Today was supposed to be just another day.
Wake up, dress in my one decent shirt, head to yet another interview. Smile. Pretend I'm not drowning in anxiety.
And yet, like every time before…
"We're sorry, but we're looking for candidates with a more… consistent academic background."
Polite words. Fake smiles. The kind that stab sharper than an outright insult.
All because of that damn gap in my records — one year of my life where everything fell apart, and the world decided to never let me forget it.
The office door closed behind me. The city's noise rushed back in — honking cars, chatter, street vendors calling out their prices — but I couldn't hear any of it. My feet just moved on their own. No destination. No plan.
The sky was overcast. My mood, worse.
I didn't notice how far I'd walked until the clean streets gave way to the older part of town — narrow lanes lined with crooked stalls and vendors shouting over each other.
One of them caught my eye. Not because of the display but because of a single object sitting at the edge of the table.
A black bead like one of those you keep as good luck charm for luck which I needed very much for getting a job in this economy due to my personal problems.
Small enough to roll across my palm. Pitch black but I felt a kind of attraction to me . lately I'm having these weird dreams of of my soul leaving my body and travelling to a pure void space may be due to stress i thought and ignored them.
"How much?" I asked without thinking.
The vendor, an old man with kind eyes, smiled faintly.l
"For you? The price is what ever you want I'm closing my shop, I'm too old now and and my son just got promoted to being a manager so I can quit working ." He said it seems he's proud of his son.
I checked my wallet, I realized the coins and crumpled notes inside were all I had left from months of scraping.
Ashamed of myself I paid all my money except for returning charges to my room.
The bead was cool against my skin, heavier than it looked. For a moment, I hought I was holding a black pearl.
The bead was cold.i felt wierd because of the sensation of my touch because the beads supposed to be made from a wood from it's texture .
Not the kind of cold that bit the skin, but the kind that seeped into the marrow. I bought it not because of superstition but deep attraction.
I paid for it . The old man packaged it into a small box and gave it to me. I left for my room after arriving i placed the box near my bed and left for a shower since I'm feeling exhausted.
After the shower i changed into a comfortable dress and slept peacefully disregarding even eating due to exhaustion.
I began to dream of my very existence like I was introducing myself to someone.my name was not special yet special for me at the same time due to the person who named me my grandmother who I loved dearly.
my name means literally the ''universe" in My mother tongue.quite the odd name if I say so myself. I mean who names your grandson after a universe.
I was a atheist. atleast,i used to be but due to some events in my life.I came to become quite the believer of supernatural and superstitions.
which is why I bought the bead.
I had no one to love in my life due to some unfortunate events in my life.
I was not an introvert yet an extrovert at the same time.I was a Total contradiction myself in my nature.
Like I said I do things for fun without fear of consequences which cost me a lot .i learnt a lot from them.
If I have to describe my personality I'm like a certain pink haired lady (fujiwara) in kaguya sama : love is war. total chaos. I like to meddle in other's life even though I know it's wrong to do so . it's just so much fun[(ﾉ>◡<)ﾉ].
Any way coming back to my dream I feel like I'm in a void composed of colours i can't seem to describe. In center of which existed a core which seems intangible at tangible to me after reaching out to it I felt like something inside me broke.
I felt an energy transforming my very existence. I woke up at a warning my very sense of existence seem to warn.
"Ofofof" talking a deep breath after walking from what seems like mixture of a dream and nightmare.i calmed myself but something is telling me that I had no time and I have to prepare for something which I have no idea what it is.
I hurriedly reached out to the box and opened it and took it in my hand which was placed near my bed.
I don't know what made made to do so but it seems almost like an instinct to me at that time.
The moment my fingers closed around the bead, something shifted.
A chime rang in my soul.
[Extracting the essence of "Core of the primordial World Tree(dying)"]
And then—power poured in. Not like fire or lightning. More like… existence itself.i never felt it in my wholelife.My eyes… could see threads connecting everything.
The bead shattered into motes of light, flowing into me. The ground split, the air folded in on itself, and an invisible force dragged me forward almost like a small blackhole.I wasn't falling—no, I was being rewoven somewhere else or someone who seems to reject me due to not being able to support my existence in that universe.
How do I know this the point is,i don't know, I can't seem to explain how .it's almost like a subconscious knowledge present in my head which I know but can't seem to explain it's source.
Light and shadow collided, swallowing me all for good and leaving no traces of my existence.
This… is the beginning.