White. As vast as it was pure. As inescapable as it was blinding. As all-encompassing as light. I was awestruck by the impenetrable wall of snow and hail that met me in every direction. Disbelief and shock seized the gears of my mind as frigid winds burrowed into the very nucleus of my being. No matter where I turned, I was confronted with an inevitable truth. There was no escape. There was no salvation. There was nothing, only me. Standing in snow that swallowed me up to my thighs, I gaped at the alien world I now found myself in.
Wrenching myself from the quagmire of mental imprisonment, I tried to make sense of it all and develop some plan of action. Just a few moments ago, I was celebrating with relatives, having a great time. Next thing you know, I’m here amidst a blizzard without heads or tails of how it occurred. Ideas sprouted and withered as I tried to come to some sort of explanation for this whole situation, but it was a futile effort. Nothing could explain what was happening, and unwilling to pointlessly waste any more time, I set out in a random direction in hopes of finding something, anything, that could help me piece things together.
Snow crunched beneath my feet as I waded through the pristine expanse. Visibility may as well have been non-existent thanks to the perpetual storm overhead, painting everything in an endless blanket of white. All I had to protect me from the onslaught were the clothes on my back—a tunic, fur coat, trousers, leather shoes and leg wrappings that thankfully prevented the cold from creeping up my legs had my trouser legs been left loose. In an odd twist of events, I was in my best clothes as the celebration had been an official event of sorts, and as the guest of honour, I had to dress the part. The only reason I hadn’t keeled over yet, as frozen as a slab of ice, was this fact. A blessing in an otherwise bleak situation.
I had been walking in this white maze for who knows how long. All I could do was keep moving forward without any landmark or reference to go by. Or at least I hoped that was the case and hadn’t been walking in circles instead. Banishing the dreadful thought that I had been walking in circles, I trudged onward. The tips of my fingers had become a pale blue as foggy breaths lapped my hands. Tucking my hands into my fur coat, I bundled up, keeping my core as insulated as possible. There was no time for rest because I knew I was dead as soon as that occurred. The heat my body produced barely staving off the artic maw that threatened to swallow me whole.
I had long since started doubting my eyes, the only thing in my vision being a perpetual white. It was sickening, reminding me of alabaster halls and the similarly coloured butchers within. That it was spotless no matter what horrors went on behind those walls. This revulsion I felt… this place was wrong. It should never exist. Similar thoughts plagued my fraying mind as I waded through the snow, the tempest my only companion.
My legs had relinquished themselves like they had been chopped off without my knowledge at some point in time. A chill crawled down my spine at the idea, something I didn’t think possible in this situation. It could be that my mind was playing tricks on me. The boundary between reality and fantasy had long been eclipsed, binding me in this bleached hell. Ironically, the snow was the only thing keeping me sane, reaffirming that my legs were still there and still somewhat functional. Or at least that’s what I prayed for.
Frost had seeped into every nook and corner, inside and out, and ground me to a halt. In a desperate attempt to escape the cold, I tried to create some sort of shelter from the earth below using my bending. Something that should have been my first course of action but could be attributed to the absurdity of the circumstance blinding me from the thought. With an outstretched hand, quivering, dulled by the winter’s grasp, I made the mental equivalent of a pull… but felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. The all too familiar sensation of chi was nowhere to be found. Erratic breaths escaped my lips as I attempted to grapple with the revelation, the last thread keeping me rooted, fraying under duress.
‘No!!! Calm down, don’t lose your poise as soon as something unexpected occurs. Like a rock, like a rock,’ repeating those words, I righted myself regaining some form of clarity, focusing on my body. ‘I don’t sense even a drop chi. There’s just nothing… it’s a void. Neither do I sense any in the surroundings. I’ve lost my connection...’ All of existence had turned its back on me. Forsaken. Unworthy. Like a child that had been ripped from its mother’s protective embrace. A resigned smile spread across my face as blackened lips tore and cracked, the stinging sensation a sore reminder that I still had life or was that also a figment of my imagination?
“Kek… keke… kekeke… keKeKEHAHAHA,” a chuckle squeezed between my lips before growing into hysteria. The certainty of everything finally shattered any vestiges of sanity I had left. I never had a chance. And if that was the case, why keep struggling? Nothing would change after all. Sometimes the only path to salvation is fully surrendering and letting the tides determine where you go. If there was no escape, so be it, but I would die with my back straight, immovable, unbroken before the storm. There would be no fear, no pleading or ranting about the hand I had been dealt.
It took all my strength to remain upright, but I stood tall amidst the gale of ice and snow. Perhaps angered by the defiance of the blot that marred its unblemished beauty, the blizzard grew in ferocity and violence. Shards of ice filleted my flesh as snow clung to my body, leeches gradually sucking my life away. I endured till muscle hung off my bone like drying meat, till the only part left exposed to the wrath of the elements was my face. Eventually, that too was savaged, finally bestowing upon me something other than erroneous white. Black.
I was dead.
Light stung my eyes as they snapped open, causing me to wince as tears streaked down my cheeks. I heaved mouthfuls of air despite my frostbitten lungs crying in protest, afraid that this was only a hallucination and reprieve would only be temporary. The vestigial tendrils of the snowstorm could still be felt within my body, like lingering ghosts of the past. Lying on my back, facing a black sky, I silently recovered my energy.
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My joints ached as movement and sensation gradually returned as they thawed. Gingerly sitting up and surveying my surroundings, a black expanse encompassed by a white barrier that reached the heavens greeted me. I was in the eye of the storm. While sweeping over the horizon, something caught my attention; a smudge disrupted its uniformity. It was barely even noticeable from this distance, but it was something. A beacon of light amidst what was otherwise a foregone conclusion. Stiffly getting to my feet, I set forth for the second time, eager to discover just what dared rebel against the eternal storm.
The ground upon which I trod was no longer obscured by snowfall, naked before my eyes. But instead of the greens, greys, and browns, one would expect what lay before me was a sea as black as ink. Kneeling down and grabbing a handful of this otherworldly terrain, I watched with intrigue as these lightless grains glided without resistance through the gaps in my hand, seamlessly melding into the ground. It would be inaccurate to equate them to grains of sand, seeming more like a liquid and existed between these two states of matter.
Each one felt like they contained a world of their own, an infinite number of possibilities and realities, dormant, lost, tarnished. Something like this deserved a name, and to keep referring to them as grains or earth seemed blasphemous, an odd nudge affirming it so. After a moment of pondering, a phrase came to mind, “Seeds Of Oblivion”. Satisfied, I resumed my trek towards the heart of this realm, intending to find an answer to all this madness.
I walked and walked. There was nothing here, no shrubs, signs of life or even a stone or two, just a neverending plain, the only outlier faithfully awaiting on the horizon. It became an obsession, a reason for moving forward, for living. My very life depended on it. Though the distance between us did not appear to reduce, it did nothing to deter me. With time my dogged determination bore fruit. I could finally make out what it was, a tree.
The tree was so monumental that even with its exterior coalescing into the white backdrop, it still differentiated itself, even from a distance. My steps sped up, and before long, I was in a full-blown sprint, the only thoughts driving my actions being those that wanted to reach my goal just one moment sooner. Stamina was not a problem as there seemed to be no such concept in this realm, the only reason I succumbed to the storm being my ice touched body. The stumbles and trips along the way served no other purpose than galvanising my resolve, the reward enlarging with each step.
The closer I got to it, the more I realised how titanic this tree truly was. In fact, calling it titanic would be a disservice, words unable to adequately describe its dimensions. The area surrounding the tree was not littered with innumerable seeds like everywhere else, but black gloss, water, or at least I thought it was. Its crystalline surface mirrored reality without flaw, inverting the tree in totality, enriching an already mad world—if that was even possible.
Ripples distorted the glasslike illusion as I tentatively placed a foot into the liquid to test its depths. With it barely reaching my ankles and experiencing no noticeable harm, I decided to take a chance and venture forth while it remained innocuous. Gaining courage without disregarding caution, I methodically made my way to the foot of the tree, finer details growing more pronounced with each step.
No leaves or shoots called the branches their home, the entire tree painted in a light shade of ash, the perfect balance between the black and white of this dimension. Gnarls and burls protruded from wrinkling skin, adding to its ancient grandeur as its limbs creaked and moaned in the wind. Cautiously placing a hand onto its wavy bark, it thrummed to life, awakening from an age-old slumber, overjoyed at my presence.
Oddly, there was no fear, even though I was little else than a speck of dust before it, not even worth acknowledging. Warmth ebbed through me, something so taboo here I had been forced to forget about it in its entirety. Closing my eyes, I let go of all my inhibitions and graciously basked under its glory.
Home...
This was home.
*Drip* *Drip* *Drip*
My nirvanic reverie was shattered by a sound that should not be. Who dared intrude upon my abode without first asking permission? Searching for the vile malefactor, my eyes fell upon a golden splotch spreading over the ebony lake, shifting, mixing. I was immediately entranced in its glistening rhapsody that seemed to recite an uncountable number of stories. Nearing the growing puddle, intent on preventing any more contamination, I extended a palm to cradle the essence of life—my mind liquified.
Or what felt like the closest thing to one’s head being turned into nothing more than pulp. A cacophony of voices, both inhuman and human, bored into my skull. Agony, misery, pain, torment, hate—the collective forcibly entrenched themselves within, hellbent on making me experience even an iota of what they had. A scream tore through me as I tried my best to remain ‘me’ before the unrelenting chaos.
But there was only so much one could do when facing an insurmountable enemy, and as the last vestiges of myself were overtaken by corrupting rot, a huff rippled across time and space, quelling… everything. The voices, like a tide, receded as abruptly as they arrived, reality regaining colour and meaning. Clearing blurred eyes with a shaky hand, my head moved upwards, tracing the path of the golden droplets, halting all movement upon discovering the source.
A man. No, a giant lay impaled upon the tree, so gargantuan in size that he was in no way overshadowed by it. A glimmering auric spear pierced his heart, shedding flecks of gold that languidly drifted into the distance. Blood—golden blood—oozed from his wound, flowing down the weapon’s shaft before falling to the land below. Skin clung to his bones like carrion, a tapestry marked with battle scars and tattoos that told a mythological tale. Brown hair draped past his shoulders, twisted and matted, wearing nothing more than a loincloth, as the tree encased his limbs. Imprisoned for an eternity.
I was wrong. This had never been my home. In fact, it was I who had broken in and intruded upon his domain. No amount of mental preparation or stoicism could prepare someone for a scene like this, and my quivering legs buckled beneath me, the resulting splash amplified amidst the dead silence.
His head edged upwards, the right side of his face obscured by knotted locks, while his left eye swivelled in its socket, eventually resting upon my trembling figure. They shone with a profound golden light that pierced the heart of all existence, and as he observed me, I knew nothing was hidden. There were no secrets before a god.
“The. Time. Is. Yet. Nigh… Interloper.” His voice was deep and earthy, carrying the vicissitudes of time, yet no words left his lips. They held neither vigour nor authority but left no room for transgression. I could do nothing but pray that I had not angered him and was about to be annihilated as punishment. Inhaling in a long slow breath, he unleashed, “ᛒᛖᚷᛟᚾᛖ!!!” His roar spread out, causing a tidal wave of darkness equal to the white walls to engulf my vision and come crashing down on me.
Blinking, I was back, seated in my grandfather’s lap, peering at the carving of the Great Guardian, whose eyes seemed duller than before. Was what just occurred nothing more than a bad dream?