Voices
Irony was certainly laughing at him, if he cared to listen. All his life he spent trapped somewhere, one way or another, and in death he spent his eternal existance within a cage. A tiny place of memories he didn't care about, awaiting the moment he was to lose his existance completely. Memories would remain, and memories never last.
Maybe if he cared this would bother him. But time was irrevelant, and Omega found himself losing any sense of attachment as hours bled on. His name would fade with time, his truth would evaporate with him, but his deeds would probably be passed on. Was that, in a sense, eternal life? It wasn't fit for a Messiah, but considering he ended up dead anyway, Omega couldn't complain. As it were, he probably wouldn't have the sanity to complain by the time he would.
His cage was so much like how he spent his life, Omega probably couldn't imagine even the after life without a confinement. Be it the armor, the exiled ship or his own head, Omega spent his life boxed in. He wasn't afraid to be free--Omega feared nothing after all--but in a sense, there was a comfort in being caged after death. It made it easier to go insane and lose what made him sentient, because as it was, he didn't like the sentience. Omega enjoyed senseless destruction and death, and it was easier to do when one didn't have the choice of saying no.
While he couldn't go out and destroy something, Omega suddenly had the ability to regret what he did. Not that he did, but having that ability still bothered him. And until he went insane from the isolation, he was stuck with it. Since he retained a bit of sanity from a hundred year confinement, he was fairly sure he would last a good two or three hundred before he finally snapped. Even Reploids went crazy in isolation, dead or not. Provided he was dead. He didn't know if his cage was something in Cyberspace or by some freak accident he landed in it and managed to remain alive all this time.
Or maybe he was already going insane. Wouldn't that be pleasant?
Voice was something Omega never got used to. Not even his own, so when he started hearing them, he found himself in a constant state of agitation. Actually, it was one voice, but he didn't care, a voice was a voice and he didn't want to hear it. Silence was better. But no matter how hard he ignored it, the voice kept talking. Couldn't make it shut up, because it didn't have a body for Omega to rip apart. Who the hell was talking to him? Some other dead person? Wasn't that just pleasant.
"Are you listening?"
Did it want him to talk back? Omega wasn't the type to speak much, but isolation for centuries meant he had to widdle the time somehow. What else could he do in a cage?
"I'm listening." he wanted to wince at his own voice. It sounded the same as ever, shouldn't it sound off?
"So what do you want?" Omega asked, eyes scanning his confinement. Maybe he could find it and silence it for good.
"I want to give you something."
"I don't need anything."
"No. But I still want to give it to you."
Omega scowled. What a way to waste time. "What do you want to give me?"
"Power to exist and pleasure to live."
Omega scoffed and moved to a different section of his cage. It didn't have any walls or bars, but the scenery never changed. Either it moved with him, or he only had the illusion he was moving. Either way, he figured he'd go to a different corner, but the voice followed.
"I don't want it." Omega grunted. "Get out."
The voice laughed, and Omega saw the humor, sure. Didn't mean he shared it. He punched the air, met no resistance, no satisfying crunch of killing something.
"Like a little bird, caught in a cage." Omega didn't fancy being compared to a damn bird of all things. "Tell me what you're feeling, let me hear what you think."
"You're damn annoying and need to shut up." Omega snapped.
"Are you afraid of no longer existing?"
"I don't give a damn!"
"Are you sad to have never had your own life?"
If Omega hated something more than voices, it was voices asking stupid questions. "Shut up."
"I understand you, we're much alike."
"Shut up!" Omega punched the ground, the only thing he could really touch and feel. He didn't feel pain from the impact, and it jarred him. He was powerful, but he should feel pain. Granted, if he was dead, then no. But even then...
The voice was everywhere and Omega couldn't get away from it or make it go away. "Do you feel hatred?"
Omega glumly sat down. He was stuck here with a damn voice that kept asking retarded questions, this had to be hell. "Yeah."
"Do you feel trapped?"
"No."
And the voice spoke no more. Well, if he knew it'd be that easy he'd have pretended to actually want to talk a while ago. Once more Omega embraced silence and nothing, feeling it tease the cracks in his mind.
But that silence didn't last, damn it. "You remind me of myself. And I know you, every part of you--what's ugly, what's actually beautiful. So, listen to me, and tell me about you, the real you."
Omega shot to his feet, annoyed. "You just said you knew me! So take your knowledge, shove it and leave!"
"Even when you're angry, you're the same as me. It's quite amusing, isn't it? But like me, even if I hate everything, in the end you really don't. So why do you pretend?"
Omega paced the cage. Paced like a wild animal... or a bird. Hell, anything caged, he could relate to it. Was this voice caged in here with him? Was that why it won't go away?
"Do you understand me?"
The whole being confined thing? Sure, Omega could understand that. But he never was free, so what exactly was wrong with the cage?
"I guess."
"Feel like the world's betrayed you. Scarred forever."
Omega scoffed at that. "Not me. The world'll suffer the scars I put on it for centuries to come."
"That it will. It'll be your everlasting sin."
"Isn't that pleasant?" Omega muttered sarcastically.
The voice was suddenly behind him, right there. "Do you want to be forgiven?"
"No." Omega didn't turn. He knew who it was, his own personal Reaper coming for his soul. Cheap charade.
"That's fine, you never will be. But since I will be, in extension, so will you."
Omega finally turned around, an unreadable expression on his face. "You couldn't talk much in life and now you don't shut up."
"I want to get to know myself better."
Scoffing was becoming Omega's catch-phrase to everything, and he held his hands out as if expecting shackles. Instead, hands grasped his wrists like a comrade, making the red-eyed blond grimace. He hated touch as much as voices.
"All you need to know is that you're an asshole, Zero."
Smirk. Just like his, go figure. "Yeah, I figured."