He looked back and saw the monster clearly now. The monster was like pure white snow, seemingly made of snow, as if the snow itself had consumed a being and come back alive.
"What the f*ck is this?" Kael thought, running ahead of it.
The monster was close behind him. They were playing a desperate game of run and chase, but how long could it last?
It wasn't like humans were stronger or more powerful than the monsters. The only outcomes were Kael's stamina running out or Kael dying from the cold.
Both situations were dire as Kael ran at a full sprint. He could feel the monster's breath inches from his neck, a chilling sensation running through his mind and body.
"Huff... huff..." Kael was running out of breath, certain that death was right behind him.
He couldn't even grasp what was going on, and he couldn't look clearly at the monster. All he knew was that he needed to run as fast as he could.
Until...
The monster's hand touched Kael's neck slightly—it barely counted as a scratch—but the moment it made contact, Kael felt the heat on his body disappearing. Instead, an extreme cold spread across his neck and back, as if that part of his body had ceased to exist.
"Shit... shit... this is bad news. I can't feel my neck," he gasped, "huff huff."
He couldn't see where he was going. The monster chase had deviated him from his intended path.
As he was nearing the end of his stamina, he fell down on the ground with a loud bam.
He realized that the monster had used its legs as an obstacle to unbalance his momentum.
Kael was now on the ground, his face overlapping the dirt. His gas mask had fallen somewhere far from him.
He tasted the extreme cold of the ground as his face began to freeze.
"It's smart and fast at the same time," Kael thought, barely getting off the ground. He was not on two feet but sitting and sliding backward as the monster came closer and closer to kill him.
"Is this how I die?"
"Is this how I make my dad proud?"
"I don't want to die."
"Please, someone help me."
Kael was begging for help, pleading for mercy.
"Please don't kill me," he pleaded.
At the same time, he was angry at himself for being unable to do anything.
For a second, the world seemed to stop for Kael, as if time itself was halting its forward movement. Kael thought it was the end for him.
Then, time really did stop, and the monster, which had been slowly approaching him, came to a halt like a statue.
"Huff….huff, what the hell is going on?"
He got up and tried to make sense of it, but it wasn't helping him at all.
Nothing right now was making sense for him; even the falling snow came to a complete stop.
Suddenly, everything turned black and white except for him, and the world began to feel blurry.
Kael looked at the stars in the sky and saw the whole sky, the whole stars, going backward, as if time was reversing itself.
What the hell? he thought.
The stars changed their position, and one particular group of stars came closer and closer to Kael as time reversed.
It got closer and closer until Kael was lifted from the ground and flew through the Earth's atmosphere into the star constellation. He could feel the power rushing through his veins; every organ, every bone, was reconstructing itself for the new power.
His hands and body started to glow with bright yellow light from his veins, ready to hold the power.
At the same time, a lot of information was flooding his mind.
A compelling voice shrouded Kael's mind:
A voice, deeper than the earth and heavier than a mountain, resonated in his skull:
"GRAVITY....MASS! GRAVITY! MASS!"
He now knew that the power he held was that of the stars and that he was chosen by the constellation itself.
When everything settled down, he was on the same spot where he was before the flight to take the power.
He saw the monster standing in front of him, confused maybe.
Kael no longer felt as cold as he thought he would feel.
Is it because of the power that I got that I don't feel too cold?
It's bearable right now, Kael thought.
He went and took his gas mask and wore it.
The cold breath leaving through the gas mask hole was turning into snow.
Oh, it's still cold then, but I don't feel it.
"Well, whatever," Kael looked at the monster and raised his hand.
The monster came back to real life at the same time as Kael, but its mind was corrupted by the time stop, so it took time to come back to life.
By raising his hand,
Kael thought, "How was it again?"
Oh, yes: 'Now, who is the prey?'
He deeply thought to lift the monster into the air.
And so the monster did.
It flew into the sky as if gravity wasn't a factor anymore.
Now that it was about to be killed, the monster tried to struggle but couldn't escape the power that Kael was exerting.
A surge of golden light shot from the sky to Kael and showered him with golden light, as if the sky itself was powering him.
He lifted the monster high above the sky until it got frozen due to the sky being too cold, even colder than the surface temperature. Kael thought of releasing it, and
Bam! With a loud bam, the frozen, statue-like monster fell from the sky gracefully and landed on the cold, snowy ground.
It shattered instantly upon contact with the ground.
Suddenly, the shattered monster released some kind of golden mist around its pieces, and it was floating around its body.
"Not even a single drop of blood," Kael thought.
Sigh...
"What is the mist around the monster?" he questioned to himself, as he knew there was no one right now to answer him, so he had to figure it out himself.
He went to check the mist when suddenly,
The mist automatically got consumed by Kael's body.
Kael felt a surging heat growing in his body, as if some kind of bucket was being filled within him.
It was just a little bit, but he felt it.
He looked at his hand and saw the same glowing golden veins as they instantly disappeared.
Hmm... Kael placed his hand on his gas mask, fixing the knob of the gas mask.
What did the Craters people use to say?
Oh, yes: 'I am one of the Stargazers who has got the power of the stars.'