Chapter 1: Prologue

"Nature has no principles; she makes no distinction between good and evil."

(Part 1)

Year: UNKNOWN

They say nature is cruel and heartless, favouring nothing but pure power through evolution. I suppose this is why we were helpless against them. Humanoids cloaked in the dark, devouring the power of the Void. They waged war across the cosmos, destroying every form of life in their path until their wrath brought them here, on Gaia [Earth]. They used our home as a battlefield for intergalactic war, ignoring the small, useless life that had once lived happily on it. And so, above the ashy puddles of burnt homes and grass, above the very clouds we once saw as unreachable, they waged their wars like gods.

As a thousand years passed, the remaining population of Gaia came to call these beings void walkers. They were walking anomalies with no skin to touch, no eyes to see, and yet somehow, we could see their purple hue as they glided above the dark grey clouds. Within this time, a small percentage of humanity had evolved due to the overbearing collection of void energy that had bathed the entire planet. The Emphetripia Heart, a gland located beneath the main heart, existed solely to create a particle we would eventually name V¹. Through this unwilling evolution, humanity gained access to the strange powers of the Void. Even a newborn child could rival adults of previous generations in pure strength. A completely unfathomable evolution. The breakthrough we needed to push back, to reclaim our home from the intruders. Yet it did not help us.

We were creatures of nature, bound by our flesh, bones, and humanity. On the other hand, they were intangible spirits so powerful that they could destroy entire mountains. We had no options left, no way to beat them, nothing but the will to die harder than the last. And in the end, that was enough.

“You hear that?” a boy whispered.

“Yeah… silence, for a change,” his sister replied.

The boy sat up, still cradled in his sister's arms. “I can't hear any screaming or any loud explosions.” He coughed as he spoke, covered in heaps of dried dirt. He continued:

“We grew up in this war, big sis. I don't even remember our life outside these stupid trenches.” He coughed again as his dry lips cracked.

“Imagine, though, big sis. Imagine losing to a couple of kids, huh?” A small smile escaped his bloodied lips. It was an attempt to lighten the mood and mask the actions his sister was about to take.

She looked up towards the oppressive flower-shaped structure in the clouds. Its sharp edges spun, emitting several waves of purple energy towards space. She lowered her gaze, resting her face against her little brother's. She took a deep breath before she whispered into his ear, “It won't stop them forever, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

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She placed his broken, fragile body on the ground, next to the heaps of soldiers beside them. Then, she stood and took another glance at the spinning flower above. A breath between screams. If it means everyone back home gets to survive, then our deaths will be worth something.

There was no time to waste. She had an extremely small window to attack the ground base that powered the flower. So, she ran, leaping across heaps of dead soldiers and abandoned buildings. There! A small building sat in the middle of the battlefield, once guarded by the enemy. Although less powerful than the void walkers, their duty was to protect the power rig. This was the war humanity waged on a couple of dozen aliens. It took 2 billion of us to defeat 30 of them, but now, their power station is exposed. She reached for a round object in her pocket, a small collection of sand-like material wrapped in a bundle of crimson cloth. A crimson bomb. All I have to do is reach them! And so she continued to leap across the battlefield until she reached a black mark on the ground.

The line of no return.

A line placed by the alien species before the war, a warning to all who dared pass. The girl looked up, trying to find the automated turrets that would activate if she crossed.

“Fuck, they're so far! No, I could dodge them. But they are so far away!” Her thoughts spiralled as she tried to figure out a safe strategy. If she crossed the line, she would have to dodge automatic fire from a mile away. If she threw the bomb from here, it would never reach the target.

What do I do? I never thought this far ahead. Then it snapped. A memory hit her like a truck. What was that? Was that me? For a brief moment, she had seen a memory of someone she did not know, in a war she did not remember.

“Mother?”

Suddenly, a sharp and prickly feeling rushed through her entire body, and she dropped to her knees from the sudden pain. What is this?! Now, her hands felt cold and heavy, as though she had just stepped into an ice bath. She glanced up, expecting the world around her to have changed, for snow to have magically appeared before her. But there was nothing. The heaps of bodies still lay behind her, and the ashy and burnt ground remained the same. She glanced up instinctively, and the world froze. The once spinning flower had seemingly paused, halted like a picture hung on a wall. That, however, was not the strangest part. Above the frozen petals was a huge stream of clear, purple energy that stretched to the sky, and above that was a huge, visible, oval hole. Is that how they came here? She parted her lips, attempting to scream and release her built-up confusion, yet she could not hear a thing. She tried to speak several times, yet her voice remained silent.

Why can't I hear myself?! Before she could muster another thought, the sound of her previous screams suddenly appeared, tearing their way into her ears that had adjusted to the silence.

“AAAAAAARRRRRGGGG”

The loud and unexpected screech had almost deafened her, but it had become painfully obvious now. The reason her hands felt cold and prickly, the reason the massive flower-like structure above had stopped spinning, the reason her voice had taken so long to reach her ears. So, she stood up and faced the mile-long distance between her and the power station. I’m not sure if this will work. She glanced back at her little brother as he lay perfectly still on the mud. But I have no reason to hold back! She lowered her frame and leaned forward before she pushed her feet off the ground. It’s only a mile. All I have to do is avoid the turrets. However, before she could fully blink, she appeared right in front of the power station.

“Huh? When did I…”

BOOM

A colossal pillar of crimson fire swallowed the entire battlefield, devouring heaven and hell alike. It was followed by the implosion of the large flower-like structure in the sky, severing the void walkers’ access to Earth. Somehow, against every law of nature and sense, humanity had survived.

For now.