My eyes opened to the sound of birds chirping. The light of the sun shining over my face didn't help. I felt refreshed and my heart felt at ease. Its rhythm had never been calmer and my mind had never been clearer. There was something awfully different about me that I couldn't put my finger on.
I wasn't complaining.
I subconsciously placed my right hand over my forehead to feel what was on there. It felt strange for some reason, I then remembered that the gemstone I destroyed became dust and entered through this part of my skin. I wanted to know what exactly happened to the gemstone but I had no motivation.
I found myself lying against charred soil covered by a thin layer of ash. I turned my head and saw that I was in the middle of a deep crater. The crater stretched for half a kilometer and was two hundred meters deep. The entire portion of the forest that once stood over these once fertile grounds had been reduced to mere ash, laced against the charred soil. Steam bellowed from here and there as underwater water reserves evaporated. slowly rose from under the ground and formed small geysers.
Using my enhanced sense, I was able to see far and wide and saw the full extent of the devastation I and my enemy caused to the land. Several forest fires were raging across multiple locations leaving behind a trail of ash and death.
The damage had been done, I thought.
Tens of kilometers of trees had been flattened, fueling the fires as they passed through. I watched as animals huddled inside their burrows. What was once supposedly the safest place they could be was turned into their graves. As the fires spread, the burrows were engulfed and there was no way out for the poor beasts. The animals either burned or choked to death as the smoke entered their abodes. It was horrible for a psychic like me to witness the death and destruction I caused upon nature.
Yet, in my defense, I had no other choice. If I had let that gemstone run rampant, the destruction it would cause to this world would result in apocalyptic scenarios that would otherwise result in the near extinction of all life on the planet. A rogue psychic entity such as the gemstone could break the minds of tens of millions in a single attack if done right, driving entire urban centers mad while wildlife ran rampant across all frontiers.
I knew this outcome was certain because I had seen it happen to a world in the past.
I was young and my mother had just passed away. We were hunting down a rogue psychic battalion that had seized control of a research station on a Terran-class planetoid. Our ship scans came back null as if all life on the planet had vanished. I was the first to get to the surface. After I surveyed the landing zone, our detachment landed and swept the research station for the traitors.
They were all dead. Most of them had been driven insane while two were missing and assumed KIA. The entire facility was a bloodbath of animal corpses, some animals that shouldn't even be on that part of the world were also there for some reason we hadn't determined.
Until we investigated further.
The dumbasses had activated a psychic beacon a couple of hours prior that died as soon as it sent out a psychic signal across the planet. Almost all aquatic life beached themselves on every beach on the planet while 90% of land-based species went mad and attempted to follow the source of the psychic signal. Most didn't make it, the ones that did, formed a pile of corpses that could be seen from space.
What a life I had lived, I thought.
But nature always found a way.
I sensed the rolling and toiling of a thunderstorm from the east. Nature had been bruised yet it had always persevered. Even though it was rocked by the sudden appearance of two powerful psychic entities duking it out, mother nature continued.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into the air.
Time went by. I didn't know how long I was out in the cold but I was certain it was quite a bit. I neither had the will nor motivation to stand on my feet even as the dark clouds from the east gathered over the sky above. It started with a few droplets, one of which hit my nose. Then came the first flash of light chased by loud thunder that shook my passive barrier. Water fell from the sky as slowly as it could before the eventual downpour that would leave the surroundings drenched in freshwater.
Thunder and lightning entertained me while the strong downpour calmed my mind. The rest of the afternoon was nothing but the twists and roars of the storm. I saw as the smoke rose its last as the fires that raged from far and wide were extinguished. I seldom used my enhanced or psychic sense because there was no point. There wasn't a being curious and crazy enough to venture towards the epicenter of the disaster that shook the entire world that night. I assumed that most of the beings who saw what happened from afar and had the ability to think would have thought right then and there that the world as they knew it was about to end.
Yet the end did not come and the clash of lights that brightened the night sky dimmed and disappeared.
I wanted to think that everything was a dream, a lie that was made to make me feel better. I thought maybe I was dead and this was the afterlife. Maybe I was already dead when I got sucked out of my reality and this was the hell specifically made for me.
The rain poured. My blank face stared quietly into the abyss of the night as my thoughts erupted into a frenzy of anguish and regret. For some reason, distant memories I thought I had long forsaken resurfaced. They came in the form of nightmares, they appeared as souls in my mind that yelled at me, pulled at me, some even begged me to save them. The faces they had were blurry but familiar, I knew that these people were people I once knew back then. Why they were in my mind, I had forgotten already.
All of this continued until I saw myself standing by the peak of a mountain. The sky was red, the clouds were blank, and below was an endless sea of bodies. They were countless, of all ages, of every race. My heart began to beat faster and I began to palpitate.
Please.
Leave me alone.
I'm sorry.
Please leave me alone, I asked my thoughts.
The rain stayed and poured until evening came. The blanket of stars that once covered the sky during this time was shrouded by the dark clouds. There was no light to shine over me other than the hue from my eyes that remained even in the darkness, I had nothing but myself.
I thought about the sisters. I wondered where they were and how they were. They were alive and well, I could still sense their barriers taking small bits of my psychic power every now and then to replenish. I didn't mind, it was my intention from the start to save them yet I could have prevented that confrontation in the first place. I let my guard down and paid the price I feared. I was gone for how many days and nights, and now they were gone. Alive, probably well, but gone. I couldn't sense their presence nor the trail of their psychic barrier. The connection I had with the psychic barrier I cast over them formed a faint trail even if the trail was due to a subconscious action yet I couldn't follow it. I didn't understand why it was like that, I just couldn't.
Maybe they were too far away but that wouldn't explain why my psychic powers still reached them. In all honesty, I was worried. I began to doubt even my own psychic abilities. This was the first in a long time I had doubted my powers as a psychic. I never once felt this useless in the face of tribulation because I was always confident, I always had a plan, a way out, I seldom tasted defeat.
But as I laid there against the muddied ground and the turbulent winds. As the drops of rain bounced off the psychic barrier over my skin and dripped down to the soil, I felt as if I had failed everything. The mission had just started and I had failed, how do I redeem myself? I asked myself.
I just wanted to lay there, not for a long time, no.
Just forever.
However, If I did that, I will never be at peace.
The souls of the innocent I have damned will forever haunt me.
But.
This wasn't me.
I was more than this.
My mother thought me that strong people always fought until they couldn't.
I should never give up in the face of defeat for defeat was never certain until I died! And here I was, alive and kicking. My psychic powers roared inside my mind and extinguished the nightmarish thoughts that plagued me. It boiled and screamed at me to stand up and be the psychic I always strived to be. I wasn't just some random weakling that crumbled in the face of disaster.
I reminded myself of who I was before I entered this world.
I was a conqueror.
I was a warrior.
I was a statesman.
I was and still am the most powerful psychic that has ever lived.
And I was the father of many.
Now, look at where I found myself, betrayed, alone, and in despair.
I was no longer the person that I once was. I had left behind my treasures and my throne to rot in the hands of the scoundrels of my own design.
I was still a psychic but with a new purpose to embrace.
I needed a sign and mother nature heard my call.
The clouds above me began to part and the shine of the moonlight came through. The evening stars greeted me with the twinkle of their ethereal lights as the grand sea of space called out to me. My entire body shone the crimson light of my powers as I stumbled onto my feet. The mud on my coat slipped away as I stood defiant on my feet. In the middle of this enormous crater was the architect that made it and that architect was me. It was time for me to move and be what I should be.
I didn't fully understand yet but I knew what to do. I needed to find the sisters and achieve the goal that had appeared in my mind. I would be their friend and guardian. My time as the ruler of a galaxy had ended, it was time to start anew.
I was to be the shining light of crimson that would guide not only the sisters to safety but this world to harmony. This world was chaotic, turbulent, and full of surprises both welcomed and unwelcomed. I was the most powerful psychic that had misused his own powers for greed and power. I thought to myself, maybe this was what my mother wanted me to be. To be the opposite of the people that took everything from us yet I became like them.
I was ashamed of myself. The souls that were screaming at me were none other than the souls of the people I left behind to rot to further my ambitions and greed. It was my time to start anew and redeem myself for the sins I had committed in the past.
As I began floating into the air, the word I sought flashed into my mind, and finally, I had a name for myself. It embodied what I was going to strive to become. This entire world of sorrow shall know my name and it shall strike terror onto the hearts of the corrupted. Never shall I once again be swallowed by pride and greed. Never again shall I trample on the weak and never shall I let the strong do the same sins as I did.
The shining light of crimson red shall be their guiding light.
I will be,
Hope.
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