"Shang, what do you think was the first force released right after the big bang?" A man stood amidst a haze of red, his back slightly hunched. The ground below him was burned into a shade of the abyss, clashing with the white robe on his body. The wrinkles on his face moved as he craned his face towards the gigantic star above.
"Is it not a combination of all 7 fundamental forces, Sir?" A glitching hologram echoed from behind, projected from a floating white ball.
The old man slowly shook his head, his eyes focused on the unending red that had encompassed the sky, casting it in a hellish hue. It had grown enough that he felt like he would be able to touch it if he just reached out.
"Entropy"
The hologram froze a second before responding again "But, Si-"
"'But entropy is not a force'. We all thought that to be the case." He stared at the unending red maws slowly nibbling the black, a sigh escaping his lips. “But we were wrong, Shang. The very existence of the universe supports disorder. Chaos is the only eternal constant."
The hologram stood silently in response, an expression of comprehension dawning on his face.
The old man slowly floated up in the sky, flying above the city he had not seen in forever. Semi-burnt skyscrapers stood amidst the black landscape; some of them clawed in the middle, others melted to the ground. He stared at the planet that that was exhausted of its life, his eyes full of reminiscence "Shang, am I the biggest sinner of mankind?"
The white ball floated behind, bringing along the hologram. The faint blue figure tilted his head at the question. “What are you even saying, sir? Without you, we would have been stuck. Even at best, we would have millions of years to just conquer Milkdromeda. By then, the universe would have long since left us.”
"Perhaps.” The figure in white responded as he watched his hometown one last time, before the hungry star shallowed it all.
The blue hologram stared with veneration: "Sir Alex. Your contribution to mankind is incomparable."
*Rumble*
The black planet let out a thunderous noise as a large gust of hot air and lava rose up from inside it, shallowing the remains of the broken city. The aftershocks of the barely remaining atmosphere hit the old man in white, causing his white robe to flutter violently. But the old man was unaffected, a smile rising up on his lips as he shook his head "If we had just stayed here on Earth, it would not have been too bad."
"Sir, earth would have long stopped sustaining us. We would have needed to venture towards the galaxy eventually. Even if you had not discovered it, others would have. Eventually."
The old man finally turned towards the hologram, the same lips
"You are right. You certainly would have, Shang Ti—."
The black sphere broke down towards the core, taking away his attention again. The thunderous noise now reverberated throughout the planet, originating from its very core.
“Sir Alex, did it really have to be like this?” The hologram asked, his voice a bit broken. His question was left unanswered. Both of them watched as the black planet got swallowed by the hungry red star, It seemed intent on destroying everything in its path.
"Thank you for being with me in my final moments, Shang." The old man spoke again after a while, flying towards the red sun "You were always my favorite student." He turned around with a smile, before the red swallowed him in its insatiable hunger.
His lips moved again one last time to no avail. His voice had been overshadowed by the wail of a dying earth.
----------------------------------------
Other than the faint noise of the silk curtains, the world outside seemed deathly silent, as if holding its breath. Gentle beams from a third-quarter moon cast elongated shadows through the gaps between pale-blue curtains, flickering across the large room.
On a large bed, a thin silhouette had curled up. His fingers were clenching tightly on the bedsheet as he writhed in pain. Beads of sweat fell from his forehead, glowing like pearls.
A glowing red screen floated above him, glitching with each second.
[Initiating Hive: 99%..96%..97%..98%..99%]
[Searching for Anchor]
[Anchor missing]
[Rolling back]
[Hive failed, Initiating Rollback]
The glitching screen went black, vanishing within his body, nowhere to be seen.
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“Hmph”
Long Tian woke up, feeling a viscous liquid in his mouth. He quickly ran off towards the washroom, almost stumbling with the chair on his way. Soon, a gurgling noise came out of his lips.
“Not again”
He stared at the blood and bits of organs on the sink. A salty flavor lingered on his tastebuds. Turning his face upwards, he found an ashen face stare back, almost scaring him out of his soul. His lips adorned a mocking smile, wondering if one of these days he was going to end up scaring himself to death,
"Heh"
The newspaper would go wild if it were to happen, he supposed.
The useless third son of the Marquis has scared himself to death.
The loser, who failed to awaken after 16 years, has died in a fitting manner.
He let his imagination run wild before staring back at the ghostly, pale face in the mirror. His shoulder-length brown hair, which once flowed like rivers, had shriveled and dried. He shook his head before stuttering towards the table that stood beside the bed, clicking on the lamp.
As the dim light of the yellow lamp illuminated the room, a faint noise of scribbling sounded amidst the continuous flapping of the curtains.
Thursday, 19th February
HuaXia Calendar Year: 9302
M.F. 5.23
Alex Walton. Or the protagonist, so to speak. Isn’t it funny that he is still haunting me even after his death? The oldie still has the protagonist halo in him. The ghost that refuses to leave me behind, even after I died. He seems intent on burying me the second time.
Well, to be fair, I don’t know if I died because of him. I do not remember because Oldie keeps repeating himself instead of letting me see something else. But a hunch tells me that it must have had something to do with him. The memory has visited me enough times. 23 times—to be exact, 11 times more than the second most frequent.
At least show me something new. Something after I turned 30.
Could the clue be in what he said in those final words? Well, if it was important, he should have said it earlier. What am I supposed to do now? Lip read? It does not seem like he said more than 4 words. What a troublesome old man!
Writing journals was both a habit and a release for him. Only in these pages could he speak of his woes. He was being killed, by the memories of his past life. How ridiculous! He wished he could tell it to someone else. But he feared he would be titled 'The Mad Third Young Master Long' after that. Hence, the pages became his sole friend, the only one who could truly understand him. The only one who would listen to him.
At first, he hated these memories. But now that he had learned more, he was intrigued, gripped by the web of memories. He wanted to see where these infrequent and mostly useless memory fragments took him.
Probably to his coffin.
A soft paddling of paws rang in the silent room. A small black feline climbed up on him and nestled its face on his lap, making itself comfortable.
“Meow”
It purred and looked up at him with its bright, enigmatic golden eyes, making him wonder if it was worried for him. His heart felt a bit warm as he ran through his fingers on its black fur.
“Sorry for waking you up, Xiao.” He whispered.
"Meow, meow, meow.? Meow meow meow meow." The cat hissed, not accepting the apology.
Long Tian stared at the cat, who purred expressively to voice it’s complaint. He would bet ten golds that this pesky animal was scolding him for ruining it's sleep. After what seemed like a minute of the cat whining, it was finally satisfied and went back to sleep. Long Tian sighed and kept scribbling in the dim light.
Knock knock
“Young master, you are late for breakfast again.” A sweet voice rang from far behind, waking him up from his sleep. As soon as he opened his eyes, a piercing yellow light flooded through his eyelids, jolting him awake.
A young maid in a black outfit was standing behind the door. A combination of a chubby oval face, slanted eyebrows, and brown, limpid eyes gave her the grace of gentle beauty. Her eyebrows crooked as she stared him in anger.
Long Tian rubbed his head, laughing in an apologetic manner. Worried that he was going to get his second scolding early in the morning, he explained in a hurry. “Sorry, MeiMei, I overslept again. I will come in a bit.”
“Young master, you already missed breakfast three times this week. Please don’t forget to have breakfast today.” Mei Ying replied, rebuking him gently.
“En” Long Tian nodded, staring back at the densely scripted words. He sighed as he turned the notebook off, wondering when everything was going to end. He had started seeing these memory fragments or dream sequences, as he understood, since he was 10. And in last 6 years, it only got higher in frequency.
At first, they only brought him a mild, uncomfortable sensation in his stomach, which over time evolved to damaging his internal organs.
He slid the black notebook into the rows. Now there were twelve of them. He was not worried someone would steal it. Not like anybody here understood Mandarin here.
Even in his past life, he had barely encountered two people who could decode it. By the time he was born, the Chinese culture had been lost in the river of time. The only reason he knew of it was due to his grandfather persistently forcing him to learn it.
Over time, he came to appreciate it. It was an excellent choice for writing journals! He could whine about how he felt like smashing a beaker on that idiot co-worker's head, how that date only wasted his valuable time, or how the universe has been mistreating him, without ever getting caught by others!
The continent of Raoqen does not share any languages of similar origin. Which means, logically, it was impossible to decode. It's not like anyone would go through all the trouble to decode his diary, anyway.
Among the noble and immortal circle of HuaXia, some would call him a shame to the Long clan, while others called him a disgrace to Marquis Long. Plus, among his strange hobbies, writing journals in another language is the least quirky.
This marks the ninth memory fragment of the year, barely into the first quarter. He thought.
Long Tian rose to his feet, fixing his gaze on the mirror on the other side. His face had regained some color, at least. Thankfully, being a White Dragon clan member allowed him some minor regeneration capabilities. Otherwise, he would have turned into a corpse much sooner. But the signs were there, he had progressively gotten thinner over the years, now almost a bag of bones. No number of supplements allowed him to regain the lost muscle mass.
He gazed at the large wall clock hanging on the opposite wall. With each tick of the clock, time slipped through his fingers like grains of sand.
The next awakening ceremony would be in 10 months. He wondered if he was even going to make it till then. Putting on his white overcoat, he stepped into the large elevator.
“Please state your desired floor number.”
A gentle white light whirred on the ceiling, rotating in a clockwise manner. A feminine, sweet mechanical voice graced his ears as he entered. On the meticulous silver walls, patterns of dragon scales were itched elegantly.
“Floor seven”