“He-hey… you're seriously not going to do this are you?”

“Y-yeah Kyril, we were just joking. That's right joking!”

Puchi…

Somewhere unknown, a young boy by the age of twelve, was surrounded by two panicking boys and several other onlookers. This young boy went by the name of Kyril. He had disheveled long hair and scruffy attire that appeared to have not been washed for days. His face was exceedingly pale and filled with soot and on it, a pained expression that grew uglier by the second was present.

“I'm tired of it all…”

The surrounding onlookers creased their brows and stared at Kyril. They were filled with mixed emotions at the words said by Kyril. Some were pitying him and others felt glad while others showed no expression at all.

Looking at the onlookers, it was easy to tell that what they were looking at was not the face of Kyril, but his hands. Both his hands held a rusted knife that was so blunt that seemed to not even be able to cut butter. Yet with this rusted knife, Kyril had embedded it several centimetres deep into his lower abdomen.

drip… drip… drip...

A deep red liquid escaped through the wound and ran along the blade of the rusted knife before falling to the ground.

“If this continues won’t he really die?” said a woman, who was watching nearby, anxiously.

Not too far from the woman, a bulky man sharply retorted, “Hmph! So what? Previously we had to offer him our best quality products in order to try and nurture him and this is how he repays us? This is just what he deserves!”

Upon hearing the conversation of the two, the majority of onlookers made a slight nod. On the other hand, the two boys, who were slightly older than Kyril, that Kyril was facing fell to their knees and stared at Kyril with trembling bodies. Nervousness plagued their minds.

“I-I’m not taking any responsibility for this!”

One of the boys who seemed to be totally shaken said out loud before he forcefully stood up and ran through the other people in an attempt to disassociate himself from the current event. As for the other boy, as soon as he saw his friend run away, he too regained a bit of himself and quickly crawled past the people. His legs were shaking so hard that he had to use his knees and arms to get out. After all, how can two boys who have barely made it past their youth withstand the guilt of pressuring someone into suicide?

“Those two have really gone too far…”

When the two boys left, several other onlookers still stayed. Murmurings could be heard between them.

“Look! He's swaying!”

A person from the crowd pointed at Kyril’s figure. At this moment, it seemed that even a gust of wind could blow Kyril off his feet.

Kyril had already lost a large amount of blood. The ground beneath him, perhaps fish could swim in it if they could survive in blood. His face had lost all colour, turning pure white. If one said that he was a ghost, then many others would believe it. Kyril could no longer make sense of what was happening around him. All he could see was a gradual darkening of his surroundings and then finally…

Thud!

Kyril's body dropped to the ground, his face towards the sky and his vision engulfed by darkness.

An audible sigh was released and the onlookers shook their heads gently.

“Hmph. Serves you right,” said the bulky man who turned around to leave. Although his voice wasn't loud, it was loud enough for everyone present to hear it clearly.

The onlookers watched this man leave with a slight sense of disgust. They thought that even if Kyril was a ‘waste,’ it was not his fault for being born that way. That would be just like an Emperor blaming his daughter for being a girl, and not a boy! But alas, what could they do in front of this bulky man. To the bulky man, they were just like an ant standing before an elephant.

Following the bulky man’s lead, the remaining onlookers left as well. The only one who stayed was a middle aged hunched back woman wearing a simple yet clean robe. The wooden cane on her hand stood straight as if it could withstand the weight of a mountain on it. This hunched back woman simply stared at Kyril's motionless body. Her eyes displayed a shine and glow not befitting of her appearance.

tap…

Slowly, the hunched back woman lifted up her walking cane and neared Kyril. She drew her hand out from her robe and, under no one's gaze, she flicked her hand which sliced through the air like a sword in the grasp of a master swordsman.

whoosh…

Kyril's body moved. A layer of air continuously formed on his back as his body floated into the run down shack behind him, onto a bed. The woman gave a quick glance at Kyril before turning around to leave.

A day went by and the blood on Kyril's clothes dried up and stuck to the wound, acting as a barrier to stop anymore blood escaping. However, the amount of blood Kyril had lost was really too much. Even after a day, the paleness on his face had not subsided, rather it turned white like the hairs on an old man a step into his grave. His body stayed still without movement as a rock does on the road.

When the sky turned dark and the sun at rest, an unusual phenomena took place within the run down shack of Kyril. If there was a person present to see this scene, they would have wet their clothes or even fainted, as if they had seen a ghost! From Kyril's body, an identical transparent body rose up and hovered a metre above Kyril's body. The transparent body exuded a radiant light that covered the walls of the room and as soon as the light dimmed, the transparent body trembled and then shot up towards the stars…

…

Somewhere in a place of darkness, two spheres could be seen merging with each other. The golden light and the invisible white light that were emitted from the spheres intertwined like dragons becoming one. When the final strand of light came together, what was originally two spheres was now one, causing the surrounding darkness to be swept away. Instead, an endless crystal ocean appeared upon which the sphere descended from above to float on.

On the surface of the sphere, minor distortions formed that slowly grew over time. With each distortion, the old man who had only his head above the grave, started to be filled with life and youthful vigour, replacing the pain from earlier which had completely subsided as if it was only a dream.

After the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the distortions stopped, revealing a human figure.

Layers of light started circling the old man's body. With each revolution the human figure was gradually being refined and became less transparent. Each revolution lasted a few breaths and after several dozens of breaths, the human figure was now no different to an actual person about the age of twelve.

The body of the old man was filled to the brim with energy as a layer of light flowed around him.

“What really is happening here?”

The old man stared at the ocean that was beneath and around him. His lower mouth acted like it had no bones to keep it up.

However, before the old man could begin to move around, a strong suction force pulled on the old man from a distance. Without any chance for resistance, the old man was swept off his feet with a force that caused his entire body to become stiff. Not even his eyelids could open or his fingers move. This took only a few breaths, but it was enough to completely baffle the mind of the old man.

The old man felt himself in a completely different place. The air smelt foul and there was an eery silence that pervaded the area around him.

When the suction force disappeared, the old man felt a change in his body. He felt smaller yet full of energy and thinner but stronger. However, the most astonishing things was that within the old man's mind, he discovered there to be memories he could not recognise. The old man ignored the changes in his body and delved into the memories. The memories seemed to have been a part of the old man ever since birth and appeared very clear in his mind.

After an hour, the old man had finished looking over the unknown memorises within his mind.

“What is this? I'm called Kyril? I've never even heard of such a name. It even shows that I committed suicide! I clearly remember dying alongside my wife!”

Although the old man had understood what the memories showed him, these new found memories contradicted greatly with the memories he already had.

“These memories are so mysterious. They appear to have been a part of me ever since I was born, but at the same time it appears like memories of someone else! ...Forget it. Forcefully thinking of an answer won't get me anywhere.”

With that said, the old man stopped thinking of the memories and proceeded to feel the changes in his body.

“Strange. This is really too strange. I don't know what death feels like, but it certainly can't be something like this!”

The feeling he had of his body seemed totally foreign, as if he was a completely different person.

The old man's eyes opened and a place completely unknown to him entered his vision.

“Wha-”

The old man froze for a while and with an empty gaze, stared at the walls and ceiling of the run down shack. Shock and confusion covered his face. Afterwards, he lifted his body up into a seating position. But once his body got up, an intense pain rippled through his body from his lower abdomen followed by a wave of dizziness. Everything around the old man seemed to spin around. Gritting his teeth, the old man endured the pain, he lowered his head to look at the knife that was embedded into his stomach.

Although the old man’s head was full of questions, he had no time for pondering. If the blade of the knife was not removed, his body might become poisoned due to the rust on the blade.

Without hesitation, the rusted knife was pulled out and blood rushed through the wound. A length of cloth, at about the length of two arms, was then cut from the old man's clothes with the rusted knife. Throwing the knife aside, the old man wrapped around the wound tightly before tying a knot. After a few minutes, the blood finally stopped seeping out.

Seeing this, the old man heaved out a heavy sigh. Although the bleeding had stopped, the old man knew he had lost far too much blood. The dizziness in his head was becoming too overbearing.

In an attempt to deal with the dizziness in his head, the old man paused for a bit and massaged his temples to reduce the dizziness surging through him. When the dizziness subsided to a manageable level, the old man closed his eyes, recalling the new memories in his head. After some time passed, a crease formed in the old man's brows. The knife that he removed was exactly the same as the knife that boy used to stab himself with! Thinking of this, the old man took a deep breath to ready himself for what he was about to see. He already had some thoughts of what had happened.

Opening his eyes, the old man observed every detail he could see. Even though he prepared himself, there was still some shock and confusion that could be seen all over his face.

Around the old man, there were four walls that seemed to be made out of rotting wood. Pieces of wood had already fallen to the ground, leaving holes as big as two fists. Above him, a cloth held by sticks blocked out the sky. This was a place that could not even be compared to a shelter of a dog or a pig.

As the old man's eyes moved around, everything he saw he was able to identify with the memories he had unknowingly acquired. And every time he recognized something, he started tirelessly connecting all the previous events together. It seemed that the thoughts he had before, was becoming a reality.

The old man pulled his hand up to his face, making the pupils on the old man's eyes shrink to the size of the head of a needle and his heartbeat to become erratic. The hand in front of him was not covered in veins or had skin that wrinkled, but a hand that had skin with no marks or creases.

“This… How can this be!”

Hurriedly dragging himself towards the pail of water at the corner of the room to the left side of the entrance, the old man looked hard into the water. The reflection on the water caused the old man to freeze with his mouth wide open. Without knowing any details, to an outsider this old man would seem like a person who hasn't seen water for days. His mouth was so wide open that he may as well fit the pail along with the water in his mouth!

Minutes passed and the old man finally moved. He staggered back to the bed with a heart that was pumping violently that you could faintly hear it through the air.

Thud

The old man's backside hit the bed and eyes wide open that held a gaze filled with shock.

“I… I've actually been reborn!”

- END -

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