Kanga, when she was still just a kid whose name was a simple string of letters and numbers, somehow survived the destruction of the laboratory that created her. She didn't really know what happened, only that those she used to call 'Papa' had stopped coming inside her cell. At first, she was happy since they couldn't do any more tests on her body, but they also stopped feeding her.
She was strapped to a bed with tubes going inside her body. There was nothing she could do but wait for her death. A few weeks passed like that. She barely survived in a state between life and death. There were screams at one point, but they sounded like buzzing to the girl.
Simply put, the laboratory was attacked by the same god who had cursed humanity. He had grown tired of seeing his creations act like gods with no regard to their actions.
Kanga was barely holding on to her consciousness as she grew weaker. She still couldn’t understand how things had come to this, but she accepted her death. There wasn’t much to live for anyway… Her brothers and sisters became sick because of her, and some passed away. It wasn’t her fault. She was just a victim. But the memories of those she loved, suffering because of her existence... She thought that she could say ‘sorry’ to them once she died.
But this intrusive idea never came to fruition. She saw the god who had cursed humanity. It dissolved a large hole inside the laboratory that led outside before breaking Kanga’s binds.
"Kill me…" whispered the young girl, who could barely see the being made of stars through her glazed eyes.
"YOU WILL KILL HUMANITY" responded the god before vanishing.
Kanga, now free, then tried to end her own life. She didn’t want to kill anyone else. It didn’t matter whether what the god said was truthful or a lie; she wasn’t strong enough to leave the laboratory that had created her. She didn’t want her family to be all alone…
Nothing she did worked. Every time she managed to kill herself, she would be reborn on the same table where she lost her womanhood. What's more, the slight rays coming from the hole allowed her to see how much her body had changed. She was all grown up and had had her childhood taken from her. Her creators had given her a life, which they took everything from. Days and nights passed by as the large hole in the laboratory became akin to the rising sun for the cursed child.
One day she left, not to gain a new life but to find something that could take hers. For the first time, she saw the vast sky, which she compared to just another kind of prison. Soon, she realized that she was on a large island devoid of life. Maybe somewhere beyond the sea, someone or something capable of killing her existed.
Thus started her life. She was a great sorceress who stood far above humanity, but she never found her reaper. Understanding that she would live forever in this dying world, she tried to emulate the kings and rulers protecting small pockets of humans. As she was humanity’s child and its destined end, she thought she could explore the same mistakes her forefathers made and create her own end.
The sorceress constantly created new life using the same method her creators used as a buffer to protect humanity from her curse. She tried to lead them into a new era where they could rival the gods, but what remained of humanity splintered away once they got comfortable. After all, why should they fight unknown gods when they themselves are immortal due to a huge leap in magic and technology?
This peace didn’t last long, as those same gods decided to end things once and for all by attacking. In a fortnight, what little the great sorceress had built was destroyed. All that was left were fragmented kingdoms that were better called villages.
Kanga didn’t lose hope and went out to explore the world after hearing a few whispers of a creature able to grant any wish. People talked about a plain filled with flowers and greenery – a rare sight in this dead world. The only thing that worried Kanga was that the description of the wish-granting-creature changed from person to person. One time it was a flower, another a sheep, sometimes a boat, and other times a river. There was nothing consistent about the shape of the creature, and the only thing that was was the cost required for a wish. Someone had to give something the creature was interested in for it to grant a wish.
The sky was raining white ashes the day Kanga departed. The land had been scorched in the hope of creating a large enough curtain to hide from the gods. No one knew if this was effective, but it still lifted humanity’s mood.
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Kanga had scoured far and wide in the world until one day she was met by heavy, dark clouds in the sky. It was an odd sight, as they appeared without warning. They hugged so low to the ground that she could barely touch them while on her tippy toes. When she did so, her hand became covered in cobwebs. She had a shudder run down her spine and felt as if millions of spiders were crawling over her body. Frightened, she forced lightning out of her body to kill anything that might be on her. The purifying heat that followed suit lit the clouds ablaze, such that they disappeared quickly and only uncovered an upside-down garden of red flowers.
She thought that she had found her destination and tried to reach for the garden, which simply liquified into a red waterfall. The red gathered together into a giant yellow rabbit below the ground, as if it was a reflection of something real. She was about to call to this creature, thinking it was the one able to grant any wish, but suddenly started to vomit red petals. The being's intentions were clearly not friendly, and Kanga was forced to escape as quickly as she could.
She tried to fly using dark raven wings but was pulled back by the petals she vomited. Then, as she couldn’t move from her place, she saw the reflected giant snap its large feet towards her. She could only make a shield around herself before she was sent flying far into space. The air became thinner and thinner until she broke through the vast blue sky.
She didn’t quite understand what she was seeing; the sprawling emptiness of space was so alluring. When she was a kid, she saw the walls and the metal operation table as a jail, and then it was the limit of the sky and clouds that became her jail… but now? Where were the walls that she used to push ever further? Where was that warm enclosure?
Before she could come up with an answer, she was pulled back to earth by the red petals. In the end, she re-awoke back inside the familiar laboratory haven, having been killed upon landing. The girl was trembling with expectation. She used to think the sky was the limit and she could defeat the gods who had created humanity. And now a random event managed to defeat her as if it was nothing.
Maybe the wish-granting-creature was real, and it could be her reaper. For once in her life, she ran outside the laboratory with great expectation. She quickly came back to where she found the giant to challenge him again. Her wish didn’t matter anymore, as what she truly desired was so close at hand. It wasn’t something she understood well, but her heart told her to rush forward with all her might.
Kanga fought the giant for three weeks without caring for the slowly decaying humanity under attack by otherworldly monsters. She saw the rising sun with joy and the waning moon with expectation. For once in her life, she felt like she was her own person with dreams and hopes, unlike her past self, who was more like an empty puppet. The premise of meeting a creature who could break any limitation gave her bondless joy. She was like a child at Christmas.
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Understanding how the giant’s power worked after fighting it for many weeks, Kanga was slowly gaining the upper hand. She dodged the giant’s strike and countered by forcefully ripping electrons from where the giant was. It caused the usually stable dirt to become unstable, with every atom being repelled from one another. She then transferred the repulsive energy of the atoms to forcefully create a large ball of electrons.
With her sorcery, she managed to break the laws of physics and create something like a star. It wasn’t big, but the potential energy stored inside the ball was extreme. What she specialized in was electricity, or simply the manipulation of electrons. She could fake a situation suitable for lightning by creating zones of high potential – basically pooling a large number of electrons in a cloud and decreasing the resistance in the air. But this method only allowed the movement of electrons, which couldn’t do much damage to the neutral earth. She needed to dig up the giant in order to kill him, and the star she was creating was her nuke to do so.
She launched her star down while creating a new one in the same breath and watched as the electrons were flung with extreme power while interfering with the already unstable ground. Neutrons and protons were flung away in the process while releasing an unimaginable amount of power. This was the way she found: creating the strongest explosion that she could produce. She didn’t really care about the earth and what would result from her attack – not that she really knew – as she could simply wish for the wish-granting-creature to repair whatever damage she did… So she launched star after star until she was completely drained.
Large clouds billowed out from the constant explosions, which blinded her momentarily. When she thought the dust was starting to settle, she felt as if she was impaled in the chest. She was. Looking behind her, she saw what could be described as a monster of green impaling her with one of its claws. Back inside the laboratory, she was.
What she didn’t know was that her wish for a reaper was already in effect. The giant and the monster were attempts to make it real, and for the cost…
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When she came back to where she fought, it was as if nothing had happened. The dark, low clouds like spiderwebs were back, and the ground wasn’t damaged in the least.
Like before, she set the spiderweb ablaze and used two electron stars to kill the giant, leaving an enormous hole in the ground. Then came the monster, whose existence was that of the color green. It tried to impale her once again, but she managed to retreat just in time. Instead of creating more stars, she moved atoms of the same kinds together so that she now had balls of hydrogen, helium, and such. Then, by increasing the energy of every electron moving around their nucleus, created colored lights. She wanted to devour the monster inside a kaleidoscope of lights.
After a few days of fighting, the sorceress managed to drown the monster. She prepared herself in case another foe showed up, and one did. It was a dragon-like snake with violet scales shining over a body without end or beginning. While she could never see its head, the dragon kept growing in length wherever she wasn’t looking. Slowly, it was starting to cover the sky and the land with its body. Kanga felt a shiver run down her spine as if she was ill. Her mind was starting to swirl while cold sweat ran down her ashen face.
She woke up, not knowing how she died. It didn’t take her long before facing the dragon once again, but this time, she created a hundred small snakes made from lightning that could possibly see the dragon’s head. Yet none saw it, and instead of feeling ill, she felt as if the area was warming up. Soon it was like it was summer, and when it was the warmest, it appeared.
It had a darkish purple head that spewed poison with every breath. It quickly slithered in the air toward the sorceress, as if swimming in a river. The girl flew into the sky to avoid it, but the poison entrapped her. She died multiple times when facing this dragon and barely managed to slay it after shading the sun with dark clouds. When the heat decreased, the dragon became noticeably weaker. Still, it was a tiresome fight and a test of endurance.
She kept fighting the best she could. When torrential rain was forced from the clouds she had made as if water was magically produced until a sea came to be and a worm with a million teeth lunged at her, she created her own rain of lightning until the beast was charred black.
When a bird with a red coat appeared and warded off her every attack while creating islands in the sea, she produced a large vacuum, which claimed the much-needed oxygen the bird needed.
Then a demon rose from the newly formed land like a volcano erupting. It had as many heads as fingers for a normal person. His shouts broke the space between her and him, and he struck with the force of a dying sun. She died many times to him as he could heal each of his limbs forever. Only after beheading every head did he die.
The demon's body became covered in white mushrooms in an instant. Kanga sent a wave of lightning at them, but every mushroom exploded in a cloud of spores that changed into an uncountable number of owls. On her first try, a bird touched her, and her body started to rot. The best way to win was to simply protect herself until all the birds died.
Finally, the sky opened up to the endless void of space marred with stars, and from the darkness came riding as many dark knights as there were stars – probably even more. The sorceress thought they were impervious to everything at first and even started using the destructive stars used against the rabbit without much success. Truthfully, she had no idea how she won against them, as they simply disappeared after fighting her for a full month.
She waited and waited, with nothing else coming her way. After some time, she landed back on the ravaged land. Never had she been this exhausted in her life yet, she was happy. In front of her, flowers of all kinds bloomed.
Only now did she realize that the whole area was in itself a creature able to change how it looked. She slowly started to crawl forward inside this ever-changing landscape. Flowers and trees grew to then die and bring new life in an endless cycle. It was beautiful to look at. For Kanga, whose experience was that of imprisonment and confrontation, the things she saw amazed her.
At one point, she started to hear singing further ahead. Thinking she was getting closer to her goal, Kanga forced herself up to at least be presentable. To hell with her wounded body or destroyed clothing, she didn’t want to seem weak before the wish-granting-creature. And then she would wish… for her death? She wasn’t sure anymore.
Then she finally reached the source of the singing. It was a man leaning against a dromedary while ripping the petals of a red flower with luscious petals. He smiled and asked, "You came looking for death, haven’t you?"
Kanga suddenly felt scared but responded nonetheless that it was her wish.
The man got up on his two feet as if he was destined to do so and ripped a handful of petals from the flower. "Saw you fight. Impressive, I must say. I’m sure my master would have loved you. But alas, you must go," he said. His smile was almost mocking in nature and caused Kanga to take a step back.
"Who are you!" asked Kanga, who was starting to sense dread.
"Paimon," he responded while bowing deeply. "The most trusted and loyal dog of our absolute lord." He then grabbed the sorceress hand to pull her closer while ripping more petals with his teeth.
"Flower – what even is the flower," whispered Kanga through shaking lips.
Paimon returned a smile, and Kanga felt something cold enter her chest. She looked down. The man had stabbed her in the chest with a strange, curving blade. "A-Wish-Granting-Abomination," whispered back the trickster.
Kanga felt something leave her and instinctively understood that it was her curse of immortality. She was dying for real and tried to scream something to the flower but was stopped when Paimon stated singing as his voice drowned hers.
Even if she was to ask something of the flower, it wouldn’t be able to hear her plight. The girl screamed so loud that her vocal cords ruptured and caused lightning to rain down as if the end of time was near.
Paimon’s back exploded into bloodied metal wires, which formed harp-like wings and burning chains. He took to the sky while enchanting his song with a summoning spell, which caused two hundred legions of spirits with angels at their heads to lead them. The fabric of reality started to wrap around the sorceress as some of those summoned joined Paimon in his demonic choir.
"You, who is a threat to The Lord, will be awarded the death you always wished for!" said Paimon before acting as the conductor. His hands kept ripping petals from the red flower, which fell like rain before a single dying girl.
But to say Kanga was only a simple girl would be a mistake. She had long reached the level of a god. "If a wish requires a sacrifice, then I’ll give away my body," whispered the sorceress to herself. She didn’t need a wish-granting-creature to do so. A small ball of highly concentrated lightning left her body, which slumped lifelessly to the ground. Her body wasn’t breathing anymore, as she had fully ascended her mind into the ball of lightning.
The wisp of lightning painted the sky violet as she caused an electric deluge similar to a flood. In a matter of seconds, Paimon’s hand holding the flower was cut, and the flower was captured inside a magnetic field above the wisp.
"Fight and stay with me," Kanga wished.