What I'm about to tell you will blow your mind. Unless you're an "overzealous" (that's putting it lightly, really) churchgoer or you're a member of one of those rare families from the list with an entire lineage that is aware of the nature of their bloodline.
Yes, that list. How would people put it… Ah, if you know, you know.
Anyway, just listen. But you should definitely get a bottle of water first because this story certainly contains too much information for regular human brains. Except, of course, if you're… you know, one of us. So, here goes:
Long ago, before the dawn of humankind, the universe was nothing but the vast essence of two primordial spirits: the spirit of Creation and the spirit of Void. They were opposites of a scale, existing to maintain balance. Creation gives while Void takes. However, they were both too powerful to be contained.
Pressured by the essence of Void and Creation, the fine spiritual line between something and nothing blurred, therefore leading to what would later be known as the first miracle: the birth of the first set of spirits succeeding the primordials. The founding spirits of life: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water.
Together with Creation, they made the spirit of life, Animus. On the other hand, with Void, they created the spirit of death, Retriever. Also known as the mythical spirits, since, you know, they're… myth-y. This event is named… (Yep, you guessed it!) the second miracle. You wish history classes were this simple, huh? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but by the time you read this, history would have already taken twists and turns crazier and more confusing than the plot of a hypersexualized teen drama—featuring actors well past their adolescent years—that somehow adapts supernatural themes after adapting the all-time-cringe mafia trope. (I mean, seriously? A LITERAL series of unfortunate events if you ask me.)
Also, I would like to offer my apologies to you in advance because me and my gang may or may not have influenced world history in both minor and major ways. Don't tell anyone I said that though, especially my captain because he would kill me. Even if he were already dead by the time you gain knowledge of this, do not visit his grave to share this little chitchat between us since I'm pretty sure that he would somehow bypass Retriever just to haunt my ass and beat me with a bat while screaming about my "talent for leaking confidential information".
Honestly? I would probably reply with something so dirty that he would just have no professional choice but to stop nagging. For example, I could, hypothetically, tell him that I can think of better ways he could prevent my mouth from spilling anymore secrets—meanwhile wiggling my eyebrows and flashing a mischievous smile. (Oh, don't get me wrong, he's not my type. My truly amazing and absolutely spectacular romantic life is a story for some other time.)
Anyway, back to the story. Where were we? Sorry, I got a little sidetracked there. See, I like to ramble when I get nervous, so—oh, yes. Animus and Retriever, right.
For starters, Animus was—is—the spirit of life, but they were also the first spirit made with a material body and a soul. Powerful yet contained in a vessel. A spirit, yet dangerously close to being human.
However, the thing was, Animus was neither man nor woman—not even intersexual. They were beyond gender and sexuality. Still, despite the complexity of Animus' being, they became the blueprint for humans. Well, we did not inherit Animus' complete and utter perfection, but you get the gist of it.
With the help of the founding spirits, sometimes called "The Four Elementals", or simply "the elementals", Animus made planets to occupy the barren space around him. But even that failed to quell his loneliness (yes, he could feel since he had a soul). At that time, the company of the elementals did not prove to be any fun or entertaining yet, but honestly, who can blame them? The closest they had to friends were Creation and Void. That must have been so depressing. Like, having-daily-appointments-with-your-therapist depressing.
So, to remedy his loneliness, Animus decided to add excitement to his life. They chose one among the many planets that they have created and engineered its environment so that lesser beings could live and thrive in it. By lesser beings, I mean animals and other living beings, including humans—imperfect and confined to sex (I mean being male or female in case you were having some questionable thoughts). Moreover, to answer the lingering question in your head, yes, Animus, along with the founding spirits, created us. They were that creative. I mean, they made me. Imagine creating an ass this fine.
From then on, human encounters and progress produced even more spirits tied to Creation and Void. Love and hatred. Peace and chaos. Hope and despair. These do not even make up 1% of all the spirits born in the era of humans.
However, unlike the founding spirits and the mythical ones, these new spirits exist because people believe in them, feel them, and recognize them. Some are greater spirits; some are lesser spirits. Take the spirit of Love, for instance. Before anything, love was an unnamed feeling, then it became a concept recognized and understood by people throughout the world. Nearly everyone believes in love, one way or another. Thus, the spirit of love, a greater spirit, was born. See, belief is the most vital ingredient in the conception of a new spirit. It also indicates how powerful the spirit would be—more believers mean more power.
Beautiful, right? The spiritual world is just so full of sunshine and rainbows. WRONG. On the flip side of everything, Retriever awaits quite literally to retrieve the essence of each living being—even spirits—once they fade away from the living plane. Everyone dies—animals, humans, plants, and spirits alike. Retriever simply waits by your finish line to guide you to Void. Remember: Creation gives, Void takes.
All life forms must eventually return to whence they came—a primordial. Unfortunately, they first parted with Creation through Animus, so they must return to Void. When Void welcomes a new death, Creation molds a new being, and the cycle begins anew.
In case you were wondering how spirits "die", simply think back to the catalyst for their existence. Belief. Once people stop believing in something, the spirit representing it begins to fade away. However, unlike humans, they can be reborn if certain conditions are met.
Like their more positive counterpart, Retriever is also a spirit that has a material body and a soul, unbound to gender and sexuality, made with nothing short of perfection. The only living being that could coexist with Void without being absorbed. Well, the only one until him, uh, I mean, them. Actually—ugh, it's complicated—let me rephrase that: until that person, at least. Wait… even "person" hardly defines them—ugh. Whichever case, the point stands. But that story is also for later. I believe I'm not in the right emotional headspace to tell that one right now.
Anyway, as I've mentioned, spirits run on the belief of other living beings.
Now, a quick geography crash course. In the old days (even up to the present), all the land forms in the world was simply like one really weirdly shaped big chunk of rock with jagged edges divided into five connecting continents, four of which border the centermost continent, as if encasing it in one ginormous group hug. (Also, everyone revered the spirits back then.)
The centermost part of the world is now known as the Mainland. The other four… well, they used to have names, but they were crossed off of history, forgotten, as the Mainland advanced and grew more powerful—gained more control of the world with its technology and its "Church". The other four were rebranded as mere "Outer Regions", arranged in order of the size of their lands, from I to IV.
Over the years, as the Mainland flourished, "Everyone revered the spirits." gradually changed into, "Most of the Outer Regions clung onto their belief in spirits as a desperate call for help while only a few across the world remained completely faithful, meanwhile, almost everyone in the Mainland has submitted to the ways of the Church."
Remember, belief is the fuel to the fire that empowers spirits. With other beliefs slowly on the rise, spirits began to fade. People began deciding it was better to believe in mildly unbelievable miracles so long as they will surely be part of some great salvation in the end rather believe in the powers of abstract concepts.
Neither side was wrong, for people are entitled to their own beliefs. Unless there were master puppeteers hiding beyond all the noise and conflicts, pulling strings for some grand scheme. Using the belief of their own so-called precious faithful to cause something worse than the fading of spirits.
To prevent such a disaster from happening, the third "miracle" happened. Creation supposedly concentrated some of her essence and formed a visible projection of herself into the Outer Regions and gathered all of the greater and lesser spirits in the Outer Region IV—also known as O.R. IV—the only region that maintained complete faith in the spirits. That was the very first time a primordial showed itself to anyone, hence the name of the event.
What happened next was the biggest mystery in human history. Only moments after the appearance of Creation before the spirits, the entire sky exploded in a barrage of colors of all shades, visible all around the world. Like a global-class firework show, that, oddly, only lasted only for a few seconds before immediately disappearing.
Or so did regular humans think.
According to numerous accounts from people of various origins, the explosion supposedly lasted for minutes, not seconds. Even stranger, they said that the explosion transformed into some kind of meteor shower, but instead of simply making wishes as it happened, they either screamed or froze in terror as blinding streaks of light came hurtling towards them and eventually swallowed them whole—drowning them in indistinguishable colors.
The people, the Church, and the Mainland government, coughed up way too many theories ranging from absolutely hilarious to completely nonsensical that they reached an impasse. Inevitably, the Mainland was forced to request the attendance of the leaders of the Outer Regions so that they could convene and come to a consensus regarding what kind of explanation they would serve to the public. Something that would soothe the mass panic and answer the questions of the people.
Without any logical explanation to dish out, even the Mainland and the Church had to indulge the theory of O.R. IV. They called the event "Starfall", a reminder of the existence of spirits from the primordial spirit, Creation, herself. That said, to the Church, it signaled "the end of the age of spirits". Either way, most settled for the idea that it was simply a colorful performance from the spirits, a supernatural phenomenon; perhaps the last.
Seeing a chance to reset history that year, the Mainland decreed that the oncoming years post-Starfall shall be formally recognized "After Starfall" or "AS" years, the implicit end of the once-revered spirits. After that year, AS 1 began. Worshipping spirits was made illegal and those who refused to conform was forced to suffer with the residents of the Outer Regions—basically exiled from the Mainland and unable to benefit from its monopoly over the economy.
Yeah, the Mainland dudes were big assholes. But what's better than mean, shallow, greedy leaders, you ask? Smart, sneaky, spirit believers parading as high-ranking officials in the Mainalnd government. They (Forgive me if their names slip my mind. I'm not exactly a history buff and this all happened in AS 1.) were not content with the Outer Regions' explanation of Starfall, so they secretly had a research facility built underground in O.R. IV, just a few miles past the Mainland border.
They gathered people with odd retellings of Starfall and asked them to participate in a study. They worked with them actively through a considerable pool of researchers to unravel what really happened back then.
A few years shortly, during AS 4, they finally discovered the true nature of Starfall, and it was beyond all their expectations. It was insane. To the rational mind, at least. At first, they thought the answer would lie with the health of their test subjects, their physical growth, or their cognitive development. Even with all their logical options exhausted, they could not find anything of significance other than common genetic markers (which appeared only post-Starfall) found among the study participants. So, out of desperation, they tried something other scientists would most definitely frown upon—they tried the supernatural; the spiritual.
And then, they found their answer. They could not fully understand it yet at the time, but their working theory was that those who were showered with "light" from Starfall somehow formed a connection with the spirits, therefore gaining access to spiritual abilities that differed depending on what spirit they had a connection with.
The study participants themselves could not entirely comprehend why the spirits would grant them such powers but they knew that it all came at a cost. That it was a sign. That they needed to prepare. For what exactly? No one knew. But they were certain of one thing: whatever it was, something big was coming.
AS 4. That year marked the beginning of the list. The list contained families with the genetic markers found only in the real receptors of Starfall. The first batch of entries in the list became parents and had children who also had children, and so on. As their bloodlines grew, the list became longer.
Come the 16th birthday of anyone in the list and they would be summoned to underground facilities (commissioned by the founders) where they would be… evaluated. Those that are accepted stay in the list, granted that they want to. Those with an otherwise fate (a.k.a. the failures and the stay-at-home folks) are… processed before they are sent home.
The list.
The LIST.
The L.I.S.T.
The Laboratory for Interregional Spiritual Training.
On my 16th birthday, I, Chance Delaruse, an orphan from the slums of Mainland, was picked up (abducted) from the streets by a food van. Embarrassing, I know; but in my defense, they offered FREE unlimited hotdogs. Honestly, I should've known how shady it was just from that, BUT I was starving. Not just starving—FAMISHED. How could I have known that eating hotdogs greedily in the oddly cold seats of a food van was the last thing I would do as a normal kid? Not that that situation was in any way normal, but—whatever.
To describe my experience of being extracted from starvation in the slums of Mainland in a not-so-intimidating way: I was briefed (it was basically like a school orientation), trained for a month, and then evaluated.
I passed the evaluation. Afterward, they asked if I wanted to stay, train, and eventually work for LIST. I had no home to go back to anyway, so, now we're here.
Oh, right! My name is Chance Delaruse. And I'm about to die.