It's like staring into the openness of the air on a warm, sunny afternoon, watching the clouds sitting still within the gorgeous vast blue sky, looking and feeling as if time itself had ceased in order to allow the brilliance of nature to display its grandeur for all of life to witness. Yes, right now, time sits still. Just as it seemed to do on those endless afternoons in the spring and summer walking with my grandfather to the best lookout spots in the Bhutanese mountains. Places that he knew of for decades and no one else, except me, ever looked out from. High enough, higher than the mountain villages, and just north enough, yet south enough, and just east enough, yet west enough; in the afternoon, directly in the perfect location to soak up the harmony of the atmosphere.
Being there with him, glaring into the splendor was heavenly. I was a young child and was the happiest I had ever been in my life. Thinking back to that time brings me solace and peace beyond measure; even in perilous times like now.
"Your little unknown mountain slum sounds so, so perfect, eh? You wanted more, right? You wanted power! This is why you left that impoverished hole. And that is why you came to me to learn of my power, a true power, a vicious power!" a demonic voice echoed out, seemingly coming from every direction.
So why? Why did I decide to leave Bhutan? Why did I study the English language so diligently? Why did I want to see the world, mostly Europe in such an empowering fashion? My answer has to do with curiosity and wonder. Because I wondered how and why people could build such marvelous buildings and have such awesome technology and live in such busy places that had so much to offer and so much to do! How could one spend all of their time with study and awe, curiosity and marvel, amazement and miracles; yet still be filled with doubt and emptiness? This dichotomy of life in the first world lived by so many filled me with inquisitiveness and incredulity.
I absolutely had to experience it. Something drew me to learn more about how the leaders of the world lived and about how their societies thrived, even if they were inherently unhappy.
"Just as I expected! You wished to have more. More than your life could provide in that crummy rock-filled squalor! This is why you are here with me now. This is why you will help me to reshape this world! It wasn't curiosity about society. You know as well and I that society is flawed, all society, from the richest to the poorest, and the humans deserve no less than what I plan to give them … invigilation!"
My mother and father never understood me. They couldn't fathom why I would consider leaving.
"Why abandon us when there is no cause?" they asked, "Your family is here, your temple is here, your friends are here, and we are as happy as we can be. What do you search for, alone, in that enormous world? Pain and suffering thrive there! Please, don't go!"
True. My people are known to be the happiest in the world, despite not having all the material objects and comforts from the first world. Why is that? Family? Religion? Culture? The splendid beauty of the landscape? I can't really answer that question, but it is true. We are a blissful and exultant people. So why? Why would I want to leave? What AM I searching for? My folks answered my question for me. Pain and suffering. I had to experience it. I never had before. How could I love the peace and harmony of my home life if I knew nothing of the opposite?
"And you have found it my fledgling! Pain and suffering! The thing that humans know more than anything else, and the thing they secretly desire more than anything else! Why else would they do the things they do, think the way they think, and commit such heinous crimes against one another?"
My grandpa was the sole person from my home and community who understood my mind. He would miss me, of course, yet he knew something; something my parents and siblings could never know. He knew I was special and had something grand to do with my life. Bhutan couldn't hold me any longer. He didn't say a word to me the day I had prepared to leave. Neither begging to me stay or wishing me farewell. Grandpa just smiled at me that final day at home, felt my fresh, warm smooth cheek with his palm, and nodded before walking away with his pleasant and refreshing grin intact. Oh, how I miss that smile!
I sobbed. This was my first lesson and I hadn't even left our home yet.
"Sobbed? How personally downtrodden you must have been. Ha! You sobbed because you finally understood that those people had nothing for you, and your old grandpa knew as well! You were better than them all. And you now hold the key to our domination! A smile? How could such a mundane and useless gesture touch you seriously? I'm sure you are glad to be with me, the true power to learn the true ways of the world."
I always wanted to understand people's sadness. People's loneliness. People's fear. People's callous and mean attitudes. I wanted to know why humans can't accept themselves and truly love who and what they are, and then use that love to project to others. This is the way any god, from any religion, has planned it, for people, to be truly "human", and to be one with the world around them. I saw it with some of the people from my home, in Bhutan.
And I knew the lack thereof was more pronounced; a greater calamity in western countries. Surprisingly enough, the richest and most powerful countries were the worse! All their lives are spend fixated on what they can have, should have, have to have, and the more they would get, the more they would want. The more desire eats their souls and turns them upon one another, the more hateful they get. I had to see this up close. And when I became 18, I left and moved to England to study and experience life.
"Ah! And now you know. People are NOT meant to be so loving and warm. People are heinous and horrid! Each man, from a criminal in prison to the preacher at a local church has nothing but cursed and evil thoughts running in their minds. This is human nature! And this is why it will all burn so easily! Burn, so I can gain the power needed to become the overpowering god this world justly deserves!"
Yea, perhaps it was all a mistake. After all, if I stayed in Bhutan, continued with my mastery of our way of life, found a beautiful bride, and started my own family; I wouldn't be here. Almost 20 years old, at the end of all things. Sitting in a filthy little room, tied to a chair, gagged, and awaiting my fate. Just me and the roaches. No windows. One flickering light-bulb hanging from a broken fixture on the moldy and rotting ceiling in the poorest corner of the city of Minsk in Belarus. Tied to a decaying wooden chair, covered in sweat, bruises forming all over my body; I found my way to the bottom, into hell, and I sit with the devil whispering in my ear.
"Now you understand, boy! But hell, you haven't found it, not yet! Soon, hell will engulf this planet, and we shall be sitting as the rulers and bringers of pain, true pain, to all who are under us!"
And Ihar. Poor old Ihar. My mentor here in Minsk, who I met when I moved from England to teach the English Language for a couple of months for summer work. Wonderful people in this country! He helped me to develop my powers and acted almost like my surrogate grandpa. I helped him with his tasks to help folks being tortured by legendary mythological creatures and protect people from horrid villains.
And who knew the real story? What was actually happening? Ihar, almost 100 years old and still saving people's lives. It's too bad what happened. I shall never forgive myself for that. No one deserves such a heinous death.
"Ah, yes! Old Ihar! Troublesome he always was, but a real threat to me he wasn't! That fool never even knew who I was; only besting me a couple of times over insignificant matters. He knew he had to find and train a more powerful warrior. Then he met you, a young and naïve boy from nowhere. Little did he know that you would end up turning and become my minion!"
So, what does this grotesque calamity I'm in have to do with watching the glorious sky and dazzling heavens from the steep mountains in my peaceful homeland? The time. Time has stopped. As I said before, the time sits, to show me something, but here and now, not something wonderous and grand; no, to show me quite the opposite side of life. It shows me just how ghastly, sordid, and loathsome life and humanity can be.
After experience this, witnessing the darkness firsthand, I know that good cannot exist without evil, and vice-a-versa. The feeling I had sitting with grandpa in the warm, calming air seeing paradise wouldn't be possible without ever knowing evil, and experiencing it, and understanding it, and feeling its wickedness take my body and soul. That is why I am here. And now, with a tear in my eye, I know. Grandpa knew, somehow, and he knew that I had to know, and now I am ready.
A blackness suddenly covered the wall in front of me. I looked up and watched as the giant shadow took a daunting form in front of me, beside me, behind me, and all around!
Horrid! Red. Black. A beast with thirty legs and thirty feet and thirty feet in length, curving its grotesque body any way necessary to fit into the old warehouse stock room, now empty of everything except the chair, cobwebs, roaches, rats, and me, directly in the middle under the single light that constantly flickered and cast a dim and unflattering light.
"You have been beaten. You have been starved. You have been tormented. And you have been filled with angst and sorrow. Just as you wished for. Now it is time, my new fledgling! Take the form, as I have, openly, and lead me to the tree of life so I may devour the roots at the trunk, and bring this world to its knees!" Nidhogg said.
"You are wrong, Nidhogg. I won't join you. I never would have. Thank you. Thank you for letting me experience this hell. Now though, it's time for me to stop you! My fear has turned to gallantry. You have gone too far and must cease this monstrous scheme. Evil was not meant to take over, just as good isn't meant to take over either. The Ying and the Yang, darkness, and light, good and evil, all things must be equal. Let us duel, as the Dragon Gods, we were named after! Druk, The Thunder Dragon of Peace and Prosperity vs. Nidhogg The Underworld Eater of Life!" I exclaimed as my eyes glowed an emerald shade.
No descriptions can emulate the booming roar that Nidhogg let rip at that moment. Or his surprise when I, with a shining daytime light that suddenly broke the haggard ceiling cast upon him while the room was being encased in what looked to be cumulonimbus clouds. They immediately cleared, to display the rainbow-colored dragon, with a tail of fire that stood before Nidhogg ready to battle!
The following narrative comes from me, myself, through my journals of these adventures and trials. With a few chapters from characters with extreme importance in the story as well.
As for me? Who am I? Really, who am I?
You will find out eventually!