The Days Before All of This

It was always dark for Izhari. She was born blind, so that was all she knew beyond living vicariously through other people’s memory orbs, but that was before he broke the world. He. Him. She had seen him once in another’s memory, years ago, when she was still locked away in her world of isolation. Occasionally, stray memory orbs would appear in the field of lilies where she took her daily walks. On that particular day, she was slowly making her way to the place where food was left for her without explanation or company. That was when she unknowingly touched the orb.

Though she herself did not fully understand or see the wonder of her isolation, she was alone in a small valley. Ruins of ornately decorated buildings jutted the horizon, and a single lake sat nearby, fed by runoff from the distant mountains. Golden grass covered the ground, with red and crystalline trees that bore sweet, soft fruit, all covering the glade near the simple hut where she resided. A domed barrier of unbreakable magic kept her enclosed, and a soul never visited her.

Her only guests were the orbs that drifted all around her. Nearly every day, she would accidentally come into contact with someone else’s memory, and without warning, be thrown into reliving joys, heartbreak, shock, surprise, daily life, and more.

Such instances gave her great terror in her childhood. Being suddenly ripped from her own reality and projected into someone else’s experience without planning on it was a horrifying sensation, especially when years of blindness were suddenly undone and the garishness of reality flooded one’s mind. Over time, she learned not to panic when the unplanned onslaughts appeared out of nowhere. This time was no different.

As she was pulling herself forward, with her decrepit leg dragging beside her, she was focusing on the scent of the flowers all around her. Their light, soft fragrance was one of the few things to bring her happiness in those days. In an instant, their smell was gone, and suddenly she was a random dirtied lowborn in a faraway kingdom carved in an obsidian wall. There were hordes of beings gathered in excited anticipation. Whispers of joyous curiosity snaked through the sea of sweating and soot-covered bodies. All of them were there for a specific figure. Then he appeared, and roars of cheers echoed across the square.

The figure they were cheering for was a tall, thin, bookish-looking creature. It stood well over the hume and varus that walked beside it. As the crowd’s cheers continued, the being scratched its cheekbone in debate. At that point, its face was discerning yet somberly harsh. Even back then, something about his sad gaze unsettled Izhari as she let the memory flood her senses.

Then he spoke.

“I, like all of you, wish to escape this world. Looking out at the sorrow and pain that this existence brings, I see no justification for it to continue. That is why I am here. That is why you are here!” he said in a husky voice that held hints of a damaged snarl.

The crowd roared.

“I may have been gifted with mageworks, but I am no maji!” he shouted to more roars.

“Those power-hungry fools spend their existences ripping our realities to and fro, destroying our worlds again and again. I have no desire for such things. I desire peace! I want tranquility for all of you! That is why I made the crowns!” he yelled as he held up a simple metal headpiece with a few twists of decoration and a purple stone inset within the center.

“We may not escape the power of the maji and their foolish wars, but we can suppress the pain they cause! With the crowns, I offer you escape! When the world is too hard, put this on and let it cull the sorrow from your mind. Let the pain of tragic memories be reaped from your souls like tainted grain in the harvest!” he bellowed as he held out his hands.

In that instant, thousands of crowns appeared over the crowd, and the hands of the memory holder reached up to claim theirs. Its metal was smooth and cold to the touch.

Then there was an explosion.

The obsidian wall tore itself into thousands of pieces that hurled through the crowd, ripping dozens of bodies in half as they went. Screams were instant. Then the ground warped and pulled away. Where simple stone had been only moments before, there was now a smooth, golden path where ghostly figures struggled to be formed into reality. There was a humming tear and then the gold was shattered and replaced with fields of green. All the while, the bodies of the crowd were ripped and disintegrated and molded into the realms that were being formed as the nearby maji continued their battle.

Then he stood and held out his hands. An enormous white barrier sliced through space and time, severing the world into segments, where the maji battled on one side and the crowded square was on the other. He struggled mightily and let out a scream of strain as the dueling maji’s reality warping fought against his. Bursts of power threw back his hood, revealing his braided silver hair and gaunt cheekbones. Screams of terror echoed all around them. His knees buckled as his hands rotated in a circle before slamming together into a clasped embrace. The white barrier folded on itself and ensnared the maji duel, which was then banished into nothingness.

In its wake, blank black voids remained. Where only moments ago there had been a fully occupied town square, now half of it was oblivion.

He was on his knees now, exhausted and burned from the searing waves of power. The memory holder crawled forward, calling out to him.

“Saviour! Saviour!” cried the memory holder as she and several others reached his body.

The memory holder’s hands touched his robes. They were heavy and damp, still hot from the burns. He was large, yet not bulky. He let out a pained laugh.

“Do not call me saviour, friend. My name is Mathael…” he sighed as his shaking hands placed the crown on the memory holder’s head.

His golden, sunken eyes met hers, and for a brief moment, there was a sincere look of sorrow and purpose.

“...And I will bring an end to this chaos and hurt. One way or another…”

Then the memory ended and Izhari was back among the lilies, gasping for air. Remnants of terror and joyous worship still coursed through her body, but she felt uneasy. There was no way for her to know how long ago that memory had been made, and what had become of the being named Mathael. Or, that’s what she thought for years. Until other memories appeared and she experienced stories of peoples across the realm agreeing to wear crowns as famine, hardship and wars of reality tore through the years.

Again and again, she saw him, offering salvation and escape. Across different kingdoms and landscapes, across various times. She did not understand if this was over a few years or a few centuries, yet he was always there, as were the crowns. The crowns became more and more prevalent in the memories once she noticed them.

Then one day her barrier vanished. She had no way of knowing for sure, but she sensed it fading away, as something strange and powerful awoke in her body and mind just as the ground snapped all around her. It felt as though the very world was coming unmade. Then, a dense, heavy fog formed instantly and enveloped her in moisture. Winds howled. She screamed in terror and confusion. Everything felt like it was unraveling.

Then it was over.

Then the orbs vanished. She never felt another memory besides her own.

Her food never returned. Weeks went by with Izhari waiting to have something besides fruit, but the meals never returned. She was left alone. Her entire life had been lived in isolation, but now she felt more alone and lost than ever before. Days passed, hunger set in, and she realized she had to leave. She had to find food.

Thus, she set out on her own. It only took her two days to discover that she was on some sort of floating formation, and was not connected to anything beyond her valley. Starvation began to threaten to consume her, but eventually, she found a teleportation crystal. She begged it to take her far away, to any place where she might find others.

Days later, she found a small village with numerous peoples and races, but none of them understood her questions. When she asked about the great shaking that felt like the world was being ripped apart, no one seemed to know what she was referring to. When she explained that her home had seemingly been thrown into the sky and fog had suddenly appeared to blanket the world, all of them said that was how it had always been. When she asked about the memory orbs, no one knew what she was talking about.

When she asked about the maji and the wars, their words stopped.

Someone remarked that she didn’t have a crown, and suddenly, hands were seizing her and throwing her to the ground. Her weakened body could not fight back. All she could do was scream in confusion. The new feeling in her body began to build and roar as she cried out in terror. It built and built as hands clamped around her wrists, and she felt the smooth edges of metal being forced onto her head.

“No! STOP!!!” Izhari screamed out.

There was a burst of energy that felt like it came from her very being, and the fighting stopped. Chunks of something warm, clumpy, and wet fell onto her. Then the screams came, but they were not from her.

All around her, other voices began to scream out in horror.

“What did you do?!!” screamed one.

“You murdered them! You ripped them to pieces?!!!!” screamed another.

Izhari couldn’t understand the power that burned through her body as she cried out in confusion. She tried to get up, but a swarm of unseen figures jumped onto her with feral intensity, nearly smothering her.

“Get her!”

“Seize her!”

“KILL HER!”

“Let me go! Let me go!” Izhari shrieked as fingers clamped onto her throat, sending the power into a blaze within her.

“I said LET ME GO!!!!!!!” Izhari roared, and another explosion tore through the world around her.

Then it was silent, and she was alone. Nothing was around her anymore. Scents were gone. Sound was muted. There were no more hands and no more voices. It felt as though she was floating but she could still walk. She was in The Void. She had torn her attackers out of time and space and removed them from existence. The space of her attack was now an empty sphere of darkness on the edge of the village that was now empty except for Izhari. She made her way to the nearest building and rummaged for an hour until she found food. That was nine years ago.

In the present day, Izhari’s eyes opened from her sleep. The power within her chest pulsed softly as it receded from the strain of her nightmare. Beside her, Tomita was breathing heavily as he slumbered. They were back at her hut. It had been several days since their trip to the colossus, and she had finally made up her mind. She had to continue her journey. 

The memory orbs were gone, no one beyond her remembered the truth about the way the world once was, and nearly all knowledge of prior history had been eradicated. But, at the edge of the world, at the Shores of Time, maybe the oceans of memories might hold keys to what happened. It was time to leave the hut once more, this time with Tomita, and this time, she would find Mathael and undo all of this. Today, they would leave.