Years were spent in agony from perpetual regeneration and decomposition. Callum had been dead for 47 years. Yet, his mind and will remained intact after spending painful isolation from this perpetual torture.

During those times of pain, he learned a lot about his once-a-year regenerative ability and his whole condition. One of which is its ability to bring back memories he’d long forgotten.

Though he wasn’t a huge believer in spirits and souls before, the chromatic flame inside his core begged to differ. Callum only found out about this when he started looking deeper into himself. It was one of those days where he had nothing else to do, which is most of the time, and thinking that meditating would help keep his emotions controlled, he turned his subconscious self deep within, from which he saw it.

Deep within himself is a fire that refuses to burn.

He concluded that the regeneration not only healed his body but also his soul. It was revitalized, mending the cracks that caused the mental fog affecting his memories. The once dimming bluish-white flame of his soul 40 years ago now glowed brighter and more colorful. If anything, it was brighter than ever. Memories that were blurry before he died were clearer, and forgotten memories came back in unfocused pictures.

This discovery helped to keep his mind as sane as he could. With the power of essentially an almost photographic memory, Callum built a game room in a neat corner of his cabin filled with books and manga he’d read, movies and shows he’d watched, and any board and card games he’d played throughout his time alive.

Though he would like to recreate a console to play some video games, he learned that creating a complex item using only his imagination without the knowledge of how it works was impossible. However, it doesn’t mean that he couldn’t rewatch any of his playthroughs.

With this power of remembering anything from his past life, Callum held his sanity together, sometimes training his imagination further, to which he learned his second discovery.

Callum, inside an arena of his own making, held a bow with his hand, an arrow nocked on its string. His right arm strained to keep it steady as he aimed at a target a few yards away. He kept his imaginary breathing steady, pushing his senses back until he could only see his target.

Callum now remembers the time when he used to visit an archery range in one of his travels. His form adjusted to what he felt when the instructor taught him the proper forms. With one last breath, Callum relaxed his fingers, releasing the arrow. The wooden projectile flew through the air in an arc and hit the target at its center.

With a fist pump and a few whoops, Callum settled the bow on the table in front of him and replaced it with a gun. This was the real test that he was training for. He reloaded the weaponry with ease, now second nature after he got most of his memories back. Done with his preparations, he walked a few feet towards his target and aimed. The Deagle in his right hand felt weightless, but with a simple thought, it grew heavy.

Callum has been trying to improve his imagination for the past four decades. With the help of whatever is regenerating his soul and body, Callum could say that his imagination has seen a huge improvement by the use of his memories. His goal for this training is to make the imaginary world he’d created somewhat realistic. Yet, it’s far from easy.

He immediately saw the anomaly the first time he shot a gun inside his mindscape. Even though there was a bullet hole on the target, there was no bullet to be found. This was his second discovery, the extent of his imagination. He can’t imagine anything equivalent to or beyond the speed of sound. But that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t train it.

Though he could have let it be, Callum knew that this would only lead him into the road of delusions. It might seem ironic since he’s creating a world inside his mind, but if he lets the unnatural fester within his soulscape, then it wouldn’t be any different from a dream. A dream where he could lose himself.

With a mental shake, Callum puts his focus on the task ahead of him. He could do all the retrospection later, but for now, he needs to put all his attention on his target. He steadied his breathing, his hands which were trembling slightly grew still. His eyes kept their focus on his target, which still held a wooden arrow at its center. Then, with a pull of a trigger, the bullet shot out of its chamber.

Callum’s concentration reached its peak as he kept his eye on the target and the bullet. It was only just a quarter of a second, but for Callum, it felt like minutes. He could see it traveling through the air so seamlessly, unfettered by anything until it reached its destination. His focus was so sharp that he’d tuned out the loud bang the gun made, and then it was broken when he saw the bullet dig deep into his target.

The world inside his mind grew incredibly still as Callum stared at the bullet hole. Then with a shake, he ran towards the target. He had spent the past 40 years doing this training, and each time, he hadn’t been able to follow the bullet. However, now, all that training has paid off. Yet, there was still one thing he needed to confirm.

As he got close to the target, Callum looked closely at the fresh bullet hole that his gun made. And lo and behold, there was a bullet embedded deep inside it.

Callum slowly pulled it out, still in awe at his achievement, then raised it for the crowd to see.

The whole arena filled with Callums erupted into shouts and cheers at his performance. The last few decades of dedicated imagination training have finally paid off. After all these years as a corpse, it felt like he’d finally accomplished something. Even though it may not seem substantial to other people, they wouldn’t know. They wouldn’t know the struggles he had of keeping focused while his body decomposed, they wouldn’t know how many times his frustration wrecked his mindscape, and they wouldn’t know what it’s like to create a world so close to the real one.

As the cheers died down, Callum slowly lowered his hand holding the evidence of his accomplishments. His face was adorned with a huge grin, and he felt elated. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the target was caught ablaze.

This was his third discovery, the real use of magic. With his soul being healed and improved every year, Callum, on his 20th year being a corpse, gained the ability to sense mana around him. An energy so charged with potential, he could use it to change the laws of his world. Although he couldn’t manipulate it in the real world, its nature to seep into objects helped him understand it.

It might be more apt to say he was transferring any mana his dead body stored into his soul, to which he could only agree after finding out the side effects of using magic the hard way.

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When he discovered his ability to sense and use mana inside his mind, Callum was ecstatic. He used magic wantonly, finding how easy it was now to control the unruly flames he conjured before. However, after mustering his tenth fireball, he felt overwhelming nausea hit him out of nowhere. Let’s just say that Callum couldn’t form any coherent thoughts for a week straight after that.

Now, he learned his lesson and more. He found out that he could expand his limit in his use of magic, and to illustrate this, Callum created a lake to symbolize his mana reservoir, which led to his fourth discovery.

Callum’s mindscape is his soul. The world he thought of as just an imagination was actually a representation of his spirit. It explains why his emotions influence his world, it’s part of his soul. And this discovery tied pretty well with one of the things he learned in university.

Among the things he was forced to learn was philosophy, specifically, the philosophy of the self. He still remembers typing away at his computer as he wrote an essay about the meaning of the self, and one philosopher, in particular, struck him when he discovered the nature of his soul, of Plato’s idea of the self.

Callum vividly remembered reading articles about Plato’s philosophy of what the self is, where the self is separated into two parts: the body, and the soul. The body is the physical part of the self, while the soul is the immortal self that exists even after death. He believes this philosophical idea now, what with his current predicament.

However, he digressed. The other idea that Plato thought of is that the soul is divided into three parts: the appetite, spirit, and reason. Now, connecting that to his mindscape, he could see that his emotions, which relate to the spirited part of his soul, could influence his world. In conclusion, his soul is his world.

This idea sparked Callum’s curiosity. He tried to go back into the recesses of his mind to find any more research he’d done on Plato’s idea, but he came up with blanks.

Curse his past self for not doing more research on the subject and winging the whole essay with one Google search. However, that didn’t stop him from finding out more about this line of thinking. It might even explain why his soul is still trapped inside his body. Maybe there was something that had gone wrong when he was floating in that void of nothingness. He had an idea that it might actually be the gap between worlds, a concept that had been used in some of the stories he’d read. Or it might be something that Catherine and Jake did with those lights they seared into his being.

Speaking of the two perpetrators of his murder, Callum couldn’t care less. He had a lot of time to think about those two, but now he feels nothing for them. It may seem stupid not to feel angry at the people who had gotten him into this situation, but there’s no point anymore.

He’s stuck as a corpse, and he doesn’t even know what they’re doing. Though he will never forgive them for what they did, he couldn’t get mad at them forever either. He just hopes that his murder was worth it for those two and that they get their just desserts.

***

The sound of fire popping inside the hearth echoed through the room, interrupted only by the shuffle of my papers and documents. I sat at the end of the room, a large circular mosaic window behind me, depicting a woman of light. The flickering of the firelight cast shifting shadows across her image, adding to the quiet I so rarely enjoyed.

I lifted my cup from the desk, felt its weight, and sighed—it was empty. Setting it back on the coaster, I turned my attention back to the documents. The steady ticking of the clock was my only companion, broken now and then by the crackling of the fire. Until I felt it.

The door burst open, and a young man in deep violet robes shouted, “High Magistrate! The Soarta is changing!”

I was already up, striding out of the room, past him. “Yes, I know. Call all the other High Magistrates to the Soarta. Tell them it’s of the utmost importance.”

“Yes, High Magistrate!” he replied, bowing as I continued down the hall.

The Soarta had never reacted this strongly before. I could feel its energy pulsing, even here. It hadn’t changed in years, not since the faint flicker of a shift nearly a decade ago, and that was little more than a blip. But this… this was like a roiling wave.

I moved quickly, passing people in purple and white robes darting down the halls, some shouting to summon the other High Magistrates, others already on their way to the Soarta. The rush around me underscored the gravity of the situation, my steps quickening as I neared our destination.

“High Magistrate Saldor! The Soarta is acting strangely! Have you any idea what this could mean?” a woman’s voice called from beside me as I entered the hallway leading to the sacred chamber.

“No, High Magistrate Vinda. But its power speaks volumes. It could only mean one thing.”

“A transmigrator?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes, just as it was during the Age of Heroes,” I replied, brows furrowing as I pushed open the immense doors leading to the artifact.

Inside, the Soarta loomed—a golden globe floating in the room's center, crisscrossed by threads of light. One part of it pulsed so intensely threads spewed from it into the two orbs orbiting the globe and beyond.

“Record the coordinates of the anomaly! Find where it’s centered!”

“It’s on the other side of the planet!”

“Follow the threads—see which ones are most affected!”

The room filled with voices as we watched in horror, the anomaly spreading over the entire continent where it originated, threads bursting forth in colors—red, blue, green, yellow—multiplying by the second.

“By the Gods, what manner of fate is this?” I heard Vinda mutter beside me, her hawk-like eyes wide with shock, her wings trembling as the Soarta spiraled out of control.

“What is happening?!” I demanded, my voice booming above the chaos.

“The Soarta… Fate is unraveling,” answered one of the lead recorders, a trembling edge in his voice.

“What?” The words barely left my mouth as the anomaly swelled, covering half the globe and expanding faster by the second.

“We’ve pinpointed the anomaly’s coordinates!” came another shout.

“Where is it?” I demanded, but before he could answer, the globe shone intensely, basking the entire room in rainbow-colored lights. The light was so bright that those near the artifact felt its heat and the immense magic emanating from it.

The power was overwhelming, so heavy with mana it felt like a god had turned its gaze upon us. Many magistrates around me fell to their knees under its weight, and even we High Magistrates struggled, every fiber of my being screaming to flee.

“We need to get everyone out of here!” Vinda’s voice reached me over the roar.

I nodded, beginning to cast a shielding spell. The other High Magistrates joined in, forming rippling blue barriers to shield the others from the crushing mana and blinding light. Together, we urged those who could still move to carry the unconscious out. I could hear more people calling for help outside the chamber, speeding up the evacuation.

“Is that everyone?” I asked, glancing at Vinda as I carried a small man slumped over my shoulder.

“Yes, I believe so,” she replied, her feathers frazzled by keeping the immense wave of magic of the Soarta at bay.

In the hallway, people lay unconscious, some stirring awake while others were hurried off to the infirmary. I looked back toward the room we’d just left, even with the doors closed, light still spilled from beneath.

“Fate is unraveling,” I murmured, unable to shake the dread as I watched the faint glow spill out. I could feel it—fate itself was tangled, torn, wild. In silent prayer, I begged the Gods for guidance, for whatever the Soarta had shown us could very well spell the end of the world as we knew it.