The Patron God of Painful Endings

Before him, I was a prophet. Every story I told was bound to come true one way or another, no matter how hard I tried to stop it. Every single one of their lives was a prewritten book, their ends set in stone long before they were even born. And I watched every single one of them fall, meeting their demise in whatever wretched way I had conjured up before I understood what power my stories held. After a while, that’s all they became to me: stories. And then along came Felix.

I knew from the beginning that he would be… different. Unlike the others, I never finished his story. Unlike the others, Felix had no set ending. Of course, I’d had ideas. Far too many times to count, a flicker of an idea would spark to life, one that would have foretold Felix’s ending, but for some reason, I’d never put pen to paper. For the first time, I was left in the dark, without a clue as to how his story would end. There was only one thing I knew for certain: Felix was going to die.

The first time Felix was supposed to die was in the middle of the night. Freshly fallen snow blanketed itself across the ground, sparkling white stained crimson in the aftermath of a struggle. Felix clung to the edge of a cliff face, hanging on with rapidly slipping fingers. A woman stood over him, and with a swiftly delivered kick, Felix was falling, falling, falling. I could almost feel the chill and shock as he hit the icy water far below. Swept away by the current, lost amidst salt and ice as the river carried him out to sea, I was certain he would drown.

But he didn’t.

He was saved, and his story continued on, steadily being written as the pages in his book turned. I didn’t think much of it. He was supposed to die, therefore, he would. There was no point in trying to change that. There was still time.

The second time Felix was supposed to die, he nearly burned himself alive. I will admit, it was quite the spectacle. Watching Felix be consumed by his own flames, the blaze whipping around him in the cold winter wind, seemingly burning hotter than the sun itself, heat radiating off it in waves, was, as horrible as it sounds, astonishing to see. Though, the beauty came with a cost. The longer Felix’s fire burned, the more it stole, draining him of life, until eventually, Felix would be reduced to little more than ashes. Yet on and on he burned.

When his power finally reached its limit and he collapsed into the dirt, I was certain this would be the end. He’d pushed himself past the brink, sinking lower and lower into the deep end. But once more, he was saved, and once more, he didn’t die. I brushed it aside.

Having survived this, Felix continued to march towards his inevitable death without end. Ignoring the rising aggravation in my chest, my gaze locked on Felix as impossibly, he pushed himself from the ground, racing back to protect those he had already nearly died for not ten minutes prior. That was Felix. Always the hero. A light scoff left my lips as I turned away from the battle, unseen and unheard. I told myself it was boredom. That I was beginning to tire of the same old charade of the hero saving their companions.

I know now that it was because I didn’t want to see what came next. A sharp, mournful cry pierced the air only a moment after I stepped outside of the village’s limits, and in response, my eyes squeezed shut of their own accord, even though a thick stone wall separated me from the sight of the massacre.

Maybe Felix would not die today, but many others still would.

When I watched Felix nearly die for the third time, something stirred in the pits of my stomach that hadn’t existed there for a very, very long time:

Fear.

Out of all of them, this one was the hardest to watch. I had debated and labored over how this would play out for months when I’d originally thought it up. Felix stood alone, high, high above his city, seeming almost closer to the stars and moon above than the ground below.

I found myself waiting, watching in anticipation for something to happen, for someone to come save him, just like they had every other time before.

How strange. I knew I could not change his story; the fact was irrefutable, as certain as the rising and setting of the sun. So why, when the end of his story drew ever nearer, was I hoping for someone to save him now?

I realized then that even though it hadn’t been more than a few months, Felix had become something magnificent, something more alive than I had ever seen from any of the previous prophecies.

A thought occurred to me then, one that, after the disastrous ending of the first story, I had ignored for what felt like ages.

Felix was alive. He was real. All of them were.

They weren’t just stories or prophecies or whatever name I had given them to obscure the fact that these were living, breathing people locked on a path of pain and suffering that I had created for them.

And here Felix was, about to die because I was so insistent on killing him, just like I did with the others. But of course, it had to be in the worst way possible.

Felix stood silently, unmoving as he stared out across the top of the city, tilting his head back to watch the limitless expanse above, taking it in for just a moment. As Felix stepped closer to the edge, I moved without thinking, knowing that there would be nothing I could do to save him.

He could not see nor hear me, and were I try to pull him away from the edge, my hands would simply pass through him as though I were a ghost. In all honesty, that would likely be the best descriptor for what I had become.

There was nothing I could have done. The thought played on loop inside my mind and I forced myself to believe it. Time ticked ever onward, and no one appeared to save Felix from his greatest threat: himself. This time would be the end. I was sure of it.

But then, of course, I was proven wrong. Behind us, footsteps came pounding up the stairs. One of Felix’s friends, the pianist with golden hair, who cared for Felix more than life itself, raced towards him, too slow, too late.

Even though I knew it was going to happen, I still felt my heart sink into my stomach, a cry wrenching itself from my lips as Felix fell. No one heard the sound, my silent plea for Felix to be saved, even though, once more, he was falling, falling, falling.

His friend jumped after him, and together, they fell, but much to my own disbelief, he did not die. Neither of them did. It shouldn’t have been possible! A fall from that height should have killed one, if not both of them. It was as if some invisible force was keeping him alive just to spite me. I saw Felix the very next day, but to my eyes, he appeared to be little more than an apparition, even though he was very much alive. A dead man walking, if you will.

The end of Felix’s story drew nearer and nearer, the pages of his book turning continuously, leaving increasingly fewer chances for him to meet his end. I knew he would. He had to. Because if he didn’t, if he miraculously survived until the end, then that would mean…

I bit back a hysterical laugh. It was ridiculous! This whole thing, ridiculous! I had spent millennia, eons, even, watching these prophecies I had told, these stories I created, come true, and I could do nothing to stop it. I destroyed my own home, my own family, before I realized what my stories were capable of, and believe me, I tried so hard to save them. And I couldn’t. I was forced to accept the fact that there would never be anything I could do to save them.

So if Felix survived when he was supposed to die?

Then that meant there had been a way, and somehow, I had missed it. And wasn’t that terrifying?

Felix had to die. That’s what his story said, and I didn’t care how it played out, but it would come to pass.

It had to.

The fourth time I watched Felix nearly die was only a few days later. A man stood before him, someone with the power to destroy anything and everything Felix held dear. I saw the determination in Felix’s eyes, and as he stepped forward to face his opponent, a surge of sheer power rippled through the air, and finally, the battle had begun.

They were like gods as they clashed, their own power ripping them apart as they used it. All that remained now was to see who was destroyed by it first.

There was a universe where Felix lost that fight. There was a universe where he wasn’t caught when he staggered off the tower, bleeding and broken. There was a universe where his power all but consumed him, leaving nothing but a vessel for a power beyond what the average human could handle. But, defying all odds, as well as my expectations, Felix survived the fight and fall, leaving me clinging to one final shard of hope. One final chance for Felix to die.

I followed him to the castle in the sky for the fifth and final time I would watch the candle of his life nearly flicker out. Felix’s eyes were squeezed shut, his consciousness coming and going, hanging on by a single thread, as he refused to lie still. As he refused to die. A friend of his, the one who had caught him, was at his side, whispering words of comfort, dabbing away sweat and blood with a damp towel. I sat at Felix’s other side for hours, and although neither one could see me, I think they felt my presence.

A horrible anxiety tore at my very being the longer I stayed there. Either Felix would die and my fears would be eased, or he would survive, and I would be forced to come to terms with the fact that I could have saved so many people I had thought to be doomed from the start.

Yet strangely, I found myself wishing for Felix’s survival. Although I had never finished his story, his was the first. Not the first to play out on the universe’s stage, but my first. Felix was the one I had given my darkest secrets, my brightest hopes, to, inextricably binding him to myself, weaving our souls together until they appeared to be identical upon first glance. It’s what made him so different, so special, compared to the others. He was no longer just a story, a prophecy told, fated to come true. Felix had fought to stay alive, and for some reason, I didn’t want his story to end just yet.

And so I waited, always at his side, even when his friend left. Eventually, his breathing slowed, and he faded off into a peaceful sleep, leaving me with only one thought:

Felix had survived.

How, I still do not know. A brief fury overtook me for a moment, my own shortcomings coming back to haunt me. What had I done for Felix that I hadn’t done for the rest? What was different? Was it really as simple as not putting pen to paper and leaving it unfinished? I didn’t have an answer to any of those questions, but somehow, that thought filled me with a strange sense of peace.

There were still more stories to be told, more prophecies to be fulfilled. Maybe Felix was special, and he’s the only one who will ever get the ending they deserve. Or maybe—just maybe—someone else will get their happy ending too, even if that someone isn’t me.