The Deal

In a white space that spanned for infinity, a small dark speck could be seen floating at one of its edges. From a distance it would look like a black dot or a smudge on a screen. But if you looked at it closely you could make out the appearance of a shape. The shape was long and not wide, it split off in five directions and was wrapped in darkness. Just by the shape alone you could already tell that this thing was a body of a person. Their age, gender, or even origin was hidden behind the darkness that wrapped and weaved around the body.

But one thing was certain, the person was alive. 

-Twitch

A finger from the right hand twitched. Shortly after the rest of the fingers began to twitch and as if a switch was flipped, the rest of the body began to squirm. The right arm bent, the neck moved, the legs kicked, the chest raised up and down, and soon the eyes opened. 

At a glance the eyes seemed to be peaceful and calm. As if there was no light in them or any form of knowledge. They seemed so innocent and pure. But underneath that guise was the process of a brain that was absorbing everything they received.

"Where are we? What is this place? We were at the hospital weren't we? Where is the ground? There is no sky?! I don't see any signs of life?! Am I the only living being here??!!"

Using the information it had received the brain quickly turned this information into questions for it to answer. Slowly answering it one by one.

"We're in a white space and what this place is can't be answered. We were, but then we died. There seems to be nothing in this white space but me."

The body soon moved until, from its point of view, it was standing up straight. It stretched its body as it stared at the surroundings. Once it was done stretching, and realizing it was not in its old body, it breathed out. "This is not the afterlife" was all the body said as it looked at the white room.

If this was the afterlife then it would be the afterlife he thought of. He would be in a world full of books filled with questions for him to solve, theories for him to wait until they can be proven, there would be things he has never heard of all stacked in piles and piles of papers. Yet, there wasn't a single ripped piece of paper in this white space. This meant one thing, he was either not truly dead or he was not in the right after life.

-Blub blub blub

The noise of bubbling came from behind him. He turned around to look and saw a giant black sludge slowly forming from the darkness. At first it was small, just small black bubbles the size of a broken lead found in mechanical pencils, but then it grew and grew. The size increased from the simple lead, to the size of a mouse, then to the size of an arm, then a human body, and then finally stopping to the size that was even bigger than a semi truck.

The sludge bent and molded together. The shape was like clay being meshed together by the hand of a genius artist. It moved inwards and pushed outwards. They clay like sludge morphed slowly, its form taking shape. Slowly it was taking the shape of a creature that the body had never seen before. True, its shape resembled some animals it had read, but this sludge was just taking bits of the shapes and using others to create its body.

The sludge finally stopped when it had created a head and formed several different types of eyes on it. These eyes had different slit shapes and were of different sizes. In between these bundles of eyes a mouth came to the surface of the blob. Its shape was like a normal person's mouth, but unlike how their mouths are usually horizontal, this thing's mouth was vertical. Its upper body was so massive while its lower was so skinny and scrawny that it looked like the legs would give out.

The sludge creature looked at the person and opened its mouth. "My esteemed guest, I am so glad that answered my call for an invitation" the creature said, its mouth moving seconds late after each speech.

The person looked at the creature, "um, I don't think I ever accepted any invitation from anyone, especially from something like you." The person moved their head to the side as they had a confused expression on their face. Their eyes hold nothing but innocence.

But the creature was able to see through this mask, "please my esteemed guest, you don't have to hide behind that mask of yours. After all, your old body has died and no one, other than us, is in this space of mine."

The person waited a couple seconds before their head moved to its usual way and the smile they had on their face disappeared. Their eyes turned sharp as they stared at the being, "seeing how you were able to discover my mask with ease and spoke as if it was common sense, it must mean you had your eyes on me for a while. For how long?"

The creature grinned as it soon chuckled, "I've had my many endless eyes on you since your birth, no, when you were in your mothers womb." The creature's sludge body produced two human arms from its side as it spread them out, as if to emphasize something grand.

"The moment I saw you in your mothers womb, I thought you were quite different from the rest of the humans" the creature said as it grinned, "and at first I thought as I was wrong, since, like the others around you, I thought you were just a dumb kid who didn't like to speak. That was until I saw what you did."

The creature moved its head closer to the person's face. Its mouth inches away from the person's nose. "I saw how you stared at the corpse" the creature said, the grin on its face widening to the point that it was opening its mouth wide.

"I don't know what you mean," the person said as they shrugged their shoulders innocently.

"Oh, come now, you know what I'm talking about," the creature said as it slithered around the person like a snake in water, "it was when you were about seven or eight years old, so you probably don't remember much of it but you definitely remember that scene." The creature appeared behind the person's back as it placed the human hands it had on both the person's shoulders, "allow me to jog your memory."

"It was during your school trip, when you and your classmates were walking up a mountain trail. You were just there to simply take notes on the surroundings and that was it, nothing else should have happened. No misfortune, no horrific sights, nothing that would traumatize an eight year old" the creature moved its body a couple feet in front of the person and did the dramatic pose while closing all of its eyes. It opened one of its many eyes and stared at the person, "that was until you pointed at something in the forest and called out to your teacher. At first they thought from your cheerful tone that you found a cool plant in the forest and wanted to look at it. But when they looked at where you pointed... hehehehe, I still remember the face your teacher made that day. The wide eye, the pale face, and the mouth that seemed to be gasping for air. Oh it was priceless, but it was a reasonable reaction to finding a corpse of a man, especially one that had their head chopped off."

The creature placed its fingers on the person's body and tapped them along their body as if there were buttons on each surface it pressed down on. The creature's smile grew bigger as it remembered the scene. It then turned its gaze towards the person's eye. It looked closely, trying to see any signs of change or hesitation, but it found nothing. It found no flaw, no signs of backing away, or any sign of fear. No, all it saw was the gaze of a person who did not waver at all, as if what it had said was just a common day occurrence.

The creature's smile grew once again "of course your teacher quickly made you guys return to the bus and quickly called the police. They found the murder miles away from your guys' location, but that wasn't what caught my interest at that moment, no, it was even close to get a quick glance at. My focus was on you, or more specifically, your eyes. The entire time, you held no fear, no signs of falter, and most importantly, no signs of confusion. As if you knew what you were staring at, even though you were just a small child."

"It was then I started to notice the odd behaviors you had, how you always examined your surroundings and how you had a look of understanding when you stared at it. I thought it was a simple curiosity of a child, but when you got older, that stare never once wavered" the creature then sank into the floor and reappeared on the ceiling. 

"And one day I got curious and decided to enter your mind when you were sleeping" the creature said with a grin before shrugging, "of course you were only twelve at the time, so I didn't expect much from your tiny mind. Oh how I was wrong."

The creature wrapped its arm around its body and shuddered with a smile that belonged to a person seeking pleasure, "I remembered the moment I peaked in your mind that my very own mind expanded. You questioned everything. I don't mean like, why is the sky blue or why the ground is hard. No, I mean you questioned things such as, how long it would take to kill a family of five and hide their body. Or what was the best way to burn a body and where to leave the remains at. Or worst of all, how you could make someone regret living."

"The more I looked, the more I realized your outlook on life and on others. How you would stare at someone and your surroundings afterwards and think, how can I kill this person using my surroundings and hide the body" the creature soon laughed "I got curious about the day you found the corpse and what you thought during that time, and so when I looked deep in your mind to find the scene, I did not expect what you thought! Seeing your mind at that time, I thought you were simply thinking about how the person was killed and what the killer used to do it!"

"But you didn't think that, no! What you thought at the moment was "How can I do this with my teacher and my classmates!"" The creature soon breathed a breath of pleasure as it looked at the person, "I had always thought the most dangerous being was an adult human since they have more experience, but I was wrong. The most dangerous creature was that of a child, especially a child whose mind could imagine things even beyond their childhood!"

The person, throughout the entire one sided conversation, did not have a look of anger or shock. But held a blank face that just showed signs of annoyance. They looked at the creature like they were a nuisance and to them they were, "get to the point of me being invited to here."

"..." the creature paused its movement before sighing, "it was when you reached the age of nineteen when I entered your mind again and played in your dream. At the time you were dreaming about standing in a frozen field of ice. At the time I had no clue why you dreamt of that nor do I even know as of now. But it was in that dream that I spoke to you about a deal. I told you that your bloodlust was not meant for a world simply held by the rules of peace and prosperity, and was better suited to a world that was in a constant state of war and advancement."

The creature moved away from the person and moved its hand outwards, its palm facing the sky as the dark sludge that made its palm moved upwards and began to create something. Slowly a black call of sludge along with two smaller balls of sludge formed. The two small sludges began to circle around the bigger sludge as it slowly moved in a circle. At a glance you would think this was a simple ball, but when you looked closer you could see outlines on its surface. Movement of small objects that seem to follow the flow of the spin the ball was making.

"A planet" the person said as his gaze locked onto the ball, no, onto the world that was held in the hand of the creature.

"Beautiful isn't it" the creature said as it stared at the planet and its two moons, "it was a world I had seen long ago. The inhabitants of this world created a mighty civilization, they were at peace and were so advanced that I believed that nothing could stop them. But when I came to see how well they were doing... they were gone. They didn't leave the planet nor did they even attempt such a thing. They were killed and wiped off the face of the world by a threat that they had seen. Whatever the threat was, I don't know. All that I know is that the great and mighty civilization left fragments of their people around the world, each creating kingdoms of their own until only four mighty and grand kingdoms stand. Sadly, these kingdoms had long forgotten about their origins."

The creature had a somber look on its face as it stared at the planet, but the face quickly changed into a sadistic smile as it laughed, "but when those fools discovered remnants of the old civilization and saw how much their kingdom could benefit from the lost technology, they quickly started a race. A race to discover and recover everything left behind by the old civilization. To reclaim tools and techniques that could help their kingdom, as well as weapons and machinery that can destroy or deter the other kingdoms."

The creature closed its grasp as the world sank back into its palm. The person then looked at the creature, their face now showing an emotion that you would see on a child.

Excitement.

"The young and living you, upon hearing this, was excited about it. In this world you were able to reveal your true face and not hide behind your mask like you had to do. You of course immediately accepted it, but then quickly disagreed, saying something about finishing your life in that world first. I respected your wishes and gave you an option to decline my offer or to come to visit me again as a guest once your life had ended. Of course you could only visit me if you were not satisfied with your old life" the creature moved its gaze to the person's eye "and seeing how you're standing before me answers your question, doesn't it?"

The person smiled as he just said "it does, so when can I go."

The creature smiled before coughing into its hand, "before I send you, let me give you a recap of the world's changes. In the modern day, these kingdoms are tilting over the line of peace and war. They are already sending members of their people to secretly participate in the secret war they have going, but as of recently these kingdoms have begun to become bold. Leading raids on the towns and doing assassination on prominent figures. And as of recently, they discovered the existence of creatures that lived in the old era of the old civilization called The Five Beasts."

"The Five Beasts," the person said curiously.

"The Five Beasts were creatures that lived side by side with the old civilization and aided them whenever they were in need of help. Of course when I had looked back to see the world the second time, these beasts were asleep. But as of recently have woken up and begun their duty of keeping the world balance" the creature could see the concern on the person's face, "you don't have to worry about those beasts since they don't interact with the inhabitants of the world anymore and try to keep their existence hidden from those with greedy eyes. All you need to know are their Names and Titles."

"Edra, The Sovereign of the Skies"

"Nekranos, The Sovereign of the Underground."

"Merit, The Sovereign of the Sea."

"Amity, The Sovereign of the Land."

"And finally, Floe, The Sovereign of the Stars."

"Out of the five, the one I must warn you about is Amity, for out of the five, Amity is the most powerful and most mysterious of the five. This creature can wield Prana as if it was just using paper and pencil. Of course, Amity doesn't leave its territory just like the other five and just roams its land making sure everything is in check, so you don't have to worry about it."

The person nodded and opened their mouth, "you talked about something called "Prana," what is that?"

The creature smiled at the person for a bit before explaining, "Prana is the source of life given to all that live in this world. They can use it to create techniques that can manipulate the elements of the natural surroundings or use to boost their bodies limit. But in a simple explanation, they are the person's Will given physical form."

"What do you mean "Will given physical form"" the person asked, confused.

"Well, from being used to create techniques or boosting their body. If a person pushes their body to its utmost limit, they could fully awaken their Prana and awaken the ability hidden inside their Prana. These abilities can vary from things, such as giving the person the ability to teleport or giving the person the ability to transform matter that they touch into anything they want. Of course, it all depends on the person's WILL. So the ability will vary and will not always be the exact same as others around them. Oh, but don't worry about everyone in the world awakening their Prana's ability, since it can only be awakened when a person's body has been pushed to its utmost limit, this limit being death. Or at least close to death."

The creature appeared behind the person and gently smacked their back, "but since I will be the one who will be sending you to that world you won't have to worry about experiencing such things since you will slowly awaken your Prana as you live in that world. I will say probably a couple months is the minimum amount of time that it will take for your ability to awaken" the creature said as it continued to smack the person's back, "so just try to live until then, any questions?"

The person stood there and thought for a bit "do you know how I will be brought to the world?"

"Most likely reborn inside of a dead body or something along the lines of that" the creature said, shrugging its shoulder.

"Uh huh, what about kingdom, you said there were kingdoms in that world right? So do you know which one?"

"Nope, it's completely random, the reason is so you don't gain the gaze of the Five Beasts" the creature said, "Any more questions?"

"Yes, do you-" the person didn't finish their sentence as the creature quickly covered their mouth and interrupted them.

"No? That's good then, now off you go" the creature said as it snapped its finger. Soon black sludge came out of the floor where the person stood and began to swallow the person's body. The person was shocked, but quickly calmed down as they quickly realized the sludge wasn't harming it.

"Now remember," the creature smiled one last time as it waved at the person, "don't hide behind your mask, don't hold back your bloodlust, and most of all. Have Fun!"