"....hey mortal...hey…look around....."
a hoarse voice was picked up by Bilal.
With the advent of the voice, he came to realize his surroundings, it was a familiar yet alien dark alley with only some distant street lights for the illumination.
Strange emotions and memories appearing in front of him, he saw a child wearing a very stained and rugged vest, the child was abruptly thrown out from a nearby door that was directly connected to the alley. Bilal saw a huge muscular man with bushy mustaches screaming at the child. Ignoring the anguished cries from the child he shut the door closed being cold-blooded.
Even though he couldn't hear their voices, he could definitely remember it in great detail. Unknowingly he started lip-synching the entire dialogue down the great detail.
"FUCK OFF YOU THIEF!!! I DON'T KNOW YOU, IF IT WASN'T FOR MY GOOD MOOD, I WOULD'VE GIVEN YOU A HEALTHY BEATING"
"...uncle please don't kick me out…I won't take food without permission ever again…..please let me in…."
"Please let me in...let me in…"
"Lamia tell your dad to open the door….."
"... Uncle, please open the door…I'm scared…"
The child started repeatedly banging on the steel door, but no voice no utterance could be heard from the inside. Only now did he remember, it was the incident from his childhood, the darkest time of his life, the child who resembled a beggar was him and that muscular man was his uncle. It was the spectacle when he was kicked out by his uncle due to stealing some leftover food from the refrigerator.
Observing the scene from a great detail an intense burst of Sadness and Rage began capturing his self-awareness. The Rage was akin to an intensely burning fire of the potential of burning the world to a crisp, the sadness resembled a silent pool of deep, ice-cold water. The emotions were way too much for it to be contained within himself, leaking into the surroundings, the scene itself started blurring, gradually blurring and dyeing it to Azure and Crimson shade.
The blurred landscape was changing drastically at an astonishingly great pace, the dark alley disappeared within a moment leaving no trace of it behind.
".....mortal…..control your emotions…."
Bi-colored background distortion abruptly stopped with the slight intervention of a thin black wave, it restored the dark alley background once again.
Within moments he felt his control being reestablished. Taking a look downwards he found his hands made up of blue energy like material, with just that he could conclude it wasn't his body at least not physically, it was like an illusory copy of himself.
"....your speculations are indeed correct, mortal ...this is your dream plane...restore your view and take a look around…."
Startled by the sudden intrusion, from his thoughts he snapped back and hastily looked around.
Other than the alley walls he couldn't find anything, just when he was about to turn his view around, he saw a small black one-winged owl stepping towards him elegantly while floating in the air.
Unknown to him how, Bilal was abruptly hit by an enormous wave of terror and fear, his illusory body initiated tremoring and cracking down to particles. A heavy feeling swept onto his illusory body with an attempt to bring him down to his knees.
The black one-winged owl gazed at him, opening his small beak it uttered a few sentences in a hoarse voice complete in contrast to its a small size.
"....don't eyeball towards me directly…"
"...Your measly spirit isn't developed enough to contain the image of my majestic form…."
Averting his gaze and stabilizing Bilal his somewhat fragmented body, he began the recall from his memories while synching the exact shape of the owl with the newly engraved tattoo on his arm.
Facing this malicious entity, no words were arranging in his head the only thought was to escape from this place as soon as possible. The thoughts that he had assumed to be private was, in fact, an open book for the Owl.
".....there's nowhere to go, besides you can't even control your own emotions and memories…"
"... And I'm not here to harm instead I'm here to make a deal with you….."
Though extremely skeptical of the fiend he didn't lose his rationality, it would be very beneficial if he could just play along and get some information out of the fiend.
"Wha...what deal are you talking about??"
"....The deal is I will lend you the powers of the Oracle and when I recover you'll have the chance to become the prime Oracle, but before that you would help me find some followers…."
The Owl which according to him very likely was the black mass of Gas, who attacked and dragged him off from sleep. And forced him into opening the jar and attempted to usurp the control of the body from Bilal. And now without rhyme or reason, this fiend is abruptly requesting a deal to him, genuinely flabbergasted by the development of the situation and completely unsure of the Owl's intention he tried faking a ponder.
Unfortunately, his facade was broken before even it being formed.
"....mortal drop your act, I'm a demigod even at my lowest, reading a normal untrained mind is a piece of cake…." the Owl transmitted his voice to him.
Seeing his act fail with even a chance of redemption, he too dropped the failing facade and directly asked the question he had in his mind.
"What are you? Why did you attack me? What is an Oracle?..."
Asking one question after another as if in a rapid-fire questionnaire contest, he created a long list of questions within a few seconds. But before he could get any of the answers his the landscape which was completely stable at that moment of time started cracking and the Owl vanished into thin smoke leaving behind a black feather and an echoing voice in his awareness.
"...take this feather, you'll get most of your answer from it ...there's a special gift in it…"
The black feather in a blink of an eye jumped towards Bilal and stuck on the area between his Eyebrows like a patch.
The cracking space burst off like a thin sheet of glass with a clear cut 'clrr' sound, darkening and illuminating his sight consecutively.
And the next instant he saw a thin mustache man who was resting both hands on his chest. Sensing his Bilal's gaze, the thin mustache man made an astonished expression on his face and immediately without further ado dashed towards a brown wooden door located adjacent to the bed.
"@#$_#_-$$$&@***?+! "
The man was screaming loudly in some Weird language unknown to him, it wasn't English, Arabic or any other language he may have ever come across in his life.
After shouting at the door, he came in front of Bilal and bowed respectfully towards him, beneath the astonished and respectful expressions of the man Bilal could definitely sense fear and anger. A thin illusory white line extended from the man and reach onto Bilal's chest, penetrating it and disappeared.
The man probably had no idea of the occurrence because he was bowing very desperately as his life depended on it, he was neither speaking nor uttering a word, but seemed to be waiting for someone.
Bilal wanted to tell him not to bow any more, but before he could speak, a weird creaking sound issued into the room as the door on his left opened up and welcomed a muscular man through the dilapidated door, the man seemed to be middle-aged with medium stature of his body and shiny black hair, pumped with power to the brim with immense vitality he looked like a herculean warrior.
Consecutive to his arrival an old lady too entered she was slightly hunchbacked and was dressed in plain white robes. Nothing peculiar could be observed from her….at least physically because in Bilal's eyes the old lady was coated by a thin layered dark green aura.
Both the new arrivals conclusively equally dangerous to him made it in front of his bed and bowed lightly, completely shocked by the actions of them. Bilal got confused, but who wouldn't be after receiving an out of anywhere bow from some clearly important strangers.
Unlike the mustached man they stood straight after a slight bow and two thick lines of white light exited their bodies and brushed his chest and got diffused into his body.
Most likely aware of the white light they traced it with their pupils and somehow he could capture these actions of theirs, unknown of how he could see white lights and read emotions from everyone except the old lady.
The muscular man with his weird language spoken in a stern and heavy voice "@# _-=% +?:'/! !!*/#$"
Expecting an answer the muscular man looked at him anxiously but all he got was a partially stupefied face with heavy confusion present on it.
All of them looked at each other and discussed something, before the old lady with her slow pace stepped towards him.