Ortha quickly said bye to Osul and went to finish some labor she had yet to do, leaving him behind as he watched everyone else also leave. Curious and having nothing much else to do for the rest of the day, Osul decided to secretly follow Byla as he left to go back to his separate slave camp. Osul had always wondered what the other slave camps were like and he knew nobody else that was able to come and go from their slave camps like Byla did.
The older Osul got, the more he found Byla's existence to be out of place and odd. The only reason he never followed or questioned Byla before was because his grandpa Kryl said he had already looked into him and to not bother the middle aged man with questions about his past.
As Osul followed Byla around as covertly as he could, he watched as Byla went around seemingly aimless with no clear destination. After a solid twenty minutes of traveling with him, Byla finally stopped. "Osul, why are you following me?"
Osul's heart began to beat fast because he had been caught and he had no real answer for Byla's question prepared except for the truth which wasn't a very good reason. "I was only curious about you. You seem different than other people".
Byla chuckled and looked at Osul with smiling eyes. "So you followed me? Different? Sure, I suppose I am, but how do I appear to you? Why exactly do you think I am different?"
Osul had known Byla since early childhood and had caught onto quite a lot over the years, one thing in particular stuck out to him though. "You have said things about my past that you couldn't possibly know unless you had been there and you speak of stories that have so much detail at times that it seems like they had really happened. Yet, you have never left this world according to yourself".
Byla nodded. "Yes, you are correct. Sometimes the right answer is the simplest answer even if seems fantastical. I will just be honest with you, I can see into the future. I didn't see into your past Osul, before you were born I had seen your future and I told you that future when you were old enough for it to be your past".
Osul was a bit confused but tried to follow along. "So you know what is going to happen? How is that possible?"
Byla shrugged his shoulders. "Well to tell you the truth, I have been freed from my curse of foresight thanks to the Hero I had told you about today. His existence in this Universe has changed everything. I only know of possible futures and things that are presently happening now. I can't say for certain anymore and honestly it feels amazing to not know".
Osul remembered his dreams to save his sister and grandpa from this planet before becoming a grand merchant and now he knows a man that he trusts that says he can see into the future. Not being able to contain his curiosity, he asked what was on his mind. "Will my family and I ever be freed from Mongul? Do you at least know that?"
Byla nodded his head. "Yes, I cannot tell you the details, because I myself also do not know, but I do know that your fate of leaving this planet with your family a little over a year from now has not changed. Even if I did know the details, I wouldn't tell you. Knowing too much of your own future is not a good thing. It removes the joy from things."
Osul saw the sorrow in Byla's eyes as he talked of knowing the future and figured he was speaking from experience and felt a bit guilty in his heart for being so happy after hearing that he would one day be free from Warworld. Of course that is only if Byla wasn't a crazy person and what he said was true.
After talking to Byla a bit more and swearing to keep his clairvoyance a secret from others, he left and went back to his camp. From then on Osul did his best to prepare himself for his new and brighter future. He didn't want to tell Ortho or old man Kryl, because he worried the day of their freedom will come and pass and Byla's prediction may not come true. It would be devastating for anyone to have their hope stripped from them after they were promised a better life. It was best to keep this to himself for now.
Over the next year, Osul went about his slave days normally, only now he was the one dragging his sister to hear Byla's stories and when he had free time he would learn advanced math and basic economics from an old man who used to be a ship parts trader before becoming a slave. Knowing he had a possibility of leaving the planet, he couldn't help but dream even bigger than before as he made a declaration within his heart. "With my new future life, I will not waste it! I will strive to be the best merchant the cosmos has ever seen".
A while later, as predicted, Heroes from earth came to put a stop to Mongul. A task that even the Green Lantern Corps had ignored in the past.
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Byla was actually not a slave. Unknown to everyone on Warword including Mongul himself, Byla was actually a God, an odd and not so powerful god, but a god none the less. As he watched everyone slowly leave the planet one after another, at some point he found that he was all alone again with his thoughts as he continued to do his job and guard the Necropolis which held the fire of Olgrun. He had been guarding it for as long as he could remember as he waited for a worthy person to come and try to claim the fire of the old gods.
He once had seen a vision of Superman obtaining the fire, but now that his visions were unreliable, he could only wait and see just like any other normal person who lives day by day without knowing what will happen next.
Life was suddenly exciting.