Far removed from the eyes of reality, a boy in a red-striped leather jacket stood next to an older man wearing a green beanie. Both gazed off into a gray, smoky wall that seemed to stretch endlessly in front of them. Judging by their stillness and composition, one could infer that they had been standing in the same place for some time.
The boy smiled happily as he dreamt of something, looking into the gray, while the older man wore a face full of confusion. His confusion heightened and eventually turned to panic as streams of tears rolled down his cheeks.
"NO!" He frantically yelled out, straining his neck closer to the wall. "It's gone! My future has disappeared."
"The future was supposed to last forever. How could it suddenly just disappear?"
Concerned by the man's frantic disposition, the boy tugged on his arm in an attempt to calm him down and get his attention.
"Father... Please calm down. Are you sure it's gone?"
The man calmed down upon hearing the boy's words.
"No, I am certain," he lamented. "I saw it dissipate right in front of my own two eyes—the secrets of the universe, the peak of existence, the vast green. It's all gone." He shook his head, wiping away tears from his face. "What is my life without a future?" he wept. "My son, I don't know if I can continue with my life like this."
After speaking those words, the older man's body began to dissipate, and his skin became see-through, showcasing a bright light in the core of the man that was gradually growing dimmer.
The boy witnessed his father's destructive and defeating words and panicked. A bright light illuminated from within the boy's chest, pulling together his father's body and reigniting his life's light.
"Father, stop, don't be so rash. You may have lost your future, but I still have mine. Why don't we share it together?"
The older man thought about his son's words.
"But without the future, where can I look to? Although you may have a future, I am not you. I cannot see what you see," he disparaged.
The older man once again grew transparent; it seemed like words would not deter him from self-destruction.
The boy, once again, pulled his father back from the brink.
"Father, please. You may have lost your path, but that doesn't mean you should give up on life. Why not spend the rest of your time looking around, enjoying the present? Why not allow me to create the path for the two of us to follow?"
The older man went silent, his son's words sedating his destructive thoughts. He was a man who wanted to explore the unknown and uncover all of life's secrets. To give up on all that and live vicariously through his son was a difficult thing to accept.
He turned himself away from the wall for the first time in an unfathomably long time, staring out at a vast and beautiful star-filled sky, each blip a galaxy he had explored when he was younger—a person with memories of the entire known universe.
He let out a deep sigh, then turned to look at his son. His innocent face was filled with inexperience and adventure, in great contrast to his tired eyes.
The background of stars folded in on itself, transforming before him into a cosmic blue book, its pages filled with all of his life's experiences.
He went to open the book and glance through its contents, but he found it difficult to read. His naivety mixed with his youthful inexperience made the words on the pages hard to relive.
He shook his head and closed the book again.
He looked deeply at the blue book before an idea emerged. He flipped the book upside down and opened it from the back, rereading passages that detailed the events of the past few years of his life.
After finishing the page, he ripped it out of the book and performed a simple two punches and finished with a spinning kick.
After the simple fighting routine, small specks of darkness formed around the center of the page, emanating from the darkness present in the area. Eventually, the page collapsed in on itself, and all that was left was a floating black ball.
The man took out a large white ball of fire from within his chest. The ball was impossibly large, shining with a glorious white light that contained the entire known universe.
The boy watched his father's actions with many questions in his eyes.
The black ball merged with the white light, where it became lost within the great orb, shrinking and dimming its glow ever so slightly.
The older man put away the glowing ball back within his chest and turned to face the boy.
"Thank you." He stretched out his arms and hugged the boy.
"I was too selfish. I'm sorry for frightening you."
"I have decided to take your advice and learn to live in the present."
Happy tears rolled down the boy's face as he held onto his father.
"But, I will not share your future. I want you to pursue your own and reach even greater heights than what I could achieve."
"I have lived a long life and have many regrets."
"I have been through many hardships. I realize this is just another roadblock for my life, just one more thing to overcome."
"If the universe refuses to show me its secrets, then I will be damned if I let it get to know mine."
"I will retrace my steps and destroy these watching eyes of the universe that record my existence, eventually reach the goal of eventually destroying my book of existence."
The boy felt inspired by his father's words.
"I have always been inspired by your life and your actions. Father, if you want to hide your life from the eyes of reality, I support you. It is you I follow, and only you I respect."
The older man nodded, giving a warm smile.
"Then witness me, for this path will be going directly against the will of everything."
He gripped his fist tightly in excitement. "I will hide my life from the universe and live as my own future."
***
Located in a strange cabin, far removed from the eyes of reality, Ged was floating further away from the entrance of the cabin.
In his soul-like body, time now freely flowed in both directions, swirling both clockwise and counterclockwise.
Within his mind, he was looking at the Tree of Mysteries; it had shrunk to the size of a baseball bat.
Ged was anxious. Ever since his initial brush with the cabin door, he had drifted slowly towards the back room of the cabin.
Now floating in front of him was the silhouette of a blue rectangle; flashes of black and white light sparked behind it in sync with the back-and-forth flow of time.
Ged slowly inched forward, mere inches away from the strange phenomenon. Resigned to whatever fate had been given to him, he reached out to grab the mysterious object.
It was the front cover of a bound blue book. It looked as if it once had many pages inside of it; now, all that was left was its binding. As he held the book, it melded into his body, and the room melted away, replaced by a gorgeous green field with a gradient covering the sky.
In the distance was a green tree with red-colored fruits.
Ged fell into a euphoric daze; the pleasant smell and sight of the strange green expanse made him have an exaggerated smile on his face. He laughed with joy as he skipped around, his thoughts as light as clouds.
He danced tirelessly for a few hours, and just when it seemed he had truly lost his mind, he got closer to the tree and its red fruits.
"What amazing fruits," he exclaimed, making his way closer.
Impossible two-directional spirals were drawn on its surface; Ged observed the surface of the fruit, imprinting the pattern into his mind.
He picked a fruit from the tree and took a bite.
The pieces of fruit went through his body, swirling in both directions before settling in his chest area.
Ged was giddy with excitement as he went through the motions of a bench press. For the first time since he died, he felt like he had strength in his body, like he had gained a bit of weight in his movement.
"This is true mass!" he exclaimed with glee, picking up more fruits from the tree. "Better yet, this incredible mass does not cause me any pain when I thread it through my soul."
He consumed the fruit like a madman, savoring every piece until the tree was picked clean, and the result was an illustrious red chest muscle that floated around in his chest.
"I can do it now!" he laughed maniacally. "The bench press of life!"
"I can return back to reality and live once more!" Ged gazed up proudly at the green gradient sky, his face filled with triumph.
The wind picked up, causing the grass to move wildly around Ged.
"Live once more?" a voice whispered softly.
Ged paused in his tracks, a cold chill crept up his spine.
"You are holding your book of mortality. Don't be so stupid to think you can hide that from me."
Ged looked down at his hands; he was holding the blue book in his hands, his eyes locked on the cover, refusing to look towards where the voice was coming from.
"Begone."
The sounds of nature filled Ged's ears, the chirping of birds, the sprinkling of rain all played at once.
Ged's vision turned black before finding himself once more in the primordial gray near the beginning of everything, lying on the floor of the back room of the cabin.
He looked around the cabin, his chest still containing the red multi-swirling mass, his madness still present. He let out a chuckling laughter. With the flow that once pervaded the cabin now gone, Ged vaulted up from the ground, smiling as he felt the weight of the floor walking towards the door to the cabin.
He gazed curiously at the door to the cabin.
Barely considering the possibility of consequences, he executed a pulling motion, threading the door into his soul.
He sighed with relief, looking deep within his soul.
Threaded within him was a golden scimitar and a strange chessboard; Ged thought of Manduka and smiled.
Next to them, a blue book cover, bright red chest muscles, and once fluttering about, now completely still.
"I can finally return back to life," he exclaimed, admiring his newly created chest muscles.
Finally, at the end of the thread, a doll-sized tree lay; it was stationed at the core of his soul.
Ged looked at the tree and frowned.
"I'm running out of time." He anxiously stepped out of the cabin door, back out into the torrential gray waters near the beginning of everything.
He took one single step before he was swept away by the current.
A current carrying Ged full speed on his way back to reality.