Grey Nirmala
Everything was dark, yet at the same time, everything was blindingly bright. I didn't know where I was. Only that irritating, piercing light. The last thing I remembered was Raya. I could still picture her long blue hair in my mind. It calmed me, brought me joy. In this blinding light, she was my only salvation.
It was strange, being in the presence of this light that felt like infinity, and then even more infinity. The light didn't harm me, yet it hurt. Not my eyes—but somewhere else. My heart… My memories were still blurry. I would pull one forward in my mind, but I couldn't quite grasp what had happened in it. The harder I tried to remember, the more it hurt. I couldn't see or feel a single part of my body. But I knew they were there.
In this silence, space and time had stalled; life and death had vanished. Memories and emotions tangled together while light and darkness waited. There had to be only one reason for my condition. The aethers game... It had to be aether that dragged me here. My memories writhed, screaming at me in pain. There was no soundwave, only echoes of screams.
I waited. I waited for the light to vanish. I waited to remember. I just… waited. Impatience would solve nothing. Sulking wouldn't offer escape. Patience was my only way out. And I believed the wait was worth it, because the black light faded, replaced by memories and feelings. My memories. My feelings. The pain had disappeared. The light had gone out, and my memories revived.
The first memory I saw belonged to my annoying older sister, Opie Nirmala. I saw us one evening, throwing banana peels at each other. I was frowning . I couldn't understand why my sister annoyed me so much that day, yet deep inside I knew I had enjoyed that moment. She was the first person who didn't judge me. My beloved sister. I reached out for the memory. I wanted to clutch it, hold it tightly in my hands. But no matter what I did, I could never reach it.
My vision overflowed with memories. In another one, Raya was helping me with a stupid math problem. Klein shoved a cooperation pamphlet into my hands, grinning from ear to ear. Alora was peeking at me from behind Rain, who was talking with me about a teacher who was harassing students which gotten him expelled. Sunny was chomping on a damn taco, laughing idiotically. Nya, chasing after the boy she liked, accidentally ran into me, and we both fell flat on our asses. My parents were watching some dull drama on TV in the warm, busy night.
So many memories… but they weren't finished. More kept forming. Memories I didn't even remember. A younger girl, brown-haired and blue-eyed, smiled at me with a wide, sweet grin. I didn`t know her but I knew her name. Cathy... She vanished, replaced by another scene. I stood on the surface of the moon, staring at someone, or something. I couldn't make out what it was, but I felt its sorrow. Then a shudder, and suddenly I was elsewhere.
Before me stood four different beings. Each radiated a different aura, but they shared one thing in common: overwhelming power, terrifying power. Words rippled through my mind. Time, Space, Life, and Death. And above them, another force: Destruction and Creation. A true monster. Perhaps the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. Golden and violet eyes glared at me with hatred. I remembered it. It had revealed itself to me in the Void. I had questions for it. I reached out again, but the memory rejected me. It pushed me away with all its strength and then collapsed in on itself.
Another memory. A storm. But inside the storm stood a city. People walked about as if nothing was wrong. In the center of the city, a palace. Inside the palace, a king upon his throne. Behind the king, a gate. I drifted toward it, slipping into another memory. A vast library, shelves stacked with hundreds of thousands of books. One fell without reason. The memory shifted again.
Five women stared directly at me. Each wore a different expression. One with pink haired smiled. Then, one by one, they vanished. Replaced by countless faces I didn't recognize. All different. Two red-haired sibling like, a girl and a boy. A pastel-pink-haired boy. A green-haired, nonchalant man. A white-haired little girl with rainbow eyes. More and more surrounded me: a clown-costumed girl, a faceless ghost, a lost angel, a clumsy purple haired boy, a crimson-eyed girl in a black dress… Too many to count.
But among them, a small blue-haired girl beamed at me with an exaggerated smile. Her grin comforted me. She reminded me of Maya. The girl who once saved me. She was a little angle. But of course, every good thing ends. One by one, the hundreds of faces dissolved, leaving only violet aetheric particles drifting in their wake.
Destruction. War. Death. Vengeance. Blood. Savagery. Fear. Pain. Rage. Grief. Disgust. Hatred.
All these emotions consumed my mind. The screams of the Void echoed in my skull. Everything and everyone who tried to escape was obliterated. I ascended, and they fell. The universe was nothing but a cutten wound. And I existed to make it bleed.
I saw. I felt. I heard. I saw destruction with my eyes. I felt it with my hands and feet. I heard the screams of its victims with my ears. And I absorbed it all. The crying laughed. The laughing cried.
What I understood from those diffrent parts of my body was divergent. At first, I only wanted justice for Maya. But now, I could do more. Humanity fights only for its own gain. The only difference between good and evil is a matter of measure. In the end, everyone's good gives rise to another's evil, and everyone's evil gives rise to another's good. A child may help an old woman walk across the road, but crush an insect in the process—and the death of that insect could destroy the entire world. A thief may rob a bank, that forces people to find new solutions, new meanings.
But unlike them, I was neither. I didn't want to be tangled in a war of interests. Yet years ago, I had already been dragged into it. Winning or losing no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered was understanding the reason. Why am I alive? Why did Maya die? I didn't want vengeance or hope to answer these questions. I only wanted to understand. To live.
The people around me—my family, my friends... They had helped me for their own purposes. One wanted to protect me. One, to love me. I cared for them, but they only proved my point. I laughed. A meaningless laugh. Who was I kidding? I was no different from them. I too wanted to protect them. To love them. To understand them. Just not only by following the paths they walked.
I don't even know if I'll remember these moments, but I don't care. Memories and feelings showed me this path of tears and smiles. Showed me understanding. No one is bound to Fate, only to themselves.
My eyes reflected the light. My fingers brushed across the earthen ground. The air was dark. The red moon glowed in the sky. Gray-leaved trees surrounded me, tiny orange particles drifting through their branches. With the help of my hands, I pushed myself up from the ground, trying to understand where I was. A place like this had never existed on Earth. Perhaps this wasn't Earth at all. But where?
My thoughts instantly turned to Raya. To all of them. Fear filled me. Were they safe? Alive? I could hear and feel my heartbeat racing. I was swallowed by the unknown, not even knowing how I had come here. Not knowing what else to do, I ran. I had no destination, because I didn't even know where I was. I ran deeper into the forest. Strange, terrifying sounds echoed from every corner of the vast darkness.
The last thing I remembered was forming a small amount of aether to use the rune of destruction. I wanted to save them, from him. But did I caused more? Lost in thought, I didn't even see the massive tree before me. Before I could react, it caught me. My whole body slammed into the dark giant body of the tree. Pain split through my head. I tried to lift myself, but failed miserably. I lay there, staring at the countless gray leaves above me. I sighed, frowning.
"Damn it. Why does everything have to happen to me?"
I took a deep breath, letting the cold air wash over me. This time, I was truly alone.
And at last, I realized something.
"Grey Nirmala was never alone. He only thought he was."
I got up from the ground that omitted me. The sky of unknown and the trees of gray were everywhere. But I now knew what I wanted and what I needed.
Destruction now at my palms, I can erase everything. With Creation, I can construct anything. And I will use it to unbound the chains of Fate. Understand it to a point only I can achieve. My will against the words of Gods. Some people chase for their gods dreams. Some people hunt for their gods worships. I am not one of those people. I belive in no god but myself. I only belive in Grey Nirmala. "Fate" my ass. I will hunt down all of those dreams and worships, so I can understand and love those around me. Protect them. Free them. Help Them. I wanted to fathom their lives. And I would to anything to achive that dream. My dream... So let the hunt began.