon Sentinel in my head. I’m not clear on what the demon’s agenda is, but the last time (before me) these fellows had a disagreement with us, almost all of us (y’know, the human race) died.
I wish I could ask the demon. I’m becoming more aware of it. I can sense it consciously. There are moments when I’m speaking or doing something, and I’ll sense another awareness behind my eyes, looking on and watching with interest. It’s curious. Is it wondering at all the different ways the world has changed since it last roamed the earth thousands of years ago? And sometimes at night, I dream of things from I thought I’d forgotten… is it re-linking my memories? Or is exploring my world and dragging me along for the ride?
What do you want, Sentinel?
I was born with power to imprison you; so theoretically, I should be able to. And yet, you couldn’t have demonstrated a greater contempt for my power if you had entirely taken over my mind and locked me in my own head (something that, scarily, you could still do, for all I know).
One possibility is that I’ve already have imprisoned you, and the Voidmark was just your rather violent tantrum before my Will conquered you.
The other is that you are gestating in my head, cooking up something truly dreadful, or waiting for an opportunity to strike.
A third is that you have already taken over my mind, and are letting me enjoy the illusion that I still have control of myself.
The first and third possibilities resolve my dilemma rather neatly in favour of my life.
The second one may seem to be in favour of my death, until you consider that the Sentinel doesn’t actually need my body to wreck havoc – it can do that all on its own. And if my death releases it back into the wild, so to speak, then it’s imperative that I continue to live.
Isn’t it nice when all arguments resolve in favour of my life? Heck, reading over all that again, it seems increasingly likely that I have, in fact, imprisoned the stupid demon within me.
After all, if it could be out there wreaking havoc, and my own Will didn’t matter to its actions, then there’s no reason for it to go on living in my head – it should have killed me and gone wild at Mt. Rosermeyer.
The truly scary part of all this is that it managed to cause the Voidmark in the brief time it took me to gain control over it.
No, wait… what! The scale of this doesn’t make sense anymore! Hang on, let me think…
Ok, I feel stupid…
If Sentinels can cause a Voidmark in the 20 or so minutes before it (allegedly) succumbed to my Will…
Then the Sentinel Wars thousands years ago, when no Truebloods existed at all, should have DESTROYED the world. The planet should have been turned into little more that a sad cloud of dust floating in the cosmos. I don’t care how powerful the Seraphs may have been… nothing could survive a WAR in which a normal attack looks like a July 8 Voidmark.
Since that didn’t happen then… the Sentinel in my head couldn’t be powerful enough to cause such a Voidmark NOW.
Which means….
It’s highly unlikely I caused the Voidmark.
Then who did?
Did the militants who attacked us at Mt. Rosermeyer have anything to with it?
What does this mean?
And if the Voidmark wasn’t the Sentinel’s baby… what possible weapon could cause it? No way it was a natural disaster!
Also, I’ve never felt so stupid in my life. Unholy hells, all that wasted guilt for absolutely nothing.
Well, at least I think it’s wasted. It IS kind of unlikely that I open a cradle and a Voidmark hits at exactly the same moment, and the two turn out to be unrelated.
Yeesh, I’m going to go break something. Charlie’s head may be a nice place to start.
I wish I could talk to you, demon.