Title: Simulacrum
Summary: [Day One: He will destroy himself or the world, whichever comes first] Tom Riddle centric, quartet.
This is Kako's super special one-shot quartet extraordinaire written to commemorate Tom Riddle's birthday (because I'm a bit of a dork like that). There are four parts to this story, and one will be posted each day until the 31st. Enjoy!
The Game
Life is boring, he realizes one day. It has been too long since he has had any real adventure, and these idiots around him are making things far too easy. It's like they almost want him to succeed with his plans of crushing them all into the dirt where they belong, so they can idolize him from his position on their now-vacant throne, where he belongs.
He realizes he has been daydreaming for too long when several of his classmates give him strange looks, but he does not pay attention to them, they are not worth his time or energy. They cannot give him anything in return.
Tom realizes something else when he is asked a question by his favorite professor (a distinction without meaning, for Slughorn is the professor who least irritates him and that means he wins by default) because it is his fourth year and he is now taking new courses that are supposed to eventually manifest themselves into some kind of career. Tom did not have an answer when Slughorn asked him what he wanted to do with his life after graduation.
To be fair, the sheer amount of strategic exploitation his professor was trying to accomplish would have directed any conceptual career ideas into, wouldn't you like to run for Minister of Magic someday, my boy? You could do it, I believe in you! You'd be the youngest yet, mark my words!
He sat down in his room with a handful of colorful brochures and proceeded to pick apart the offerings. Just as he suspected, the world was full of idiots.
None of the fields presented appealed to him. He decided to create his own. That would ensure that he would be the best at what he did, after all.
It was faintly more difficult to follow through on his plans. He knew he would have to begin early, and he had to resort to self-teaching in lieu of an actual course on power escalation. He was half glad there was no such course; he would not take competition well.
He wonders nightly on a myriad of subjects, from language and philosophy and history; it's complex and he likes things that way, gives him a challenge. He thought immortality was a challenge; now look where that got him (it got him far, very…very…far…) but it's not far enough, because like he knows, just one is so boring so he's got to improvise, up the ante just a little.
It is not real. None of it is real, but they don't know that. It is lonely at the top, but he knows that. He laughs, enjoying how the sound of his voice conquers the silence. He laughs again, just for the hell of it.
The magic is haunting him, he knows that. He can feel it and he knows that when he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat or when he invents a new spell that it is all because of something he does not understand yet because he knows everything he knows because he knows it, and as such also knows where the boundary of his knowledge lies and the thought that there is knowledge in this world that he does not know (books he has not read, places he has not visited, potions he has not brewed, spells he has yet to cast) irks him tremendously, and he must put it inside his mind or risk destroying himself or the world, whichever comes first.
And really, why would he put out the fire that he himself has caused? It doesn't make any sense. Lots of things aren't making sense to him anymore, but he doesn't let that stop him. He'll sort it all out later, because right now he has a train to catch and a ring to find and a father to kill.
The ring weighs heavy in his hand and heavier on his mind and he wonders. Be honest, is this what you wanted? Of course. He must win.
Losing is so ugly, and he can't have that. It had always been about winning, and about the game...the game, the game, and nothing else. Nothing else but the game.
Regeneration is uglier. He knows, he knows so much about everything that sometimes he feels he might crack with the sheer force of it all, because being special shouldn't hurt this much (and everyone he has ever met tells him he is special, but what they mean and what he thinks it means is something else entirely) because power should not hurt this badly and it should not be changing him this much, silently stating six short, simple words: I am broken, please fix me.
There is no one even near him because he has always been alone, (and he is alone because there is no one else like him in this world, and if there was he would have killed them already because he does not like competition, and hasn't he said this already?) but it does not matter. It is the undeniable truth, that he has always and will always be alone, but he tries to convince himself that he does not need them, anyway.
To the ones who remain, he says nothing, but in the silence his lips form the words, plainly.
Anchor me if you will; your efforts are inconsequential. The world will end with me.
A/N:
1) Just to let the audience know, this story is already finished, and will be 4 chapters long in total. I wanted to write something for TMR's birthday last year, but I missed it, so I put off writing it until now.
2) This story contains no pairings. (Don't look at me like that! xD)
3) My characterization of Tom in this piece places an emphasis on his arrogance, narcissism, and borderline insanity. Each section of this piece is meant to be short-ish, but once you read them all together they should make some additional sense. xD
4) Please review! This is a new style for me, and I really want to know what you all think!