{This chapter continues, until it links with the present time}
"…. Deception became smartness…."
"…. Bullying became bravery…."
"…. Corruption became something so normal…."
"…. The wrong was so much enjoyed and often done…."
"…. Care became weakness…."
"… True love became a myth…."
"…. Pleasures ruled man and power drove them crazy…."
Those voices moved with every passing lightning that fluttered past me. Meanwhile, I was suspended in a void, not suspended, though; I was falling. Soon it became as though it was an abyss, since the fall, though slow, seemed to be endless.
Around were forces that I never imagined could ever exist, forces that I only heard of when my late father tucked me into bed, as he said them to me as bedtime stories. Forces that should only be seen and beheld by people that are more pure and deemed worthy of it,
but me, why me?
For all I know, I was the last thing I thought that would have been selected to join this group of people. My background was the most complicated, and my family, well, people would not see the real, but we were the worst of it all.
Why then was I chosen? This should really be a flaw.
I wasn't what people thought I was, and the fact was that I was good at hiding it. Perhaps if only they knew what I am, or even half of what I was, I would have been killed a long time ago, or worse. Who knows? But instead, I am being given what should be given to someone else.
My eyes were opened, and I didn't bother flinching or moving around the purple energy in the form of lightning that rippled around me. And then those that fluttered by with the voices it carried didn't shake me, I didn't fear it.
Rather, I feared myself, for now that I am young, I might be seen as someone with a good heart. But I have seen people that suddenly, as life goes on, they are broken, and then all the goodness in them turns away to something else, something dark and something that does not worth it.
How sure am I, when am already this way, that I will not have the same fate as them?
Meanwhile, the voice was still talking, its ancient and mystical rhythmic tune flowing into me like energies that were unseen:
"...The just were buried beneath the laughter of the unjust..."
"...The meek were devoured while the proud feasted on their bones..."
"...Faith became a coin to trade, and gods were sold in markets of men..."
"...The tongue became a blade sharper than any sword, and it bled nations dry..."
"...Dreams were shackled, and nightmares were given wings..."
"...Light was feared, for it revealed too much, and shadows became the only comfort..."
"...And in the silence of all things, truth wept, for none came to claim it..."
"… Selfishness and envious heart became the daily doing of men…"
"...And as the sands of time fell, their hearts grew colder, until stone envied their hardness..."
"...Their hands, once made for building, now tore down without remorse..."
"...Their eyes, once windows of light, became pits that devoured all they beheld..."
"...And the earth groaned, for it was heavy with the weight of their sins..."
"...They sought power as a starving man seeks crumbs, and paid for it with the blood of those they once vowed to protect..."
Of course, I know this part, that men were mostly selected to guide cities. In every city, there were groups of people gifted with special abilities to protect the weak, but like they say, as time went on they wanted more power, and it led to the tearing in the dimensional rift that divided the underworld from our world.
And demons now were able to roam into our world... at first it was being contained, not until whatever it was that was at the other side of the rift started making bargains with these noble men.
Bargains that were hard to reject, and since they were already looking for more power, it was easier to lure them in, and just that way the rift started to expand and those that were sworn to protect became the devils themselves.
Selling the souls and talents of those they were meant to safe guide to this demons, in exchange for power and wealth.
For these demons wanted souls, they wanted talents, they wanted the core energy that was in every human being in order to expand and become stronger.
It was told that whatever was their leader had conquered three whole worlds, and now it has come for ours.
That was when they made the hardest decision ever, that those men were going to be killed, those men were going to be punished for the fate that they had brought upon our world.
Now the fate of the world rested almost wholly on the hands of women. No man was allowed to wield this power, but if they were born with it they were allowed to wield it, but once they reached the age of twenty they underwent a cleansing process which they called the Purification.
But if found to possess it not from childbirth, then they would be healed, for it was now like a curse for a man to wield the power, and being healed meant getting rid of the power from them totally.
Meanwhile, once a boy is purified, the temptations of the demons are no longer going to be effective on them, but those that were born with these gifts are rare, even in women.
Though I was born with it, the other part of me had made me so weak that I hardly looked like someone that was born with those gifts from childbirth... or so I thought, until I found myself here.
But something else was happening, a loud ringing filled my ears, as it was as though I could see those words as they were scribbled into my mind's eye, it read something aloud, something unnatural, but just in one line it had said:
[ Sarah Smirnoff, fated, chosen, two-part formed in one, storm and coldness, direct heritage from the ancestor of both good and bad, righteousness and sin, you have been marked, you have been chosen, prepare for appraisal ]
At those words the runes that had appeared in my mind's eye vanished, but I wasn't in the dark void no more.
I was in a place that was as bright and blinding as nothing I have seen before. No stain was on it; though it was empty, it was bright that even my shadow dared not appear anywhere.
But then from the far end the purple energy flowed as though a constellation, it engulfed me and lifted me into the air, and then those ones that carried the voice started flowing like a spiral wave past me:
"… The men that swore to protect became the demons, they joined them and had expanded the rift…"
"… Now we are bestowing these gifts on women more than men …"
"… Since men are like the sin that should be purged from this world…"
Then, in an instant, those energies started surging into me, and now the voice started to fade slowly, it was saying:
"… But with you it all ends, for though you might be cursed…"
"…. Though you might be a part to the evil that torments our very own existence…"
"…. But you are still the chosen, you are still the fated, you are a Nexara…"