The pain from his body vanished in an instant, but Sebastian found himself somewhere he believed he'd never see again.
The tree stood menacingly above him, it was the same tree he sat on before he got his powers.
Unlike his other dreams, this world wasn't a void. It was morning, everything seemed bright and full of hope.
A strange calmness made Sebastian forget why he went here in the first place until his thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from the other side of the tree.
"You wanted to see me?"
Sebastian immediately remembered why he forced himself to sleep and sprung up then walked towards the voice.
His reflection was sitting next to the tree, calm and without any worries.
"Am I dying?" Sebastian asked worriedly.
The reflection laughed then gave him a smile.
"Of course you are, silly!"
Sebastian couldn't believe the expression his reflection had while saying those words.
He was about to lunge at it but was frozen in place yet again.
"Let me rephrase that." It said, "While it is true that you're dying, it won't be right now. It's the price of your power, Sebastian."
Sebastian's restraints were released again, allowing him to speak.
"Not right now? What do you mean by that?"
"Well I meant what I meant. I did tell you your time was limited last time we spoke."
"Listen, demon, I'm not in the mood for your games, just answer my question."
The reflection stood up and looked Sebastian in the eye.
"I also told you to answer my question next time we met. So, are you enjoying your life? I saw what you did to that criminal, Fuse was his nickname, you roughed him up real badly all with a smile on your face."
For the first time, Sebastian smiled at the version of himself standing in front of him.
"I am, I really am enjoying my life." He said, "Thank you, if you really did give me this, then from the bottom of my heart, I give you my thanks."
The reflection turned its head sideways and gave Sebastian a confused glance, not even expecting an answer from him.
Sebastian felt determined to tell it what was on his mind and kept speaking.
"You said I could change the world if I wanted. I'll take you up on that offer. I don't give a damn what people say, if I'm going to die anyways I might as well change as much as I can."
He walked towards his reflection and got up close to its face.
"How much time do I have left?"
The reflection, a bit startled by Sebastian's sudden change of character, stepped back.
Sebastian scoffed at it and asked again.
"You have about a year, it's not exact. Right now it's December, you can expect to die from December to February in a year's time."
Sebastian shook, not expecting to have such little time.
"What is it? You weren't alive before this, do you not like these powers?"
He collected himself and stood firmly again.
"So I only have a year… So be it, I'll accomplish my goals before then."
"Just one more question, demon. Is there a way to prevent this from happening?"
The reflection shrugged, knowing the answer to Sebastian's question, just refusing to answer.
"Fine then. Don't answer me."
The reflection looked away from Sebastian and spoke to him.
"By the way, Sebastian. Just so you know, what you were feeling before coming here, the pain, that is. You're going to be feeling it every once in a while. Be ready for it."
"It's my price to pay, isn't it? I'll endure whatever hell you have for me."
"Very well then. The world is yours afterall. Come back here whenever you like."
The dream vanished in an instant.
Sebastian woke up, still in pain but that seemed to be the least of his worries at the moment.
"One year. One year to start living. It's a bit cruel to give someone life and take it away from them so soon."
Sebastian paced aimlessly around the apartment, not trying to do anything specifically, his body just refuses to let him stand still.
As he walked he happened to look out the balcony and saw that the sun was setting.
It reminded him of the day he found that field, and of his pet.
He looked down where he buried the bird and thought of trying to revive him somehow but decided not to, not wanting to dig up his pet and believing that not letting it rest would be an evil thing to do.
Sebastian stood, still looking down, pondering about how it must feel to be dead. He had never really worried about dying in his entire life and now he was running head first to it with no way to stop himself.
He fell to the floor.
"I don't want to die." He cried.
His body felt itchy, he couldn't stand still and his legs began twitching, the fear of death fell upon him so hard that he couldn't bear to stand up.
He sat and thought of every moment that led him up to where he was, his family, his friends but more than anything, every day he had lived before this, every day he passed by without truly living, how grey and bland it all felt.
Then all of his sorrow went away in an instant.
The fear of living every monotonous day of either working or wasting away in his apartment while ultimately accomplishing nothing suddenly scared him more than death itself.
"Living your life as a corpse is a fate infinitely worse than death." The thought flashed through him.
Sebastian set his gaze to the clear, fading sky and in a single moment realized that wallowing in fear wouldn't change anything. He was going to die anyway and fearing death wouldn't make it go away.
The young man raised himself and jumped, catching himself inches away from the ground by making himself fly.
He then laid on the ground, looking up with a new found determination to make good use of his now limited time alive.
Raising his hand up to the heavens he spoke, "I'll make this world a better place, I'll meet new people, I'll travel the world and try new things, I'll stop surviving and I'll finally start living. I'm going to be happy." his face brimming with new found joy and excitement.
A couple of hours passed and Sebastian was scrolling on his phone, unable to sleep, a maddening insomnia had taken over his body.
On one of his mindless scrolls he came across a post talking about Fuse and how he was found.
He entered the post's comments and saw people praise whoever was responsible for this, many people were tired of rampant crime and found this act necessary. Sebastian was glad to see that there were people with the same mindset, however he was disappointed to see others call him a monster and a criminal for doing so.
He got annoyed at the negative comments toward him, "These people are no better than the criminals themselves" he thought.
Curious to see more about himself and what the public's opinion was, he looked up more videos and news articles of the incident.
To his surprise, most of the comments he saw in the posts were pretty divided, but he mostly took into account the positive ones, regarding the ones against him as people who had never experienced being affected by crime and couldn't understand the severity of it.
"All of these scumbags will get what the law won't give them."
"Before I die, I'll make them all regret choosing to waste their lives bringing pain to everyone."
A fire lit in his eyes as he left his bed knowing exactly what he was going to do next.
Sebastian tried conjuring up a mask in his hands but was disappointed to see that nothing happened.
He tried a few more times and the results were the same.
He sighed,
"I can't summon stuff either. So it seems that time and making things appear out of nowhere aren't included in this."
An idea came to him.
"My face can't be seen."
No change seemed to be evident. That was until Sebastian saw his own face in the mirror.
It was as if his face and head were replaced by a fading shadow.
Everything looked pitch black, a void would be no different than could be seen in the mirror.
From the start of where his hair used to be, the entire back of his head looked like the ending of a flame, except it was completely dark. Long, sharp endings moved to the back as if wind were pushing them there, one coming after the other disappeared.
When Sebastian tried touching his face, it all felt the same, he couldn't see his nose but it was still there, and he couldn't feel the fading edges of his head despite clearly seeing them.
Satisfied with his look, Sebastian searched for the darkest clothes he could find.
He settled for a black hoodie and black pants he hadn't worn in ages, as well as the same gloves he had used before.
Aside from the void replacing what used to be his head, he looked like an average person which was exactly what he was aiming for.
What he did next made him feel stupid, but his resolve was stronger than any rational feeling in his mind.
He picked up an old watch. It was a gift from a time long past, but the quality remained decent and looked expensive.
Sebastian put it on and scavenged his apartment for more valuable things.
He couldn't find much. All he came up with was a pair of nice looking shoes and a bracelet.
Despite having his powers, Sebastian was still worried about what he was planning to do, he doubted for a moment if it was a good idea.
Setting his worries aside, he grabbed his phone and rose from his apartment's floor.
A short while after, he arrived at his destination, one of the sketchy parts of town known as "The Flowers".
Filled with worry but also a strong sense of justice, Sebastian pulled up his hood and took out his phone then started wandering on the street. There was no specific place he wanted to go, it was like a fisherman waiting for a fish to take the bait.
Not a doubt flashed through his mind of what was going to happen to him, he knew for a fact that sooner or later someone was going to come.
He paced around the area for about an hour until he heard someone's voice.
"Yo, what's up man, what do you have here?"
The void replacing Sebastian's face seemed to light up a bit.