GOD OF WAR: UNBOUND PART II

When Kratos gets into the boat, he feels something stinging in his arms. It's a familiar sensation and it's one he hoped he'd never feel again. But it's there, and it's aching and it's cruel and it's destiny laughing at him again.

The sky is raging, dark clouds billowing and clashing. Water laps against the boards of the boat as the river takes Kratos downstream. Flashes of light burst overhead as all the memories come flooding back. He doesn't have nightmares. Not as much as he used to, anyway; time and patience and Faye saw to that. He remembers one night he woke up in a cold sweat and was only calmed after an hour of Faye holding him close.

Wherever his second wife is, he hopes she's happy. Or at least at peace. She's free now, free from this blighted world and free from him. The ash never clung so tightly to his skin, not as it does now. Lysandra and Calliope are where no one can hurt them ever again. He still feels a pang in his chest from just remembering their names and he feels even worse when remembering those days where he rampaged and raged like a monster. Blindly slaving away, following the whims of a God of War, destroying himself and those close to him.

Those close to him.

Of course he still remembers Deimos. Of course he still remembers his mother. They died because of him. Because of him, because of the gods, because the fates deemed it so. They are dead, and any remnant of them is gone as well, along with the rest of Greece. How many more family members have to die because of his selfishness?

To have felt Atreus' cold and limp body in his arms was a trial in and of itself. A part of him wants to rage at the fates again, wants to destroy every single thing in these lands. He would tear the world asunder if it means his son would survive. But then an even bigger part of him makes him remember that if he did so, he'd be in exactly the same place as he was all those years ago.

The bandages over his forearms itch at his skin, at the ash, and something in him is scared. He's no stranger to that pounding feeling in his chest. He's killed so many. The innocent, the guilty, gods and men, they've all stained his hands. Cold steel at his arms, he hoped he'd never feel so constricted again. He wanted to let it die. He hoped so badly that Faye and Atreus would've freed him. But freedom is too easy for the likes of him.

He deserves to be bound to those chains forever, and he knew it all too well.

It is his fault. Again, it is all his fault. Atreus suffers and agonizes because of him.

The boy is a god; he needs to know of his lineage, know who he is, what he is. He needs to know.

He mustn't know. It's a curse. It's a curse Kratos wouldn't wish upon anyone.

The memories are stronger than ever, but he knows how to handle them. He feels them coming even now; after all this time, they are still as clear as day. His fists, stained with ichor. A pale-wrinkled face, coughing out red and black. The sky pouring over him, clouds swirling in unbridled chaos. Ash-white knuckles soaked in blood as the king of the gods, the ruler of Olympus, his father dies in the dirt.

And just like then, he sees Athena with her white eyes. Condescending as ever.

"Athena...," he mutters, growling and wanting her gone. "Get out of my head."

She disappears as quickly as she came, the boat continuing to drift along the river. By the time he arrives home, he's already faced with mindless frozen corpses out for his blood. His fists hit the icy flesh of the Hel-Walkers and the fight's over in seconds. But still, his hands throb and his knuckles crack as they begin to heal. His fingers reform and the bones strengthen as he feels the warmth return to his nails. He will not be able to do any of this in Helheim. Too risky. Too frigid, most likely.

He needs a fire.

He lurches into his home. Faye at the bed, calling for him to come over. Atreus' hand over her body, muttering some Norse prayer. All this, just a few days ago. All this, all so recently. In his long, long life they've only been here for what must've been a speck of time, but they've become his most treasured in all the world. Atreus cannot die. Atreus cannot die. Atreus must not die.

He opens the floorboards and he sees his bandaged arms. His nerves ache and the pain is more than he can bear. Calliope dying at his feet, squealing as the blood escapes her ribcage. Lysandra choking on her own gore, the life fading from her eyes. Thousands of people. A god. He remembers speaking to a titan what must have been centuries ago; I do not need the aid of the gods! But my path is now clear to me. I will serve them, and they will keep their promise to free me from my past!

What good is the promise of an Olympian? the titan carrying the world asked him then.

Kratos wants to rip the world apart, yes, but he would tear himself apart even more so if he could. The shame, the anger, the horror and the hatred; he was a child then, and now he's more than that. He is so much more than that, and a part of him hates the fact that this is so hard for him.

Kratos answered the titan then: It is all I have, Atlas.

He glares at his old Spartan loincloth. The red is saturated and yet the cloth still smells of Greece, of conquest, of war and death. He undoes the cloth and sees them inside. Laying there.

Blackened, the blades are charred and grisly. The smell of blood still remains on them even to this day. To a rookie blacksmith, they look as though merely hitting them against a rock would shatter them into pieces; but to anyone with a godly eye they'd be taken aback with images of torrential pain and suffering. Relentless, madness, mind-numbing and filled with such hate.

It is all I have. It is all I have.

He is all I...

He begins wrapping the chains around his arms then. And he knows Athena's standing once again, in the doorway.

He decides not to listen to her. At first.

"There is no way you can hide, Spartan. Put as much distance between you and the truth as you want. It changes nothing. Pretend to be everything you are not. Teacher. Husband. Father."

It is at this point he turns to her. The weak-willed would crumble from the look in his eyes alone. But he turns back to his weapons, to the chains wrapping over his flesh, and the feeling of steel constricting his forearms is so familiar it might as well have never left at all.

Athena continues her spiel, and he knows exactly what she is going to say before she even makes it out. "But there is one unavoidable truth that you will never escape. You cannot change. You will always be a monster."

The fire rises from the steel as he grips the hilts. His hands crease exactly the same way as they did back then. The embers hitting his arms tickle the same way they did back then. Just from curling his fingers around them, he feels as though he'll be having nightmares for the rest of the life he's made for himself.

They are a mark of shame, greater than the white of his flesh or the red running down his eye. If Faye could see him now, would she be proud? Would she be terrified?

He can hear his wife and daughter from ages past crying out in anguish all over again. Elysium seems so far away now. Is Calliope still playing her flute? Is Lysandra still watching over her, in those fields? Are those fields gone, like the rest of the land? Is all of it gone? Are all of them?

"I know," he says in resignation, rising up from the dirt. Walking over to the doorway. Glaring at Athena's astral form. "But I am your monster no longer."

And as Athena fades into the rest of the world, as the Hel-Walkers rise from the snow and lunge, time slows down. The blades unfurl, the chains unlatch, and the fires begin again.

He is all I have.