When confusion becomes your reality

"At times when you're in the midst of confusion, not knowing which direction to take, you'll realise that circumstances are such, that life has already made the decision for you."

- Anonymous

In an unknown time and location:

Somewhere in a dark hallway where there were no windows, no candles, nothing but darkness, a shallow light suddenly appeared. This light was actually a flame. The flame was white, yet it had a grim effect as if to contradict the very essence of the white flame.

The flame was hovering over a very delicate and feminine hand. One couldn't see the rest of the body, but what one could see was that there a black and red throne behind this person. It had a very eerie feeling to it. As if it contained something very dark and evil.

Suddenly a voice could be heard in the dark hallway.

"Master... please be merciful!" pleaded a fat, round-looking, man.

"You filthy slave... you dare!" shouted a cold and malicious feminine sounding voice.

"But Master... I... how could we have known that the Chennai Queen would wake up so suddenly!" begged the man with exasperation.

"Fine! I will give you one more chance slave, but if you fail me one more time... Ha! Maybe there will be a new slave in your position!" threatened the voice with a dark chuckle.

"Yes! Yes master! Don't worry! I'll make sure that you won't be bothered in the next few years!" grovelled the fat, round-looking man as he wiped away the sweat on his face.

"Leave!" demanded the feminine voice, slowly fading away.

"Yes master!" cowered the man while quickly bowing and running away.

As the man was far enough away from the person on the throne, two large metallic doors suddenly appeared behind the fat man. These doors covered the entire area. They were so high and wide that it would take one at least an hour to find the ends of both doors.

"Wheh... those doors always give me the creeps," expressed the fat man with a sigh.

"Now... what should I do?"

"I know... Aaah... those trash... how dare they make these mistakes! It seems like they need a lesson!" erupted the man with a malicious smile as he suddenly disappeared.

In another unknown time and location:

In an old, shattered skyscraper, there were two people standing at the entrance of the once tall and magnificent tower. One man was covered with a black robe so that one could only see the person eyes and hands.

The other man was an old looking gentleman holding a golden egg. After a while of complete silence, the old man slowly moved and said something so quiet, that even if you tried you wouldn't be able to hear what he had said.

"Forgive me little one... I didn't have much of a choice!" sighed the old-looking man as he handed over a gold looking egg to the man in the black robe who thereafter suddenly disappeared. The old man slumped down and shook his head with sadness.

"I hope that one day you can forgive me little one," prayed the old man as he slowly walked out of the entrance of the shattered skyscraper.

Outside of the skyscraper, there were ruined buildings everywhere, most of these buildings were covered by green moss, some even had huge trees growing inside of them. And, just a bit further away from all the buildings, there was a huge mountain.

So massive, that one couldn't see the end of it. At the bottom of the mountain, there was an unending amount of tall trees, almost as if it was an unending forest. These trees were as tall as skyscrapers. The thing was though, was that even these tall trees were not even a tenth of the entire size of the mountain.

As the old man looked at the mountain he sighed and slowly walked in its direction.

"Sigh... in the end, only if you are strong, do you have a say in this world," groaned the old man while shaking his head.

Location: Underground Mining Area 50-G

Time: Year 11 of the Era of Change Era: Era of Change

"Maybe I can help?" asked Xiang, as he arrived in front of Steven and the other people.

"Wait aren't you that person that spoke before to me?" asked Steven with a confused expression.

"Yeah that's me, but before we talk about that, let's get out of here!" urgently encouraged Xiang as he looked in the direction of the swarming spiders heading in their direction.

"Alright... sorry you disgusting insects, humans aren't on the menu today!" shouted Xiang as he then stretched out his hands.

The moment he did that, a huge and thick stone wall slowly emerged out of the floor.

"Skewww!!!" the many spiders shouted with rage, as they realised they couldn't reach their prey anymore.

But rather than trying to destroy the wall, the spiders turned around and ran to the other tunnel, as if not caring anymore about the prey that was previously in front of them, rather they seemed to have found a new group of prey that they could feast on.

"Wheh! That was very close!" breathed Xiang in relief, as he sat down and wiped the sweat off his face.

"You fool!" admonished his female companion, clearly not happy with Xiang decision.

"Ugh... come on Celine! Give me a break!" said Xiang with a sigh.

"Hmph!" puffed Celine, not bothering to look in Xiang direction.

"Uh... so now that we're all in one spot, why don't we introduce ourselves," commented Steven in an effort to change the mood of the group, as he sensed that the mood was quite awkward.

"Sure! My name is Xiang. The beautiful woman next to me is called Celine. Ouch!" Just as Xiang was telling Steven and the people around him, his name and his female companion's name, Celine suddenly kicked him in the stomach.

"Hmph! I don't remember giving you permission to tell strangers my name!" berated Celine as she glared at Xiang.

"Uh... yeah... so that's our names. What yours?" asked Xiang trying to change the subject.

"My name is Steven," laughed Steven with an amused expression. As he found the relationship between Xiang and Celine quite funny.

"And you kid?" asked Xiang looking in the direction of Violet.

"I.. I…" as Violet was finding it hard to answer, she suddenly saw her brother stand in front of her.

"Her name is Violet. She's My sister and my name is John," replied the boy with silky-grey hair.

"Your name is John, you say? Interesting," answered Xiang with a raised eyebrow, as he didn't believe John was the real name of the boy in front of him.

"Well, now that we know each other's names, maybe we should try and wake up the other three people?" urged Steven while looking at the unconscious people on the ground.

"No, before we do that, we need to get out of this area," answered Xiang with an amused expression, as he found it quite interesting how Steven seemed to care about other people.

"Yeah, the man is right," agreed John with a neutral expression.

"Hey! I have a name!" grunted Xiang, not pleased with the way John had not said his name.

"Whatever!" spat John in response, clearly not caring about what Xiang thought.

"You… " just as Xiang wanted to carry on, Steven asked something that made Xiang swallow his words.

"Um, quick question! Where exactly are we?" asked Steven with an innocent expression.

"You got to be kidding me right?" jeered Celine finally speaking again. As she couldn't fathom how this person in front of her didn't know what this place was.

"Uh... no uh... I'm serious," stated Steven with an embarrassed smile.

"What the heck?!" As everyone heard this, they shouted in their heads, not understanding how a person like Steven could exist.