My name is Roy. I am five years old and I live in fear. Humanity has been pushed to the edge of extinction. Humans have been driven into a single cavern deep under dark mountain. Dark mountain is the tallest mountain known, said to continue into the stars. Composed of a hard rock called Mjölnir. Mjölnir is so strong that even the strongest monsters would take years to burrow though it. It also seems to have a property that the monsters dislike, a natural repellent of sorts. Thus the monsters are forced to go through the front entrance, rather than tunnel and flank us. My parents tell me that Mjölnir is only found in dark mountain. That dark mountain came to us from the stars and is a strong hold from the heavens.
Humans have always had a hard time against the monster hordes, however it was more balanced in the past. Not like now when we can barely hold a candle to them.
On this world there exists mana, an incredible substance, capable of miracles. Humans learned to manipulate mana and became magi. With the magi, we started winning against the monsters. Some of the stronger monsters are just as intelligent as humans, not as smart, but just as intelligent. The monsters are cunning, patient, and are masters of mimicry. Any tactics the humans used against the monsters, they would slowly incorporate into their own strategies and turn it against humanity. Humans would gain an advantage, then the monsters would use the same advantages against humans, and we would end up losing more then we gained. Over the years we lost more and more until all we have is this cavern. Luckily we have the ability produce agriculture in dark mountain. “volver a la tierra, volver al polvo” is the spell that lets us eat. Using this spell, we can turn our dead into fertile soil to grow our potatoes.
For as long as I can remember I have feared the monsters, feared for my life, for my family. I always have terrible nightmares, of death, of being hunted, of being afraid. Slowly these nightmares became something different. The nightmares became dreams of a different world, of amazing magic, and a man. A man respected by the whole world for his knowledge and scientific achievement. “The man looked so different from me, except his eyes they look just like mine” I thought. The visions showed great knowledge and ideas different from any of this world. I would ask my parents about the world and how to get more knowledge to easier understand what I was being shown in my dreams. They showed me to the magister who was in charge of knowing things and of what little books that were left. He would always patiently answer my questions. Without him I wouldn’t have understood my dreams so fast.
Over the past year I had amassed a great amount of knowledge, but most of it was of little use to me at this point. Recently the magister john had told me of an old meditation technique that is said to let one gain better control of their soul. This claim is untested and is mostly considered to be hogwash.
The technique requires one to be is a silent dark space with candles in the four cardinal directions calibrated off of magnetic north. Then when facing magnetic north sitting in the lotus positon allow a cat raised with your own hand to lead you to your soul realm. In ancient folk lore the cat is of the spiritual word and the dog is of the physical world.
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In the past year I got a kitten at three weeks and raised Asi. We were never a part for long, and became the best of friends. Asi has finally grown enough not to be consider a kitten, and is entering the realm of being a cat. It is finally time to try meditation. I browed some candles and a compass from my parents, and sought a dark tunnel that branched off from the main cavern. Our main light source was glowing plants and fungi, they grow everywhere in the cavern.
Once I arranged the candles how I wanted them I pulled up all the glowing fungi and sat down and begin to seek peace within myself, so I may follow Asi into my soul realm. Because of all the steps and seeming random element in this technique, many scholars had written off this technique, but I had a very good feeling about it. After an hour nothing had happened except I had managed to relax. Normally if there were no adults were around I would be quite fearful of monsters, but in this mediation I had forgotten all about the outside world. I continued for another hour but there were no further changes. I liked forgetting about my fear so I decided to continue with the mediation, and came back the next day. This routine continued for several weeks, when I came out of my mediation I could have sworn that I saw Asi’s eyes glowing but I could never be sure.
When I sat down to meditate like I always did, Asi did something very strange, she sat down in front of me and stared at me. I thought it was strange but nothing else. When I meditating I found that I was not alone, Asi was with me. Asi stated walking, and I had the impression she wanted me to follow her. As we walked our surrounding got more strange, first we were surrounded by darkness, then slowly lights, or stars became apparent in our surroundings. Swirling around us the stars became galaxies, and other universes, it was a very surreal experience. After an indeterminable amount of time I saw the end of our journey. The end of the path lead to that man. The one of my visions. As I got closer to him I finally got to examine him in detail. He was a fairly tall man with brown hair, a straight noise, and thin lips. He was wearing a white lab coat. When I reached him, I placed my had on his chest and something incredible happened.
He was slowly resonated with me, and we slowly, but instantly became one person. I saw all his memories, I also realized he had no will, his will had moved on with his death and became me. After the re-connection, I was still me, but I was also him, a hybrid of both people. It felt as if neither people were true and that I had become more whole, more real. After that I opened my eyes, I knew what I had to do to protect my people, and break my shackles of fear.