Why? A simple question, asked when understanding is needed. Normally to a person who knows the answer. Though what if no one knows the answer? Then who do you ask? You seek out the divine or, even the demonic if you cannot seek a holy power. The questions with no answers plague us. Why are we here? What happens when we leave? Why can't They come together?
Questions need answers we should seek them.
The First Question
Why? The grime wouldn't wash off, and his soul ached. He had chosen one of the worst Holders to start with, and only continued downhill in his choices. He knew the reasons he had picked them to begin with, but he didn't know why he continued to pick the horrid Objects (and a horrid Object amongst the Objects must be truly horrible). The ones no one would seek out. That was the reason for seeking out the first horrid Object. He sought out the Holder of Putridity; he knew no one would seek it out because of the pain it would bring on the world. He sought it for verified proof of Their existence. Now he wished he hadn't.
This pain in him racked his body, physically. Then, of course, came the thing he dreaded more than the disease he now held. The hunger, it ate at his soul. So he sought out again. He came into the institution and asked for another Holder, another Holder he knew no one would have sought. Now the hunger leads to this, the need for an Object. He sought Her, the Holder of the Worm. Now he held two endless hungers; for the Objects, and for anything else.
He stood there in the shower, staring at the head. Wishing it could give him an answer. He was the cat, and curiosity was going to kill him and the rest of humanity if he wasn't careful. He was hungering for food but, he knew he couldn't sate it so he didn't even try. He had sought out these Objects and now he wished he hadn't. He knew there was no way out, and he could live with that. The seeking wasn't great but, it gave him a purpose. He just wanted to start over, seek a different set of Objects.
He thought perhaps the Objects themselves could help him. So he started to research them again. He saw some things that might help. A few of the Holders apparently gave you the option to stop or start over. One of them seemed insanely hard and resulted in eternal torment at the hands of, what he called, Their demons. If he wanted that, he'd just go fail a test. He saw another that seemed very appealing to any Seeker that may have wanted to stop it all. So he discarded that for the simple reason that the Holder's Object may have already been taken. Finally, he saw what would help. A Holder that took your Objects, or else put you in immense pain. No Seeker really wanted to lose his Objects; perhaps that's what made him different. That Holder knew and sought to kill them with the pain. What the Holder didn't know was this was his way out. He would seek this Holder and lose his current Objects, sate the hunger for a new one, and start fresh all in one quick swoop.
The problem was he would have to collect the item he wanted, while still enduring. He'd have to fight through the pain in hope of relieving it. If it didn't work, what did he have to lose? He'd save humanity and there would be one less insane freak seeking.
He stepped out of the shower and dried off. He considered the limitations he would have to take in his choice and also the wisdom he had gained from his past mistakes. He went to his bed and allowed the thing he called sleep to take over. Hoping that it may bring an idea to his conundrum and, at the same time, wake him from his living nightmare.
Wife's Tale
His old truck sputtered as it came into the lot of the hospital. He pulled into the spot farthest from the door. The building had been there for years, he had driven past it a million times before he started seeking. His first outing he left the city, hoping that no one would recognize him in case it was a falsehood. His second outing he had come here, to save gas in the collapsing economy. When it turned out, he decided that if he did it again it would be here.
He stepped out of his truck and looked at the windshield at his reflection. He was wearing a black robe with a large white collar. He had decided for this outing that his best option would be to disguise himself as a holy man. He knew god had already condemned him, he would have to use whatever it took to try and save any hope for a future generation.
He walked through the front door, oddly the guard desk was empty. Had it been a few months earlier he would have taken it as a job opportunity. Perhaps it was better this way. At least this way, he had an effect on tomorrow.
He looked around the waiting room. The receptionist was gone but, that didn't matter. He wasn't looking for the receptionist. Then he spotted what he was looking for, his luck was with him. Only one person, it made him believe that he would succeed quickly. He sat next to her. Her face was complex, he wasn't sure if she was sad, mad, or simply scared. Perhaps she was seeking and had a bad turnout. He began to think to himself that it would make sense for a Holder to use failures in his test.
He said in the most soothing voice he could muster through the hunger, "Come child, tell me why it is you are here?"
She looked up at him, and he saw her face was nothing but fear. "I followed my husband here, he had been disappearing on a regular basis, sometimes for days. Once he came home in a stupor covered in blood. I thought he had been in a bar fight. He wouldn't talk to me for two days, he would just sit at his desk researching things. I would look over his shoulder every now and then. All I saw were forum sites, and maps. They all had something to do with asylums and objects that weren't named held by people with strange titles."
He continued to listen as she spoke about following him to the asylum to see for herself, and how she couldn't stand sitting there anymore. Then he saw what he feared most, she broke. She fell to the floor grabbing at a shoe that he hadn't seen before. It was bloody and he could see a piece of foot still in it, and he knew. The woman cradled it in her arms and wailed, then suddenly stopped.
The receptionist had returned, with two large men. Their faces obscured by what, he didn't know. They led the woman away. He turned and there the final piece of the puzzle. The Holder had arrived.