My Kitsune System-Chapter 43: The murals.

With a loud thud, Dan landed on a cold, hard floor. Opening his eyes, Dan noticed he was in a kind of a hall. It was kind of bright compared to the other rooms he had seen and been in the fortress.

The room was empty, too. It had no guards or doors or windows, either. Dan couldn’t find out from where he had passed through to get there.

But that wasn’t the most eerie thing. The shadows shivered within the room, and they wanted to run away.

The hairs on Dan’s body rose.

What is causing them to be so frightened?

But no matter how Dan searched he could still find nothing within the room that looked amiss.

Still holding onto Soul Reaper, Dan decided to check the room thoroughly. From vintage armors to paintings. Dan saw a lot of artistic works displayed within the room.

The ones that caught his attention, though were the murals that were on the walls.

They were the clear depiction of a story being told. It surrounded the whole walls within the room, starting from the ceiling.

The story started with a dark, lightless void. That spun through time, it carried with it chaos and destruction. At that time, there was nothing and no one. And from the chaos of the cosmos came an eruption that shook the entire void.

The void was then split into various fragments that splattered across the cosmos. Among these splattered fragments were two that flew far away from the rest. Intertwined together, they held on to each other as they flew across the cosmos.

Is this a love story? Dan found himself asking.

The next mural then showed how the two fragments turned into two beings. One being male and the other female. Were both alone in the world. Having transverse great distance of the world together. They decided to have children.

So, it is a love story then

They watched as their children grew. And then one day, they decided to leave. They left their children never to be seen. Their children were filled with grief and misunderstanding, and they decided to go their separate ways. But only the third child of their union stayed behind, hoping that one day the family would get back together.

Dan now saw the third child depicted to being alone in the world. He then moved to the next part of the mural.

For years, it waited for them but the family continued growing apart. Accepting the inevitable, it decided to settle there. And from there, it created a family from itself using pieces of itself.

With its blood and flesh it was able to make a generation after itself.

After having done that, it finally laid to rest there never to have awaken again. Its children, on the other hand, roamed the earth, bringing about destruction and doom.

Spilling blood and causing anguish wherever they go and then the murals ended.

"Wow" was all Dan could say as he was done reading the murals.

"Who are the two first beings that came from the chaos?"

"Who is the third child?"

"What made the whole family separate?"

"Is this its tomb? Did it drag me through the shadows?"

Dan had some many questions but had no one to answer them.

Just as he thought his nightmare was over..

Dan felt a pull to the third child’s mural drawing. It was as if it called out to him. Urging him to come closer. He could subtly hear it call his name.

Softly, it spoke Dan’s name in an alluring way that Dan couldn’t just say no. Not even because the voice was soothing, no, far from it. But because Dan was compelled to obey.

Everything within him wanted bent a knee to the voice that called out to him. Slowly, Dan took some steps forward, heading towards the mural. Dan then reached out to touch the mural. As his hands touched the cold ancient wall... A cold, dark alien feeling flowed into him.

And then....

It pulled Dan into a vision.

It pulled him across time... Days passed, and they turned to weeks. Weeks matured into years. Years into decades. Decades into centuries. And it kept going, and it turned to eons.

And Dan was alone in a desert. The sands just spread and go on forever and ever, never ending.

As he stood within the desert, he was with a woman who held him in her arms till she decided to drop him and let him go.

He watched her go, tears began streaming down his face as he ran after her. But his tiny legs were never able to catch up.

He turned back to call out to his siblings to help stop her....

But they had started going away, too. Falling into the sands, he sat there.

Tears continued to roll down his face. His heart ached; with every beat, it performed was like a blade was stuck within.

Dan felt like opening up his rib cage, ripping out his heart and throwing it away. And then maybe, just maybe, it will get better.

Staying in the same spot for years. His eternal tears finally dried up. His heart was numbed and it became cold to any emotions. This brought with it an understanding that everything that has a beginning also, in turn, has an end.

Knowing this, it tried moving forward, but it could not, and so instead it stayed there, never moving again.

Dan was now finally able to break from the hypnosis. His face was streaming with tears.

He was panting as he held his chest, as his heart roared with pain, echoed with longing and reaching out to something it desired.

Dan’s hands also shook.

What is all these? but this aren’t even my emotions? Why doesn’t it just listen to me and stop hurting?

And then a voice spoke. The voice was an ancient one. One that carried authority with it.

"So, tell me, young one, what do you think?"

Dan turned to see a being clothed in Darkness.