The Pharox Paradox

Sometimes when we are not satisfied with our lives, with what we
do, we mistakenly wish for changes that did not occur, and we
ask ourselves, What if I had done this? What would my life be
like? If I had finished university? Or would I have made
more money? Paradoxes exist, many of us ignore them,
and for some they can become a more than disastrous reality.

Buenos Aires. March 2017.

Félix got up like any other day, at six in the morning. He had toast with raspberry jam for breakfast. For more than a year he had wanted a change in his life, routine, boring, according to him tired of everything, the office, physical activity, his girlfriend.

He thought about some facts and in his thoughts he changed them to others at the moment when the spoon fell to the floor generating an unbearable sound. He felt dizzy, he walked to the bathroom, he noticed that the photo of his mother on the dresser had a hole in it, that was not normal.

He entered the bathroom and everything was in order, but when he came out the reality was different. I didn’t know where I was. It wasn’t his room. He was scared, “they have kidnapped me and drugged me” was the first thing he thought. He looked around. He looked at the photo of his mother where it said “I will never forget you.”

I will give" was his handwriting, however he did not remember writing it. Scared, he called his mother’s house, wrong number?

His apartment looked different, it didn’t seem the same, it was more luxurious, elegant, orderly. Confused he went out into the street. The building where I lived was also different, like the streets, and the entire city. I didn’t know where I was, what year it was, and what I was doing there; He asked for information and they looked at him like a “crazy” person. Finally someone told him that it was the year 2040 and he was in the city of “Aires de Omega”. Increasingly confused, he began to think he might be dreaming. He used every resource to try to wake up and it was useless.

How could the year 2040 be? Did he travel in time? It couldn’t be true. He tried to put his mind together, what had he done to produce this change? Didn’t his mother exist in this world? Or it could be that… He called his girlfriend, and no one answered.

He turned on the shower; perhaps a bath would clear it up. The phone rang, he hesitated to answer it, but he picked up the tube. It was a certain Alfredo who claimed to be his “psychiatrist.” Félix, increasingly confused, asked about his mother, and from the other side he heard an expression of disappointment, followed by:

–The medication is not working, see me tomorrow at my consulting room.

-But why? –Félix asked excitedly. Someone who explain to me Alfredo was silent for a few seconds, then he said: –Félix, your mother died more than ten years ago.

And that’s when Felix’s head clicked and then exploded…literally…Apparently the changes he wanted worked in such a way that they built a new world of nightmares, like a diabolical game. In his mind, like a flash, a falling spoon appeared.

He tried to repeat the sequence again to try to understand these disastrous events that now constituted this present. The sunlight shone again with blinding force. He opened his eyes and his room changed again; This time it was a disaster; a complete disaster, worn out, abused.

The photos corroded by the fungus on the walls seemed a sad reflection of their past. Someone knocked on the door, it was the janitor. He saw its horns and demonic appearance. And finally he understood everything. “It was you,” he told her.

–You are wrong, Félix, you were able to change realities, something that demons cannot do, except me, of course, we use you, to contradict the laws of nature.

I didn’t know what to think. Was he going crazy? What if he ran away? But from what? From whom? It was likely that what was happening was a hallucination, but he had long since given up the joint. He thought of a way to not contradict nature, and tried to erase the demon that was using him as a floor rag to have fun for a while. I thought that would fix everything. However, that reality changed again and this time he found himself in hell itself, why? he asked himself. Eliminating that demon meant returning to normal, but he was wrong.

“You can’t eliminate someone superior to you,” Pharox told him. Demon controller of time and space – That daring can turn your world into true torment.

A terrifying sound diverted his attention. Through the window He saw the flight of a horrendous creature. The sky was covered. Of them, had Felix caused the end of the world?

He cried out of helplessness and despair. He escaped. In the streets he found what he was looking for; a different but unwanted reality; The desire of his anxiety to be something he was not had taken him to that limit. Suddenly the demons followed him everywhere. He wandered the world, alone, surrounded by hideous creatures. Suddenly it appeared Pharox.

– Don’t you think the landscape is beautiful? -asked. Humanity was over, it was their fault, there was no doubt. After walking for a long time he began to get used to that world until that reality too faded. He understood what his true power was; that of changing your karma with thought.

And so Félix realized that desires condemn us to our own destiny.

“Even though you haven’t answered me, I forgive you, because I see that you are in a moment of reflection,” Pharox told him, appearing out of nowhere again.

Felix walked to hell now located on earth, the paradoxes getting worse every time. His house, his room were a thing of the past, now they belonged to another world, which after all he did not dislike so much.

Something peculiar was that he did not feel guilt, the same one that eats away at our heads when we believe that we are guilty of everything around us, and are we?

Pharox, tired of having fun with Félix, proposed a macabre game, imagining the worst reality; the most catastrophic for both.

Even though he had just learned about his powers, Félix accepted the challenge. They would play with their imagination until they found each other’s weakest point. The prize for Félix would be to return to reality; to his world, the one he knew. And Pharox would keep Felix’s soul and his powers to be a complete entity.

– What do you mean by becoming a complete being? –Asked Félix who already tasted victory.

Pharox lit his pipe, which emitted a strange, nauseating-smelling smoke, while he explained to Felix that he was his other half; and that once complete he would rule hell and earth. But enough of words. The game had to start.

They sat at a round table with strange engravings, which looked familiar to Felix. The two would imagine the perfect nightmare for the other. Pharox started. Felix suddenly found himself in a world surrounded only by darkness, and a crimson light that showed him the way forward. He moved forward trusting his instinct.

Nothing scared him.

“I thought the worst fear of human beings was loneliness and darkness,” said Pharox, smoking his pipe. Not for Félix, who managed to banish that nightmare. They returned to the imaginary board, it was Félix’s turn.

He imagined a temple, a church, Pharox laughed out loud. –That doesn’t scare anyone, my dear Félix, in fact, I invite you to smoke the moss of hell with me before you lose.

The world that Pharox projected for Felix was a reality where demons committed the worst atrocities, which were enhanced by the smoke that invaded his brain to the point of making him believe he would go mad. However, he was stronger than his opponent believed and managed to dominate his mind.

When Pharox noticed that the moss in his pipe had run out, he proposed to Felix that he accompany him to the shore of the rivers of hell where they grew. “Maybe that was the reason” for that nauseating smell. Along the way they talked about everything that humanity went through until the end of their days. Little by little and despite being rivals, they became friends. They sat on a cliff and together they smoked more than necessary.

Recess was over. The game had to continue. They returned to the board; the dark angel who watched over him disappeared. Where were we? –Felix said. I think it’s my turn. “If it’s your turn,” Pharox replied.

– Felix imagined the worst for a demon; The same sky. He took Pharox to a place full of angels and shining golden lights. Pharox felt fear, and for the first time he tried to find the exit as quickly as possible; That world of angels and beings of light hammered his mind with songs and praises.

As Felix’s time expired, Pharox foresaw his own destruction, when the piercing cries of hell almost destroyed his ears, was it not an angelic song to him? Pharox felt the cold that human beings feel when they face a being from beyond. His turn came. If the darkness didn’t scare Felix, what was there left for him to do? He couldn’t create any reality. He felt defeated. Felix took pity on him and let his turn pass, did he really take pity? Or for the first time a human was torturing a demon? Could it be that the human is more destructive than Lucifer himself?

“Don’t be too smart,” Pharox warned him. And he invited him to continue. It was his turn again, he would show Félix a world where his loved ones were murdered in the worst way; And so he did until Félix smiled again, so much so that he laughed out loud.

–I think for the first time someone has made you nervous, right? Pharox angry with himself; He got up from the table and asked for two minutes, he had to clear his head or desperation would drive him crazy.

There was no doubt the roles were changed, a human being was causing terror to a demon. Félix approached him, and offered him

He put his pride aside, ended the game and let the world return to normal. Pharox shook the earth with a piercing scream and warned him not to underestimate him.

When he calmed down and could think, he realized that what he had believed until now about Felix was a mistake; It wasn’t his other half, but someone, perhaps a chosen one, or an angel? If Pharox gave up it would be his end not only in the hell he planned to build on earth to betray Lucifer.

He closed his eyes and smoked more infernal moss, trying not to succumb to nervousness, and felt how the toxic cloud penetrated his being.

When he opened them he found himself in Felix’s room; where it all began, Pharox, he knew that this was another trap of that imbecile human, besides, what could the human world do to a higher-ranking demon? Unfortunately for Pharox, the worst was yet to come.

– “Humans can’t scare me” – he said to himself when he left the apartment, but no one noticed his presence, since for society he was like a ghost, they didn’t see him.

He experienced firsthand the misfortune of loneliness, of no one noticing his presence, of no one even speaking to him and, worse still, he could no longer return to the infernal land and continue with the game to win it and get out of that hell that was the human world.

Scared more than usual, he tried to remember how he entered that horrible world, and his memory marked the moment when his pipe began to smoke. Was it a nightmare, or was Felix the culprit?

Another torment of the human world was present, doubt. I don’t Great to find the solution to his problem, he wandered through the world tormented by doubt.

He hated human beings more; even more so since he felt humiliated by one of them. He went to the table; Felix, his worst nightmare, was waiting for him there.

“I will only let you win on one condition,” said Pharox.

Which? – Know who you really are. Félix accepted the condition but still could not reveal the truth. He suggested calming his nerves since the worst for Pharox had not yet come.

First he recommended that he tell him the truth, and that he explain why he had created that hell on earth. Pharox explained that his purpose was to use him to betray Lucifer; and banish it.

“That was your worst mistake,” Félix told him, smiling as he undressed. It folded a never-before-seen potential of multicolored lights.

The world was populated with demons. Now Hell had increased its forces thanks to Pharox’s plan failing; another trap from Félix, a being capable of deceiving even the very saints.

–Game Over, you fell into our trap. –Wait, what are you going to do with me? –Pharox said. –We are going to banish you to the paradox where the world continues to function; where you belong. You were causing a lot of trouble for both good and evil, – Wait!… Mercy!

–Goodbye Pharox. It was fun playing with you.

Thus Pharox began to completely disintegrate. Now his worst punishment would be to be reincarnated in the human world. Everything in that real ity was transformed into fortresses of evil, Félix’s dream was fulfilled.

But we still didn’t know his real name. Felix adjusted his wings and headed to the palace of his master Lucifer. As he walked he smoked the moss and the singing of the demons made him laugh.

The palace opened its immense doors, the questions did not cease to cease in the tormented mind of Pharox who now reincarnated as a human being continued to wonder: Who really was Felix? How could he live in the human world and not be affected if he is a demon?

Dressed in a black robe, Lucifer was waiting for him, – Good job Judas, he told him – master demon of lies, deception and betrayal – Felix laughed, he had finally left the past behind… forever…

The Pharox Paradox#

The Pharox Paradox