Aimless Ascension

If you want to know my story, then you must first know I'm one of the very few Outworlders. No, not those angels that dawned from heaven to dictate divine decree, obviously. Not of the Celestial Radiance, either. Well, my exterior was a big giveaway.

I was just one of those poor saps that got thrust into your world when an out-of-control practitioner screwed around with higher-dimensional laws.

"What?" Both women leaned forward in alarm, not understanding what I meant by all this.

"Hush now," I told them, "don't interrupt when a storyteller is speaking."

Well, I'm hardly a storyteller, but I deserved. . . needed their silence and uninterrupted attention to carry on with this. Both women shut their mouths as I leaned back in my seat, head slightly upwards in a contemplative mood.

To know my story, we must begin from the beginning. You'll understand everything as we go deeper.

My story. . . never have I imagined I'd share this with someone. So my story started with me being thrown into prison. No, it was before that. It was when I laid my eyes on the magic of this world. But that wasn't the beginning either, and much of that time needed to be explained, too.

The farthest I can remember from the beginning was of me convulsing on the cold floor of some underground facility, complicity oblivious of what transpired. What I got myself into.

These weren't those 'school' pranks where bullies try to pick on you? Wait, do you guys know what's a 'school'?

It was kinda like a prison, but instead of staying there forever, we have to go there almost every day in the morning, and until a certain time I couldn't go out. We have teachers in place of wardens, who would try to teach us many things and ask us to do many things.

It's a terrible comparison, but you get the point.

Anyway, back to the story.

My body was completely torn, muscles split, sipping out blood all over my body, and even my bones were cranking at every slight movement. I could barely squirm and feel the few men surrounding my body, watching over me with a contemplative mood, nobody coming to help.

I squirmed louder, trying to get their attention, but all I managed from them was some squeak of displeasure.

They didn't even bat an eye on my poor condition. I learned clearly why they were like that shortly. There was blood in the air, pungent air stuffed in the closed room. They had been cooking up something terrible.

My blood ran cold.

One of the men in the back shouted, but I couldn't understand what he said, or what language it was. A few seconds later, a couple of labourers came and carried me out of the room through the unfriendly stares of those men.

I was elected to get out of the stuffy room, but outside was no better either. It was all dark or dimly lit stone corridors. The atmosphere was boiling with no fresh air to breathe. Those men carried me to a cell-like room and fed me water. They poured water on my face, totally uncaring if I drank or not.

People treat animals better than that.

But I drank the water as much as I could as a cool feeling spread to my chest, to my burning figure. I didn't know if it had relieved my pain, but I was relieved. Somewhat.

Then those men made me drink something else. It was a small vial full of blue liquid. I had a bad feeling about this the moment I laid my sight upon it. Those men's eyes were impassive as if just doing what they were told.

I tried to be as unaccommodating as I could be, but the clutches of those men were iron strong, and I'm barely alive.

One of them held me together in place, staring at me coldly. He said something and seemed to know I could not understand him, but the cruelty in his eyes sipped my blood cold.

They punched me a couple of times in the face and broke a couple of fingers until I opened my mouth for them to pour in the liquid. I was going to die, anyway. Why bother making it more painful?

Yet, deep inside, I still held a little hope to keep living on. These men were terribly strong. They wouldn't need poison or anything similar to kill me. Why even bother? Even if they had thrown me out of there, I couldn't survive more than a couple of days with the wounds I bore.

Unlike the water, they were a bit better at feeding me the blue liquid. It was icy cold to gulp down as if liquid nitrogen had been poured on my lips. My internal system burned in icy agony as my face turned red.

I squirmed on the ground, my tattered clothes barely holding on as I screamed at the top of my lungs. Excruciating pain took over me and I couldn't wait to die.

However, that was not all. Something weird happened. My torn-up skin started to heal at an alarming rate. My split muscles were barely sore after a while. Even my mangled bones got better, though I was still not in any condition to stand up.

I tried to straighten the fingers that these men broke. They healed up too, as I could feel the terribly burning indignation spread through me was healing me.

I was aghast at this completely ludicrous situation.

Not only had I woken up to a completely torn body on the verge of dying, but to a completely foreign situation where people didn't bat an eye on anyone dying.

'This would surely turn out to be a nightmare,' I thought back then, and I was right.

Even though my body healed up, I acted in pain as the two men that brought me into this room were still present.

They discussed something between them, ignoring me for a while until they put a chain on my neck and left.

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The flashback chapters will be written in 1st person as Gale was telling all this to Wang Li and Xiaolin or someone else. Also, don't expect to get all of his past in a single instalment. I'll divide them between all the volumes as the story would work on two timelines.

I planned to make the flashbacks no more than 10 - 15% of the story. That should be a healthy chunk in contrast to the current timeline.

Comment to let me know how this chapter turns out to be.

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