"What if I learned how to bring them back to life."

Elliot continued moving the raft through the day as we approached the arch of ancient bones.

There, I could see the grass and algae that had grown over it while different creatures moved across its massive surface, which had become their home.

Even using my senses, I couldn’t feel its end.

Within this majestic silence, the sound of flowing water slipped through accompanied by Ellen’s story, which strangely felt familiar to me.

As though I had heard it somewhere before.

"He sat before their graves for days and days, thinking over and over again..."

Is it truly possible to bring the dead back to life?

As someone who lived trapped within a small and primitive world, he was ignorant about such things.

He had already learned how their bodies worked, why they needed food, why they needed air, how they grew and aged before eventually collapsing.

The things that happened unseen by the eye.

He already knew all of that and more.

But what was the true source of life?

The soul?

Everyone knew that, that souls were the foundation.

But what exactly were souls?

Were they a beautiful light dwelling inside the body and filling it with life, or a bond connecting us to the law of life?

Then what happened to the dead, where did their souls go, and why did they separate from their bodies when those bodies were destroyed?

Drowning in questions he never imagined himself thinking about one day, he rose with a body consumed by grief, making him weaker than he already was.

He rose carrying a decision.

A decision that made the flame of hope inside his chest burn brighter and brighter.

To leave that small world.

Why not... nothing tied him to that place anymore anyway.

He knew it was difficult, that he was weak to do such a thing... but in the end, he did it.

Carrying part of his wife’s and son’s bodies, he left that place behind.

And departed that world filled with wars... wars caused by those who shared his appearance.

Beyond the illusion and walls his race created for themselves, he walked through other worlds.

He saw things he never imagined could exist.

Trees larger than his world, creatures capable of covering the sky beneath their wings, roads whose echoes rang through the universe itself like a hammer striking an anvil.

He met other races and spoke their languages, then learned from them before leaving once again.

Some welcomed him, some cast him out, and others tried to kill him.

He nearly died many times... but he never did.

He knew why.

Because it was his destiny, because his life had not ended like his wife’s and son’s.

Because there were laws holding this world together and preserving its order.

Death and life were laws.

Absolute ones that ruled every being in existence.

Only the First Ones did not follow them.

And that was also why they were the First Ones.

For a time, a thought lingered within him. What if this mortal creature could meet one of the First Ones... would that help him fulfill his wish?

But in the end, it was only a thought, and no mortal could meet the First Ones.

But they could meet him.

In the end, that never happened, and it never would.

Time passed while he continued his path through different worlds... with every world he learned more and more, but in the end, no matter how much he understood, he realized he had accomplished nothing yet.

That everything his small mind had comprehended was merely a drop within the ocean.

And that he still hadn’t found the answer to his question.

How could he return those whose souls had faded and vanished from this world?

Everyone he met said it was impossible, that a being like him could never break the law of death and life.

Even their kings could not.

He did not despair, instead he continued onward, driven by absolute desire, but no matter how strong his desire and determination were, even he remained part of the cycle of life and death.

His body weakened and was consumed by old age, while his unremarkable mind lost its ability to absorb knowledge.

There were methods and things capable of extending his life... or more precisely, extending his body’s lifespan.

And he had already used them, but even so, the end still came while he had achieved nothing.

His desire began fading and dying out.

Until one day, he heard a certain legend.

A legend about fire.

A fire capable of granting all wishes, no matter what they were... and something capable of breaking laws.

Or at least, that was what he heard. Whether it was truth or merely one among thousands of legends he had heard, he did not know.

But for some reason, he believed it.

There was no way to find the fire or reach it, because only the fire could reach you.

Believing in this legend he had heard, he continued his journey, and with every step, the flame inside his chest grew once more, stronger and purer than ever before.

But was it still that same original flame?... He did not know.

In the end, he found himself standing before the fire.

Tears filled his aged eyes before its greatness as he fell to his knees while staring at the flames that filled the void itself.

He clasped his hands together and raised them toward that great existence, doing what he had to do in that moment.

He wished.

He did not wish for his wife and son to return...

But wished for something else.

Knowledge capable of breaking shackles and overturning laws.

But what he received was something different.

Immortality.

His broken and decayed body reconstructed itself from the fire, becoming stronger and more resilient, while the hardest and vaguest thoughts became clear within his new mind.

His soul changed and became something else.

Then the fire disappeared and left him there, but not ignorant of what he had to do.

The fear of death that once haunted him vanished together with his old self.

He was immortal now.

Even if his body shattered and became nothing, even if his soul faded and burned away.

He would return... he would always return.

But only if the desire within him never faded.

And now, with a body capable of comprehending everything, he returned once again...

He gazed upon worlds and saw everything.

How civilizations disappeared and were forgotten within the flow of time, how kings died upon thrones that once stood above all else.

He witnessed wars that consumed existence itself, and beings he once could not even look upon.

But that still wasn’t enough to break the laws of the world.

He needed something else... he needed to test what he had learned and created.

So he began conducting experiments upon different creatures. At first, he hesitated and feared doing it.

But he convinced himself to continue, certain that in the end he would succeed and return them all to life, even better than they once were.

And then they would all be happy.

So he endured their screams and tore apart their bodies with an unextinguishable desire.

He ripped them apart over and over before restoring and binding them together again, watching how they reacted and how they died repeatedly.

At first they were dozens, then hundreds and thousands... then millions.

Eventually, he stopped counting and understood the law of life and death.

In a familiar world that once contained a race acknowledging only strength, nothing remained except scattered corpses.

It was the same world he originally came from... and the same world where he broke the laws for the first time.

He brought someone back to life after taking it away from them. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

But he was not happy with that... because it wasn’t what he truly wanted.

What he wanted was something else... something far freer.

He walked among the remains of that race and passed by the grave of his wife and son, the place where everything began, but he did not stop or cast even a single glance toward it.

Because he had already forgotten it.

Just as he forgot his own name and let it disappear within the folds of time.

He left that world behind, leaving ruin in his wake without a single backward glance.

And returned to his journey once again, this time to create a new life, one beyond the cycle of life and death and not bound by the path of fate.

Exactly like him.

But challenging the laws meant challenging the First Ones.

So meeting one of them became inevitable.

After countless years beyond measure, he finally stood before one of them.

The First One looked at him, then gave him a question.

A question that made the flame inside him tremble and shattered the mind that had comprehended the knowledge of existence.