1 Punishment
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"Kill her." The voice came from a tall man with grey hair. He looked at the little black-haired kid next to him with emotionless eyes.
"I can't do it, it's just a little girl." The boy said looking at his father with tearful eyes.
"Kill her or you will be punished." The same emotionless voice answered.
The young boy looked back at the little girl, she looked so fragile, so human. The only thing that differentiated her from a regular human were her sharp canines, she was a vampire. No matter how he tried, he was unable to kill the girl. His father took a step forward and punched his face breaking his nose in the process, leaving him crying on the ground.
The father then used a healing spell on his crying son before dragging him through the garden and the house, only stopping to unlock and open doors. When he reached the basement's door, he stopped and stared at his son.
"You are a failure Shin. This is your punishment. You'll be locked in this room for a long, long time."
"No! Please pick another punishment it's too dark in here." Shin said with a scared voice, he knew that wouldn't change his father's stance on his punishment, but he hoped that maybe his punishment would take another form.
His father didn't answer, he just closed the door leaving the child in the dark, scared and alone. The child thought back to the happy days before his training started. He remembered when he was hailed as the Sugawara Clan's genius when people were nice to him. Everything changed when he was 3 years old, his father and the Clan's elder discovered the amount of mana his body was able to hold.
They felt threatened, not by the child power but what would happen if other factions got wind of his existence. The Clan was located in the Underworld at the frontier between the devils and fallen angels territory, only protected by a barrier and an illusion field.
Devils and Fallen Angels, these creatures were stronger, faster, almost immortal and preyed on humans. The price to pay for that strength was to stop being one of God's children, being weakened under his sight and tortured upon hearing his words. The beginning of the war between the 3 Faction forced the Clan to make a decision, they needed a secret weapon, the young innocent Shin. Even though their eyes granted them a powerful advantage on their opponents, they knew that it wasn't enough.
They chose the young genius and started training him. The kid was happy when he learned theoretical knowledge but when the physical training started his happiness quickly faded away. The day his father broke his arm for not being able to slash with a dagger 50 times in a row was the first time he held doubts about his father's love. For almost an entire year, they made him work on his footwork and slashing skills, then they forced him to adapt to the feeling that came after taking a life. They started with small animals such as lizards and rabbits, then went to bigger animals like dogs and horses. Today was the day they decided to make him kill his first human-like creature. He refused, and now he was alone in the dark.
There was no light in the room but that didn't mean he couldn't create one, right? He tried using the only spell he knew, Ember. A basic fire spell that created a small flame the size of a thumb on your palm. But no matter how hard he tried he couldn't create it, the room didn't allow magic to be used in it.
"It's so dark in here, I don't like the darkness, it's scary. Maybe if I sleep it will go away." Shin said while sobbing.
Shin closed his eyes and waited to fall in Morpheus's arms. When he awoke the world around him was still dark. He continued to repeat this cycle again, and again, and again. He even wondered if he was blind, maybe he had lost his eyeballs, maybe he never had eyes from the beginning and his entire life was a dream. At least he could still talk, it's probably the only reason he didn't become insane.
"What if I create light inside me? I've read about a place named the mindscape, maybe I could do it there."
Shin started to meditate and after a week of failure to access his mindscape, he succeeded. He was now flying in a seemingly infinite abyss of purple ethereal mist that shimmered as if under the starlight, the only difference from what was happening outside his body was the fact that he was able to see his own body.
One thing that Shin didn't know was that when people access their mindscape, they usually block the 'passageway' that linked their body and soul to prevent others from attacking their soul.
'I remembered that when someone is in his mindscape, he is in his soul form.' He thought to himself.
Shin looked more closely at the transparent apparition of his 'body', it was an exact replica of himself except for a strange tattoo on its torso that resembled an array of points bisected by vague lines. He assumed that it was a constellation, he had read about them in his spare time when he wasn't subjected to this gruelling training.
His dream was to break through the barrier separating the underworld from the human realm and gaze upon the visage of the stars with his very own eyes, to witness first-hand those beautiful shining pearls blanketing the night sky. Sadly, the devils weren't gentle enough to create a sun or other stars in the underworld's sky.
After observing his 'body', Shin remembered why he was there. So he started working, he didn't know what form the created light should take, but then a rather interesting thought crossed his mind.
'I can create a star.'
From what he had read he knew that stars weren't in the sky but in space, the emptiness of his mindscape could act as a suitable substitute. Positioning his right hand as if it held a ball in its grasp it slowly closed, as if crushing the object in its hold. All of the iridescent purple dust present in his mindscape gathered and started condensing in one point forming a giant swirling vortex.
The gravity he unknowingly generated started bringing matter together, squeezing the dust into smaller spaces, producing an enormous amount of heat. Some of the heat escaped from his body through the 'passageway' he had forgotten to block making his surroundings unsuitable to contain any signs of life.
After a period of sharp and precise control over the matter within his mindscape sweat dripped from his brow, the cloud of glistening stardust formed a disc reduced in size but increased in purity and brightness, the radiance it projected seemed to blind the very sun.
At its centre gravity started crushing the stardust into a molten orb. Enormous jets of gas surged out from its centre. The process continued until atom and gas started fusing together. When the fusion was done a star was born, flaunting its magnificent splendour to the whole universe.
Shin looked at his creation, and he was proud. Proud of his creation, his flame, his light.
In the human world, those who looked at the sky, saw a new constellation shining with a purple glow, the same constellation that was represented on Shin's torso. Leaving Gods, Devils, Fallen Angels, Youkai and humans wondering about the phenomenon and its origin.
When looking at his creation, Shin had forgotten where he was, all that mattered to him was the star. He only wished to know more about what he called his masterpiece. What would happen after a long period of time had passed? Would the star grow bigger in size? Would its colour change? Would it grow to become much more than a mere star? He wanted to find out now.
He accelerated the time in his mindscape. After an unholy amount of time, the star exploded leaving only leaving its 'corpse' behind. A White Dwarf.
"It got smaller, will the next explosion create other stars or will it get smaller again?" Shin said with an excited voice portraying his joy and impatience.
He accelerated the time again, but what happened made him remember where he was. The White Dwarf started to grow dim. Shin was panicking, he didn't want to go back to the darkness. Maybe he only needed to add 'fuel' to the star.
Through the 'passageway' a myriad of elements came from the room he was currently in. Something that should never have been possible, only the soul was supposed to be able to leave the body, only some exceptions could come into the mindscape. Protons, electrons, dust started leaving the basement making it darker and darker as they left. Shin did whatever he could to ensure that the star would not stop emitting light but he wasn't able to. The White Dwarf became a Black Dwarf.
He was once again in the darkness, but this one was even worse. His mind and body were in the dark. As if a pitch-black curtain had been draped over his very existence, forbidding any light from ever penetrating it. No light and no hope of light ever appearing again.
And that's when THEY came.
