In Search Of Well — series

Volume One: "BLUE DEMON (Source of Water)"

‘COPYRIGHT’

Copyright © 2024 MW Arts All rights reserved.

The following storyline is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

No part of this publication can be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, please contact at, bluedemonnovel@gmail.com

Original character illustrations, concept arts : by Author.

Genres: Fiction | Dark Fantasy | Sci-Fi | Action | Adventure | Supernatural

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— CHAPTER ONE —

"A Man Who Lost. (Eclipse of Dawn)"

*…as Afroza. Vhereas for me, the letter ‘double u (w)’ is forbidden, so I alvays replace it vith letter ‘V’ to pronounce or to rite.*

In the dimly lit room, darkness stretched across the wooden walls, while the silence wrapped everything in a deafening stillness—it felt like a fragile balance of peace and despair. The air was heavy, thick with unspoken words, until the sharp scratch of a pen broke the silence, moving urgently across the roughness of the paper.

*It definitely makes my vocabulary akvard (awkward) by this unusual replacement. But this is the only vay.*

A man in a black velvet coat with the hood around his neck, was sitting hunched over a weathered desk. His legs folded beneath him. And his expressions were a disturbing mix of fear, and sorrow, as he was writing the final pages of a thick book. 

Shadows of his messy, ash hair danced over his pale face. The only source of light was a faint white glow from a lantern in the corner of the table - akin to a lone star in a midnight sky.

However, the man—his eyes steeped in despair, breathed in quick, shallow gasps when he wrote down a peculiar flaw in his life—the letter W was forbidden for him by nature. 

Yet, he continued to write the last paragraphs of the book, almost as if he was addressing someone who might’ve already on the next page.

*I vonder you are avare?* He wrote. *They say a boy vith the vildest dreams never dies before his dreams do. Throughout my journey, I have not yet discerned my ambitions, but I found myself alive, indeed forever. 

Apart from achieving nothing in my life but self-doubts and disappointments that brought negativities like those guests ve never liked, the only hope that kept me alive since my childhood to this very brink of adulthood, is an advice from a kid that said,*

He dipped the nib of his pen into the ink pot. As the black liquid enveloped it in a shimmering embrace, he rotated the paper to the next blank one and resumed writing…

*‘The only thing that either hides you in the shado(w) of this vorld, OR casts you as a shado(w) upon this vorld, is a decision!’

It had me thinking for years and I reached the conclusion that, ‘a choice of vell is not about making a decision, but its fulfilling’. Among this darkness, fears, and hunger that is left along me… I am scared of fulfilling vhat I have decided. 

Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorr…*

Apparently, the man began crying his heart out in sheer frustration. His body trembled uncontrollably as he wrote ‘Sorry’ twelve times in a row, recalling twelve fleeting moments from his past. His tears that streamed down his cheeks, spilled upon the paper, blending some of the texts.

Despite the low hiccups intervening between his will to write. Abruptly, his eyes widened as though a strange energy sparked within him. 

The man drew his face closer to the book, leaving his hair framing it as they bowed down. He dismissed the emotions that seemed to overwhelm him, and intended to write just a little more.

*I am sorry! It vas necessary. I kno you vill, you are reading this.* 

Grimacing, fis face was a testament to his crumbling soul, reflecting the depth of his unease thoughts. 

*Everyone must kno the value of it. Let them kno about the shado(w) they had been ignoring… until it expanded like a menacing nightfall, salloing (swallowing) all of their candles of hopes.*

With a surge of anxiety coursing through his veins, the man wrote the last words so fast and forcefully that he broke the nib of his pen. 

With a heavy exhale, he rose to his feet, his movements were deliberate yet spoke tension.

“It’s time,” he murmured, his voice flat, weighed down by a hint of melancholy.

Drawing a deep breath, the man clutched the book tightly against his chest as he stepped out of the one-room old wooden house. The door creaked sharply as it shut behind him, the sound rippled through the warm, sunlit air.

Standing tall on a veranda like space after his house, the man sighed, regaining his composure as he glanced to the horizon ahead. Unblinking, like lost in awe, his gaze settled upon the sky stretching wide before him, painted with a beautiful pink and golden hue. 

The sun seemed rising so majestically from behind the earth, as if peeking from the back of those giant mountains that stood high to the heavens and as far as an eye could see. 

Apparently, the man was standing on one of the mountain’s peak, alone. There was no clue of the existence of life in sight, but only mountains. Their rugged peaks were bathed in warm, radiant sunlight. Though it was a scenery of tranquility, yet the man wasn’t soothed at all. Instead, he seemed profoundly perplexed. 

Brows furrowing, he glanced around himself, a hint of disbelief etched across his face. “Just ho(w) long did I stay isolated in my home?” He murmured, noticing the mountain’s summit which had certainly changed. 

The once-familiar surroundings felt foreign that he couldn’t contain his confusion any longer. 

For a moment, he casted a quick glance over his shoulder, as if catching the last sight of his house in the vast landscape behind. Alone, and alone—like a forgotten relic on the edge of the world, or like a lone bird’s nest, dear to him, yet destined to abandon. 

Meanwhile, as a gentle breeze passed by, tousling his hair, the man flinched and gazed down at the book in his hands. 

Mouth slightly agape, his determination seemed fueled—his motive, that he began to walk toward the cliff in the distance. 

With each step, silent tears began to fill his eyes. He covered his face with a hand, while speaking softly to the empty air, narrating to no one in sight.

“It has been years,” The man said, his voice deep yet barely more than a whisper. “Ho(w) many?” His gaze drifted into the endless sky, searching for something to measure time. He added, “I cannot even guess,” a depressed chuckle escaped him, and for a brief moment, his eyes seemed to blur his focus as if he was stranded between two worlds or more. 

“Honestly,” He continued. “I do not remember… because I found my reality merged with my imaginations,” His parched lips trembled and he blew out a smoky exhale into the whistling and rough breeze.

“I do not kno have I been (w)riting or being (w)ritten, but I kno that…” 

He paused his steps abruptly!

“I am being read.” 

The man breaks the fourth wall, addressing you, my dear the readers, with a profound serious look on his face. However, again, he carried on his determined march toward the cliff he had initially left the house to reach for. 

“Read by them (w)ho are probably vondering, (w)ho am I speaking to?” He said aloud. His voice a constant weight of melancholy. “Or, vhat am I even muttering for?” He let out a deep sigh. “But I still have nothing to tell.” 

He glanced at the rising sun, still adding, “All my characters (characteristics), fears, relations, and emotions… I lost in the vay. All that is left is just me and my loneliness.”

As he reached the cliff’s edge, he paused. Extending one foot out into the air, the man left it hovering over the vast emptiness below. 

From this immense height of the mountain’s cliff, he gazed down at the sea of clouds, dense yet light, stretched out beneath him like a misty ocean, floating softly just down the mountains, roofing the earth with an ethereal haze against the bright sunrise. 

The man’s expressions shifted, a hint of enthusiasm palpable on his face. A faint grin tugged at the corners of his lips, and his tear-filled eyes widened with a childlike awe. 

He marveled at the clouds beneath his feet, though he looked holding his joy within. But it wasn’t unnoticeable! 

The innocent thrill of a boy he felt, like fascinated by seeing the clouds for the first time, or perhaps the quiet delight of standing over the top of an endless sky.

Meanwhile, he resumed speaking in a flat voice, his words came out in disjoint pieces, incoherent. 

“I used to say, ‘alvays keep your laughter high because you never kno vhen you vill mourn forever.’” He closed his eyes, his coat flapping in the rushing winds. “But as of no(w) I realize,” he sighed, a heavy exhale through his nostrils. “It is impossible to feel an ounce of happiness… vhen I am standing at the destination I feared the most.” 

And the man jumped off the cliff!

So fast, the clouds rushed, passing him by upwardly as he fell, hurtling downward with an incredible speed. The winds howled fiercely all around him, whipping the strands of his hair into wild like unease spears.

Unexpectedly, he was overtaken by hysteria. A loud, uncontrollable laughter erupted from him while he was falling through the storm of winds, his body spinning in the cloudy ocean like a lost comet, a mole in the bright sky.

With his head angled toward the distant earth and feet to the heavens, undoubtedly, the man could feel himself drawing closer to the ground with each heartbeat. Yet, even as he sensed his end approaching, his laughter remained ringing out, reflecting his strange, joyous acceptance to embrace his descent.

Though, amidst the expanse of air with no soul to address and no anchor to hold onto, the man yet continued to speak aloud.

“Destinations?” His voice filled with enthusiasm. He chuckled,

“Ha! I just cannot figure out this concept. Vhat destinations are they talking about? Journey is enough for us travellers. Though they say!” His tone shifted with each word, growing heavy with foreboding. “They say if a system reaches its limits… it needs a reboot. But I am tired of vandering around the vorld in search of vhat are my limits? Vhen…” He suddenly paused speaking, and added a confession, dramatically.

“Vhen I, Kayne Vali, am the curse upon mankind.”

The narration was done by the man after he revealed his name. Chuckles remained escaping him effortlessly, echoing like a menacing cacophony.

Suddenly, Vali’s body seemed to glitch, and he began fading as though unseen forces were erasing him piece by piece. 

His arms and legs dissolved, swept away by the clouds, stolen by the winds of fate itself as he was rapidly descending to the ground. 

The clouds parted, and the earth now came into sight, drawing closer to him with every passing second, yet his expression remained peaceful. 

With a serene smile on his lips, he closed his eyes when two teardrops slipped free, carried above by the wind until they, too, vanished into the clouds like his limbs.

His face faded next, leaving behind a haunting blankness where his skin had been. And he seemed nothing more than a ghost in the form of a human. A little more than a shadow in a heavy, black cloak, standing out against the sun peeking from behind the mountains. 

In that arcane moment, a chorus erupted from him—a cacophony of multiple voices. Each one carried a distinct tone as if many souls were bound all together just to proclaim the final declaration of Kayne Vali.

“I… am the ‘Cursed Era of Valkaniz’!”

— TO BE CONTINUED —