1 Cosmos

October 5, 1349.

East Bayam.

Brendon was a village in East Bayam's coastal area. It came under the direct authority of Augustus III after his kingdom, Loen, colonised a portion of the Southern Continent. The main religion in Brendon was Lord of Storms, as most of the villagers were reliant on the seas, though the religion of Death was still practised secretly. All in all, Brendon was a village that was insignificant in the grand scheme of things; however, a lad was about to change not only the fate of this paltry village but also the entire world.

Lucien was the lad in question; he was the son of an officer from Loen and a maid from Brendon. His mother perished giving birth to him, and his father abandoned him in an orphanage.

Even though the villagers were somewhat prejudiced against him because of his heritage, Lucien paid their voices no heed, living his life as he wished. Throughout his youth, he was bright and curious, soaking up information like a sponge. He wasn't satisfied with what he obtained, always wanting more, and that was the end of him, for his reckless pursuit of knowledge brought death upon him.

His life should have ended here—the villagers would have discovered his corpse, gutted and disembodied, at the corner of the road the next morning. They would have bothered enough to give him a proper burial, following old traditions, and then his name would have been all but forgotten by them, swept away in the tides of time—but something changed or interfered, an unknown force that even the mightiest Gods were unaware of.

And fate was shattered; a pale hand reached out from the colourless river, clutching the quill of fate and rewriting destiny into a story different than what it was intended to be.

Ultimately, it was a tale of Death, the End of All Things.

——————

Around the world, astronomers who had awoken early, as well as mysticism experts and covert beyonders, cast their gazes aloft into the sky, more specifically at the moon that hung in the night sky shimmering with stars. Their eyes were soon filled with astonishment, for the moon was no longer crimson.

In a stunned daze, a detective looked out the window of his home in Backlund. "The moon…" he whispered, gazing at the moon, which had turned white and abnormally bright.

Far from the senses of mortals, a phantom image of an indescribable being floated above the white moon—it had countless eyes, and they all gazed down on Earth, the Southern Continent, East Bayam, Brendon, and ultimately, at Lucien lying on a dusty road, frail and bloody, like a withering twig, slowly sinking into the pale and cold arms of death. But his silver eyes were wide open, gazing at the silver moon, brimming with such emotions and vitality—bearing such a contraindication in and of themselves.

"No….no….Why….Why?….. Which sadistic fuck decided to curse me to this world?" Lucien whispered, his eyes wide with dread and hopelessness.

Allow him to explain his situation before the outer gods claimed him: he wasn't actually Lucien, but someone from Earth. To be honest, his life was fairly mundane, but his dreams were not. They were magnificent and grand. He envisioned a life of freedom and excitement. He dreamed of seeing the old and new wonders of the world. He dreamed of filling his passport with stamps from all the countries in the world. He dreamed of settling down after everything in the city that never sleeps. He dreamed of truly living his life. He dreamed and dreamed, but when faced with reality, his dreams were shattered one by one, and what remained of him was someone who learned to accept but still hope for the impossible.

His life was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with cancer. That broke whatever hope was left in him, but he refused to give up on his life, so he struggled and struggled to flee the claws of death that were reaching for his soul. He just wanted to live, and in his desperation, he did something that would have appalled his former self: he prayed to God for salvation with faith in his heart. However, he was confronted by reality again, for there was no answer to his prayers. Death soon took him, embracing him within its cold and indifferent embrace.

His tale did not end there; perhaps God heard his prayers and took pity on him, or the cosmos itself made an error; either way, he was reincarnated into the body of dead Lucien, and if the memories of this body were any indication, this was the world of Lord of Mysteries.

Alarm bells started to sound in his head as he tried to stop his thoughts from delving into the knowledge of the cosmos, but it was too late. And that was how he found himself in this fatal position, cursing all the deities of the earth for his wretched and hopeless fate.

"They" finally arrived from the infinite and boundless heights of the cosmos, flooding his consciousness with their incoherent whispers and murmurs. And he felt agony, pain unlike anything he'd ever felt, tearing mercilessly through his being. And he shrieked, screaming until his throat felt like it was tearing apart, his vision became blurry and bloody, his sanity seemed to gradually dwindle, and he could do nothing but watch—the same feeling of helplessness once again filled his entire being.

He hated it.

What he didn't realise was that all around him, roses began to bloom, as white as snow, emitting a nihilistic aura that covered him, protecting him from the corruption of the starry sky. But the cosmos was unyielding, attempting to strengthen "Their" connection with Lucien, which was established by his knowledge of "Them," in order to destroy those flowers and successfully corrupt this anomaly that "They" couldn't understand.

And "They" were succeeding, as the white roses at the border had gone crimson with corruption, mutating and spreading into all the roses as the corruption reached the shivering and trembling Lucien in a bloody cascade.

He was struggling to hold onto his slipping mind. As the cold and indifferent claws of Death began to sink into his being once again, the maddening whispers suddenly escaped him, granting him a moment of clarity that amounted to filling his heart with grim determination.

He refused to let death take him again. He needed to live; he wanted to live, no matter what. So he gathered his last ounces of strength and did something extremely reckless and dangerous, but it was the only option with at least a chance of survival:

"ADAM!" He screamed, trying to imbue his voice with all the knowledge of the Ancient Sun God in the hopes of attracting the attention of the Creator "Himself."

Immediately, he saw light—a light so blinding, so magnificent, so mighty, that it seemed to engulf the world itself.

And the last thing he heard was an angry roar from the starry sky and calm footsteps close by before the blinding light consumed him as well and his awareness faded away into slumber.