Pain. Excruciating pain.
That was all Nathan felt at the moment. He felt as if his entire body was being hammered by an invisible hammer. He wanted to scream in pain but he couldn't move his body at all. He could feel his entire body twitching but he had no control over any part of his body.
'What is going on?'
'Is someone attacking me?'
'F**k! I can't move my body at all!'
'Move! Damnit!'
Nathan was screaming internally but he couldn't even move a muscle by himself. The pain was too much for him to handle calmly. At the moment, all Nathan could think of was how to make the pain stop but he was completely helpless.
An unknown amount of time later, the pain started to recede but Nathan still couldn't move a muscle.
'F**king finally!!'
The pain disappeared but Nathan still struggled to open his eyes and move his body. A few minutes later, Nathan could barely open his eyes. He looked around and found himself in a familiar yet unfamiliar place.
'Where am I?'
'Why does this look so familiar?'
'Wait!....'
'This....'
'Isn't this the dorm I used to live in???'
Nathan's entire body shuddered and he managed to wake up from his bed. He looked around and examined the room but the more he looked the more disbelief he felt.
'F**k! Is someone messing with me?'
'Is this an illusion array?' That thought couldn't help but appear on his head.
He stood up and glanced around with vigilance but rejected that thought.
'There's no way anyone in the Nihility Realm would know about my life in Arugal.'
'Don't tell me I actually travelled back in time or something.'
Nathan had a dazed expression on his face as he stared at the familiar room.
'How??' As soon as he asked that question, he noticed something on the back of his left hand.
There was a small cicada with its wings unfurled tattooed on his hand. Seeing the cicada on his hand, Nathan felt like a thunderbolt had struck upon him.
He recognized the tattoo. It was actually an object that he and his partner found in the Nihility realm. The two of them had found two cicada sculptures made from an unknown material in a ruin in the Nihility realm but they had no idea what it did so they just kept them with themselves as souvenirs.
Looking at the familiar cicada, Nathan was immensely shocked.
'Did that sculpture bring me back here?'
'Wait. Does that mean she is back too?'
The thought appeared in his head and he couldn't get it out of his head.
'Even if she's back I have no way of meeting her in the near future.'
Nathan sighed lightly when he thought that. He was currently in Arugal, one of the undiscovered planets in the vast cosmos and she was in a place that was extremely far away from Arugal. Even if he wanted to go and meet her, he neither had the method or the power to do so as of now. As for her coming here, it wasn't possible as well. After all, they had only interacted briefly before entering the Nihility realm. They became partners only inside the illustrious Nihility realm. She knew he came from an undiscovered planet but she had no idea where the planet was.
'Looks like I need to wait for quite a while before I can meet her.'
Nathan put that matter on the back of his mind and focused on the matters at hand. He looked at the cicada tattoo and tried to see if it would react in any way but it didn't. It was just like the sculpture they found.
'Tsk. How bothersome.'
Nathan knew there was no such thing as a free lunch so he thought he could get some information out of the cicada tattoo but he got absolutely nothing.
Normally speaking, Nathan wasn't really keen on receiving something without even knowing the price he had to pay for it.
'But to be brought back in time....'
'This daddy really hit the jackpot!!'
Anyone would be excited if they travelled back in time and Nathan was no exception.
'I don't know what I have to pay for this but this is freaking awesome!!'
'F**k! Just thinking about it makes this daddy excited!'
'Calm down, Nathan. Calm down. I need to organize my thoughts first.'
Nathan looked at the mirror in his room.
A youthful teen was standing there with the biggest grin on his face.
'Looks like I'm back in time when I just graduated high school.'
Nathan was really excited and rightfully so. He knew everything that would happen in the near future. Every major event, every single life-changing decision he made before, the consequences of those decisions, the regrets he had, he knew everything. He was basically given a second chance in this brutal and chaotic world so there was no way he wasn't excited.
__________________________________________________________
9th October 2157.
On an extremely remote planet, on a small city, on a small dorm, on a small room, a teenager was sitting on his desk peacefully staring at the starry sky. The kid had a small tattoo of a cicada on the back of his hand and he looked like he was doing absolutely nothing. But no one could have guessed that the kid looking at the sky was thinking about the thing that every person fantasizes about at least once in their lifetime: World Domination.
The kid stared at the sky for almost five hours, his thoughts unknown to anyone. After all those hours, a smile crept up his face that looked exceptionally serene and naïve.
Nathan looked up to the starry sky and raised his hand towards the myriad of stars. He looked at the cicada tattoo and made a fist.
A silent vow was made that no one ever heard but this silent vow was the thing that would lead to the rise of the most illustrious man in the history of mankind who would proceed to shake the entire Nihility realm in the future.