The pain of an ice cold day
Pain, a natural occurrence where receptors in your body send a signal through to your nervous system and eventually the brain where great agony is caused. I never thought much of it, but as a natural defence mechanism to know our limits to things you cannot achieve. The pain did not just provide much discomfort; it also led to memories of the past, but why? is it another cause of all the psychological stress?
How did it go again?...
Oh yeah, it was a full moon in an unusually remarkable coloured night. The sky with the usual absence of the sun seemed to be on the much calmer side than that of a plain dead dark one as always.
"Mai, our water supply is running low. Can you go fill it up towards the nearby stream, ready for the next morning? Also, Satori, why don't you tag along and learn a bit more of the geographical mapping of the area?" Old man...no grandpa Hayashi's voice.
At the time, it was roughly two months upon my arrival to the new world, and I was a full-time farmer with the Sano family and a month away from today.
"Ok, grandpa...Satori, let's go and get it over with before the end of the night because of the absence of water. I just can't do without in the morning" Mai was also in this flashback, but it wasn't a disturbance. It was actually comforting, especially after the events of today.
We entered the deep depths of the gigantic forest terrain to navigate towards the nearby stream, and as we did so, I was asked...
"Satori?"
"Yeah?"
"Before this entire mess, this tragedy, how was your life? Your family and friends?, you see back in my town not too close yet not too far from here, I was actually pretty loved by all around me I had tons of friends a great life it was a dream... mum... Dad" In her face for the arrogant girl, she always happened to be tears, dripped down glistening with the very moonlight above.
"My dad, after the great white mist I never once saw or heard of and my mum... well she was ..." They were words she did not want to speak of
I wondered to myself if it happened to be something this painful, why would she bring it up to someone like myself?
"To protect my identity, my very power from being taken into someone's hands, she distanced herself from us from afar and became a slave... not a slave by simple order or threat... It was also an ability, someone as cruel who was a former slave trade leader but the rules of this new world, the very existence of this world had granted that bastard this power!" Crying quickly turned to anger. The very situation before me was something I did not know how to approach.
But I had something to say at the time...
"The life before was probably the greatest for me. I had so much room to be free from the world, never having to provide the strong will to acts, and I was a weight to society's back, the dead weight, you could say. Always called gloomy wherever I went by my sister... by my best friends, it was ideal truly."
In her stream of tears, while wiping it down, she gave a little laugh to my words and made a bit of a statement.
"Well, I cannot deny the 'gloomy' part" she smiled and tried to suppress the cold feelings; however, I did not stop there; my words carried on...
"But having met grandpa Sumiko and of course you also is still ideal its a new life, but it gives me a similar yet entirely different feeling" My words were confusing to hear; I did not make any sense, even to myself.
Straight after, I saw her and thought she resembled the very tomato on my plate the other day, particularly in colour, as I assumed my words would have been a bit too much for her to handle in her current state of sadness.
"Enough talki... lets jus...go" she accelerated away in front of me just like she left in the very boat of today. The memory ended unpleasantly, but it wasn't bad at all.
The pain started resonating...
gradually getting stronger...
this memory, in the span of a few seconds, helped me suppress the pain and forget about it as it was happy.
But...
I can't harbour on happiness. This world isn't made for it.
The figure who achieved the great speed and assassination of grandpa had left in a flash, with the small remainder of soldiers searching the area and approaching the corpse of grandpa. I was left with a missing arm but not as a corpse.
All that was in my head was the pain! The pain! The pain!
Suddenly, under my strong will, to be free of these events in my upcoming death, my will had surpassed the degree of ever before in my entire life...
And in that time, the cells, the very atoms of my body. In my arms rapidly reproduced bone marrow...bones bright red flesh and a new layer of skin.
My pain had ended.
My instincts were overjoyed, but my head was not. Grandpas corpse before me hit me stronger than ever before as my mind was only in pain, not in anger. Nor sadness nor pity. I was scum. I only had thought of my own pain, or was this human nature?
It felt cold, very cold and some of the surrounding soldiers spotted the glare of light caused by this event of my regenerating arm.
But I was cold...
still feeling so cold as some of the soldiers were heading my way...
and in a split second, I had produced one of the most common structures in science with a less dense structure than water, I had frozen the entire area crystals of frost from all my very surroundings, and I only heard one thing from the soldiers who survived the great storm of ice...
"It's the Ice princess! But how? In a place like this? That's impossible!"
"Ice princess? Why would she be here as the ruler of the cold empire?"
"I don't care, ice princess whomever, can't you guys see? All our comrades have been killed and by ice no easier! Where did sir Raiden go? At least with him here, we all could have survived, but he rushed it and went off!"
These were all the words spoken by the surrounding soldiers. They could not see me at the centre of the field of ice as I was covered by frozen corpses, layers of ice crystals and frozen buildings.
My body regaining its full components, I was cold no longer...
I could see grandpa's corpse covered in ice. Tears had flown before the ice had appeared, but they were already frozen before dripping down.
The remaining soldiers, upon fear, made haste to retreat. I mined grandpa's corpse from the mountain of ice he was covered in and followed along to bury it upon this very land we were in.
I never thought I would be the one to bury an individual in my thoughts. It did boost the process of decomposition, but in my opinion, it proved nothing more.
Looking around the area, the ice really did do a number on the soldiers. I could see a great number of them within the ice trapped like flies in a web, all dead from the loss of heat energy within their bodies. I wondered how that would feel as bad as the pain I felt before?
I buried them also...
Not out of sympathy but respect to grandpa's resting place and the area we lived in...
I entered the frozen house and found a book on grandpas desk, a few bottles and finally a note...
stating the following:
Hey Satori, the fact your reading this means my old life has come to an end. It was not easy to write this honestly; I fear death more than anything. I love all my family, including you, a grandson I have never had, you might think it's only been three months, and it would have been the same to everyone, maybe so. Still, Satori, I felt different with you as my only grandson. We aren't legally obliged to be family and definitely not biologically. As you would say, we are all made out of the same "stuff",, right haha, and that is enough for me.
When I found you, I only wanted one task complete at the time; it was not looking after my two grandchildren in my stead. It was to find and free my only daughter, who is currently enslaved. However, this individual who I picked up was strangely powerless. I changed my stance entirely and felt very bad about my intentions before. So forgive me, Satori, forgive me. Decide your own path you are no longer bound. And Sumiko, Mai and yourself will always be loved by this old man.
Stay safe, find hope... Grandpa.
I was happy...
The book beside the letter was a photo book of the Sano family before the events of the mist, a family book. If I ever happen to meet again, I should definitely return this.
That concluded the period in my time within the Sano family and the start of my journey in this world...
I looked outside at the field of ice. I looked at my regenerated arm and said...
"Still...what was this. How?"
Only time would answer that question...
As I left the house...away from the area...I looked back
"Grandpa, although your form of matter was disturbed, you will always reside among us as matter cannot be created or destroyed and only transferred between different forms, so I will always feel you beside me."
However, Satori's thinking of Matter in this new world was completely wrong...as he will discover in near time...
-do you believe?-
Continued in the Next Chapter...