"Ahhh..." I fell onto the grass patch I had created earlier. Of course, it was hard to control a power you didn't know existed until recently. I didn't even know where to begin at trying to use this strange ability of mine. My attempts to recreate the phenomenon that happened earlier were nearly all in vain.
At first, I had tried focusing on a spot to try and figure out how well I could control the growth of life in a specific area. Squinting my eyes at a location just outside of the circle of grass, I focused my attention as hard as I could. Nothing happened. All I had gotten for my efforts was a headache for focusing too hard for so long.
I felt dejected, but it wasn't like anything would happen on this world without me doing it.
As far as I knew, I was the only living being on this planet, meaning that everything would remain stagnant until I changed it. Nothing would change, and everything would remain the same. I was the only one who could change that.
As for my next attempt, I thought that it was my tears that somehow grew the plant life around me. Thinking back to the first time I had used my power, it was fairly likely that my tears could have grown the plant life. So clearly, the method to growing more grass was to get myself to cry. Probably.
It was difficult to get myself to cry. Of course, I couldn't will myself to cry, so I had to try other methods to get tears out of my eyes.
I made a fist with my hands, and punched myself in the gut as I could.
Guess how that went.
---
After much physical pain, most of it self-inflicted, I decided that this wasn't going to get me anywhere. I stopped for a second to catch my breath. Maybe I needed to try something else. Something different.
I stood back up from my previous position on the grass. I tried to remember the sensation I felt when I first used this ability. The swirling emotions inside of my as I let loose.
I looked upwards, breathed in deeply, and let it out.
Sitting back down just as soon as I had stood up, I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing. I reached back into my memories of what I assumed was my past life. It was strange, attempting to recall something you didn't really remember in the first place.
I noticed that I no longer felt the blades of grass against my skin. I was completely within my own world, cut off from everything else around me. It was an odd sensation, feeling of being there yet not being there at the same time.
It was then that I opened my eyes once more.
A ball of light lay between my hands. It was a light magenta color, and looked to be no bigger than the palms of my hands. It did not touch my skin, but instead hovered in between my hands. The heat radiating from the ball warmed my hands, and it felt nice.
Almost on instinct, I lowered the ball of light into the ground beneath me, and after a small rumble, a sprout rose out of the grass. It reached no taller than my ankles, and yet captivated me entirely.
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It was something new, and that fact interested me greatly. Unconsciously, I moved my hands to cover the sprout, and closed my eyes. I felt a great deal of my energy leave me, and flow into the sprout. I was shocked at first, but felt determined to keep my hands over the sprout.
The ground shook again, and my eyes widened at the sight in front of me. Taking multiple steps back, I watched as the once-small sprout rapidly grew before my very eyes.
"It's a tree," I thought to myself. The base of the it alone took up nearly half of the circle of grass I made before.
Then I looked up.
My mouth opened without me even knowing it. It was huge, larger than anything I had ever seen before. It seemed as if it would never stop growing. This continued on for quite some time until the tree nearly blocked the sky from view. The dark green leaves replaced the familiar blue sky I was used too.
"Wow," I muttered aloud, to no one. Internally making a list of "The largest things I have ever seen," I immediately put this tree at the top of it. Granted, it was the only entry on that list, but it wasn't like anything would top this tree anytime soon.
I walked up to the base of the tree, and touched it. The bark felt firm, and rough to the touch. It was vastly different to the smoothness of the grass and the chalkiness of the dust I had felt before.
As my hand remained on the tree, a glowing white circle appeared in the shape of my hand on the bark.
"Wha-?" I said, before the strange circle disappeared as soon as it had shown up. Soon after the circle had vanished, a hole had appeared in the trunk of the tree. I was pretty sure that wasn't there before. The hole was large enough to fit myself through with room to spare. I could only assume I was supposed to go inside.
I peered inside, and only saw darkness inside. I wasn't sure if I wanted to got in there, to be honest. It was probably my actions that had opened this hole, but that didn't mean I was willing to step inside without a care in the world.
Putting myself on guard, I cautiously stepped though the hole, and into the tree.
---
It was dark. I was quite used to the never-ending light of the dusty planet outside, and the immediate transition to darkness was quite unnerving. Keeping one of my hands to the sides of the small passage for support, I continued to go deeper and deeper within the tree.
As I made my way into the tree, I saw a glowing purple light in the distance. I squinted my eyes, and saw that it was the same shade of magenta that the glowing ball I held in my hands was earlier.
I quickened my pace, and the glowing light grew closer.
I reached the end of the path, and discovered that there was in fact a large chamber hidden deep within the tree. A stream of glowing light stretched from the ceiling into the ground. Looking around around, there seemed to be nothing else occupying the room save for the stream of light.
I walked further into the chamber. The light stream in the middle continued to flow on. The magenta light flowed smoothly, as if it was moving to a set rhythm, a set pattern.
I extended my hand towards the flow of light, and the light all at once ceased its movement. My eyes widened, before the frozen light flew towards me.
"Ahh!" I screamed as the light assaulted me. Soon, my vision was clouded with magenta light, and I could see nothing else. I knelt to the ground, not out of my own will. The light continued to force its way deeper into myself, despite my best efforts to stop it.
I let out a groan when the burden on my mind became nearly too difficult to manage. My vision blurred, and I felt like I was on the verge of blacking out.
It was then that I remembered.
I remembered everything.
Who I used to be, where I used to live, what happened before I woke up on this dust-filled rock.
My name was Celeste. I was 18. I had a family. I had a job. I had friends. I had a life.
And I was dead.