Fatma sat cross legged in a lotus position, her breathing consisting of both deep drags and gentle exhales. Hakan stood behind her, hands clasped against her back, transferring spiritual energy into the young girl’s trembling figure.

“Concentrate. Distribute the energy evenly through your body.”

At Hakan’s reminder, Fatma gave a light nod. She was in terrifying pain that would make others scream from the gut-wrenching agony. Yet, she had a serene expression, not minding the needle-like sensations pricking her from the inside out.

It had been twenty minutes since Hakan started slowly pouring spiritual energy into her body. Twenty minutes was an average of how long a person could sustain themselves in the process of awakening.

Yet for Fatma, this was merely the beginning. Over the past three months, she had honed herself through extremes. She had been cultivating her mind for all this time, going through physical pain and daylong meditations.

Another twenty minutes added up to the time.

Fatma began to crack under the escalating surge of spiritual energy. Sweat beaded on her forehead, tracing strain down her face as her expression contorted in serene agony. Her breathing grew erratic.

Hakan observed the twitches that began to ripple through her disciple’s body. Fatma’s hands clenched into fists. The energy, instead of flowing smoothly through her blood vessels, created blockages that elicited tribulation for her.

‘Amazing. This kid will surprise the whole of Heart Isle.’

Hakan smiled wildly. Fatma had not betrayed her expectations. With enough care, her body would endure another ten minutes.

But yet another twenty minutes passed, marking an hour.

Hakan’s smile grew into a maddening grin while she was fully focused on infusing her energy into Fatma’s body. Even Hakan herself started feeling strain on herself.

‘She has surpassed me. Ahahaha!’

Hakan barely managed to keep her laugh to herself. This disciple of hers had far surpassed her expectations. Was it her karma, unrelenting will, or both? Hakan couldn’t help but wonder. Yet, she was extremely happy.

As the spiritual energy ravaged Fatma’s body, tiny capillaries beneath her skin burst, creating red blotches that painted her face and arms. Blood seeped from her nose, dripping steadily onto her clenched fists and the green ground below.

The blood now speckled her lips. Each breath was as though her lungs were being crushed under the weight of the Kirin mountain they were standing atop of.

The surroundings spun hypnotically around her as she fought the urge to succumb to the darkness on the edges of her vision. She bit down on her lip so hard blood gushed down her chin, the sharp pain a desperation to keep her consciousness.

‘I can stop…’

Fatma thought. She knew she wouldn’t die because of Hakan’s ability, but the pain she was going through was unbearable. She could barely concentrate at spreading the newly acquired spiritual energy through her body. Just as she was about to inform Hakan that she wasn’t feeling well and could no longer bear it, a particular memory came into her sight.

----------------------------------------

“Did you cry?”

Damian asked. Fatma angrily looked at the face of this two year old child. She wanted to rudely retort, but the gaze the boy was giving her was the one of concern.

“Yeah. So what? Life sucks is all. Just read your damn book.”

She had her eyes swollen from all the tears she had shed the previous night.

“Did you get duped again?”

The boy inquired. Fatma irritatedly watched the boy. The child was reading a book that was twice the size of his little head. His puny hands barely had any strength to lift a page of it.

“You, dipshit, are too small to look down on me!”

She exclaimed, her voice reverberating through the library. The child sighed heavily as he knew he was talking to a child.

“Say, what happened? You always cry like a donkey. But you’ve been crying too much as of late. Is it that Eyman guy?”

“No! As if I’d cry over him!”

To Fatma’s tantrum, Damian drew a deep breath and heaved a sigh. There was no helping it if she didn’t want to tell. He refocused on the book lying before him. The silence permeated the room for a moment before Fatma’s soft voice broke it.

“I just feel lonely…”

Fatma murmured. Yet, Damian didn’t heed her any attention.

“I said I feel lonely!”

Fatma furrowed her brows. The kid was really annoying, making her raise her voice. Damian narrowed his eyes as he then closed them. He closed the book and placed his gaze on Fatma.

“You are not.”

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Fatma twitched at his words.

“You don’t understand! All the other girls my age have friends. They're always together, laughing and sharing their secrets with each other. They go to the seaside, their voices melding like a choir of songbirds, and roam the streets on festival days. I see them from afar… It's as though I'm a ghost among them, unseen, unheard. Not once has anyone invited me to join their circle. It's just... I'm forever an outsider.”

‘Here comes the rant.’

The boy sighed.

“They think that I’m deranged. They even gossip among each other that I’m a cheap whore. I just don’t like them! They all bicker uselessly. I hate them, but more than them, I hate myself. I hate myself for looking down on them. I feel… isolated… To top it all, I’m also left looking after some weird kid all day long! ”

She pointed a finger at the boy as she proclaimed. But the finger she was sharply pointing at him started wavering. Tears traced down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry… I… I didn’t mean it.”

Fatma knew she had misspoken. Why was she taking her grievances out on a little boy? Damian, though, was not offended by this.

“You think I’m the weird one here? The faults we see in others are but a reflection of our own. You behave like a bitch, and thus are treated like the bitch you are. Don’t you yourself gossip all the time? At this point, I know about every servant in the castle because of you. Though there is not a single positive thing. To be honest, they are on point. You are a hypocritical whore.”

Hearing Damian, Fatma’s mouth fell agape. She was just about to explode when Damian added.

“But that’s fine. Everyone is a hypocrite. You are not alone in this. What makes you feel lonely is your inability to understand yourself. All it takes to fix it is coming to an understanding with yourself. ”

He said. Fatma felt confused as she didn’t understand.

“Talk normally! Don’t beat around the bush!”

Damian gave her a look of scorn.

“Stupid bitch. There is a vast distinction between being alone and being lonely. You can be alone but not lonely, and similarly, surrounded by people and yet be filled with loneliness. You understand your needs, yet you do not know your wants.”

Fatma was even more confused after hearing this, yet something about what Damian said clicked with her.

“Ask yourself. What kind of person you are? What kind of person do you want to become? Then, and only then, after you have defined yourself, after you are content with yourself, can you search for the meaning in others. You blame others, you blame yourself, you blame the world itself. Yet the world doesn’t care about you, others do not care about you. No one will care about you if you do not take care of yourself.”

Damian said in the cute voice that a two year old could muster. Yet, his gaze was intense.

“Take a look around. Why the fuck do you live? You ask yourself why you are lonely. How the fuck don’t you see? Break the restraint in your mindset. If you abandon yourself, then that will make you truly lonely. Others will judge you for your truthfulness, and that can shatter you, but not break you. The true loneliness is only when you give up on yourself.”

Damian pointed a finger at Fatma as he watched her with an expressionless face.

“You will feel the loneliness of the world when you suppress yourself. So, just keep it as it is. Do not change and become who you’re not meant to be. You are not lonely, Fatma. You have me, and the elder, who although a complete asshole, still does care about you. You have yourself. Work on yourself. Seek the answers.”

After saying that in a funny voice, the boy reshifted his focus on a book again. At that point, Fatma didn’t know that these words were actually not directed at her, but at himself.

Damian was lonely.

“Tsk. And here I thought that you were having a serious problem. Worrying about nothing, a fucking crybaby. As always.”

The boy bickered as he pulled all his strength to open up the book. Just why had he even closed it to begin with?

It took Fatma some time to digest the things that Damian had said.

“You talk gibberish. What does that have anything to do with my problem? Don’t try to speak like an old man when you’ve barely passed your infancy. How could you understand me? Wha-”

“Shut the fuck up and let me focus on the damn book.”

Damian was feeling aggravated. He was studying the runic language which was utilized in the making of relics.

His schedule was tight. The work was daunting. The science of this world was way more comprehensive and complex in comparison to Earth’s. There were countless chemical elements, sometimes called elementals here on the planet Origin.

For example, the fire was not composed of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen, or anything of the sort that it would normally be composed of back on Earth. It simply consisted of the fire element. Or water, made of two hydrogen and one oxygen molecule back on earth, instead, was made of… water.

The water and fire elements themselves were made of life element. Life element was like an atom. Everything was made from life.

Every element had life in them.

There were elements arguably for every word. Elements of war, sorrow, even stupidity. Why was this world batshit crazy? Damian theorized that it was because here, life was the progenitor of all things. It definitely had something to do with that.

Other than that, he didn’t have much idea at the moment.

But he knew one thing for sure. Here, concocting something straightforward such as gunpowder was as daunting as engineering an atomic reactor back on Earth.

Damian gave a weary sigh as he read through the book. For someone who came from Earth, this world was nonsensical. But similarly, for others who were born and raised in Origin without prior memories, the science of Earth seemed nonsensical. They viewed Earth as something that came up straight from a high fantasy novel.

Yana Fatma silently watched as the boy read through the book, lost in her own world.

----------------------------------------

One hour and seventeen minutes.

Fatma was gasping, her mind and body shattered. Yet, she knew she wouldn’t break.

Hakan was at a complete loss for words, her mind empty.

Fatma smiled lightly.

‘I know myself’

‘And, I know what I want.’

But unfortunately, despite her will, her soul finally couldn’t keep up with it. Hakan’s spiritual energy prevailed over her own. Her soul was destroyed. Fatma’s existence perished.

Hakan shuddered, coming back to her senses.

Self-Reversion

Self-Reversion

…

Self-Reversion

She reversed some of the spiritual energy that she had given to Fatma and took some of it back. Fatma relaxed her body and mind. She lost consciousness.

When she opened her eyes, she was inside her spiritual domain, inside the spiritual realm, otherwise referred to as Spirit World.