484 I lie beyond the end
AN: A shout-out to all Patrons who have subscribed after I continued uploading the ff.
1. Aegis
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Thank you!!
I only have a few, but its OK, I guess. :)
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Chapter Begins
The waves were mighty, rumbling all over, fading in and out.
They crawled up the shore, wet the white sand, and returned. They pulled the soul away with them, and then pushed it back in, making the conscious lumber like a log in a gentle stream. Soothing and Smooth.
It calmed him.
But this calm was like a drop, falling into a vaster ocean, the change unnoticeable.
Where this awareness came from, he questioned, eyes closed, and yet looking out. He couldn't feel anything other than the cold sensation of a lingering touch. Someone had brought him here and then left.
Now he was alone. Again.
Open your eyes, he said to himself. Open them up.
Why?
"Always sending the oddest ones, tch!" the voice penetrated his ears. "I say, why not just take them with him? Can't even enjoy my dinner in peace. Yo! Wake up, dude! Don't ruin my setting."
The voice was like a sharp, mocking edge, cutting deep. And, loud. The goofy tone didn't help, either.
"Hahaha!" The laugh was pretentiously and ostentatiously loud. "Don't tell me! Ha… Wait! Let me catch my breath! Oh, no! It ran away! Eh, yeah! Don't tell me you are monologuing my voice in your mind, buddy… are yeh?"
Kai had frowned less and less in the last centuries. Today, this frown returned.
Reluctantly, as if fighting through the veil of very existence, he tore open his eyes, and endless whiteness washed over him, blinding his sight.
When the eyes adjusted, he saw a sea of white, fine sand. It lengthened wherever his gaze reached, and it went beyond that.
From down, the sound of waves slithering over the white, sandy shore, reaching his ears, unsettled him.
He was lying face-front, his left cheek pressed deep into the white sand. And the voice had come from behind, over to his left side.
Kai shifted his body and looked at the origin, and his hazel eyes narrowed.
There, lying on a blue beach chair, was a man in a picnic shirt; bright yellow sunflowers on red. He had shorts under the shirt, and a large, straw hat over his head, shading his eyes.
There, Kai's gaze paused. Not because of the hat. No. But because of the two white-gray rabbit's ears protruding out from the gaps in it.
When his gaze finally moved down, he found the man looking back at him.
Black eyes, a long face, and a goatee coming down the pointy chin. And he was eating…
… A carrot.
"Yo!" the man said, his voice extremely unnatural in contrast to his build. "What's up, doc?"
Kai followed the man's gaze and looked down at himself. What he saw alarmed him instantly.
All signs of age had vanished. Gone were the wrinkles, the feebleness, and the foreboding sense of impending doom. He had become young; much younger. So young, in fact, that the body felt wrong somehow.
But he remembered it. The feeling this body gave him had become ancient, but it was still there; in his mind.
18 years old. Young, powerful, and ambitious.
He had regained this shell, but the heart had already changed.
Another thing Kai noticed was that he was wearing a white lab coat. Not like the one that Rintaro had, but the one from the times of his home. His true home.
And the memories arrived like a flood. They were there in his mind; had always been there. But only now, when he truly thought about them, that they approached. No, they rushed, lunged, and bit him.
An overwhelming sense of sadness took over his Self, his soul crying.
"… Mother," the word came like a grunt. "Were you real? Is this real?"
"Ah!" the man cried, chomping on the carrot. "I don't know about you, mate. But I sure am real. I am so real, that even real doesn't know how real I am. Get it? Get it? Eh, Naaaa! You didn't get it."
Kai dwelt on those memories, no matter if they were real or not, and sighed. He shook his head and stood up, his bare feet digging into the sand.
Kai looked around, taking in all scenes that he could at one glance. For some, he needed to look a second time.
There were two parts to this world. One was the ocean in front of him; in front of them; and the second part was the white, sandy shore.
Shore was neither the right nor the wrong term for it, for a shore it was, true enough. But it stretched behind Kai endlessly, just like its length. It was nigh impossible to tell how long or wide it was.
It was almost like this white land just came alive one day and walked into the sea.
It felt wrong. But good as well. The duality of these feelings deepened Kai's frown before he made it vanish altogether.
Then there was the lack of wind, clouds, or any sound other than that of the waves.
Where had he come? How long it had been since he… died?
"Is this afterlife?" Kai asked himself.
"Ha!" the man scoffed, taking another bite of the carrot, which, mind-boggling enough, was still of the same length. "What is afterlife? If there is an afterlife, then what is beforelife? Ah! Now I get it. What we are missing is the middlelife, no? Yeah, that makes sense. Perfect sense."
The man nodded to himself as if he had unraveled some great mystery, looking smug all over.
Kai looked at the man, but he looked at the rabbit ears more. "What are you? Some kind of Psychopomp?"
"Oi!" The man threw the carrot on the sand. "Who are you calling Psycho- whatever? Huh? You have insulted the great lover, the Count of your-ass. Take this!"
Kai didn't even get to clear up the misunderstanding. He saw the man turning his waist and reaching down as if there was a backpack there from which he was taking something out.
Then, slowly, the man turned back toward Kai, lifting his hands, and holding a hammer.
Kai calmly looked in sheer disbelief.
The hammer kept becoming bigger and bigger as the man raised his hands, his entire body trembling under it.
And then, with a powerful shout, the man slammed it down.
Kai lifted his hand toward it and unfurled his fingers. He didn't believe that he wouldn't be able to stop a mere hammer, no matter how big.
However, what happened afterward shocked him.
Kai was prepared to bear the entire brunt of the hammer. It was then the brownish-gray surface of the hammer touched his hand, and…
… burst apart.
The paper tore up inward, arrived at his head, and widened. Kai's hand touched the other surface of the hammer from inside and tore it, too.
When the hammer landed on the earth, Kai was standing inside it, with only his head outside, his hand still propped up.
"Hahaha!" the man laughed, rolling on the beach, and slamming his fist on the sand. "Got ya, didn't I?! Shame, doc. Real shame. Hahaha!"
For the first time, Kai's pupils trembled, a distant memory coming back. A very distant one.
Over 1300 years of life and struggles, had made him bury many things in the back of his mind. So it wasn't a surprise that a few insignificant ones got pushed back even farther.
Now, this memory crawled back, bringing with it the gravest, greatest, and grandest shock.
"You are him… aren't you?" Kai asked, not believing his own eyes. "How is this possible?"
The man's laugh died, and he bit on the carrot, which amazingly had returned to his hand, somehow.
"Who?" the man asked, frowning. "Don't tell me! Are we playing the owl game? I will say 'who', then you will reply with 'who-who', eh? Not nice, doc. Calling me Psycho. Now, this? Tch-tch! No wonder you were recalling your mother. No manners."
Kai almost didn't hear what the man was yapping about. "You are him," he repeated, his voice coming out as if he was in a trance. "You are…
… The Cartoonist!"
The Cartoonist. The lone Contestant, in the incomprehensibly vast and ancient history of the Primordial Tower, who had been sent to the World of Cartoons during his Initiation Mission just after his resurrection, and had come back. Alive. Alive, from the Graveyard of Kings!
The thing was, Kai wasn't the only one who was undergoing these tumultuous thoughts and emotions, which he had thought would never come to him. Not after so many years.
Even the man's face had gone pale. Literally. It was becoming yellow, green, and then purple. "Wait, a minute, doc?!" he blurted, stumbling back. "You-you-how-you… You are a Contestant?!"
Both men gawked at each other, one more shocked than the other.
Even then, the man didn't forget to take another bite of the carrot, which had regained its original size. Once again.
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AN: Following is the list of all Tiers you can access on various platforms (for readers' clarification):
Pat-re-on: 5 usd - 10 chapters ahead of WN and 10 usd - 21 chapters ahead of WN
Ko-Fi: 3 usd - 5 chapters ahead of WN, 5 usd and 10 usd tiers same as above
All tiers will also have additional chapters to be published in that month.
Also, for the next Mass Release (excluding this Monday's), you can contribute by donating to my Ko-Fi goal whatever amount you wish. Links are in synopsis. Pleae check them out.
Alright. Enjoy!!! If you have any doubt, comment.
