"Come thee, Natalak, come thee…"
An invitation to a curious traveler… a young man, the messenger from Earth unfolds his eyes…
Here— comes nothingness, comes darkness. Then as consciousness follows, Natalak marches without consideration. He looks through his surroundings wondering where he was, contemplating how he arrives. The surroundings were nothing but warm mist engulfing the far sight.
A path, a simple yet pleasing road and warm to the touch. So much so that his feet kept walking, marching towards the endless road. There were no other sounds to be heard, only his steps. As no echoes coming from his footsteps.
"What the F is this—" Natalak's mumbling halts.
A gleaming white coin laid waste on the road, reaching a step of seven revealed it was a gold coin.
Natalak halts for a second and freely taken the coin before his legs shifts again. Toying— fingers flip the coin before looking, inspecting. Disappointingly, there were no carvings it was only but a simple polished gold coin.
"Hmm… Gold."
The traveler looks one last time before tossing it to his pocket.
A few hundred steps, again he comes across another coin this time it was a copper. Different… the copper is high in purity of red, but tainted, tarnished by its look. A few rubs of his fingers, before chucking it to his pocket.
And then comes the third, two silver coins— oddly for his eyes, the silver coins are both identical no flawed difference. Grinding them together, see if the roughness of the coins can sander each other's surfaces.
"Hmm… this is a bit odd?"
Seeing no changes, Natalak adds it to his pocket.
The road seems to have no end, yet his legs are not to his command. Even he himself felt no sense of fatigue nor loss, he can't even command his flesh to stop. Though, the awareness of walking through the warm road and the fascination of the mist keeps him away from other thoughts.
His body might be in a trance, yet his mind is full of thoughts and answer to seek but would occasionally dwindled as he trudges unhurriedly. The coins he come across, the road he walks and the muddle of the mist. That until, it came from nowhere a light suddenly walks in front of him as if guiding him. Closer for a few meters, another blink and the light were now an old man with a cane. He could see the elderly man was weary— his left hand placed on his back as his back arch slightly.
The traveler's mouths slightly open, trying to grasp the situation while his mind thoughts for something. Natalak tries to reach the person but somehow, he couldn't and he wasn't able to.
"My child, it's best to give your thoughts a voice." The old man's words were soft, weary and calm to Natalak's ears.
"I ah– is this a dream?" Natalak replied, confused and minds wondering.
The elderly man chuckles, "I cannot say. Believe it or not but are you perhaps you?"
"I don't know— maybe or maybe not?"
Again, the three-legged man titters. Blink and Natalak saw the person weren't up ahead rather he was now right beside him. Then it came, the traveler's consciousness felt it. The old man was neither a mortal nor a spirit. A sense of paradox he cannot explained it, an answer that gushes his soul.
"Are you?—" Natalak couldn't utter another word, he senses it, he knows it, a comprehension he cannot explain, yet it is or maybe it wasn't.
The old man smile, "Perhaps… I am that I am or so to some. But you can call me as you like I am but one of many."
"I see, then perhaps an old man would suffice."
"I think so too." The Creator respond fondly.
After that, trails silence— Natalak's questions were many, though the presence of the one that walks besides him overwhelms his mind and tongue to utter. From that, his queries were diluted.
"You seem to be lost, my son." The creator spoke.
"Yeah, I think so, possibly bored." Natalak stares up ahead.
"Then if serves want to walk the road with me even for just a small time?" The old man follows.
"Sure, what will it be?" Natalak replied without hesitation or second thoughts.
Natalak blinks and his walking stops, the old man now in front of him facing him. And this time, the creator's presence voids him to the core. It is overwhelming yet somehow, he felt the deep sense without being devoured.
The traveler moves his sight and to see he was holding a peculiar bag, a leather bag. Before Natalak could look back at the old man the world around him begins to shift. He couldn't utter, for he begins to crumble like ashen flakes.
"Travel well my child, Travel well…" The creator's voice whisper yet it echoes to his ears.
Natalak couldn't utter a word even if he tries to, and as soon as he begins to be swept away, there he understood what the creator task him to do.
Out of consciousness, Natalak came to a road…
Come, welcome to Vashkeil.