Capítulo 1: The First Step Of Many
Have you ever wished for the world to be more magical or fantastical? I have since I was little, but no matter how much I wished or believed, nothing ever changed. When I was looking for whatever I could find, be it books, haunted houses, or urban legends, everything was fake or just some marketing ploy to draw in customers. But one day, something strange happened, and I thought it was a regular occurrence.
My great-grandmother visited me. She was 95, yet she was as spray as a 60-year-old. She was of Asian descent. But she never said where we were from, and when I asked my mom or grandmam, neither knew where she came from either. They tried to do a D.N.A. test, but it only said they came from General overall Asian descent, like a broad overall Asia. It stumped the doctors who performed the test. They even ran the test multiple times for free to see if they could get a different result if each one came back the same.
My gran-gran was a happy-go-lucky type of person. She liked to do things on a whim. So her showing up out of the blue wasn't strange, just surprising. She would typically come to check up on me at least once a year and then twice a year once I reached college. So I knew her well but only a little. But for some reason, I was her favorite, something my family never let me forget.
Now, to give a general vibe. My grandmother is entirely Asian. My mother is half Asian, and I'm about a quarter Asian, looking more like a white guy, but my great-grandmother always seems to care more about my well-being than anyone else in the family, and no one can figure out why, not even me.
But I didn't care to find out. It's just nice knowing someone cared about me so much, so her visit made me really happy, but it wasn't a happy visit. She came to tell me she was going to die this year, and this was her last visit. I was shelled, shocked; I could see the absolute truth in her eyes. She knew she was going to die. I asked her if she was sick, and she said no, it was just her time.
I asked if there was anything I could do to help live longer. She gave me a sweet smile and a pat on my head and said there was nothing that could save her. I cried, knowing I was helpless to help her, and held her tight.
She stayed for a week, and I spent the whole time with her, knowing this would be my last time with her. But the week slips by, and it is her time to leave. Before she left, she handed me a key. She said it went to her home. But in the 25 years I have known her, I have never been there. I asked where her house was. She said I would know after she was gone and left just like that.
I was told a few months later that she had passed away. She had spent the last few weeks of her life with her children. The whole family gathered from all her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren at the funeral. Honestly, I never realized how big our family was, but she connected us all. I was sad to see her go.
But after she was laid to rest, her eldest son gathered everyone together to read her will. Almost everything was left to her children—her three sons and five daughters—and she gave a few things here and there to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What surprised the whole family was that all I received was a letter from her. I think most people thought I would get a majority of everything based on how much she paid attention to me.
But as I read the letter, it was not only a farewell letter but also a map—a really old map. I'm not trying to be rude, but it looked as old as my grandmother, who was close to 100 years old. But I was confused. I was sure her eldest son got all of her properties, but why did I have a key to her house and a map to it? But I wasn't told I was receiving it.
I ended up going to my grand uncle and asked him if he received grand grand home as a property. He told me he did, and I asked what the address was, saying I'd never seen her house and would like to visit it sometime. He gave me the address, finding it kind. I wanted to pay my respects at her house, but as I left a funeral and went back to college, I compared the address to the map, and I could tell that the address he was given was wrong or it was not the house Gran Gran was talking about.
I ended up using an old Atlas from 100 years ago and comparing it to the map. I found the general location of where her house should've been, so I took a small break from college and went looking for it. The map being so old and using outdated maps made it very hard because roads, trees, and rivers can change in 100 years.
It took me about four days to find the general location of the house, and when I thought I had found it, all I found was a decrepit-looking shack that looked like it would fall over from the slightest breeze. I walked up to it and found that the door was locked. I tried the key on it, and to my surprise, it worked, and the door opened.
As I Walked through the door, I found a well-intact home with no lights on, but there was old furniture of Asian origin, utensils, and art. It wasn't extravagant, just plain ordinary house, but sitting in the middle of what would be the living room. Set a pedestal with a pendant on a velvet cushion and a scroll on top of it.
I grabbed the scroll and started to read. It was a letter from my grandmother. At first, I thought maybe she was writing some kind of fantasy novel. As I read, it described where she came from, how she got here, how she started our family, and why she was so spry even until her mid-90s.
She said she came from another world, a world unlike ours. It was all thanks to the pendant on the cushion. She said she tried for years to get the pendant to work again and return to the world she came from, but she eventually concluded that the pendant only works once for a person, and the destination is not the same every time, so even if she had gotten it to work again, it wouldn't have taken her back home. It would've randomly thrown her to another world.
It also stated why she was so invested in me, why she made me learn martial arts and meditation, and why she got me so interested in fantasies and myths. She says they're all true, but not in this world. She said our world is filled with Seeres, people who can see through the veil of reality and see all the mythical creatures that exist and the realms that are connected to this one. It's why our world has so many varieties of entertainment.
But she says I was like her. I contain something unique. The rest of the family has never contained. She called it Kai or Chi or internal energy. It was a special type of energy that one could cultivate, and she said this was the power that allowed her to stay so spry into her late 90s. But because this world has no world, Kai. Essentially, this world's energy that was in the air; she couldn't prolong her life anymore. But she says if I were to use the pendant, I would be transported somewhere else, and I could follow in her footsteps and develop this power.
Alas, it would be a one-way trip. She knew that since I was a little kid, I wished the world was more fantastical, magical, and fun, so she laid the choice in front of me: I could give up my boring life and my entire family and walk the lonely path of being a cultivator.
I stood and looked at the pendant for an hour, not knowing what to do. If everything she said was right and true, then everything I wished for was standing right there in front of me, and all I had to do was reach out and grab it. But nothing comes for free. I would have to give up my life, my family, my mother, and my siblings.
I reach into my pocket, pull out my phone, and call my mom. She answers, asking where I am. I tell her I'm at Gran's house. She seemed surprised. She said she hadn't seen me since she was there. I tell her I'm at her real home and get a confused 'what' from her. I told her that the letter Gran left me was a map, and before she died, she gave me a key saying it was to her real home. I told her I followed the map to her real home.
I gave her the address because she asked where it was, but I told her that Gran had left me a present here, and I didn't know if I should take it or not. She could hear the worry and sadness in my voice. She asked me what it was. I told her it's everything I've ever wished for. And Grand Grand knew that. I told her if I took this gift, I might not be able to see her anymore. I could hear the worry in her voice telling me to walk away and not to do anything dangerous. As I turned to face the pendant, my foot got caught on the carpet, and I fell forward onto the pedestal. I reached out to myself, grabbing the pendant by accident, and I was gone in a flash of light. The phone fell to the ground, and my mother called out my name in a yell.
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