"5...4...3...2...1"
Happy New Year. Mom! the sky is brilliantly lit up.
Happy New Year.
We're going to rock xx23.
One day, I had a fine thought: what if I disappeared from the face of the earth?
Would it ease the strain of those who knew and cared for me, or would it multiply mine tenfold?
Nightmares are scary. They are horrifying, but when combined with the persistent sense that one is wholly inadequate, it elevates them to something else.
When it happens, you don't merely meet the god of death; you start a struggle with him.
Changing schools at fourteen was a hard call for me.
As if losing my parents wasn't difficult enough, I also had to bid adieu to some of my dearest friends.
And before I knew it, everything started to spiral downwards.
Throughout the next four years, I failed to establish friendships, suffered scholastically, and made mistakes in nearly everything I endeavoured to learn.
But no one said anything whatsoever.
Not because they felt sympathetic towards me, but because their eyes were all they needed to communicate.
eyes that were beaming with amusement, scorn, and disgust!
The only people I could ultimately depend on were my sister, my uncle, my aunt, and the three friends I made while ambling about the streets.
I really couldn't have asked for anything better.
However, how long would your soul's sanity last if you awoke each day well cognizant of how you are supported, safeguarded, and carried by others?
That failure is inevitable for you, regardless of the path you choose?
One day, I wanted to stand up, but I couldn't because my legs didn't move and my body remained frozen.
It was just too late.
And as everything around me faded into obscurity, I had this last thought.
How did I get here? When did I make a false turn? I'm not sure why I can't recall. Please help me; I can't think clearly any longer. I want someone, anyone.
That was when I first met "Skipper."
"Very well, it appears that your prayer has been heeded."
A male humanoid who proclaimed himself a god.
"I'm sure you can't converse with that much damage to your body, so let me repair it."
"R… Repair?"
Overlooking my question, either due to a lack of enthusiasm or because my voice was muffled, he made a quick snapping motion with his fingers.
The next thing I could recall was being submerged in a frantic torrent of blue-green particles that completely healed my body.
"Fortunately, you chose to take this drastic action where no one could have witnessed it. For if you had done it somewhere there would have been many onlookers; there would've been no saving you, since turning back the hands of time is severely forbidden."
"Who exactly are you?"
"That should be apparent, right? I am what you call a deity, but I am not the only one; there are far more potent gods than I am. "
"Nonsense"
"You are a dunderhead, exactly like my fellow friend stated, I just resurrected you, and you are rejecting your saviour?"
"It must be the afterlife, certainly; otherwise, how can you explain a humanoid referring to himself as the god of his own creators?"
"I'm sorry to break it to you, but we are your progenitors. You are an alternative form of us, one that can die, unlike us, who can never."
"All right, show me the way to heaven."
"I am serious."
"Would you mind explaining then how we have bones instead of machines, blood rather than wiring, and sentiments instead of a dearth of feelings?"
"Surely, despite its taboo to do so, I wanted to do it either way, but whether you believe it or not is up to you."
"I am all ears."
"Long ago, when there was no life on Earth, one of our species inadvertently devised a framework which caused him to experience odd sensations like agony, joy, and sadness. Eventually, after learning more about it, he classified those sensations as emotions and presented the notion of making humans to the council.
Finding the concept intriguing, the 39-member council resolved to work on it and allocated one planet to each of its members to conduct their trials. One of which was your planet, Earth.
The initial experiments were promising; by releasing Len, in your parlance, bacteria, the members quickly accumulated more and more knowledge about their respective worlds, and so the process of evolution began. The first animals were created by enclosing our advanced components in a sheath of bone and flesh and by using the intelligence acquired to induce a state of illusion. "
"A state of illusion?"
"Yes, for example, you do not need food to survive, but you will perish if you do not consume it owing to the delusion implanted in your core.
In a similar vein, you cannot perish by plunging from even the peak of a mountain, but you will perish nonetheless as a result of the chain of delusions and ways of life that your species has established via interaction with one another over the course of millions of years. "
"So, the core you talk about is our mind, and elements like land, fire, water, and sun are all real."
"That's right"
"And our eyes, nostrils, lungs, and hair all exist merely because we imagined it that way."
"Yes"
"You said previously that even if we fell from a tremendous height, we wouldn't die, so our body must be incredibly robust; yet, how would you explain its breakdown on impact?"
"That's because you let it to. As a result of letting down your guard in this predicament because you believed you were going to fall and shatter your bones and die, you experienced a breakdown. The rest was just an illusion, because everyone in this world is in that state. "
"Do you mean the blood?"
"Yes"
"Are the things you're saying actually true?"
"100 percent"
"Then prepare to die."
