March 7th 2021
'Baba, I love you and mother sooo much!!
Let us live like a happy family forever!!'
~~~
Artorius gradually opens his eyes while reminiscing those words that were uttered by his deceased daughter.
He looks around at the shack he is living in which is deep in the molai forest in Assam, India.
The inside of the shack has a small bed which only occupies a small portion of the shack, while the majority of the shack is occupied by two large desks with a desktop on one of the large desks.
One of the walls opposite to the exit and next to the desks had multiple large shelves covering the entirety of the wall and was filled with hundreds of books. There was also a trap door on the ground which leads to an underground area near the shack.
Artorius looks at the wall near the exit where there were two calendars, one made out of wood and is very worn out and another being a modern calendar with the year 2026 marked on it.
Artorius stares at the marked date on the calendar with empty eyes for a minutes or two before a larger than average Bengal tiger came into view from the entrance of the shack.
"Chibi, did you find something to eat?"
Chibi is a Bengal tiger that is 11 years old and is a bit obese, but contrary to how he looks, he is much more powerful than any other Bengal tiger alive.
8 years ago, Chibi was found bloodied with dozens of gunshot wounds and collapsed on the side of a tree with 4 dead bodies near him.
The bodies belong to unlawful poachers who tried to capture Chibi but perished while trying. Artorius came across chibi while walking back to his shack, looking at his nearly lifeless body, seeing something die was almost a normal occurrence for Artorius.
Just as artorius was about to leave, he remembered a memory of his daughter playing with a wooden doll of a western tiger and naming it chibi and how much she loved that doll. Artorius picked up the 400kg tiger and took him to his shack.
After spending several hours tending to the barely alive tigers wounds, he was able to save it from deaths doors. After spending a few months doing physical training with artorius, the tiger made not only a full recover but was more stronger than ever.
Expecting the tiger to leave once it had healed, artorius sought out an area to leave it in which was far away from civilization so that it never had to feel the fear of escaping from poachers ever again.
But to his surprise, the tiger had never left his side.
Artorius and chibi have been living together for over 7 years thus chibi had grown quite attached to him and also seemed to somewhat understand him for what his intelligence allowed.
Artorius gets up from his bed and gathers some supplies to clean himself in a nearby waterfall. Chibi had learned a lot from artorius. One of the things was to follow artorius and clean himself under the waterfall alongside him.
After washing himself, Artorius goes into the shack and gets out a spear and goes to a nearby river where chibi and he hunt fish for breakfast. After 10 minutes, both of them come back with more than a dozen fish.
After both of them have eaten, Artorius takes a bag and starts putting some of his stuff in it. Just as he is done, he looks at a pendant with an unknown purple stone in it.
If one were to look at Artorius's face to describe his expression, "blank" would be the most appropriate word.
He clenches it in his fist and puts the pendant in his bag and ties it around his waist before preparing to leave. Just as he starts walking, chibi wakes up from his laying down position and starts walking alongside him.
They enter an old jeep and begin their journey to dzüko Valley, Nagaland. This will be the final place artorius sees before he starts his journey to die and reunite with his family who have been dead for 438 years.
Artorius is a "human" who has an invincible body and a power that is not yet completely understood by him.
Along with his invincibility, he also has extremely strong muscle fibres and an excess of motor neurons which allow him to exert a tremendous amount of force at a tremendous speed. The amount of power is proportional to his mass and rate of energy consumption.
He lived a tremendously long life and has been trying to die for the majority of his life.
All he knows about himself is his inability to die and a "power" he gained at the same time. This "power" could not be used by him for the longest time in his life as he hadn't any idea of what it is or how it works.
He has spent the Later years of his life trying to understand what it is and had come to an understand that he is able to in a sense, condense space.
To better explain, he is able to concentrate space to a point which in turn allows him to concentrate energy or dissipate energy. Space is like a medium that allows for energy to exist and that energy is a medium for matter to exist. Thus they are interchangeable.
Humans have known that energy cannot be created nor destroyed For the longest time but one of the things we have yet to reach is a concrete understanding of is where this initial energy had come from.
He has enough understanding to barely use his "power" but he knows that as he is now, he will not find the true origin of this "power" or know the origin of space for that matter of fact.
This journey is not to learn what he is as he has given up on that centuries ago, but is to end his long and painful life.
During his time being alive, he has lost a lot of the conventional emotions and could be described as cold but one indisputable thing he had concluded was that there is no right or wrong in this world, only powerful and less powerful.
Artorius closes his eyes to compose himself and harden his non-existent heart as he is about to go to the place where everything he ever had lays to rest.
21 days is the time it took for them to reach their destination.
Artorius parked the jeep and started walking into a dense forest. Chibi followed alongside him but was a little weary as this was a place chibi has never been in before.
Both of them picked up the pace and eventually reached a village. A sign placed outside the village read its name.
'Arthur Village'
A barely noticeable smile formed on artorius's face after reading the sign.
Both of them walk past the sign and enter the moderately sized village that was bustling with people.
Chibi had grown very accustomed to artorius and humans in general so chibi would listen to any orders his master would give.
As both of them were walking through the streets of the village in the woods, people were glancing at them with terrified looks as a huge tiger and a white-ish man were far from normal.
Just as artorius was thinking about approaching someone to ask for some help, a huntsman wearing a lungi holding a double-barrel shotgun comes shouting at them.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE OR ELSE ILL KILL YOU"
As he kept shouting, a lingering scent of booze could be coming of off him. It was clear to anyone witnessing the situation that the huntsman was heavily intoxicated.
But no one in the village tried to intervene as the sudden appearance of a tiger along with a foreigner was unnatural.
Even through everyone in the village hated the huntsman name rangleu as he would do nothing but sleep, drink and run his mouth all day, all they could do was watch for the time being.
As the huntsman continued shouting at artorius relentlessly, he could feel a cold, emotionless stare back at him from the him. But to his surprisingly the tiger was sitting down doing nothing.
"CANT YOU HEAR ME? GET OUT!! *hic*"
"T-TAKE THIS TIGER AWAY FROM HERE OR ELSE ILL KILL IT."
The huntsman named Rangleu pushes the twin barrels of the shotgun into Artorius's forehead whilst yelling.
Artorius grabs the twin barrels of the shotgun and bends them upwards like he was bending a straw and in the same motion, he yanks the shotgun from the huntsman's arms and throws I next to him.
Before the huntsman could react, he was knocked to the floor by a swift kick to the Achilles and fell straight on his back, looking up at artorius all the while chibi sat nearby.
"We won't hurt you. If you are worried about the tiger, you can rest assured as he is accustomed to humans."
The huntsman didn't believe his words but had no other choice as he was clearly an ant standing next to a lion. He couldn't fathom how a human....no, a living thing could bend a shotgun barrel 90 degrees into the
air.
"All we want is some food and information. I'm not asking you to fulfil my requests for free."
As artorius was saying that, he reached into his pocket and pulled out gold nuggets to show them that they could benefit from letting a dangerous stranger pass through.
Rangleu was a stern old man who despised the sight of foreigners and would do anything to make sure that his little village would not be 'tainted by them'.
Although he sits around doing nothing on a daily basis except occasionally hitting his son zeliang for not earning enough money to support his drinking hobby, he would still feel like he owns the village when some things happens to it.
Everyone in the village hated Rangleu but couldn't kick him out because he was the lone person with a gun.
An elderly woman sheepishly approached them and offered to take them to her house which had a shop inbuilt into it.
"Thank you miss, the tiger will not cause any trouble."
"Ah-h, w-we sometimes see tigers around here but every time they get close to the village, sometimes we've even befriended them. Please forgive this fool who attacked you without warning."
It was clear that everyone who saw what happened to the shotgun were more terrified about the mysterious foreigner rather than the tiger.
As the elderly lady took artorius inside, chibi waited next to the house sleeping.
" Please sit down here while I get something to drink for you and the tiger."
he nodded in response and was trying to recollect the path to their destination. Although he had been there for the majority of his life, a lot had changed during the large period of time he was away.
The place he was visiting was the home he lived in with his family and also the place where his family lay in rest.
"Here you go, some fresh chai should help you and I'll leave some water in a bucket outside for the tiger.
Would you give it to him?"
The elderly lady asked in a polite but reserved tone.
"Thank you. I'll take the water to him."
After clearing up some pleasentaries, the elderly lady tried to justify the events that took place earlier as to try to not anger the man in front of her.
"We normally don't get many visitors, let alone foreigners in this area so everyone is weary but curious about why you have come."
Artorius who understood the elderly ladies intentions looked at her intently before asking his question.
"Before I say anything, can I ask if you knew of someone called hokishe Sema?"
"He is my great grandfather! , how do you him?"
"....... This shop's name is sema so I had suspension of whether this shop was related to the person I know. You have made his dream of opening a shop come true."
Although artorius's tone was very monotonous and bleak, it carried a hint of nostalgia which the elder immediately picked up.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"You look much younger than me, maybe around your early forties. How do you know of him!?"
"Don't worry about it... Now I would like a map of this surrounding area. Can you provide it?"
Although the elderly lady was stuck on the topic regarding the connection between her great grandfather and the man sitting in front of her, she had no choice but to answer the question directed towards her.
"Ehh, Ummm I will stop asking about how you know of my great grandfather but about the map, we don't have any. But we have a person who knows this forest very well. Whenever we need resources from nearby, he provides great help by helping us navigate through the village.
Although he doesn't have a proper family, he is a good boy."
"can you show me to him? I need to ask him some questions."
The elderly lady shakes her head and yells for some guy. That guy listens to the elderly lady and brings back a boy who is around 14 years of age."
"NANNAAMMA WHY IS THAT A TIGER SLEEPING NEXT TO THE HOUSE?!"
This is an expected reaction for anyone as a tiger nonchalantly sleeping next to a house is a very blizzard sight to see.
As the boy pans his vision, he sees the man who bent the barrel of the shotgun sitting on the floor with his grandmother.
As he saw them, he damn near pissed his pants and every cell in his body was telling him to run away.
No one would want to be in the same room with a person who can effortlessly bend a shotgun barrel and a tiger whose size is that of a minivan.
Artorius saw the fear on the boy's face, so he rose to his feet and walked towards the boy.
He put his hand on his shoulder and uttered,
" don't worry, I won't hurt you. If you can help me I'll give you this."
Artorius reached his arm out and showed the boy a gold nugget.
Although the boy was young, he was old enough to understand that what this strange man was holding is incredibly valuable.
"Gulp" the boy forcefully swallowed and quietly uttered,
" I-I w-won't die from the tiger right?"
"You won't."
Even though the boy was close to fainting from the fear, he knew that if this man fulfilled his promise of giving him the gold nugget, he would be able to live on that money with his mother.
"Whaa- what do you want fro-from me?"
"I'll describe a place to you, if you know anything of that place then tell me."
"A-alright."
Artorius begins to describe the place to the young boy.
"Are you talking about that creepy place? You know there are skeletons on skewers there for display right? It's said that anyone who goes there will be eaten by death itself."
The boy was resistant in taking the sombre looking man to the area as that place seemed to have developed an urban legend.
"It's fine. I don't need you to accompany me to that place, just show me the way."
"If you promise me that you'll give me the reward then I don't mind taking you there."
Artorius hands the boy the gold nugget weighing around 150grams.
"Now take me there."
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The three of them were silently walking through the jungle and were 2km or so away from the village.
While chibi and artorius were having an expressionless look on their faces, the boy was making a face akin to a kid who knows they have done something wrong and is walking back home to face the wrath of his parents.
"Kid.... what's your name?"
"Z-zeliang. And don't talk too loudly mister, the devil might hear us and eat us."
"Devil huh" he made a slight hint of a smile on his expressionless face.
After walking for around 2 hours, it had turned to the afternoon and zeliang's stomach started to make some sounds.
Although zeliang didn't want to acknowledge it and was very embarrassed, Artorius took out some samosa he in advance asked the elderly lady from the shop to pack from the bag he is carrying and gives it to zeliang.
" Eat it, we will stop for some while. I'm able to recognize this area now so I have an idea of where to go next.
Zeliang took the samosas wrapped in paper from artorius and sat down on a rock that seemed comfortable.
"Aren't you going to eat mister? You must be hungry too right?"
"It's fine, I don't need to eat."
As artorius looked upon the boy who was gobbling up the food he was given, he asked him a genuine question.
"What will you do with the money boy?"
After finishing the big bite of food in his mouth, zeliang looked up towards artorius and answered nonchalantly.
"I will take it and free my mother from prostitution. My father is a useless drunkard who does nothing by beat me.
After I finish this, I can finally live with my mother. She gave up her life to earn money for me. But I don't want that."
This was an answer that artorius didn't quite expect. But no where in between as he heard zeliang's answer did artorius's expression change.
This was just how it was. Many people had many problems. But zeliang was the lucky one because he met artorius.
After finishing his lunch, zeliang and artorius continue to walk towards their destination.
After 15 min of walking and travelling 4.3km from the village, they reached the area with the skeletons on spikes.
Zeliang second-guessed himself whether the reward was worth what he was doing right now. He felt a big lump in his throat and tried his best to swallow it down. Even if he wanted to run away, the person standing next to him had a Bengal tiger as a pet.
There was only one option for zeliang. Steel his 14-year heart and get this over with quickly.
As the three of them begin venturing into the forest beyond the skeletons, zeliang notices the already blank face on artorius now had an expression of a dead man.
Zeliang didn't dare to ask the intimidating man next to him about his welfare so he just shut his mouth like he was a little child watching his parents argue.
As they went deeper into the forest, zeliang noticed that a large area in front of them seemed to not be having as many trees as the rest of the forest and in-between them were hundreds of stones, some having weathered a lot and some not quite.
"Wait here if you want. I know this area now, if you can go back by yourself then do so or else wait here until I come back. Thank you for your help."
Zeliang nodded in reply and decided to wait as he was really afraid about the stories all the adults told him about this place. He understood that if he wanted to safely return to the village, it would have to be with artorius.
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As artorius continued walking through the forest, his eyes grew more and more lifeless but within his sight, he finally sees a single house, almost broken down and overgrown by nature as if the God of nature was inhibiting that house.
He stopped walking as he was staring at a broken off part of the house. Looking at Him, zeliang too stopped and looked in the same direction.
Two cold eyes were staring back at him from a distance. All he could do was stay fixed in place as if there was a sudden increase in gravity.
The eyes disappeared and a large shaggy, dusty-black coat, short-haired and long curved clawed creature walked out.
A distinctive cream-coloured v-shaped marking adorned the creature's chest.
"A sloth bear"
artorius tilted his gaze towards zeliang identifying the creature to remember if he had ever encountered one.
"It's very dangerous, please let us go back, mister. One of my friends was killed viciously by a sloth bear."
Despite hearing that, Artorius's eyes remained fixed on the bear and his body was calm. Chibi who was right next to him is sitting without any show of aggression or fear as to show his confidence in his master.
"The bear is foaming from its mouth. Stand back 10 paces zeliang."
He gestures chibi to stand with zeliang and proceeds to walk towards the familiar house.
In response, the bear lunges toward the human walking towards it.
In a mindless attack, the bear raises both its arms, claws out and is ready to strike the human that was approaching it but before the bear could make any contact, its head was sent flying hard enough that it deformed the head beyond recognition.
From zeliang's perspective, all he saw was artorius walking without stopping looking beyond the bear into the distance at two large structures made from stone.
The next moment just before the bear attacked, artorius punched its head with a right hook with enough force that the head tore of the body and completely destroying it.
All of this happened so quickly, to zeliang, Artorius's movement just looked like one huge blur.
One look at the decapitated head would suggest that a heavy load, around 500 to 700 kg was dropped on it to deform it to that extent.
'There was no way a human could do that.' That was the only thing the zeliang could think of.
"Wh-hat."
Zeliang was trying his best to not urinate himself from the fear he is going through but nobody would be able to act normal after witnessing such an event.
"It probably had rabies, be careful while approaching the body of the bear."
"Gulp"
All zeliang could do was nod. He looked down at his legs and before he knew it, he was down on the ground as his legs buckled at some point.
•°•••°•• •°°••°•° •°°••••° •°°°•°•• •°°•°•••
A house that he knew very well was now ravaged by time and had become one with nature. As he looks around, he sees his entire life before him. In the distance, thousands of stones were overgrown by nature but some retained quite a lot of the detail as the maker intended.
They looked like mini stone cylinders standing out of the ground some broken at the top due to weathering but all of them had an excellent foundation.
Each cylinder was evenly spaced from one another and had a band like structure near its top.
Each cylinder had some writing that was unreadable on the top face of the cylinder.
Amid the thousands of cylinders, two huge cylinders were standing around 3m tall with a beautiful marble base overgrown with moss.
Artorius gazed at the two pillars with a Sombre expression. To zeliang, it looked like a person staring at the abyss in a nightmare.
Artorius walks over to the two large cylinders and starts cleaning away the moss and overgrowth from the base.
On the left cylinder, a creeper had crawled up all the way to the cylinders head which made it look like an ancient relic.
As he was cleaning the overgrowth away from the pillars,
"Mister, can I help in something?"
"No don't worry, this is something only I have to do."
After listening to that response, although zeliang wanted to reply " what do you mean?" He decided to not ask any questions and sat down on a nearby rock.
After spending several tens of minutes, Artorius cleared away all the overgrowth from the two pillars.
Just as he was about to go a bit into the jungle,
"I know a river nearby. I can get some water from it so that you can wash that dirt from the pillars."
Artorius softly smiled and nodded his head in approval.
Zeliang eyes grew large in excitement and scurried off to bring some water from the river.
After a dozen or so minutes, zeliang returned with two wooden buckets filled with fresh river water.
Artorius pat him on his head and thanked him for his hard work.
After taking the heavy buckets off the kid who was clearly struggling to hold them by himself, Artorius began washing the two pillars.
After half an hour or so, the two pillars that stood tall overlooking the area gleamed with a radiance that would put anyone in awe.
The stone cylinders that looked like nothing more than weathered stone now showed their true form, black granite with a marble base.
On the base, both the pillars had plates with some writing on them. But on the sides of the base, another plate containing some numbers were visible.
'27.3.1582'
Zeliang noticed that both the plates had the exact same numbers on them but they each had different writings.
He also noticed that the bands on the top of the cylinders now were made from metal as they were gleaming brightly in the sunlight.
One of the pillars had a band made out of gold while the other band was made out of platinum.
Looking at the deterioration of the bands, it was clear that both of them were solid gold and platinum and not plated. In weight alone, they would have weighed around 3 kg.
The whole pillar itself would have weighed over a ton. Zeliang wondered how people of ancient times erected and moved such large pieces of stone but before his head started to hurt he gave up on trying to find an answer.
Artorius walked to the back of the house where there was a larger cylindrical object with and huge square bottom. It was covered in tens of layers of woven cloth which had been weathered to decay.
The top layers resembled dried leaves so much as they felt apart when one tried to move them with the littlest amount of force.
He tore apart the cloth protecting the cylinder-shaped object to reveal that It was different from the other two cylinders.
Zeliang could tell the difference with one look. This one was in pristine condition and was a rectangle tapering into a point on one end.
The tapered point on the top was made out of pure gold and the rectangle part seemed to be made of white glistening marble.
On all sides of the rectangle, some writing was inscribed in the middle.
Zeliang couldn't hold his curiosity to himself anymore or else his brain would explode from trying to figure out what this pillar is or what the writing on the pillar meant so, zeliang asked artorius about the inscription.
"One life."
"It means one life.? I don't understand that at all."
Artorius softly smiled to himself and walked closer to the pillar.
He bent down and started wrapping his arms around the massive pillar as if he was going to lift it.
'No human can achieve such a feat.'
Yet, he seemed to lift it with ease and started to walk over to the two cylindrical pillars.
"Hanuman."
Zeliang couldn't help but utter those words when he looked at a human who should never even in his wildest of dreams lift an object that weighs several tons with such ease.
It was only natural for the kid to compare such a feat to that of the God of strength.
As artorius reached the cylindrical pillars, zeliang saw that there was indentation behind the two cylindrical pillars for the base of the rectangle-shaped pillar to be placed into.
Artorius gently lowers the base of the pillar into the indentation with swallowed up 1/2 of the base of the pillar.
The part that was exposed had similar writing to that of the other two pillars but unlike the other two, this pillar had two plates on the left and right sides of the base of the pillar with inscriptions that very clear.
Both sides had the same thing inscribed on them,
"Μην πηγαίνετε απαλά στο αιώνιο σκοτάδι, γιατί η μόνη εμφάνιση του ανθρώπου είναι ο αγώνας ενάντια στο άγνωστο. Ενημερώστε το σκοτάδι για τον αγώνα σας, γιατί όταν γίνετε σκοτεινοί, το μόνο που θα χρειαστείτε είναι λίγο φως. Ας ζήσουμε με έναν τρόπο, με τον οποίο ξέρουμε ότι ζήσαμε, γιατί όταν δεν είμαστε πια, το μόνο που θα είναι είναι σκοτεινό. Υπάρχει ό,τι θέλεις στο σκοτάδι, γιατί το σκοτάδι δημιουργείται από σένα».
Αυτός ο πυλώνας σηματοδοτεί το τέλος,
Αρτόριος της Σινώπης» - 483 BC."
Before Zeliang could get the courage to ask artorius the meaning of those words, he got his answer.
" 'Do not go gentle into the forever dark, for the only semblance of man is the struggle against the unknown. Let the dark know of your fight, for when you become the dark, all you'll need is some light. Let us live in a way, in which we know we lived, for when we are no more, all that'll be is dark. There is everything you want in the darkness, for the darkness is created by you.'
This pillar marks the end,
Artorius of Sinope - 483 BC."
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Zeliang looks at artorius who is standing a few paces in front of him. All he can wonder is what is he seeing from those sombre eyes of his whilst looking at the three pillars that are larger than life.
Artorius reaches out his trembling arm to touch one of the pillars but ultimately decided not to.
"I'm sorry." He mutters under his breath.
Is he reminiscing any memory he had in this place? If so, how old is he?
Many questions were running through zeliang's mind, but before he could articulate any words his thought process was interrupted by,
"I'm sorry I took this long. I know what I have to do now..... I'll be with you soon."
As he uttered those words, artorius looks up into the sky with a sombre smile and reached his hand out to his side.
Those words didn't match Artorius's expression as he was carrying none. But there seemed to be a hint of sadness and remorse in his eyes while he was looking at the pillars.
Soon after Artorius said those words, he reached into his small bag and removed the pendant with the peculiar stone in it.
He placed it on the base of the pillar with the gold band and stood there for a while.
After looking at the pillar for some time, He turned around to make way into the house in which he spent a few minutes or so before coming out with an object covered in some old cloth.
He signalled both zeliang and chibi that they were going to leave. Just before leaving, artorius sweeps on more look.
In between thousands of stone cylinders, some old some new stood three large pillars which were made with excellent craftsmanship.
To zeliang, due to the large number of cylinders, it almost looked like a large village and the three pillars were the heads of the village overseeing it. All he could do was be in awe of the sight he was looking at. The marvel of nature intertwined with the marvel of man.
Artorius looks up into the sky and for a brief moment, a faint sombre smile that doesn't match his expression appears on his face.
He silently mutters to himself,
"I'll have to fight against the world, huh......."
The sombre smile returns to an expressionless face and he beings walking, leaving his home of the past behind as this would be the last time he would see it as is.
All three of them leave the forest.
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