"Why to help you fix your cracked soul of course. What I did was merely patchwork. Think of it like putting a piece of tape over cracked glass. It'll hold for a while, but eventually the crack will widen and even more damages can occur."
While Varos spoke Alex instinctively raised a hand to his own chest. He was distinctly aware of a part of him that he hadn't known was there. A second beating thrum inside of his body that wasn't his heart. His soul.
"You would've been taken by the Void and your soul would have been destroyed if I hadn't intervened, but I was impressed by your tenacity. Most give up at the first hurdle, but you kept pushing yourself to near oblivion; all for the sake of being better." The god spoke with pride in his voice, all of it directed towards Alex.
Alex had no idea what the god was talking about though, he just knew that he couldn't give up. It felt weird getting praise from a god who he just met, but Alex wasn't going to question the divine being for it. "I honestly didn't know what I was doing. I just felt some strange pull and then I ended up in a snowstorm."
"You unknowingly started the Trial of the Soul with a damaged soul? Foolish boy, no wonder you had almost been taken into oblivion." Varos' admonishment still came with a sense of wonder and pride hidden underneath. Very few humans in this day and age could even take the Trial of the Soul, much less one with a cracked soul being able to survive for as long as Alex did.
"Trial of the Soul? What's that?" Alex's inquisitive mind was working in overdrive. He had shown up to the temple because he knew that was the best place to help fix his soul, but he had no real sense of direction. He had no idea what he was doing. He was fumbling around in the dark, messing with things he barely understood, and somehow he was still alive.
"The Trial of the Soul is exactly that. A trial that tests the resolve of someone's soul. It is meant to be used as a means to help strengthen a person's soul and help it evolve to the next rank. Only those who are truly ready to face themselves come here to take the trial. Many do not succeed and walk away without anything. Some walk away in a worse off state than they came here in, not prepared for the ways in which the trial would test them."
As the god spoke Alex turned his thoughts inward, thinking about everything he had experienced since entering the temple. The golden abyss made him question everything about himself and he pondered whether everything was worth saving.
The snowstorm had been a test in his endurance and just how far he was willing to push himself. Was Varos saying that all of that was part of the trial?
"Everyone's trials are different. Some confront their past. Some confront the mistakes they've made. Some fight literal demons that they've been plagued by. But yours…" The fire that is Varos trails off, leaving Alex to question what his trial could possibly be. Most likely his trial was dealing with confronting the past, considering what his life was like before.
The fire flared once more, signalling Varos' presence. "Your trial will lead you to confront yourself. Your old self. And you must choose who you will be. So far you've been living a split life, two Alex's inside one body. The old you. And the new you. One of you is stuck in the past and unwilling to move on, while the other is fully embracing a new life and trying to move forward."
Alex somewhat understood what the god was talking about. He had felt it at times, where his heart conflicted with what his mind knew. Moments where he was literally warring with himself. The cracked soul had just exacerbated the problem and that was why he had been so off balance.
"People can not live that way, it will tear them apart. You must either unite yourself to be of one mind, or you must banish the other you that you do not wish to be." Varos went silent, leaving Alex to contemplate the god's words. It was true. He had been stuck in his past ever since his rebirth, but he had still pushed himself to move forward. Would he be the Alex that lived in the past, or would he be the Alex that braved the future?
He already knew.
***
Alex once more found himself amidst a snowstorm, clearer of mind and purpose. He knew what he had to do, but he wasn't going to like it. Varos' words echoed in his head, reminding him that he couldn't afford to hesitate.
"Your Soul Trial will have you confront yourself. The part of you that you keep hidden. The darkness that exists in all beings. It will try to make you doubt your purpose. It will try to confuse you. But you must destroy it."
Before, he had tried to move forward as both Alex's. The one that was weak, and the one that was stronger. He had tried to progress with two separate mindsets, and it had almost destroyed him. This trial would be the hardest thing he would ever have to do.
"You're weak. You'll never be enough."
"I'll never understand what your mother saw in you, you're worthless."
"Only a heartless monster could kill without feeling anything. Is that what you are Alex? A heartless brutal murder machine?"
The voices assaulted Alex as he trudged through the snow, putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes it was Amanda. Sometimes it was his mom. Sometimes it was the people who tortured him. But they all tried the same tactic. They tried to make him question himself. They tried to draw him back to the past.
He pushed the voices, and the thoughts that came with them, away. His resolve and conviction was the highest it had ever been. Eventually he came upon another set of footprints, but now he knew the truth.
They were his footprints. The person he had been chasing last time had been himself. Had he been smarter he would've realized it when the feet had turned into a person dragging themselves in the snow, but he had been so consumed by his own doubts that he hadn't noticed it. Now came the hard part.
"Come out you coward! Show yourself! I know you're hiding." He tauntingly called out into the snow storm and was met with silence. After a few seconds a figure emerged from the falling snow, trudging through it with slow trepidation.
A too thin figure with gaunt features approached Alex. Dirty blonde hair that was in a complete state of disarray barely came down to cover empty looking hazel eyes.
Alex looked at himself with contempt and pity. This was him in his past life. Too weak and too frail to do anything. He didn't hate himself for being that way, but he would never forgive himself for not taking a stand.
"I'm sorry. You deserved better. But now I'm moving on. I can't let you control me anymore." Closing his heart to his own feelings, Alex raised the hand holding a dagger in its grip. "Killing" a weaker version of himself to grow stronger wasn't something he imagined he would ever have to do, but here he was.
In one swift motion he stepped forward and drove the dagger into the heart of his older self. It immediately crumbled to dust and floated off, drifting with the snow. Alex shed a single tear for the loss of himself before closing his eyes and focusing his thoughts inward.
He had more work to do before the trial was over, but the hardest part had been completed. The Trial of the Soul was a two-step process. First, the person had to confront whatever it was that was holding them back and eliminate it, literally erasing their doubts.
The second thing someone had to do to complete the trial was confirming their resolve to the path they were walking. They had to commit to that path and accept who they were deep down, and be willing to grow as that person. After this, their trial was complete and their soul would be stronger for it.
Technically, Alex had already done this the first time he had unknowingly attempted the trial, but he had skipped the first part and was still plagued by the fact that his soul was split between two versions of himself. All he had to do was reaffirm himself and accept what he was becoming. Which begged the question of who he wanted to be.
Could he live with himself and all the hard choices he would have to make? Could he live with the fact that he was most likely going to have to kill more people to ensure he and Amanda were safe? Could he live with being a monster and accept the darkness he felt inside of him? Could he walk the path of a hero who had people relying on him?
Yes. He could.
***
The instant Alex accepted all of those things he found himself back in the cabin, sitting in the same chair as before, with the same mug of hot chocolate. The only difference this time was that the fire burned brighter, and with such intensity that even Alex felt uncomfortably warm.
"Haha. In all my days I never thought I'd see it." The roaring flames started to die down, but Varos' voice boomed loudly in the small cabin interior. "A human with a cracked soul passing the trial. Color me impressed, boy."
Varos' voice was full of pride and happiness, and with good reason. He truly hadn't ever witnessed a human like Alex pass the Trial of the Soul. Thousands had tried before, but their souls were found lacking and their resolve had led them to failure.
"Though it is a good thing you succeeded this time around. I doubt I would've been able to save you a second time. The universe doesn't take too kindly to us gods interfering in the natural order of things." Alex stared incredulously at the fire. Varos had been so gung-ho and sure of Alex, even reassuring him that it would be impossible to fail because Varos was watching over him. Now he was saying that he couldn't have actually helped in any way? Gods and their fu-
"But all that matters is that you passed. Your soul has been healed and made even stronger now. I see why Fate took such a keen interest in you." Alex stopped sipping at the hot chocolate, going completely still at the words the god spoke. How did he know about that?
"Don't look at me like that, you're practically a celebrity amongst us gods at this point. Of course, that was after we discovered Fate's little stunt and how she had a hand in your resurrection. She caused quite a stir by going behind the others and doing what she did."
Varos spoke with a familiarity, almost as if he and Fate were somehow close friends. "Not right what they did to her, but the rules are the rules for a reason. Even she can't break them." Alex almost felt as if the flame was shaking its head as the god talked.
"What happened to her?" Alex's curiosity got the better of him. He didn't really feel all that close to Fate or anything, but he did somewhat owe her for bringing him back to Earth and saving him from a life of servitude.
"The higher-ups didn't take too kindly to her interference and locked her in her own domain." Varos spoke matter of factly, all joy from Alex's earlier triumph over the trial gone from his voice. "Locked up her powers too. Pretty harsh, considering she's Fate. But break the rules and that's what happens, no one is exempt."
There were beings that Fate listened to? Just how powerful could they be if they were able to control something like that? Alex's mind was reeling from the information. He felt somewhat guilty hearing that she was basically imprisoned because of him.
It wasn't his fault necessarily that she was in that position, but she did intervene and help him out a bit. Her situation also somewhat explained why everything seemed so crazy for him lately. If she was out of the picture then his fate was back up in the air, and no one was watching over him anymore.
"Bah, enough with the sad crap. You passed your trial, congratulations. Now, be gone, I got other mortals to test." The cabin faded first, dissolving away like nothing. Then the fire faded, taking Varos and his warmth with it. Then the chair and mug of hot chocolate faded, leaving Alex with that falling-floating sensation again. And then Alex faded.