Chapter 03 – The Stumbling

Year 2018 July 10th, Habomai Islands. 7.00PM

Blake was tired. He was in pain. He was lying in a ditch in a corner of the world. Habomai islands. Belonged to the Russian federations with a pinch of Japanese thrown here and there. Now it was only used as a garbage dump for the two countries for it was too uninhabitable. Beasts here were too feral for the regular hunters to handle. And some were too intelligent for their comfort.

Blakes' plans had failed. He might not be stupid, but he wasn't the only one. As soon as some certain people got the wind of a ten-year-old with twenty million, they zeroed in on like sharks smelling blood.

Blake only managed to save a little of the money. And he's been surviving barely till now. He was almost 18 now. He was thin as a stick. It would be fair to say that there wasn't much difference between him and an actual skeleton. He was beaten to a pulp so many times in the past couple of days he had lost the count. He could feel his ribcage poking out of the skin from some places. Both his eyes were shut tight. One cheek so purple it might as well be a giant grape. His shirt was in tatters and he barely had any pants on.

He was half-covered in garbage. And after what felt like an eternity he felt something wet plop on his face. And then another. It was raining. Water on the cracks of his skin stung. But he made a feeble attempt to drink as much as he could as he was parched. After some time he felt better. 'Better' might be stretching it too thin. He had no idea what to do next. He was fucking 18 years old, near-death lying in a garbage dump.

It was too much for him at the moment. He just wanted to lie in there and slowly drift away. The last 8 years had been hell for him. He lost everything. All he had seen for the last few years had been sadness, anger, betrayal, and pity. His father was right after all. He was like an ant fighting an elephant. He was no match for the world. During his migration across the world, he had finally understood what his father meant. Everywhere he had gone, it was weak who had suffered due to the power struggles between warlords, politicians, etc. basically if you had power, you used it on the one below you in the ladder. He had been in the crossfire between two rival cartel gangs in South America, Ethnic wars fueled by politicians in Africa, and he got on the bad side of some cast fanatics in India when he was seen having a chat with a Dalit boy like a normal friend do. He barely escaped India because he managed to bribe the police in the area.

And he had finally then landed in Japan in 2011. He finally found some peace as he found a job as a waiter in a small restaurant Kitami Hokkaido island. Being a foreigner drew much attention to him. But he kept a low profile. He just wanted to live in peace.

As fate would have it. The peace did not last. God knows how he somehow managed to offend a member of Hunter clan that had called Kitami. 'He looked at him funny' the said member had said. That night he was gagged punched nonstop and thrown into the back of a van and taken to the Hunter camp in the Kitami Mountains. He was treated like a slave there. Fed only once a day. Beaten constantly. And after two long years, he was done. He had become so weak and he had become a liability. They thought it would be funny to throw him into garbage scows. That's how he was here.

Now, all wished was death. Lying there in the garbage ditch. He hated everything on the earth. He did not want to stay in this wretched world second longer. He just laid there and waiting for the grim reaper to come. Sometime in the night, he lost consciousness. And when he woke up, it was still dark. He did not know how long he had lost consciousness. He just felt bitter that he had not died. When he came to his senses, he was floating. During the night rain had gotten stronger and the garbage part where he had lied on top had slid away in a current which had formed from the rain. Now he was floating away. He had lost sense of direction a long time ago and had no idea which way he was going. He then lost it again. The pain was too much to handle at that point. The next time he woke up he felt that he was still floating. He could hear echoing sounds around.

'Am I in a cave?'

Then he drifted away again.

He woke up to a falling sensation. He was still in the cave. So he did not have the faintest idea where he was.

'Damn… am I falling? Whatever. I'm just too fucking tired to care. Is this falling gonna take too long?'

It did not.

He crashed into the water in a splash. Luckily he went in headfirst. If he had fallen on his back or face first, all his bones would've cracked. The impact made him lost consciousness again. When he woke up again, he was lying on the banks of what appeared to be an underground lake. It might have been a beautiful sight if not for the garbage that was piling in. He still was blind as a bat. So he could only feel what's happening around him. All he could hear was the sound of water crashing down. But he felt something strange in the cave. He didn't know what it was. It was a soothing feeling. He felt like his tiredness was fading away and sleepy. So instead of losing consciousness like so many times during the past few hours. He slept. Like a log. For a long time.

Blake was in a strange place. It was dark and damp. It had a sickly feeling to it. The most important part was he could see. And his body didn't have any wounds. He did not see any walls around him. He spun around a couple of times to see if there's anything, and finally, he spotted something.

A dark grey lump was on the ground about a hundred meters from where he was. As it was the only thing he could see, he started to walk towards it. He could feel a strange feeling coming from the general direction of the lump. The closer he got, the stronger the feeling became. When he got close to the lump he could see it was human-shaped and shaking. He couldn't tell whether it was a male or female because although it had a human shape, it wasn't much. It had long greasy hair that mattered all over.

Blake wasn't going to poke some unknown creature in a dark space. After all the turmoil he had been through, his survival instincts were at an all-time high. So he got back to what he felt like a safe distance and called out to the lump.

"Hello. Um, are you okay? Can you hear me?"

At first, the lump didn't move. It stayed like that for a couple more minutes and after some more calling, it started to move. It slowly stood up and took up a shape of a human. From the shape of it, Blake could tell that it was a woman, but he wasn't sure. The human had a cloak over its head so Blake did not see the face of the person.

"Come closer child."

It was a woman. And her voice sounded serene and reverberated through the area although it did not seem to have any walls. And still, she sounded so weak and frail. But the strange feeling coming from her was still so strong, Blake still hesitated.

"I do not mean you any harm child. Let us talk."

Suddenly the feeling Blake was having dimmed significantly. He took that as a non-threatening move and walked close to her. When Blake got close to her she removed the hood she was wearing. Blake could see that she was very beautiful. She had curly black hair going into the cape. She had a thin tiara on her head. Blake couldn't identify the material it was made. She had clear black eyes, a normal nose, and a plump bottom lip.

Blake realized that he was staring at her face and quickly looked down embarrassed. He did not have much female contact in past years, which made it uncomfortable.

"Do you know who I am child?"

The lady asked Blake and he could only shake his head as he had no clue whatsoever who she was.

Suddenly the feeling which had gone a moment ago came back in full force. Blake was pushed onto his knees and he could barely lift his head. When he looked up what he saw made his eyes widen.

Her eyes shone in bright light and she had long which were floating around her.

"I am called Gaea. I am the goddess of earth child."

Her sonorous voice was back. Blake felt the power in that voice. He knew in an instant that she was powerful but the goddess part made him hesitate.

"You doubt me. Come closer, let me show you."

Blake went in close. He somehow knew she was not a threat to him. When he got closer Gaea cupped his head with her right hand. Thumb on his forehead and others wrapping onto his right side of the head.

With a bright flash both their eyes shone in white light. And Blake started seeing flashes of visions. At first, he did not understand what he was seeing. But he felt it was familiar but he did not know what they were.

'Shit… this is the history of us.'

It hit Blake like a hammer. What he was seeing was actual visions from the past. But even so, he did not understand some visions.

But with the flow of vision, he understood.

He saw Gaea creating the humans, adoring them, guiding them, giving them the power which they called Hunters. And he saw the destruction… Her grief, sadness, her wounds... Slowly succumbing to them.

He did not know how long they stayed like that, but as soon as it ended he fell to his knees gasping for air. And Gaea stood there calmly waiting for him to gather his wits.

After few minutes Blake was able to do so. And he stood up and looked at Gaea with pity. He felt sorry for her and felt angry for what they have been doing to her. But he did not know why he was shown this. So naturally, he raised the question.

"You are special. You understand the nature of humans. Well… the current nature. They weren't like that in the past. But you know you people have become like a plague in this world. I know it's my fault… but now I am too weak. And it needs to go."

"You mean the humans?"

Blake asked shocked.

She stared at him. Waiting for the comprehension to dawn.

"How am I supposed to do that? I mean… I'm not even a Hunter. I can barely kill a dog with my strength."

"Hunters, Mages… created by humans for their convenience. They lack imagination. Do you accept this mission child?"

"If you say yes, you will understand and be able to use Earth's core power, if you say no, I'll send you back to that cave with no memories of this conversation. Where you will most probably die."

"No pressure."

Gaea smiled weakly.

Blake had no reason to refuse. He had seen the human's rock bottom. Lived through it. Although he was also human, he understood that he needs to at the end too. As long as there is one human in this world there was a risk. His hatred towards the people who had wronged him didn't help his train of thoughts either. So there was only one way for him to go.

"I accept."

After I give you this power I can only do some basic healing. Unfortunately, I cannot heal your eyes. It's beyond my current power.

'I don't want to see them either. So it's Okay.'

Blake thought.

"Are you ready child?"

Gaea asked and Blake just nodded.

With that Gaea touched his head like before and started chanting in a low voice. Blake felt a strange power rushing into him. At the same time, he saw incoherent visions which did not make any sense. They kept coming and his head started to experience pulses of pain. He endured it only because he had experienced in the paint department.

In what he felt like an eternity, it ended. And he crashed to the floor. Blood trickled from his eyes, nose, and ears. While he was catching his breath and riding the last waves of pain he heard Gaea saying.

"There is nothing like experience to gain knowledge about using earth's power. When you wake up you'll find a door to your right. It will lead to the exit."

"Good luck Blake. And thank you for your service. Go forward to see the end."

And it went all blank.