FFM 2024 12: Dissolution

No prompts used. This is a continuation to FFM 2024 10: Desperation.

Funnily enough, I wrote a big part of this yesterday because I got temporally confused, thought it was Friday and not Thursday (aka a challenge day) and wrote accordingly until I realized it was Thursday and I had a challenge to complete. I figured I might as well make use of what I had written already for today’s story and hence this is the final result.

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“It may not absolve your sins, but it will dissolve them,” the fortune teller had told me.
I had a terrible, terrible feeling as I walked to the ruins of the factory. The gem in my hand left my chest feeling tight. My body was telling me that this dark magic, whatever exactly I was holding, was not something I was meant to wield.

Was I really that desperate? I could still walk away, hide the gem somewhere and tell the fortune teller that I had changed my mind. I could tell her that I had found it easier on my conscience to come forward and admit that my mistake had caused the explosion.

Was I really, truly, that desperate for anything except doing the right thing?

Before I succeeded at talking myself out of what could only be the beginning of a downward spiral, I was at the ruins. The magic in the gem thrummed in my hand. It was getting harder to breathe. Had I not been able to feel the magic viscerally, I could have convinced myself I was just having a panic attack.

I couldn’t be this desperate… could I?

I tried to walk away but my legs did not wish to move.

I really was that desperate. I opened my palm.

The black smoke-or-miasma oozed from the gem to the ground like the vapor of boiling liquid nitrogen and started surrounding me and everything around me. I stood frozen, terrified of what I was unleashing on the land; I could only imagine it was a plague of sorts.

Did dissolving my sins mean killing everyone in the factory’s vicinity?

As the smoke-or-miasma surrounded the ruins and started to melt what was left of the factory into some kind of goo, I was no longer certain about anything except that I was the biggest idiot in the world.

I stood still, watching the horror unfold, and wished I could turn back time instead. If I could turn back time, I could find my past self, grab him by the shoulders and shake him, tell him not to cut corners and be an idiot.

If only this gem could affect time. If only.

If only I was even a fraction smarter than I actually was.

The smoke-or-miasma was getting thicker. There was no turning back.

I was becoming a bona fide villain and I didn’t even know what I was doing.