Bo was standing with his little sister in a graveyard.
This was a special graveyard, located on a beautiful mountain called the "Mountain of Heroes". The mountain was made for fighters who fell in battle, created by the Organization.
There were many graves there, but the grave that he was standing in front of was special.
The grave was made from white stone and appeared to be new. It was beautifully decorated with many flowers, and many rocks lay on top of it.
They came very early in the morning so that no one would trouble them. Soon, there will be hundreds of people waiting in line to visit the grave.
His sister was holding onto a beautiful lotus flower that they bought in a flower shop, which was quite expensive, but worth it.
She was understandably crying.
A year has passed since Cal died. They said he died bravely in battle, defending humanity from evil.
Bo didn't care. All he wanted was his big brother back.
He was the big brother now, having to take care of himself, his sister, and his home. His parents were working all the time, not even being able to visit their dead son a year after he died. He had to take responsibility. There was no other choice.
"Abi, you can place it," Bo said. His sister tried to wipe away her tears unsuccessfully and place the lotus flower below the writing on the grave.
Bo tried not to read it, but he accidentally did.
'Bo, the first Greatness. Son, Big Brother, Hero.'
'Why did you have to be a hero?' Bo asked himself.
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Bo woke up early with an annoying, old school alarm clock.
Phones stopped working after the Eyes.
He looked at the ceiling for a minute with dead eyes, then leapt from his bed and forced a smile. 'My parents are going through the worst,' he thought.
He made food for his parents and sister, who were about to wake up. He became quite the cook after cooking for himself and his family for more than a year.
His parents woke up first. After making their preparations they went through the living room to exit the apartment. They didn't have much time so they only glanced at Bo, took the food that he had made for them, and left hurriedly. Their eyes looked tired, but his father managed to smile at him before he left.
Bo dropped his smile. Their life was hard, and it was putting a strain on his mental state. He was trying hard, but each morning his mother didn't even look at him. It struck a nerve. A tear ran down his face.
"Bo!" he heard a shout. He wiped the tear away quickly and put on a smile. "What did you make for me today?" Abi shouted again.
"Have a guess!" Bo shouted back.
His little sister came out to the kitchen. "Omelet? But I asked for pasta!" She shouted angrily.
"Sorry, but I forgot," Bo answered.
Abi looked at him sourly, took her food, and left for her room. She was only six, but every little thing added up.
He decided to go to his room.
Every time he went in, it reminded him of his brother, who slept with him in their shared room.
He lay on his bed, looking gloomy at the ceiling.
"Why me?" he asked himself. "Cal… why did you leave me behind?"
Slowly, he started crying, quietly so his sister wouldn't hear.
'If I had powers like him, I would have been able to help him…' he thought, tears coming down his face.
'If I only desired as much as he did! If only I were brave enough to be as great as he was! Why couldn't I have been there for him? Why?'
He had a hard time staying quiet, but he managed.
He cried, and cried, until finally he fell asleep.
The sleep was weird. It felt like he wasn't truly sleeping, but everything was dark as if he was waiting for a dream to start.
'Is this lucid dreaming?' Bo thought.
From darkness slowly spread a gray mist. He was feeling like he was standing nowhere and on top of nothing.
He decided to walk forward. Suddenly, he heard whispers.
"Appreciation… Rest… Happiness…" It started quietly, the words making him feel better. With every word, a new door appeared, as if transitioning from one realm to another.
They all were surrounded by white mist, but each door was different.
The first door that appeared was very welcoming. The door looked half formed, as if you could go right through it, so it had no color. Many hands came straight out of it without it being open, fazing through it.
Most weren't human. Some were human, while others looked humanoid but took a different color or a slightly different shape. Some didn't look real, and it was hard for Bo to process what he was looking at.
The ones that he did process were tentacle like, and they looked as if they formed out of pure energy. He felt sad for some reason just by looking at the hands, and the more he looked, the more lifeless they felt. There were many more hands, but he shifted his focus to the next door.
This one made him sleepy. He felt at peace just by looking at it. It looked very soft, and it made him think that just by touching it, he would have the best rest of his life. It was colorful, each color holding a square of the door, and they looked like cushions. He studied the door a bit more and started noticing weird prints on each cushion, prints of human faces, as if they had put their head there and never moved again.
Then the third door appeared. The first two doors were about the size of a standard door, only a little higher than Bo, but this one was huge. It dwarfed anything he had ever seen. He wasn't able to see its top and sides.
It was yellow in color, and it even made the mist around it a bit yellow as well. It was ethereal, and it looked like a god in yellow was just behind it, leaking yellow from the door. The door felt so powerful.
He started to feel happy, and he hadn't felt so happy in his life.
He was about to run through it, thinking that if he only looked at it and became this happy, then walking through it would make him the happiest man alive.
Sadly for Bo, the moment he tried, the door didn't feel welcoming anymore, as if it was rejecting him.
Then, there was a shift in the air, and the general feeling changed.
Beforehand, everywhere he went, it felt like he was free. That this was his own place, and that he could exist here peacefully forever.
No, he felt that anywhere he looked, there might be a hunter lurking, waiting for the right moment to strike at him.
"Vengeance…" the voice whispered. A door appeared at the other side of the area. This time, the mist around it was black, and it felt unnerving. It wasn't as huge as the door of Happiness, but it was much bigger than the first two. It was a gothic door, made out of a hard material that looked like stone, and it was cracked everywhere. The cracks made sharp edges, and it looked like every crack was stained in blood, although most stains weren't red. The spike at the top was the most unnerving. It felt as if he would die just by touching it. It was unwelcoming from the moment he looked at it, rejecting him completely.
As Bo shifted his attention, he noticed that many other doors were scattered throughout this plane, but they looked far and unreachable. The side where the door of Vengeance was placed was surrounded by black mist, and the other side, where the other three doors were located, was filled with white mist.
There were far fewer doors on the black side.
He looked at the first two doors, Appreciation and Rest. They looked very welcoming, as if they were drawing him in with all their power, but for some reason, he didn't feel like they were the right choice.
But alas, they were his only choices, so he started walking towards them.
Suddenly, memories filled his vision.
The first memory was of the moment he heard his brother's injury, then the vision transitioned into the moment he found out that it killed him, then the moment with the Eyes, and finally this morning, before he lay in bed.
Those memories filled his mind as he strode, so he couldn't look where he was going. He stumbled and almost fell on his face.
After balancing himself, he looked down, seeing a small object on the floor.
Bo picked it up and examined it.
He was shocked at first, so he looked again and confirmed what he saw.
It was a tiny door, the size of a pebble. It wasn't surrounded by any special mist, and he wasn't able to make out its details, only that it was gray.
He didn't feel anything towards it, no awe as he felt towards the other doors, and it didn't feel welcoming.
Bo didn't have any idea what to do with it, so he naturally tried to throw it away.
After trying, Bo noticed that nothing dropped from his hand and looked at it again.
The door was still there. It stuck to his arm.
Then, after a few seconds, it sank into it.
He felt a slight pain in the arm at first, but the pain began to strengthen and spread throughout his body.
The pain became unbearable.
He started to spasm.
The pain was the worst he had felt in his life.
He couldn't think about anything, only that he wanted it to stop.
It felt like a whole new organ was growing inside him, inside his stomach.
Although the pain was horrible, it didn't feel like it was pushing other organs, but as if it was always meant to be there.
The process took a lifetime, or so Bo felt.
Every inch of his body was screaming with pain.
He wanted to shout, to cry, but he couldn't make a sound.
Suddenly, he woke up, sweating.