“Shen Nelson.”
A voice spoke out from the darkness. The young man found himself in the middle of what can be described as an endless void. Huh, where am I?
“You are within the realms of the Immortals. But you are now not worthy to enter. Yet.”
Wait, you can hear my thoughts? And what do you mean by Immortals?
“Nothing can be hidden from the Overseer.”
The Overseer?
He could not comprehend what the voice was talking about. Immortals? Overseer? Was he in some sort of fantasy setting that’s so badly written that the author had to crack his brains all night long? Maybe.
A single feather slowly fell from the depths of the void. It began to glow bright blue as it neared the young man.
He opened his hands to receive it.
What’s this?
“A symbol of hope for mankind. You’ll need it.”
The feather began to disintegrate into his palms. The veins from his wrist that stretched downwards began to pulsate in the same blue glow.
What in the…
“The Power of the Arts has been bestowed upon you, Shen Nelson. You will bear the burden of the electrons, and be one with the energy of this world.”
Shen. Nelson. Is that…my name? And the power of what now?
“We’re running out of time.”
A door suddenly materialised in the midst of the darkness in front of him. It flung open, revealing a bright light from beyond.
Woah! His body began to be pushed by some invisible force towards the doorway.
“Now, go. The planet is in your hands, Stormbringer.”
And then he was consumed by the light.
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Beep. Beep.
A blinding ceiling lamp welcomed the young man from his deep sleep. With his eyes barely opening, he could barely see anything.
His throat felt extremely dry and his body felt heavy.
“Oh, he’s awake.”
He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t budge his hands nor feet. He could feel metal braces holding him down on the sides.
His mind began to panic. What’s going on?
The light suddenly turned off.
“Apologies, Mr. Nelson. Give me a second.” The voice came from a man just beside him.
With the light turned off, he managed to catch a glimpse of a couple of people in medical uniform surrounding him.
Am I in a hospital, he wondered. The medical uniforms gave it away pretty easily.
Clang!
He felt the restraint on his limbs disappear. He raised his arms and, sure enough, whatever were holding his hands and feet down were now gone.
In the dizziness, the trembling patient managed to sit up on the quite comfortable medical bed. The smell of medicine filled the air with a sense of unusual serenity.
Then, he heard a familiar voice.
“Good morning!”
It was James Mareen.
“Sorry about the, uh, additional security measures we had to take,” he said as he sat down on the stool beside the bed. He was holding a medical report of some sort.
The young man wondered if he had been to a hospital before, hidden in the memories he’d lost.
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One of the medical personnel, who seemed to be like the head doctor there, signalled the others to leave.
“Guys, can you please give us some time alone? Thanks.”
The doctor then grabbed another stool and sat on it besides the bed, opposite of James.
“My name is Dr. Joseph Hann. And I’m a specialist doctor,” he introduced himself, his hand pushing up his glasses.
“I understand you are confused. However, before we can commence any explanation, it is necessary for us to examine on a particular thing.”
Without standing up, he placed a bottle of water on the other end of the room. Looking at it made the young man gulp. Ugh. The dryness in his throat began to get irritate him.
“You’ve been out for a couple of days and we’ve withheld giving you moisture…”
But he couldn’t hear what the doctor was saying. His hands were already reaching out to the bottle.
ZAP!
A tiny bolt of electricity suddenly flew from his hands and sent the bottle of water bursting into air. Half of the room was drenched in water, while the young man was drenched in shock.
“What the heck?” he uttered in a panic.
For some reason, James and the doctor remained calm. They were looking at each other before staring at the patient in between them.
The glee on James’s face seemed to look like he scored on an exam. “Ah, so we did it.”
“I knew it.”
“Wait, what?” The honoured guest stood up from the bed, facing James. “What did you to me me?” His voice grew louder as he spun around to the doctor. “What in the shit is going on??”
Dr. Hann raised his hand.
“Calm down.”
Calm down?!
“Chill,” James stood up. “We are going to give you the explanations. But we can’t do that here.”
The doctor adjusted his glasses as he got up as well. “Mareen is correct. Follow me, both of you.”
He opened the door.
The young man was sitting on the bed, dazed at whatever was happening. “Wait, where are we going?”
James turned around to look at him.
“To the answers you were waiting for.”
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Charlsebury General.
The name of the hospital complex caught the young man’s eye as the limousine gradually sped out from the area. The hospital seemed to be the biggest building around here as rows of small houses and shops were everywhere in view.
Before they got out of the hospital, James mentioned that this ‘place’ they were going to was located few kilometres way. And that wasn’t the only thing that the young man had learned.
First, his name was Shen Nelson. Born in 1999 in the city of Corin. Eloris was now where they were, and it was the capital of the Celosia nation. All of those names felt alien to him.
Second, because much of his memory was still gone, much of his knowledge was also non-existent. Things like: the place he was born, which city was this place located, what was the history of this place. All of those would be just words to him, even though it would be common sense for someone like him to know them. He felt like a foreigner in a new land, except even a foreigner would at least know some of these things.
Third: despite having such memories stripped away from him, he could still remember basic knowledge. How computers work, how cars move, how malls operate. It felt as if his amnesia was…selected.
And fourth…
“Oh, the great city of Eloris,” the doctor uttered as skyscrapers began to greet them from the distance. He put his face right up to the car window. “Celosia had never met such…peace…since the end of the war.”
It seemed like a war had taken place. Dr. Hann occasionally brought up the topic of a mysterious conflict. Shen wanted to ask James about this, but every time the doctor mentioned it, he saw him flinch. He didn’t press further on the matter.
With his eyes looking out onto the buildings that whisk by the limo, Shen could feel anxiety slowly growing inside of him. The many questions in his mind were nearly making him nauseous. Like unrelenting waves of uncertainty.
He decided to take a nap on the road.
The honk of cars startled Shen from his nap.
Opening his eyes, he found himself driving through the heart of the city. The roads were filled with cars, but the traffic was somehow smooth. Towering buildings decorated the skies, like a futuristic jungle. Cafes and restaurants were packed, as if there were some sort of festival going on.
The clock on the car read 12:30pm.
An hour passed by, and they were still in the city. But the car turned into a junction with a smaller road.
“We’re almost there.”
He peered outside the window, There were nothing but skyscrapers around them. It was an easy guess that one of the towers here was their destination.
Stopping by one of the sidewalks, the doors of the car automatically swung open.
We’re here, Shen gulped. Whatever ‘here’ is.
Following the doctor, they went into a tall modern building, whose exterior was as industrial-looking as any other skyscraper. The group was greeted by the letter “H” that decorated the entrance.
“This way,” the doctor said as he led them through a hotel-like reception area to the elevator. With a scan of his ID, he selected the highest floor.
An awkward silence came over them as everyone stared at the floor indicator impatiently. Everyone silently prayed that the elevator would move faster.
As soon as a ding was heard, the door opened to what seemed to be a ginormous hall, where the only light source was through the small windows near the back.
The professor flipped on a switch beside the elevator.
Woah.
Lights flickering on from the ceiling revealed what seemed to be like a research lab. Desks with computers on them were randomly scattered throughout, and weird pieces of tech with wires and cables lying everywhere made the place look some sort of storage room.
Shen and James followed the doctor through the jungle of metal, trying their best not to step on the messy cables that ran through practically everywhere. Arriving at the farthest office space, he booted up one of the computers. Shen assumed it was the doctor’s, as pictures of him and what looked like his family adorned the cubicle partition.
He motioned both of them to sit on the nearby chairs.
“Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “What I’m about to show you is government top secret data. There is a high chance that you might shun it off as some sort of sick joke or that I’m insane. But the government doesn’t pay me 10 grand per month to find unicorns.”
James chuckled. “Oh come on, don’t frighten him.”
“The truth is always frightening, James.”
He adjusted his glasses as he typed into the computer.
A file popped up on the screen.
RE-2839_Origin_of_the_Arts.mp4
“What you’re about to witness will change your mind about history of humanity forever.”
Shen gulped.
Dr. Hann clicked.