Delete Button - Reboot

November 12, 2021

PROMPT November 11th

A reminder I could say to myself before I’m tempted to respond to anger with anger, to fear with fear, to negativity with negativity is...


Beaoul sat communing with Toni, the Middle of Everywhen entity that was as close as she could claim to having a home. She had been with Toni for what felt like years. It was hard to register the passage of time when time passed completely without change in the infinite white abyss that was the plane of Toni that Beaoul interacted with. Toni had reassured her that less than a few earth months had passed.

Beaoul had left a few times to prove to herself she could and that she could find her way back. She slept when she was tired, and ate when food appeared in front of her, supplied by Toni. Toni had't provided her with an ounce of meat since she arrived. Even though, as a hellhound, Beaoul was a born carnivore if not outright cannibal she had still been entirely satisfied with what Toni provided.

Why do you feel such anger? Toni's consciousness pressed on Beaoul's mind interrupting her memory cruise.

"I, just don't know. It was how I was raised?"

That is a question not an answer. What could you say to yourself before you're tempted to respond to anger with anger, to fear with fear, to negativity with negativity?

"That it is Mira's training talking not my real self?"

Beaoul, that is a good idea, but for it to work you mustn't treat the answer like a question.

Beaoul clawed at the surface beneath her.

Ouch!

"Oh, no! I didn't mean to! Oh! Are you going to be alright? My claws! They kill!" She had a flashback to the sight of some of Mira's enemies dying from flesh wounds inflicted by her fellow hellhounds. It was horrible. Decomposition was the cause of death. She flashed back to Seyona's death. It had been rather similar. Seyona had provided Beaoul the key which had allowed Beaoul to finally escape from the Queen of darkness.

Humor vibrated through Beaoul's mind, I am fine Beaoul. Your claws cannot harm me.

Beaoul felt no relief, the flashbacks took her again and she was trapped within her own mind reliving some of the worst moments she had experienced. She was aware of nothing else, not the infinite whiteness of Toni, not the tears rolling down her muzzle.

Why do you cry?

Beaoul rubbed her muzzle against her armpits, "I didn't tell you how Seyona died."

You said Mira Black killed her.

"Mira sprayed her with some kind of illness it ate her alive. She rotted alive, just like victims of hellhound wounds," Beaol answered making the connection real in her own mind.

She kills. That is what Seyona and I were trying to stop, if you care about Seyona as much as you seem to you could always take up that goal.

"How?"

Start with this disease. You were exposed and stand here unharmed. Perhaps you could start with this. What do you know about this disease?

"Mira plans to unleash it on a world known as Tradehub."

Then that is where you should start. Fortunately I know just where it is...