My name? Ah... I don't really remember what it is anymore. It's been centuries, after all, and you stop caring about names.
But that's not important. This isn't my story. It's the story of the boy I used to be.
The world I was born into was pretty advanced. We'd figured everything out. We had flying machines, carriages called cars that moved on their own, and we could even go to space. All of it was built on logic, on intellect. There was no magic, no mystical power, just pure, hard-core science.
But people are never satisfied, are they? Deep down, everyone wanted more. They wanted superpowers. The kind of stuff you'd see in moving pictures or read about in books. Most people just daydreamed about it.
That boy... my past self... was one of them.
He lived a peaceful, totally boring life. School, family, nothing out of the ordinary. He had this intrusive thought that superpowers would make his dull life exciting. To be fair, he was starting to grow out of it. You know, that age where you're supposed to get "mature" and "realistic." What a joke.
Anyway, I remember that day. It was raining. Heavily. But in that world, rain didn't stop anyone. We had solid roads and those cars. It was just background noise, kind of calming.
That boy, he liked the rain. He was running home from school, lost in his own head. Probably thinking about what was for dinner or some stupid school problem. Then he saw it.
In the middle of the air, a crack.
At first, he just dismissed it. "Must be the rain," he probably thought. But as he got closer, it didn't go away. It got bigger.
He stopped, water splashing around his feet. He was standing right in front of it. It looked like someone had punched a giant mirror. He was scared, sure, but his curiosity was stronger. Classic rookie mistake. He just stood there, observing.
And that's when the world... ended.
The sounds of the city just... stopped. The road he was on stretched into infinity in both directions. No cars, no people. Nothing. Just him and the crack, which was now the size of a building.
The weirdest part? He felt... calm. Utterly, completely calm. It was a feeling so final, so... absolute, that I can only describe it as "Death." It was like all his desires, all his worries, just vanished. He was trapped. To look at the crack was to be mesmerized, to stare at it for eternity, never needing to eat, or drink, or even age.
And time... time just flew.
He just stood there, in that daze. The crack grew to the size of a tower. When it finally breached the clouds, the endless rain suddenly stopped. And just like that, he got his thoughts back.
He'd been a teenager when he stopped. Now, looking at himself, he was probably in his mid-twenties.
That's when the real panic hit.
"What is happening to me?! Where am I?! How long have I been here?!"
He thought about his family. His friends. His school. He was trapped, unable to move, and time just kept passing. He despaired.
More time passed. Years. Decades. The crack was so massive he couldn't even see the edges anymore. But he hadn't given up. Over all that time, he'd fought. He'd fought to regain control. It started with a twitch, then a finger, then a foot. Slowly, slowly, he started to move towards the crack.
One day, he finally reached it. He took a step... and went through.
His mind exploded. He saw the entire universe, its infinite, terrifying size. But behind it, he felt something else. Something... more. Something so horrifyingly vast his brain just... couldn't handle it. He buried that feeling, that memory, deep, deep down.
When he woke up, he was back on the road.
He was soaking wet. The rain, which he'd forgotten, was still falling. He could hear cars. People. The crack was gone.
He'd been in that void for what felt like a lifetime... but here, on the street, it had only been a few minutes.
He didn't stop to think. He just ran.
He ran all the way home. It was a normal 3-story building. He hammered on the door. His mother opened it, and he just... lunged at her. He hugged her, sobbing, soaking her in rainwater. She tried to push him off, telling him to go bathe, but he just held on tighter. He must have looked like a total wreck.
After his emotions finally calmed down, he took a bath, went to his room, and as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out.
"Huh? Where am I?"
He woke up with a scream. He was back in the void, the giant crack looming over him.
...No. He was in his bed. It was just a dream. He sat up, heart pounding, relieved. But as he calmed down, he remembered. That vision. That thing he'd seen. He had a feeling... as if he'd gotten something from that encounter. A parting gift.
He closed his eyes. He focused, just like he'd seen in the old fantasy stories. He meditated.
And he saw it.
A subtle aura. It was glowing on himself, on his own body. He looked around. It was on his bed. On the walls. He looked out the window. It was on everything. The whole world, the entire universe, was swimming in this... this stuff.
He spent the next few weeks observing it. And he realized... he could do more than just see it.
He could interfere with it.
He could use his own aura to touch the aura of other things. The aura of the earth, of the heavens. This was it. The 'superpower' that boy had always dreamed of.
And from that day on, I... no, he... got serious. He was going to master it.