“That’s it?”
He clicked his tongue at me, and the surroundings reverted to the room of white. I could feel the soft sensation of the sofa under me again.
“Yeah, that’s it.” His eyelids twitched vigorously. “Never mind the fact that I had to wait for over three hundred years. Never mind the fact that I had to wrack my brains trying to subtly influence the outcomes.” His shiny, unremarkable face darkened slightly, and the room shook.
“Sorry.” I looked away from his burning eyes, focusing on an interesting corner of the sofa.
He looked at me. “Forget it. What’s more interesting is the speed at which your mental state recovers. It’s like you’ve gained a measure of immunity towards things like this.”
I shrugged. “Life’s always full of surprises. Even if it’s just a fake life.”
The Dawn Protector froze for a moment, before relaxing. He turned away to regard a particular white wall. “For my plan to succeed, I needed an incarnation of you that was still sane when you appeared here, while being able to command at least Minor Time Laws.”
I cocked my head curiously. “You couldn’t act personally, right? What did you exactly do to make sure I was, well, the me you needed?”
He smirked and snapped his fingers. A man, one that I had seen barely a week ago, appeared in front of me. He had appeared in front of me in outlandish clothes, gifting me a clock, while disrupting my all-important sleep.
“A familiar spirit.” The Dawn Protector gestured magnificently. “An effort of my own to ensure that you knew you were sensitive to Time. Also, I had to resort to underhand dealings to ensure you became a practitioner, which you started becoming after the fourteenth cycle. I was also the one who forced the Beacon Office to release eighteen new patches in a row, to ensure that you were near the Key’s host. Of course, there were others, but you get the gist. Sucks being me, I guess.”
Mr. Meng’s light-hearted words the night the Outsiders came echoed in my head, and for a moment, my heart grew heavy. I turned my eyes away from the Dawn Protector, taking a deep breath while staring at the white walls.
“Are you ready?” The Dawn Protector looked at me, his gaze bright and piercing. “Remember, we can’t afford to screw this up. Once you’re there, you need to take over the body of your original self. Don’t let the Key awaken. That reminds me… catch!”
The Dawn Protector took out something and threw it to me. A translucent bead, irregular in shape, stared at me from my open palm. There was something smoky and foggy trapped within the bead, and whatever it was, the smoke within gave me a sense of familiarity with it.
My fingers caressed the translucent bead, feeling its smooth surface. “What’s this thing for?”
“It’s a quasi-soul seed, which contains the memories of your previous incarnations. It’s meant to help you in gaining control over your original body, by giving your current soul a stronger existence. You’ll know how to use it when you go back to Earth.”
I eyed the bead, before gripping it tightly in my fist. It was cool to the touch. I looked at the Dawn Protector once more and nodded affirmatively.
“I’ll be in contact with you once you return, so there’s no need to panic,” said the Dawn Protector. His eyes closed, and the brilliant white light blazed with some sort of finality, and the world changed.
Chapter 29
A brick, split into two portions, was floating right in front of my nose. To be more accurate, it was frozen in time. The colors that the world should have was replaced by a ghastly monochrome, a reminder that this world was stagnant in the river of time. I raised a finger and poked the brick, pushing it away from me.
“To hold eternity in an hour… probably felt like this?” I murmured, pushing away more bits of floating debris.
I looked around the place. It was indeed the building the Dawn Protector had shown me previously. Shops of all kinds lined the sides. Some were still in good condition, while others were already in the midst of collapsing.
My feet moved automatically, heading for the stairs. The boy—I didn’t have it in myself to acknowledge me as that child—was somewhere in the middle floors, which meant that I needed to scour each level for the child. I leaped over some broken stairs and ascended to the fourth floor.
There was a burst of static, from which I could make out some indiscernible sounds. I halted mid-jump, and the static eventually gave way to a rich baritone, loud and strong.
“The Dawn Protector speaking. Sorry, there was some interference when I attempted to connect with you, but for now, your original body is on the sixth floor.”
There was some more static, and the voice transmission ended. My legs sped up, and within a few hops and jumps, I was at the sixth floor.
I looked around. The place was far more of a wreck than the previous floors. Water droplets were frozen in mid-air, undoubtedly spurting out from ruptured pipes. Clouds of dust were everywhere, and some electrical outlets were clearly about to catch fire. Picking a random direction, I started walking, searching for the child.
I found him at the collapsed metal beam, his arms pulling against it, his legs braced against the floor. A complex mix of emotions were on his face; the stasis the Dawn Protector imposed sure knew how to time itself well. At this point, all I needed to do was to take over the body of this child, before letting the disaster continue. I walked up to him. A face, frenzied with hope, fear and anguished, alongside a whole host of other feelings stared back at me.
I closed my eyes. The Natural Laws here were entirely under the control of someone else, presumably the Dawn Protector. My heart jolted as I continued with my impromptu mediation. I could now feel the True Time Laws that were holding an incredibly large area in an absolute stasis.
I shook my head. The newfound sensitivity was only possible because I entered the Dawn Protector’s demesne, where the laws inside were clearly subservient to their creator. I sat down and crossed my legs, waiting for the Dawn Protector to contact me again.
Another burst of static, before it regained clarity.
“Good, you’re here,” said the Dawn Protector. “Right now, although it doesn’t feel like it, you’re actually incorporeal. Enter the original body and absorb the soul seed you have at the same time.”
“Got it. But before I do that, can you remove the stasis first? I want to try something,” I said, getting up from my spot. There was a moment of silence.
“Fine, but don’t take too long.”
I nodded silently and closed my eyes again. I closely examined the ambient True Time Laws that created this stasis. I could visualize them now, and it took the form of an emerald line, which was looped and tied in a whole bunch of complicated knots.
The knots and loops unraveled abruptly, and the child in front of me regained motion. In this monochrome world, he was the only one who had color, and he continued tugging at the beams, like nothing much had happened. He didn’t notice me, but I didn’t expect him to… yet. I took out the soul seed the Dawn Protector had and looked at the translucent bead again.
“Are you ready? We can’t waste too much time.” There was a burst of static, and the Dawn Protector’s words echoed into my ear.
I breathed in deeply. I wasn’t too sure how the guy up there would take it, but for once, I wanted to make my own life. Gazing upwards, to the ceiling, I said, “Sorry, but I have a better plan.”
I didn’t wait for his reply, which was just him choking anyway. All it took to absorb that little bead on my hand was a single thought, and memory after memory rushed into my head as the little bead melted like ice at noon. It didn’t take long before my body became tangible, infinitely close to a resurrection of sorts. I didn’t bother to attempt moving the pillar that trapped the boy’s parents. I had other plans… and I couldn’t move them, even if I tried.
I felt some surety as these memories flooded me. Without a doubt, every single one of my previous incarnations would do the same things that I was going to do next if they
had the opportunity to.
The Dawn Protector was still making choking noises by the time I was done. As for the child… he had noticed me.
I winced as a burst of static hammered into my ear. “Are you crazy? How are you supposed to remove this domain now?”
Ignoring the outburst from the Dawn Protector, I walked over to the little boy. A blue shirt, a pair of ripped pants… I looked at him, and he stared back at me in wonder. He had noticed me the moment I absorbed the soul seed: which made one’s existence stronger.
I smiled at him and sat down.
“Do you want to save your parents?” I asked.
He nodded frantically. For some reason or another, he was unable to speak, but it was most likely due to fear.
I pointed downstairs. “If you save two people on the second floor by bringing them out to the streets, I will save everyone here.”
His eyes widened. “Really?” he asked, his voice high pitched, yet somewhat croaky.
I nodded. “I don’t know about other adults, but I don’t lie.” I ruffled his hair and pointed downstairs again. “I can only create miracles if people work for them.”
The child nodded and rushed off.
“What are you trying to do here?” The Dawn Protector had clearly gotten over his shock and outrage. There was some measure of curiosity in his words now.
I sat back onto the floor, stretching my legs out. “Getting rid of my regrets. Surely, you must feel the same way as I do, that this child is—or will be—the victim that will suffer the most. This accident was clearly not natural. But now, there’s something I can do without needing to resort to body theft, even if it technically belongs to me. After all, haven’t I murdered enough for a lifetime?”
Two figures came to mind as I said those words.
There was a period of silence, and I could imagine gears turning rapidly in the mind of the Dawn Protector as he tried to make sense of my words. It didn’t take long before there was a commotion on the other side of the communications.
“How far are you intending to go?” The Dawn Protector asked. “You’re right. You can’t fail, not as you are right now. But have you considered the consequences?”
“What consequences?” I rolled my eyes and got up.
I stuck my head out of a hole in the wall, just in time to see the little boy tug a woman over to join a man. Without taking a break, he ran back in, his little frame heaving in fatigue.
With another crackle of static, the Dawn Protector asked, “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you? Does the prospect of losing everything that you had not scare you?”
“It does. But I was destined to lose everything from the start.” I raised my hands and examined my right palm, where I could still feel the weight of the little sword. For me to do something like this… whether it was Crow, who stayed for reasons that went beyond his professional ethics, or Aurora, who’d decided to stake her own life to stop the Key… they had all grown on me.
I could feel a slight warmth as I clenched my fist. Absorbing the soul seed had made me a truly independent existence, an entity truly separated from its original. I withdrew my head from the window and said, “And above all, that life never belonged to me in the first place. So why not return it to him?”
It didn’t take long for the child to return to me. His eyes were shining as he watched me get to my feet. I tousled his hair in a practiced manner, and my thoughts wandered over to Aurora. I smiled. What I was about to do would change everything.
I took one last deep breath and exhaled out with all the force I could muster. If all went well, this would be the second last time I would be exerting my powers.
“Time.”
A single clock, one that sported an hour, minute, and second hand popped up in my vision. It was simultaneously grand, yet simple, the other embellishments on it shifting and ethereal. My ears were filled with a majestic, rhythmic bell toll, heard by me and me alone. Somehow, I knew that the clock was just an embodiment of what I perceived Time to be; I lacked the qualifications to gaze upon Time in its truest form.
The collapse of this building, if I discounted any Time shenanigans, happened less than two minutes ago. My eyes focused on the second hand, and I willed it to move in reverse, one second at a time. The clock shuddered as the second hand moved a single step counter clockwise, and right on cue, the debris and ruin around me moved. A sharp pain gripped my gut, and I bit my teeth silently, willing myself to continue.
Cutting off all bodily sensations, I focused on making Time obey my command, and everything moved in reverse. Even though I had dulled the feelings of my body, I could feel a peculiar sensation spreading from my toes, a chill crawling closer to me for every second that I pushed back. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I could no longer feel my feet. Messing with Time had its consequences.
The metal beam pinning down the child’s parents finally flew up, freeing them from its weight. In that instant, I felt the Minor Time Laws freezing time here vanish, leaving me to stem the flow of Time alone, and I bent over as a wave of blinding pain rippled through my entire body.
At this point, life had returned to the child’s parents. I looked directly at them, but it seemed that they could no longer see me. I continued to strain myself, watching as more and more little bits of debris returned to their original positions.
There was a tiny instant of static, and the Dawn Protector said, “Isn’t that enough? If you continue, you’re going to break! You’re not reversing time by a few seconds, you’re starting to push the entire plane back by some three hundred years!”
I didn’t have it in me to reply. Blood started dripping slowly from my tattered lips, having bitten too hard into them. I needed some buffer time to prevent this collapse from truly happening, and I struggled to stay awake as I continued to channel my will. The strain on me increased for every second that I pushed back, but the more I had, the greater the chances of averting this disaster.
I stopped as the imaginary second hand moved back one more time. I had successfully reversed time by one minute and thirty seconds, so the building, right now, hadn’t even started collapsing yet, but it will soon if I didn’t do anything.
There was only one last thing for me to do. The pain had subsided briefly, but the repercussions from manipulating True Time was going full force. My entire lower half had blackened entirely, the muscles there at various states of atrophy.
I collapsed onto the floor as the building started to shake and sway, and I heard hurried footsteps as the family of three ran for safety. With one last burst of effort, I pictured a sturdy little stone hut, the one that I stayed in for three months, and murmured a word.
The building stopped shaking. By this time tomorrow, there would be inspectors rushing over to check its structural integrity after this scare. It wouldn’t take long before they would declare this building as unsafe.
“For once,” I said out loud. “The plan actually worked.”
The shaking stopped. Color had long returned to the world, and I could only stare blankly at the calming beige ceiling. By now, I couldn’t even move my neck, which meant that the decay was spreading throughout me rapidly. The chill that I was feeling had vanished, replaced with the cold, unbroken ground. There were probably a lot of things I could say about dying right after a pseudo-resurrection, but there was no one to hear it anyway.
I had slept before after a hard day’s work, but this was the first time I’d felt so sleepy. The feeling of being fully awake now seemed even more improbable than it usually was. It was as though I'd done everything I ever wanted to do, and there was even a little warm feeling of satisfaction and completion in my chest.
The color of the ceiling blurred, spilling over and covering the other colors, and soon, all I saw was a vast expanse of pale colors. It seemed that the blackness that usually came for me wasn’t coming this time round, and I smiled tiredly.
It didn’t take long for a wave of white to engulf me.
The world of pure white darkened briefly, before focusing into a smooth, white ceiling. It felt like I was lying on a cloud, which turned out to be a navy-blue bed. A dull, undulating pain made my eyes focus on an emaciated arm, where an IV drip was connected to it.
This arm was mine.
With a jerk of effort, I sat up and looked around, my head still groggy. If my eyes weren’t deceiving me, it was a hospital, and a nice-looking one at that. For some reason, the ward had no one else inside…
“Done looking around?”
Startled, I instinctively turned to where the voice came from. There was something close to a man standing there… although I was quite sure that there was no one there just a second ago. He was wearing a suit that shimmered with a myriad of colors, but I couldn’t place a finger on what exactly caused it.
“You’re…” my voice came out as a rasp, harsh and grating to the ears. The man frowned and gestured to a tray, where a little cup of water was sitting on. I picked it up—albeit with much effort—and drank it slowly.
“I’m a familiar spirit of the Dawn Protector, though I’m currently under the employ of master Igor,” said the man. “You can call me Fifteen.”
“My mentor?” I asked.
Fifteen nodded. Or he tried to, at least. All I could see was a blob of radiance bobbing up and down. The light he was emitting was starting to get to me, and I subtly turned my eyes away from him.
“He’s been waiting for you to wake up for a long, long time. You’re his disciple, after all. You’ve been asleep for a full eight years. The world has changed quite drastically from the world you lived through.”
To Fling a Light Page 20
