The young man's knitted his brows as he looked at the first sentence displayed on the screen.
"What is up with that sentence?" he asked. The other one, sitting on a chair, turned his head towards the man looking at the screen. Tilting his head, he hesitantly asked:
"...Which sentence are you referring to?"
"The first one. Was it supposed to be a preface? I feel like it is just attached there in an unnatural way."
The other one cast his eyes down and started to play with his watch without realizing it. It was the first sentence and he was already getting questions. One could see the gloominess creeping up on the skinny youth.
"I thought... I saw some people expressing their displeasure for some stuff... so I thought..."
The young man staring at the screen turned his head towards his friend as the voice was trailing off. He subtly smiled when he noticed that his friend was playing with his watch. 'He never got rid of this habit' he thought. He reminisced; he thought about the anxious kid he first met in high school...
...And how he turned into one of the most powerful people in the country. 'Guess he reverts when he attempts something new from the ground'.
"Relax now, I am not testing you, you know. I didn't say that it was unnecessary. If you wanted to state that, so be it. This belongs to you after all. All I am telling is that maybe you should either find a more organic way to put it in or just state it in your preface."
The skinny youth's face softened. In a more relaxed tone, he said:
"All right, I will consider-" His face suddenly distorted. Under the questioning gaze of the other man, he looked toward the direction where he felt the fluctuation. A moment passed, and his eyes widened.
'I can not stop this.'
As the impending doom approached, his mind raced.
'I have to save him.'
It hasn't even been a second, yet the despair was grasping his heart.
'Whoever is behind this... Its power is beyond my capabilities. My power... That I was so proud of... is useless.'
He couldn't bear the idea of the death of the first -and only- person he could call a friend. Their remained time was now about half a second. He could see the change in the eyes of his friend. 'He noticed' he thought.
Their remaining time fleeted, and the sound of an explosion reverberated. As the immense light and heat devoured their bodies he made a decision.
'We will die regardless of what I try. I at least want to prevent you from disappearing'
He used Psyons particles to his full extent and tried to encase his friend. Not his body, but his "essence", what defines his being.
In his despair, he tried his best so that his friend's soul would remain intact.
'If there is a merciful god out there' he thought as death approached to claim his life 'Perhaps he will guide you... To a new life.'
***
It did not know how it came to existence, when it recovered from unconsciousness, or what it was looking at. However, there was one thing that it had no way to doubt: the feeling that was filling its insides.
Awe.
The thing in front of it was... well, it was neither releasing pressure upon it nor performing an outstanding stunt. But it could still tell that the thing was a higher being.
An entity of higher status.
A greater form of sentience.
Something that could rule upon existence by exerting its will.
'A Divine Being' it thought. 'Let's call it that.'
Now that it somewhat defined what was at the center of its attention, now it could think about other questions that were gnawing at its mind.
"Who was I again?.." It pondered.
"Try remembering the last thing you saw or felt" It heard a gentle voice. The voice belonged to an old man, though it was so distracted by this new question, it couldn't recognize that the Divine Being was the owner of the voice.
"Heat... and light... Before that" It trailed off. After a while:
"Oh! I was reading something. It belongs to my friend-" Following that, its- his memories poured into his mind. The day he lost his mother, the times he played "hide" with his dad, his teenage years when he helped his father with his business and attended high school...
He remembered his awakening, and he remembered the time when his father passed the head position to him.
He remembered the flames, and he remembered the things that would sadden his deceased mother.
He composed himself after the flux of memories was over, and took a look at himself.
And he failed because there was nothing to look at.
He tried to take a look around and find out that he was in a garden under a white sky. The colors of the plants were unnaturally pale and all the furniture in the garden was white.
There was also an old man standing with an upright posture, who was wearing a simple grey robe. His wrinkled face had a smile on it and his eyes were squinted, making his grey irises barely visible. He had short white hair and a clean shave. 'This is the thing that got my attention first' he realized.
"Are you here to guide me, venerable sir?"
Comments (1)
See all