by J Hawk
Inhale … Exhale
The world seemed to turn vapor like, vanishing into nothingness. All thoughts and sensations lay stilled, and silence flowered inside of Zardin as he sat meditating, unwary of what the time or place was.
Inhale … Exhale
And here, at the deepest realm of thought that lay within him, Zardin found peace like no other. Calm like nothing else radiated through his mind, as it connected to its root source.
Inhale … Exhale
Zardin had now aligned with the host of his being. He had breached his inner self, the core of his self. And he was mesmerised by the beauty blossoming within him in here. Entrancement flooded him.
Inhale … Exhale
This was where he belonged. This was where he found all truths. All answers. And they transcended reason and intelligence, struck with a clarity like nothing before … This was where he learned everything.
Inhale … Exhale
And as he lay blanketed in the cozy depths of the world within, he found the answer. He found the truth behind his existence, the reason he was here. The reason he existed. And the knowledge came with a crash of light.
Inhale … Exhale
This was his role. This was his purpose. The reason behind his existence…
Inhale … Exhale
The message gushed up within him, carrying the force of a hundred volcanoes blasting as one.
MY EXISTENCE … IS FOR THE WORLD’S DECAY. The voice exploded within him, seeming to set his insides ablaze with a fury of purpose like no other.
As the warmth and peace cloaking him slowly faded, Zardin slowly drew in his final breath, and rose from where he had been sitting in the dark cave that he called his home. The darkness here was absolute, and even to the sharpest pair of eyes, nothing could have been made out. But to Zardin, there was crystal clarity. The large hall of the multi chambered cave was completely empty, with the ground rising and falling haphazardly around him. The roughened walls and ceiling reflected the erosion the cave had been left to undergo across ages.
Zardin placed his hands behind his back and slowly strolled up and down the inside of the cave, collecting himself. Analyzing all that they had now. And all they needed to have.
He knew now what they needed to do. The path they, the Xeni, had set foot on had not come to an end, yet. They had things left to do.
Though the Nyon had acquired their crystal, their present goal … one they were working towards with a smaller vision, was unaffected by it. Of course, the crystal was their ultimate goal, but they would have time to worry about it later on. As of now they would still carry on, unhindered by the small grievance caused by them by those wretched fiends.
With a final, deep breath, he turned and strolled back to where he’d been sitting. He sank back to a seat on the floor.
Through the silence outside, and the silence inside, Zardin could hear them. The ghosts of the past … casting whispers into his head. Zardin had learnt always to keep himself free from all sorts of unnecessary distractions. But he knew that this was a certain distraction that came in handy once in a while…
The past.
Nothing could be more powerful than listening to the echoes of one’s past … And using them to build a resounding boom for the future.
The past was a driving force with a might like no other. The past was a catalyst, a propellant towards a man’s future. The past was a power untamed … unbounded.
But it equally painful.
As Zardin sat there in pitchless silence, the whispers of his old grief played at the back of his head, threatening to drag him back in time. To relive pains of eld. But the pain was good. The pain was his instrument … his fuel that drove him into the future.
Zardin drew in a deep breath, and gave himself over to the whispers at the back of his mind … And he was then flying back.
Back in time. Back in years. And he was reliving what he had already lived.
Years back