Leif finally woke up, but he didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to find out where he was or what had happened after he jumped into the black pool. He was mentally exhausted from facing one disaster after another. Since he hadn't drowned, it could only mean that someone had saved him. To his surprise, he felt comfortable. He could tell he was lying on a bed; his head sank into a soft pillow, and he was covered by a fluffy bedsheet.
Knowing he was being treated well, he finally decided to open his eyes to look around and thank his savior only to find that he was surrounded by white.
Only white. He couldn't even describe his surroundings because there was nothing there; he couldn't even tell the floor apart from the walls. The only things in existence were the bed and himself. He sat up, and a strange thought appeared in his mind. What if this was the curse Medea had cast upon him? It wasn't just about imprisonment; it was about being kept "safe"... for a hundred years.
"Are you kidding me?" Desperate, he clutched his head, covering his face with his hands. Too much had happened in such a short span of time; he was sure he was about to lose his sanity.
"Hello, little child." After a moment, a new voice broke the silence freaking him out, he looked around, but there was no one there.
"Who are you?" He screamed. He started to run in one direction, expecting to hit a wall, but he never found one.
"Don't be afraid, little child." the soothing female voice said. "I am here to grant you your last wish."
"Last wish?" He was confused. He had never had a wish granted before, yet this voice told him this was his last one? "Then free me." He replied anyway, glancing around frantically. The voice seemed to come from every direction at once, as if she were everywhere.
"I'm sorry, my child. I can't grant you that, as you died the moment you touched the black matter. What I can do is offer a final farewell and place you in an endless dream, one where you live in the most favorite moment of your life... But from what I can see, you have had a rather pitiful life." The voice softened and fell silent, waiting for Leif to respond.
"I died?" Leif was about to panic, but a sudden, sparkling white cloud surrounded him. It was so soothing that his emotions were wiped clean, leaving him standing firm and numb in the white void.
After a moment, he spoke. "It wasn't my intention to jump into that pool." He tried to explain what had happened, but the voice interrupted him.
"I know everything, Leif. What controlled you was Fate himself. You needed to jump because you needed to die."
"WHAT? But why?" How could he be meant to die like that? Hadn't he been cursed to be kept safe?
"And this is the safest place in the entire universe." The voice replied to his thoughts, leaving Leif at a loss for words. He didn't understand anymore; he was dead, yet he was "safe"? And she claimed he was fated to die?
"No, my little child. Let me rephrase my words: your fate was to be here, to meet me so that I may grant you a wish."
Silence stretched for a long time. Leif's mind was racing, but he didn't want to speak to a being he couldn't understand. He returned to the white bed and fell face-first into the pillow. Whenever he was on the verge of going insane, the white cloud would surround him, soothing his emotions again and again. It robbed him of the ability to relieve his stress by crying or shouting.
There was nothing to do, and he never felt the urge to eat or sleep. He simply sat or lay on the bed, remembering every moment of his life. He didn't know where Medea was, and the female voice remained silent, giving him space to think.
Finally, after a long time spent clearing his mind, he spoke.
"I don't really have a wish. I have never seen the world; I don't know anything... I've never seen the good side of people, or even known the scent of a flower, or what a fish is. To tell you the truth, I don't even know if freedom is what I want... I feel like I never existed." He grew more frustrated the more he thought about how miserable his life had been.
"Then would you like to know everything?" Leif felt a gentle hand caressing his head, though no one stood before him.
"I... don't know?" He paused. "How much is 'everything'?" He hadn't meant he wanted to be omniscient; he just wanted to feel like a normal person.
"You see, there are seven planets around our star, and six of them are habitable. What you define as 'normal' is too complicated to be described."
Suddenly, the white void was replaced by a replication of their solar system. Leif was amazed; he had heard of the stars, but he could never have imagined this. To his young mind, the scale of planets and stars was nearly inconceivable.
"Vexis is the fifth planet from the star. That is your home, the darkness itself, yet the safest place."
Leif nodded, even if he didn't fully understand her meaning. "And what about this one?" He pointed at the planet farthest from the sun. It was pitch black and wasn't round like the others; it looked more like a black sun.
"That is me. I am Chronosys, and that is where you are right now."
"You're... a planet?" Leif asked, his voice small. That explained why he couldn't see her.
The female voice laughed at his question, and in the blink of an eye, a plush couch appeared directly behind the boy. "Sit down. I will show you everything you do not know."
Leif followed the command. Before him, images began to flicker into existence. He saw humans in far-off lands; he saw strange people with fur covering their bodies, others with powerful tails instead of legs, some with the wings of birds, and others who were breathtakingly beautiful but possessed long, pointed ears. There were countless species and a vast array of powers, not just witchcraft, but people who could command the earth and move the very water of the seas.
Chronosys showed him the full arc of lives: he watched people from the moment of their first breath to the second they died. He witnessed episodes of war and the complex reasons why they were fought. He saw the beauty of sacrifice and the warmth of people caring for one another. But he was also shown the darkness, betrayals and cold-blooded slaughter. When the female voice told him she would show him "everything" she truly meant it: from the first spark of creation to the present moment.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but eventually, he grew bored of simply watching; he was itching to write stories of his own. Throughout the long time he spent watching those movie-like scenes, he had learned how to read and write. Perhaps it was a gift from Chronosys, but whatever he learned, he could no longer forget.
"I would like to write stories." He whispered.
The moment he spoke, a stack of paper appeared on a table, and a pen with a golden feather rested atop the white sheets. He sat in the chair and picked up the pen; it was his first time holding one, and his hands shook with nerves.
A long time ago, there was a dragon who liked to sleep—
"To inform you, eighty years have passed since you arrived here."
Leif halted instantly and stared into the white void. "Seriously?" He furrowed his eyebrows. How had eighty years passed so quickly? He hadn't even noticed. Had he really spent nearly a century lost in those visions?
He shook his head, wanting to continue writing, but after that first sentence, the inspiration vanished. He crumbled the paper and threw it behind him. Luckily, the stories that followed came more smoothly. The feeling of creating his own characters was exhilarating.
In the visions, he had seen everything: movies, books, dramas, and the comedies people wrote to pass the time. Every time he saw them, he had felt that itch to create.
He wrote and wrote tales of brave heroes and stories where the villains were the protagonists. He was unaware that the entire time he worked, his eyes glowed with a steady, golden light. Once he took up that pen, he never stopped. Sometimes he couldn't finish a story and set it aside, but whenever he finished or abandoned a draft, Chronosys would take it and store it on a shelf.
As the years bled into one another, the white void was slowly covered by towering bookshelves, all filled with the fruits of his imagination.
Only when he was finally lost for words did he stop writing. He gently placed the pen beside the unfinished story, which instantly vanished and looked up. He grinned into the void, a devilish glint in his eyes as if he had uncovered a dark secret.
"How many years have I been writing?" He asked, walking toward the towering shelves behind him.
Chronosys, who had watched his every move, sensed the change in him. There was a pause, perhaps one of anticipation before her voice rang out, sounding happier than ever. "Forty years, my dear child."
"Mmh." He hummed, his own voice filled with strange, dark satisfaction.
"You have found the way out of this place, haven't you?" the female voice asked.
"Yes." Leif replied. He traced his fingers along the spines of the books as he walked, observing his life's work. He knew exactly what he was now. He knew what had to be done. His hand stopped on the title of an unfinished book he had started long ago.
The Lost Boy. He pulled the book from the shelf and began flipping through the pages.
"Can I ask you something? I drank Medea's blood, so I have her power... but why didn't she know what it was truly capable of?"
"She rejected her own existence." Chronosys answered. "And so, her power rejected her in turn. She could only perform small tricks, never reaching her full potential. She was consumed by rage and blinded to the truth."
Leif caressed the necklace on his chest where Medea's soul lay dormant. He had discovered that to escape the Prince's clutches, she had chosen to abandon her physical form. She believed the Demon Prince wanted to consume her to gain her immense power; knowing she couldn't defeat the strongest being in existence, she took a desperate risk. By making Leif drink her blood, she had transferred that power to him. In the wrong hands, it was a force that could destroy worlds.
Through his writing, Leif had also uncovered a specific, dark history. He had seen the Great War where humans hunted the Dragons; the first beings created by Chronosys. They had feasted on their flesh to steal the energy of the dragons, though they could never steal their magic, not like the dragon's true vassals, who could share in their masters' absolute power.
After killing the vassals out of greed, the humans met the same result: they only gained spiritual energy, bolstering their own strength rather than obtaining the true magic of the dragons.
"I only drank her blood." Leif mused "So how can I have this power if the soul is what contains it?"
"You carry a very special blood." Chronosys replied. "A person with such blood is born only once every million years."
Hearing her reply, Leif was more convinced than ever. "I want to kill myself." It was the only way to escape. He had realized that everything Chronosys said at the very beginning was a lie. She trapped souls within her using false happiness, forcing them to relive their best moments so she could slowly consume them and regain her strength, for she was weak right now. The only escape was to "kill" one's current state, cutting the soul away from her grasp.
"I have a gift for you." Leif felt a hand on his shoulder, turning him away from the shelves. In front of him stood a body with his own face.
Leif stared in silence.
"It is true that the only way to escape was to kill yourself." The goddess said "But your original body decayed many years ago. You may have drunk the blood of a half-dragon, but your body was still that of a fragile human. One hundred and twenty years is far beyond a human's lifespan. So, I will gift you a new body, one far healthier, with Medea's blood completely integrated into your veins. And this ring, forged from black matter, will allow me to stay by your side and help you."
Leif chuckled softly. Chronosys wasn't a planet at all; she was a primordial being, a goddess. Of course she knew everything. The moment he had consumed Medea's blood, the goddess had taken control of his body and forced him to jump into the black pool. She had captured him to use him as her instrument of revenge. She was a goddess who should have been impartial, but she could not forgive the slaughter of her children. The dragons were her own creation, born of her own flesh and blood, and she wanted her vengeance.
From the palm of his hand, a golden knife shimmered into existence. He sneered, remembering that in most of the stories he had written over the last few decades, death had been the key.
"Death is not something to be scared of." Chronosys reminded him, her voice a soothing echo.
"It isn't scary anymore..." Leif whispered. "It's just painful."
"The greater the power, the harder it is to control." the goddess countered.
"Yeah, right." Leif rolled his eyes and pointed the golden dagger at his chest. He slowly, smoothly sank the blade into his skin. He slumped to the floor, his body curling in agony as tears began to stream down his face. He found himself thinking of Medea, wondering if she had been forced to endure this same blinding pain.
He coughed blood, his mouth staining red, and laughed bitterly at what lay ahead. There was no turning back now.