Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 214: Guilt

Stanley sat at the edge of a cliff, looking down at the splashing ocean down below. He sat there with his legs dangling from the edge.

"I never thought I would ever get to see the ocean from this close," he said.

"It’s amazing, isn’t it?" Sheila asked, sitting next to him. "What did I tell you? The ocean goes on forever."

"Yes," Stanley said, staring at the horizon. "So this is what we could have seen without the veil all this time."

Behind him was the destroyed town with the crawlers continuing to raze it to the ground. He could hear the distant rumbles and shouts of the people that were behind him.

However, for some reason, he wanted to ignore that. He wanted to just look at the ocean without any other distractions. As he watched, someone else came and sat down next to him.

"Is this pretty?" the young man asked?

"It is," Stanley said. "It’s amazing."

"I see," the young man said. "I can never tell though. I can never see it again."

"What?" Stanley was a little confused. "It’s right there."

"Yes, but how can I see when I no longer have any eyes."

"What do you mean?" Stanley asked, finally turning around toward the young man when he saw that instead of a young man, there was a Crawler instead that say there.

The large dangling limbs, all 5 of them, one of which grew out of his head, and the central body that was the torso.

"I can’t see, Stanley," the young man’s voice came from the crawler. "I can’t see and it’s because of you."

Everything darkened around Stanley, as he appeared inside a cave where only he and the Crawler were.

Stanley finally recognized the voice. "Freddy?" he called out urgently.

"Stanley, why did you do this to me?" he asked.

"What? No, I didn’t," Stanley said. "I wasn’t the one..."

He wanted to say that it wasn’t him that did it, but he couldn’t remember who it was that did what they did to turn Freddy into a Crawler. He had no idea at all.

"You did this to me, Stanley," the voice said. "You killed me, and yet you walk around as if you did nothing?"

"No, I—"

"Please take some responsibility," the voice said.

"Yes, Stanley," a hand landed on his shoulder. "We died, but you are still alive."

Stanley turned around and saw Bradley standing next to him inside the metal room underneath the mansion.

"Brother, you!"

"How can you stay alive while you let us die, Stanley?" Bradley asked. "You must come with us to the afterlife."

"I can’t... I—"

"That’s right, big brother," the young girl in his arm said, bleeding from her stomach. "You let me die, big brother. It’s your time to do the same."

He was in the middle of the street, holding onto her. He tried to save her, but even as he did, she was dying.

"No... I didn’t..." Stanley was in a panic not knowing what to do. He... he hadn’t been the one to kill these people. He knew it was not... did he know? Why was it that he couldn’t remember anything? Why were they alive when they were dead?

They were certainly here, he could tell.

"I... can’t die," Stanley said. "I have so much..."

"Son!" his mother hugged him in the debris of his broken home. "It’s alright. Dying doesn’t hurt. It is simple. Once you do, you can come live with us."

"M-mom," he spoke softly. He felt her touch, he smelled her hair. It was all real.

"Can I... can I really come live with you guys?" he asked.

"Yes," Yelena said as she kissed him on the forehead. "It is alright, Stanley. You can come with us."

Stanley took the sword that was in his hand and look at it. All he had to do was stab himself.

Behind him, invisible and floating in the voice was a man that looked down on him.

"Dear Shadow," he spoke to himself." Just how much guilt is this little kid holding on to?"

He looked down toward Stanley. He had never found a job this easy in his life at all.

His powers involved going into someone’s dream and forcing them to kill themselves. To do so, he triggered strong memories that were stored inside of his subconscious as guilt.

He had found all sorts of guilt that people had, all sorts of regrets, but none were stronger than a survivor’s guilt, which let him kill anyone as he wished.

Seeing the situation of just how big of a survivor’s guilt the young man had, the man was sure that he was going to die.

However, something had caught his eye that had made him slightly curious. "Just where is this place though? Everything looks so desolate and so old. Surely this young man hasn’t lived for so long, right?" he thought.

As he was thinking, Stanley took up the sword to stab himself.

The man turned his attention back to Stanley as numerous figures appeared around him to watch him kill himself.

The man stared at the one creature from before. The thing with a single body and 5 inky limbs. The man looked at it for a second before a possibility came across his mind.

"Wait..." he thought. Without hesitation, he left the dream.

He woke up elsewhere, sneezing, and quickly left the assassin’s safehouse to make a call. The call was to a person who picked it up a little late.

"Why in shadow’s name would you call me at this hour?" the voice called.

"I found him," the man said. "I found him!"

"Found who?" the man on the other side asked.

"HIM!" he shouted at the man. "The boy that we have been searching for. The Nova that our master is searching for!"

The other man finally woke up from his drowsiness. "What? You found him?" he asked.

"Yes," the sick man answered.

The other man waited for a while before answering. "Good! Keep an eye on him for now. The master will wake up in a month or two. She will want to kill him herself."

"Understood," the sick man said. "Praise the Shadow."

"Praise the Shadow."