The night is still young, yet the whole western nation's lights were forcibly shut off.
The lamps were taken away and the people began preparing to sleep, in once again, a bothered night.
It was not new to see dried tears across the people's cheeks as they drift away to a shallow sleep where danger lurks anywhere and a warm daylight for tomorrow is dimmed and vague.
The guards outside have also begun roaming around, checking the houses, making sure no one even attempts to sneak out.
Once they notice that a candle was lit from inside, the guards will not hesitate for even a single second to barge in and investigate what is happening.
They would be deciding right then what must be done.
The chirping cicadas have been a humming music to their fears and the rustles of wind takes their consciousness away.
Meanwhile, at the rear corner of a small village where Muren resides, he sat in the middle of his room made of wooden materials. The tiny creaking sounds allow the colonizers to subtly hear if someone was still awake, further immobilizing them during the deep night. It was a bit different for Muren, though.
He closed his eyes and concentrated brewing magic inside his head.
His family had always been exceptionally different because of their gifts that no one else could possibly obtain, even with earnest hard work.
When he opened his eyes he saw a small gladiolus bloomed in front of him, from beneath the wooden floors that made no creaking sounds or movements.
The flower glowed with an ethereal light and soon, a few more daffodils had grown around until it became a beautifully arranged flowerbed.
Over its side, there were growing purple asters, each with smooth and rich petals.
Soon, the whole room had disappeared and faded into an eternal light blue horizon, surrounding Muren with the Arabian jasmines and Chrysanthemums and lobster-claws.
The breeze yet hasn't changed – still as strained of freedom and coolness that stings and heals the skin at the same time.
There was still a bittersweet aftertaste that wrapped the air.
Suddenly, he was among the beautiful gardens in arrays of flowerbeds that swayed fragilely like human lives across history, fading and fluctuating.
Above the world that slowly merged around him, there were neither firmaments nor heavens that would welcome the afterlife.
It was only the landscape of sky flashing in a spectrum of colors where light and wistful clouds harbored in distinct serenity while the moons and stars and distant planets clashed into that condensed infinity.
Muren looked up and saw the convivial celestial bodies hung up above.
He joined his two palms and lifted it up, as if begging for something from the sky.
The moon slowly tilted downwards and spilled its holy silver fluids down his palms.
When the cold, glowing fluids meekly reached his palms, he slowly and gently brought it down to his mouth and drank it.
He could feel the moon's magic calmly flowing his throat, healing his internal organs and crushing all the toxins from inside. He executed a little ritual to thank the moon by getting down on his knees and giving a full bow while murmuring the name Selene into a beautifully woven poem that he had always recited.