Ender woke up surrounded by darkness. He couldn't see nor hear anything.
As he was about to start panicking, he heard a voice.
"Happy birthday Ender! I'll skip the pleasantries if you don't mind since we don't have much time here. First of all, you have to understand that you are currently dreaming."
So much for Ender waking up… Apparently he was still asleep!
"In addition, it's a pre-recorded message, so the 'me' you are seeing right now is fake and everything is pre-recorded. That's why, I won't be able to answer any of the questions you might have."
Ender knew that man's voice. He hadn't heard it in a long while but he missed it dearly. He didn't know how much before, but after hearing it again, it became painfully obvious how much had he missed his father. Cosmos.
"Huh? What's this dad? How is this happening?" Ender slowly murmured.
"You must be questioning how's this possible and what's happening. Fret not Ender, I'll explain it to you. As you should probably know by now, your parents aren't normal. This might come as a shock to you but your mum wasn't a mortal. I won't go in much detail of her heritage but you should know that she was very powerful and… a demon. Her astounding strength was one of the primary reasons she was attacked and killed and the reason that I had to leave you. I, on the other hand, am a god! Though, the truth is I had a bit of human blood flowing through me once, but it supposedly got purified when I reached the 10th rank."
"…"
Ender listened intently to his father's revelations, his mind spinning with the weight of the information. His parents were way more exceptional than he initially thought. They were a god and a demon, for Angrose's sake. The complexity of his heritage was staggering, and he couldn't help but feel a mix of awe, confusion, and sadness.
"Curiously enough, my human ancestry is probably the only reason you were born. See, gods and demons can't have children together. That's not a fact. The few that managed to figure out the everlasting differences between our species and tried having a child together, had failed.
So imagine our surprise when your mother, Eldrixa got pregnant. At first I though that your mother cheated on me with some demon, but she quickly made me realise the fault of those thoughts."
"Sigh. That brings us to the next topic. I don't doubt that after hearing these revelations, you'll start wondering about your inexistent talent in magic. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you do have a talent in magic. It's just been 'suppressed' until now… Sorry... Both me and your mother are truly sorry for doing this to you son."
Ender was flabbergasted. The revelations that his father kept announcing were quite hard to swallow. He looked for his father in the darkness but he couldn't find him. He could only hear his voice, heavily laced with guilt and sadness.
"Your mother and I, knew that your birth would attract a lot of unwanted attention. So in an attempt to protect you, we both went to hiding. Your mum, with an extraordinary feat of magic, managed to cage your mana before you were even born! She couldn't cage it forever though, only until you turned eighteen. So, today."
"That's how we managed to lived in peace, until the restraints on you started cracking. No one could have predicted that you'd overpower the restraints you were put under, as a mere child. Your mother, tried and succeeded repairing the previously cast magic on you. The spell she performed though, had irrevocably caught some attention."
"You see, casting magic of such high rank is quite hard to hide from the strongest beings. My brother, Eldrisor, had sadly managed to sense the said spell. However, we didn't find out until later when he ambushed us, in a party with other gods and demons. Honestly, we were extremely lucky that no one noticed your existence. No one knows about you, even now. When the ambush happened, we were all transported by Angrose to another dimension. She doesn't like it when beings from other worlds, fight inside her."
"In the fight, your mother sacrificed herself to create a distraction. That's how I managed to escape alive and move you out of our house, lest someone took notice of your existence. My plan was to bring you with me and find a new hiding spot, maybe in another world, but I could feel Eldrisor catching up to us. The only reason why I could even escape from him, even though he's a rank higher than me, is my aspect. Cosmos, the god of Time and Space, that's how they call me."
"Well, at least I think I'll escape. Right now in my time, I'm trying to run away from my brother. I'm imparting you this dream because I can feel him getting closer and I'll have to leave you soon son."
His father's voice grew fainter, and Ender felt a sense of urgency. "Remember, Ender, you are not alone in this. You have the blood of Cosmos and Eldrixa in your veins, and their love will always guide you. I wish I could be there with you and help you grow into your potential, but I can only try to protect you from afar."
Ender had finally laid eyes on his fathers' figure.
He reached towards Ender and pulled him into a much needed hug. No more words were spoken. Ender simply stood there and enjoyed Cosmos' embrace.
As Cosmos's image faded into darkness, Ender felt a mixture of emotions. Most notable were loss and sadness.
Learning about his parents' tragic story right after losing the love of his life, was definitely not an easy thing.
"Oh heavens mark my words. I'll kill them all. Every-single-god!"
Ender continued to curse the gods for hours to no end. After that he'd switch to cursing the two vendors he killed, before switching back.
Just like that a few days had passed.
Ender, in his dream like state didn't feel any of the mortal needs. He never felt hungry, nor physically tired.
There was only pain.
The pain peaked when he realised that both his mother and lover died because of him.
It was then that a strange thought occurred to him, making him smirk for the first time in good a while.
"Shit. I can't kill all the gods, can I? After all dad's a god."
A month passed, or had it?
Ender wasn't sure. After all nothing changed inside the darkness.
The feelings of loss and pain were sparse nowadays.
That's when he finally felt it. The tiredness hit him and Ender, after a whole year in the darkness, fell asleep.