The Queen’s Toy

I ran….

And ran…..

And ran some more…..

I kept running till exhaustion took over, and even with my bones making cracking sounds, I kept running as if it was the end of the world.

Everything is starting to become dark.

Entirely darkness.

Even my legs that were running at the speed I would never imagine could no longer be felt.

My hands that were visible in my view from earlier, slowly faded away into the darkness.

All I know is, I'm alone in this nightmare but somehow could feel that my body's still alive on the other hand.

The consciousness that I was keeping on fading away, slowly succumbed to the darkness.

Everything was in darkness.

It was as if my soul had left my body. I could feel myself into the void, but couldn't see anything. I could move, but no matter how far I ran, I couldn't see the light that I was gasping to grasp.

I stared into the sky. It was pitch dark. No, its more likely to say that everything's so dark from the very beginning.

I was even starting to wonder why am I still keeping my eyes open.

My will was about to fade away as I was about to give up on finding the light, when a voice suddenly whispered to my ears.

[The clouds might become dark along the way, but no matter what, there would always be a gap where lights shone.]

I scanned my vicinity despite it being pure dark and found no one around me. 

Actually, it would be surprising if I could find one on this pitch black world.

The voice was so soothing to listen to. It is like listening to a violin being played by a musician. Furthermore, I feel no unfamiliarity with the voice. It was as if I knew whose voice it was, which gave me weird feeling.

[Gem shines even in the darkest cave. Be like a gem. If you can't become like one, then be the one who lets the light shine through the hidden gaps instead. Even if its the darkest night, pure black cave nor cloudy sky, do not be discouraged. If you can't find the light, become the light that illuminates everything in its surroundings.]

The voice that echoed to my ears seemed to be encouraging me to fight into this purely dark world.

I almost scuffed on that one actually.

Me? Fight? Even though I may have the balls to curse someone, I may be the cowardest one would ever find. Trash of the trashest.

And yet, the voice was telling me to fight back.

Impossible.

That's an impossible task.

I was about to open my mouth to ignore the nonsensical voice in my ears, when the voice suddenly spoke, preventing me from saying a thing.

[If you can't see the light, I can be your light for today. The light for today would only be today. Whether it becomes engulfed in darkness tomorrow, the decision to move would be for you, not me.]

Become my light? I was weirded out for a second there only to be shocked by the next scenario that occured. The pitch dark sky that makes me think I'm inside the void, suddenly slowly faded away. The darkness surrounding me started to fade away until it became a fog, and vanished into thin air.

The whole surrounding developed in front of my eyes once the fog vanished, which scared me to death. A fist was flying in my face, and was heading in my way.

No time to react at all.

Since I suddenly woke up in this situation, I knew that there's no way I can dodge. 

Even so, I still tried moving my feet. After all, I'm the man who'll only care about death once I'm a corpse. Even though I'm not such a person who had such a belief of fearing death once I'm dead in the past, it seemed like while I was trapped into the void, my will has become stronger than it ever was.

When I ordered my legs to move out and dodge, to my surprise, it didn't listen to me. Only then I realized that I'm nothing but a consciousness right now. It was like my soul has left my body.

Even when I tried to speak, my mouth didn't open up at all. Not even an inch.

When the fist was about to arrive into my face, my body finally moved and my hands brushed through the air before facing head-on the fist heading my way with seemingly sparks of churns, burning away from the fist.

But, it wasn't me who moved my body, which is strange. It felt like I was possessed or something. There was someone else who's in control of my body, and it twisted my fist to the side, before throwing a palm to counter the fist of the man trying to kill me.

Bwam!!

My palm collided with his fist, but instead of losing my arm, the man who was trying to kill me was pushed away by the impact.

Urciel stumbled backwards before being thrown a few miles away by the impact alone. His expression was quite a strange one. He was sure that his fist wouldn't be blocked by others so easily. Unless it was the past Kurai he knew, who he sparred with almost hundreds of times, only then would he believe that his fist would be deflected so easily.

"How can this be…." Urciel stared at Kurai, his eyes quite shaky.

It was as if he became a somewhat completely different person. It was so unbelievable because the Kurai in front of him, who's been running away for his life since earlier, actually deflected his strike.

And just to answer his surprise, Kurai suddenly speaks while clapping his hands.

"You've improved a lot aren't you?"

The voice was so soothing unlike the previous voice he heard from the said man who's so irritating as hell.

He was also familiar with the voice.

Kurai clenched his fist, and stared at Urciel with a satisfied expression.

"Unfortunately, our meeting wasn't what I expected. Where we'll be drinking alongside each other while chatting the whole day. Hope you can forgive me with this one Urciel."

< Acquaintance? (07.5) >