Laying on his bed wrapped up in his sheets. He squeezed his Piplup plushie, embraced in the softness. Deep within the darkness an apparition of light was flickering. The framework existed, but creation was never as simple as destruction.

He could see it. Right there, a point in space. A bridge carved through the darkness straight into the right. At the very end was his goal.

No, it was more than a simple goal, it was much much more.

He wanted, to walk on that bridge, to feel the reality of his existence. Because he hoped that this long and dreary road could set him free.

What would it feel like if he knew there was answer to his struggle? Maybe he would burn himself for it. Or was this something others called lazy? To work only when one knew their destination.

He didn’t know. There were a lot he didn’t know, but one thing he did know was that his affinity with death was quite favorable.

Actually, he could recalled when it began. It was a little ironic, during the time the doors of eternal rest started knocking, he hated sleep more than anything.

Because sleep was a waste of time. Time that he could be using to satisfy his desires.

He hated how the nights were so short. He hated how tired he always was.

Why couldn’t he have been born capable!?

This endless struggle for nothing!

He wanted something! Something more than nothing!

So why not death?!

‘What a…dumbass’.

The bridge disappeared and the space turned back into darkness. He woke himself up from his grievances.

Months of daydreaming had turned him stupid, well more than he already was. He knew this was never possible, but that sliver of hope never extinguished.

He thought that if he could one day achieve the feeling of walking on that bridge, he could turn fiction into reality.

So every night, he practice materializing his body and stimulating the feeling of walking with just his mind. However, he could never get the right feeling. Sometime it felt like he was walking, but instead he was running. Sometimes he could see through his eyes, but then he would be looking from behind.

There was always a problem, his mind couldn’t manage more than a single aspect of walking. He couldn’t do anything properly.

However, there was still hope. Maybe, he didn’t need to feel real. Maybe, he could just appear at the end and start from there.

Maybe, just maybe, he would one day be lucky enough to simply pop right in his fantasy…maybe.

Please. Give him a chance.

Someway. Somehow.

Nothing.

Somewhere along the way, he eventually graduated. Soon after he found a job. Then another job and another job. Along the way, he met a woman that developed love within him. He wanted to marry her. So he worked, he struggled to save money. With each other by their side marriage was inevitable. Soon he had a house, a child, a family. It was more than enough for him. For someone who had nothing, he felt satisfied to have achieved something of his own.

And then, he blinked. Everything faded away.

He felt a heavy sense loss. The sudden realization left him hollow. He cried, but there weren’t any tears. This wasn’t the first dream where he felt at peace, but this was the first time that it gave so much just to mercilessly take all away from him. He didn’t want to move. He wanted to at least bask in the remnants of his dream before it all evaporated.

Despite his sudden loss, he felt something was different. It was too quiet. There no sounds of movement. Actually, he didn’t even feel like he was sleeping on his bed.

It was too strange. He didn’t want to move or open his eyes. He was a bit fearful to see what had happened.

However, at some point he finally opened his eyes.

He saw nothing, because it was dark. Just dark, no shapes of grey from light reflecting off a surface. He almost thought he was blind, but he recognized sight.

And then, light shown from behind him. He shot up to see a luminous path severing its way into the darkness. But when he turned to look behind him, that darkness returned with an overwhelming presence.

Looking down at the path, it seemed to extend further behind him, but it was unable to cross the existing boundary and was cut off. It was a statement. All was consumed by the darkness.

He understood. This was a phenomenon. A spectacular phenomenon that was greater than anything he’d ever known. He was familiar with its frame, but its core was mystical.

He knew an answer was finally within his sights. No matter, if this was a new beginning or his final chapter. He was given an answer.

It was simply incomprehensible. Every second that passes by, the storm of emotions raged deep inside his soul. At any moment he could howl with laughter or he could collapse in fear. How could he, a mere speckle claim this magnificence had anything to do with him. Even one who’s arrogance knows no bounds is no match for its nature that was boundless.

Questions were simply thoughts of futility. Thus, he walked forward. It was the only thing he knew because this was what he wanted to do since the very beginning.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

His struggle will finally be meaningful because his life’s very first answer is at the very end of this bridge.

Wading through the silent darkness, he embraced the quiet he never had in his life. He was always doing something even when it was detrimental to his life because he lived by the belief that anything he didn’t want to do was a waste of time. It was…whatever. It was all behind him now.

Once he was close enough, the shape of the arch was set in stone. It wasn’t big enough to feel it’s size. In fact it’s size was important. Its design was where the mystery lye.

In a style like a Chinese arch with a dull red coloration, the pillars had various detailed carvings of distinct images. It gave a sense of antique. He was only able to make out some of them to be people and different types of animals. In fact many of the carvings were erased by different types of scarring. Generally carvings on pillars had a motif, but these carvings were placed arbitrarily with different styles.

As for the arc, it looked as if it had been through a major devastation. Actually, it’s quite apparent now that the arch was on its last legs. He felt that even the slightest touch would make it succumb to its wreckage.

This was the only thing that was different from his imagined scenario. While he never thought of the condition of the arch, it shouldn’t look this damaged nor should there be any sort of symbols on pillars. In addition, it was way too detailed for his mind to formulate with a thought.

After examining the arch for a few minutes, there was nothing special he could find from the images. He tried touching certain spots on the pillars that he could reach to see if there were any reactions; he even tried walking under the arc, but the arch stayed inert.

He stood wondering his next move. This arch was the core of this space. In his original sequence of events, once he reached the arch it should have opened a portal to a new world. But now, these slight differences left him clueless.

“Again? All this for nothing again?” he mumbled.

This stifling feeling clawed at his impatience. He was almost there. Just a little bit more and he could move on, but everything stopped at the final step.

His already tumultuous emotions felt ready to burst any second now. His mouth opened and closed. Sometimes it felt like his voice was ready howl. His body twisted and turned with tension. If he saw himself on the streets, he would be moving as far away from him because he definitely looked ready explode.

In the end, he was somehow able to regain control of himself. Sapped of his strength and on the brink of insanity, he plopped down on the ground with his back to the arch.

Looking at the bridge and the darkness around it, he stopped thinking about everything that could be. Instead, he just looked at what was before him. A sense of appreciation grew inside him. To be able to witness this phenomenon was already an impossibility. Didn’t he already resolve himself to an answer whether life or death, so why was he rushing? The answer was already here, he just needed to wait.

Closing his eyes, he began to take in the wonders of his surroundings.

With his anxiety fading away, he began to resonate with the space around him. Every breath of his would travel through the space like a ripple. As this ripple came in contact with the haze, it was able to dissipate the haze and release the darkness, allowing it to express itself in a way one would describe as brightened darkness.

In the midst of this phenomenon, he could feel himself separating from the act of breathing and melding with the darkness. The brighter the darkness was able to shine, the more detached he felt from his emotions.

And it wasn’t long before the haziness disappeared from this space. All around him the darkness shined with clarity and vibrancy even though it was nothing but darkness.

As for the arch behind him, without even looking at it, he could finally feel a response coming from it. Perhaps, his mind cleared of obscurity was able to awaken the arch. The dull red color began to pulsate as if it was molting from its dust-like shell. A sharp chime emerged from the arch as its color glowed with a vibrant red. In response, the darkness shown brighter with a deeper dark.

Jumping away from the pillar, he saw the changes to the arch. This was it. The moment he’s been waiting for. A smile stretched across his face seemingly about to burst. At this moment he could help but laugh. A feeling of absolute joy took over. In all his life, there was never a moment he felt happier than now.

However, joy was too shallow to express his emotions. Sensing the darkness above and below the path shifting, he turned back.

Up above spectacles of celestial phenomenon appeared. A multitude of lights emerged from within the darkness. Celestial bodies appeared and disappeared. Destruction and creation formed a cycle. And the most miraculous of all, the marvel of life and death. The wonders of the cosmos.

Down below, multiple scenes depicting figures of human beings in various stages of life in different outfits centered around one person. Him. Some were ancient, some were modern, and some were futuristic. All of them were him or could’ve been him.

Seeing these alternate versions of himself, his heart palpitated. Unease creeped within. He felt as if he was looking at something he shouldn’t have. It felt almost like a warning. The contrast between the scene above and below brought him back to his body. The excess emotions flowed out, bringing back his humanity away from the heavenly.

A sigh of relief escaped from him. Those illusions were beyond his understanding.

In the midst of the battle of luminescence, the arch was undergoing a change. More specifically the space under the arc was fluctuating, creating a visual of space and light bending inwards. Once it stabilized, its formation quickened like a whirlpool dragging everything into its center. Even the arch was being drawn in towards the center.

He took one more look at his surroundings and one final look at a place past this space, before jumping into the twisted space. The arch followed slowly behind as the glowing road shattered into specks of light. All around, the illusions slowly faded away into the darkness with the haze suppressing the darkness. Everything soon returned to its natural state.

~

In the center of a certain planet lay a broken dimension filled with spatial fissures. From within a random fissure, a crumbling arch shot out into the dimension crashing into numerous spatial fissures and dimensional fragments. Nothing was able to stop its advancement, nevertheless the arch wasn’t able bare repercussion and broke down even further.

The arch was now fundamentally damaged as it fell apart piece by piece. By the time its momentum stopped, it no longer looked like an arch and more like a weathered chunk of rock.

However, despite its current condition, its otherworldly nature has yet to disperse. As a matter of fact, its appearance within this dimension seemed to awaken it from its dormant state. An emission from the arch elicited a response from the entire dimension. Everything started to tremble, rocking the entire dimension into a state of destruction. The dimensional fragments, the spatial fissure and the space within the dimension all disintegrated.

Arising out of the remnant were spirit qi. Except they weren’t just the residue spirit qi, they were once the fragments of the Origin Spirit Source. The arch diverted the emission inwards, drawing in everything that was once part of the dimension into itself. Once the dimension was engulfed by the arch, it reappeared into the world before a smaller and newer dimension reformed around arch.

Inside the dimension, the arch was undergoing a miraculous change. The parts that were once loss or damage was slowly recovering. The spirit qi that were absorbed came together to form a Spirit Qi Source Seed. It then merged with the arch, as it lay dormant within.

However outside the dimension, the quake from the collapse of the previous dimension didn’t dissipate. Instead, it traveled passed the dimension and into the planet. This tremor was so powerful that it shook the entire world. Nothing was unaffected by the quake. A disaster struck the world. The lands ripped apart, the waters shot high up into the air, and spatial fissure tore through the world.

Fortunately, this calamity ended within seconds, avoiding the end of the world. But, the damage was done, it has now marked the arrival of a new era. And so many will fall with the changing of a new age, but for those lucky enough to ride the new wave of time, prosperity was soon within their reach.