บท 1: Paradox of Power
The ceiling above him was a fractured canvas of neglect, its jagged lines spidering outward as though nature itself had taken its time to carve them there. Tiny flakes of paint occasionally broke free, invisible as they drifted down to rest on his unmoving form. Emperal's silver eyes traced the patterns again, the same way he had yesterday, and the day before that. The ceiling, cracked and crumbling, was constant—one of the few things in his life that didn't change. And yet, even it seemed to mock him.
But it wasn't the ceiling that truly held him captive. Nor the cold, unyielding frame of his bed. His real prison was something far worse: the power inside him.
From the moment he was born, Emperal had been cursed. His body was a shell, limp and unresponsive as though the strings that should have animated him had been cruelly severed. But inside—buried deep in the core of his being—was something extraordinary. A force that pulsed like a second heartbeat, vast and uncontainable. It could bend reality, command objects with precision that bordered on divine. Yet, for all its power, it couldn't lift him. It couldn't free him.
The faint breeze drifting through his open window was a bittersweet mercy, cool against his still skin. It carried with it the hum of a bustling world outside—laughter, voices, the rumble of distant engines. Life, vibrant and chaotic, always just out of reach.
His room mirrored his existence. It was sparse and joyless. A simple bed, a shelf weighed down by books with faded spines, a cluttered desk buried under curling papers. The only sound came from the steady beeping of the heart monitor beside him. The books were his companions—not chosen out of love, but necessity. Physics, philosophy, metaphysics—he devoured them all. If his body couldn't move, his mind would. If his world was stagnant, then he'd study the laws of reality itself, not to obey them but to imagine breaking free of them.
Today, though, even his mind felt heavy.
The door creaked open, breaking the silence. Maria, his nurse, stepped inside with her usual efficiency. Her face was calm, neutral—the kind of mask she always wore. But her eyes, as always, betrayed a flicker of pity. A silver pendant hung at her throat, catching the afternoon light. His gift to her, from last Christmas.
"Time for your injection," she said, her tone light but brisk as she approached.
"Ah," he murmured, his voice a dry monotone. "Another highlight in my endless parade of excitement."
Maria didn't laugh. She rarely did. Her hands moved smoothly, preparing the syringe with practiced ease.
"You've been quiet today," she remarked, her tone as casual as if she were commenting on the weather.
"Have I?" he replied, tilting his head slightly—an almost imperceptible movement. "I wasn't aware I'd become such a chatterbox."
She shook her head faintly, not bothering to reply. The prick of the needle in his arm barely registered anymore.
She turned to leave, but he called out, "Maria."
Pausing in the doorway, she glanced back. "Yes?"
"If there's an afterlife," he began, his voice softer now, "a place where I'm normal... I'd make you my girlfriend." Though his eyes carried a rare trace of seriousness.
Her eyes widened for a moment, a flicker of something raw passing across her face. Then she forced a smile, one of those practiced, pitying ones meant to comfort the hopeless. "Don't say things like that," she said quietly and left, closing the door behind her.
For a moment, he stared at the empty doorway. Then his gaze drifted back to the window. A young couple had caught his attention. Beneath the branches of a blooming cherry tree, the man dropped to one knee, presenting a ring that sparkled in the sunlight. The woman gasped, her joy carrying faintly through the glass as she nodded emphatically, tears of happiness streaming down her face. Something inside Emperal twisted. A sharp ache, like a vice around his heart.
The air in the room seemed to shift, heavy with his mounting frustration. The lights flickered violently, books trembling on their shelves as his power surged unchecked. Outside, the man slipped the ring onto his partner's hand. The sheer simplicity of it all—the joy, the connection—stabbed at him more deeply than he could have imagined.
"Why them?" he muttered, his voice cracking. "Why not me?"
The heart monitor beside him flatlined with a shrill whine, though it didn't matter. He let his mind wander, reaching out. A pen on the desk lifted and began to spin lazily in the air. Such a simple thing. He could move mountains, rewrite the rules of reality, yet this—the freedom he truly craved—was beyond him. The pen clattered to the desk as his focus broke.
"Enough," he whispered, silver eyes narrowing. "I've had enough."
The walls groaned as his power surged, the ceiling splitting further, cracks racing outward. Maria's muffled voice echoed from the hallway. "What's happening?!"
The building trembled violently, books falling to the floor in a chaotic crash. His years of study—quantum mechanics, parallel universes, dimensional theory—all of it crystallized in his mind. The knowledge wasn't just academic anymore; it was a key, a way out. The ceiling began to collapse, chunks of plaster and wood crashing down as light erupted around him. His physical form lay still, but his essence—his soul—tore free, surging upward.
"Goodbye, Maria," he whispered, his voice oddly calm as everything around him disintegrated. "I'll miss you."
The world shattered, folding in on itself, and for the first time in his life, Emperal moved—not his body, but something greater.
Darkness engulfed him. Endless, consuming, infinite.
Then, a light—a faint blue sphere—floated in the void, its pulse weak and erratic. Time stretched and twisted until it lost all meaning, and the sphere began to spin. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until the void tore open like a wound, revealing a vortex of blinding light. The sphere plunged through it, reality collapsing in its wake.
When Emperal awoke, the world was unfamiliar. Towering trees stretched skyward, their silvery leaves shimmering in an otherworldly glow. The ground beneath him sparkled faintly, golden and alive. Energy buzzed in the air like a living thing.
Nearby, a bloodied young man lay sprawled on the ground, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Around him, corpses littered the forest floor, their faces frozen in terror.
On a branch above, a woman watched. Her pointed ears and silver hair marked her as something otherworldly. Her gaze, cold and detached, lingered on the scene below.
"You were brave," she said softly, her voice a mix of admiration and regret. "But bravery alone is never enough."
She hesitated briefly, then disappeared into the shadows of the forest, leaving him alone beneath an alien sky, surrounded by blood and silence.
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