Name stood motionless, the words of the god still echoing through the marrow of his bones.
The voice of the god did not come from the silhouette, nor from the mist. It came from everywhere...woven into the air, the light, the very fabric of thought.
The voice echoed again, sonorous and vast:
"You have been bestowed the redundant honor of witnessing my silhouette, my lost child. Show forth all the mortal gratitude that festers in your heart, for you stand before your creator."
Name stood paralyzed, his mind lagging behind his senses. Only days ago, he had fought rats for scraps of bread in Luxia's alleys...now he hovered in the sky, facing a figure made of mist and divine proclamation.
"Is this… another vision?" he asked, directing his words to the formless blue mass.
The god's voice rang again, louder now, laced with disapproval:
"Your failure to distinguish a vision from the presence of your creator is lamentable. May light find your soul."
Name already knew...this was no vision. He could feel the cold in his lungs, the tremble in his bones, the thrum in his blood. This place was real. And yet, so much remained uncertain.
"Why me?" he asked. "Why choose someone like me for this… honor?"
The voice thundered with cryptic finality:
"I have designated you a worthy suitor for the role of prophet. I am the writer of mankind's destiny and you shall carry my light to mankind."
Name lifted his gaze toward the silhouette suspended in the mist, voice quivering with uncertainty.
"Are you... connected to Aarin somehow?"
The voice of the god echoed...not from the figure, nor from the mist, but from the very fabric of existence, as though the air itself bore witness to his will.
"I am not bound, O child of dust...I am the Binder. The stars obey Me; the rivers walk at My whisper. All the lands of man are Mine from the foundation of time, yet unto Aarin I have bestowed a breath of My favor. Therefore, its people walk with My light in their blood."
The answer stirred something in Name...a vague, unsettled question clawing at his mind.
"Then… am I from Aarin?" he asked. "Did I really lose my memory?"
There was a pause, deep and suffocating, before the voice returned...calm, yet crushing:
"You are not born of Aarin's womb, nor has your memory been stolen as thieves steal bread. What you remember is what has been permitted; what is hidden shall be revealed in its season. Your soul is as a scroll folded many times...when the appointed hour descends, it shall be unrolled before you."
The god's voice grew darker, firmer.
"Your path is not a line, but a spiral...twisted, sacred, and foreordained. And I...I AM...shall guide you along it."
The divine presence seemed to draw nearer, though it had not moved.
"From this moment, you shall walk as I decree. My will shall be your lantern. And when the veil is torn, you shall see Me not as mist, but as Majesty."
Name stood still, consumed by the majesty and mystery. Yet, from within that storm of awe, a timid question broke forth.
"May I... make a request?"
A stillness, sharp and perfect.
"Ask, my child. Ask whatever your mortal heart desires. I can summon bones from the grave; I can unchain death; I can make you a god among insects. Power eternal, sight beyond sight, life without end...ask, and it shall be given to you."
Name looked down at his hands, then up at the sky.
"I only wish… to taste food again," he whispered. "That is all I ask."
The silence that followed was no silence at all...it was the breath of something vast, watching, considering.
Then the voice returned, not in wrath but in wonder.
"You reject dominion. You refuse eternity. In the presence of the Everlasting, you ask for the sweetness of bread."
"So let it be written. So let it be done."
At once, fire...not of flame, but of sensation...kindled upon Name's tongue. It seared, then peeled. His mouth burned, as though molten spirit were poured upon him. He collapsed to his knees. The taste of mist. Of metal. Of memory. It flooded him. It returned to him.
The voice of the god rang one final time:
"This is your first anointing. Walk the road, O child of ash. Much shall be taken, much shall be given. Do not forget the grace you have received beneath the gaze of your Eternal."
Name felt no gratitude for the figure in the mist. Whether it was a god or something else...it didn't matter.
Nothing is free in this world. That truth was carved into his memory like a scar.
If a being like this...one who could pull him from a tiny room into a place suspended in air...was offering power, it meant something of equal or greater value would be taken in return.
And Name had nothing to give. Nothing great, at least. But someone with this kind of presence could take anything.
So he chose to tread carefully.
"Thank you for your generosity," Name said at last.
The voice echoed once more...but this time, it spoke with chilling displeasure.
"My child, I am the embodiment of mercy. But even mercy must wound to purify the soul. Ignorance is a virtue when weighed against chaos...but ignorance in the presence of your creator is sin."
A cold dread coiled in Name's spine.
He didn't need the god to explain what came next.
"I granted you the divine honor to behold My silhouette. And yet, your soul bears no gratitude, nor reverence, nor fear. Then let the fire refine what is unclean within you. May the punishment I bestow upon you cleanse the ugliness of your soul."
The blue mist surrounding Name began to thin, as though a divine wind were dissolving the veil of the vision. Above him, the towering silhouette blurred into whiteness; beneath him, the grim cityscape of Luxia melted away, consumed by an encroaching flood of pale, devouring light.
Then, the pain began.
It started as a lance of fire behind his forehead...sharp, foreign, unholy. Within seconds, it spread like a fevered plague, igniting every nerve in his skull. It was as if invisible hands had driven a blade deep into his brain and twisted it, slow and cruel.
His bones groaned, then screamed. He could feel them...not cracking...but shattering inside him, splinter by splinter, as though his very skeleton were being torn apart from within. His skin blistered and peeled, searing like paper against flame. His eyes...he could feel them...weeping, burning, liquefying in their sockets. Agony bloomed from his spine, crawling like fire under his flesh.
Name opened his mouth to scream, but the sound came like a shriek of glass...and then silence. His vocal cords tore under the strain, and he coughed a thick spray of blood. His throat burned with iron and heat.
He stumbled, blind and trembling, off the bed. His legs gave out beneath him. He collapsed onto the floor with a sickening thud, spasming in a pool of his own blood. Crimson poured from his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth...every orifice weeping with suffering. His fingers clawed at the floor, twitching helplessly like a dying insect.
He writhed there, soaked in gore, his body no longer his own, shaking under the weight of an agony so total, so consuming, that death itself would have been a mercy.
He was nothing now but pain...pain and breath and a silent scream swallowed by the void.
He didn't know how long it lasted. Seconds? Minutes? Each moment stretched into eternity.
And just when the pain seemed infinite... something warm, impossibly gentle, wrapped around him...like arms through the dark.
A warmth surrounded him. Not heat...comfort. A presence, gentle and strange, hugging him from behind.
Little by little, the pain began to fade.
The fire in his veins dimmed. His skin cooled. The pressure in his skull eased.
He tried to open his eyes...but couldn't. It felt like someone was holding them shut.
He tried to move...but the one holding him didn't allow it.
Then, he heard a voice.
A woman's voice. Soft. Elegant. Unfamiliar.
"How are you feeling?" she asked gently.
Name swallowed, surprised by the calm in his own voice. "Better."
"That's good. Then we can speak." Her voice remained calm, but there was a coldness underneath it. "I'm here to make a few things clear for you."
"Where am I?" Name asked. "Did the god send you?"
"No. I came on my own." Her answer was swift. "And where we are doesn't matter."
"If the god didn't send you… who are you?" Name pressed.
"That's not important either." She sounded amused. "Be patient. In time, you'll learn everything."
Name was silent for a moment.
Then, with a calmness that didn't match the fury behind his words, he spoke:
"A god calls me his prophet, then tears me apart. Strangers speak in riddles, call me broken. Now I speak to a voice in the dark. And you tell me to be patient?"
"Beggars can't be choosers." There was a flicker of disgust in her voice.
Name swallowed the bitter truth of his own helplessness.
"What do you want?" he asked, voice steady.
A pause.
"What?" she replied, surprise creeping into her tone.
"You didn't stop my pain out of kindness," Name said plainly. "So tell me...what do you want?"
The woman laughed.
It was an elegant sound, almost musical. But behind the melody was contempt...and something far colder.
"Your arrogance always disgusts me," she said. "Your overconfidence about your assumptions burns my screen."
Her voice, though still graceful, was sharp with hostility now.
"I didn't save you from your pain. And even if I had...what could I possibly want… from a roach squirming in filth?"
Name understood that speaking further wouldn't lead to anything good. So he stayed silent.
The woman spoke again, her voice now softened to something graceful, almost maternal.
"Your god granted you unimaginable pain for a precise span of time...and that time has passed. I had no interest in lessening the suffering of an insect like you.
I came only to say a few things."
A heavy silence followed. Then her tone shifted violently...her voice sharpened, laced with fury. Rage poured from her like venom.
"You call yourself a filthy roach...then why do you antagonize a god?"
Her words struck like lashes.
"You lowly vermin. Know your place.
You were born in filth. You will die in filth.
You strut through this world in rags and blood and dare to question the divine? You dare to assume, to reason with forces beyond your comprehension?
The arrogance in your breath disgusts me. It's laughable...how a mongrel like you believes your pain entitles you to answers.
You are nothing but rot that learned to speak. A crawling, twitching parasite pretending to have a soul.
Your assumptions...your delusions...will not save you. They will eat you alive from the inside out. You will drown in your own hollow pride.
You're a flicker in the storm, a half-formed thought in the mind of something eternal. And yet you posture as if you matter.
You don't. You never did."
Name lay stunned.
He hadn't expected the conversation to turn like this. Her words dug beneath his skin like barbed wire, unraveling his composure piece by piece.
Then, just as suddenly as the storm had risen, it vanished.
"The very first Yipada has come to an end. See you next time," the unknown lady said, her voice once again soft and elegant...serene, as though none of the rage had ever been there.
And then he realized she was gone.
The presence that had held him, the warmth, the pressure on his back...it had vanished.
He was alone again.
The world returned to Name slowly, like a bruise blooming in reverse...darkness peeling back into a dull, flickering light.
His eyelids felt heavy, like iron gates forced open. A pale, trembling haze bled into his vision. The room swam before him in warped shapes and shadows. He couldn't move...not because he didn't want to, but because something tight bound him in place.
Rope. Rough. Digging into his wrists and ankles. Tied down...to a bed.
Panic stirred in his chest, but his body couldn't follow it. His limbs were weak, heavy with something between exhaustion and shock.
He looked down as much as he could, eyes unfocused, and saw the bed beneath him stained deep red. The sheets were soaked...still wet with blood.
His blood.
He felt it now, the stickiness along his spine and legs, the iron-rich scent choking the air. Warmth trickled slowly from his nose...more blood, fresh, steady.
His throat ached...burned. He tried to swallow, but it was like dragging broken glass down his neck. Any attempt to speak was crushed by the raw agony of his shattered vocal cords. Only a strangled rasp escaped.
In front of him...faces.
Strangers. Unfamiliar eyes, tense expressions, some wide with fear, others cold with calculation. They stood just beyond his reach, like people afraid to get too close to a wounded beast.
Everything felt wrong. The air was too still, thick with silence and the coppery sting of blood. The lights above him buzzed faintly, flickering in a rhythm that seemed just a little off...as though the world around him was fractured, trembling at the edges.
He was a prisoner in his own body, lying in a bed that reeked of suffering, surrounded by strangers whose intentions he couldn't read.
And somewhere deep inside him, beneath the pain and confusion, a question stirred like a whisper:
"What have I become?"
But Name didn't know there were far stranger things awaiting Name. Things that will make him wonder if dying in Luxia would have been the kinder fate.