I was dead.
The absence. The void that stretched forever, swallowing time and thought. No pain. No sound. No self. Only warm, primordial blackness. My conscience ferments in it—no larger than a single grain of malt. I don't have to do anything anymore.
Then—color.
It bled into the darkness, slow at first, like a parasite devouring the will of its vessel. Deep, velvet reds. The bruised violet of a dying sun. The crimson moon eclipses it. Streaks of gold like cracks in a shattered sky.
My body is weightless, drifting in this painted abyss. Something is wrong. The colors weren't just around me, they started to enter me, violating me from all angles. Crawling through my veins, seeping into the marrow of my bones, pierces the iris of my eyes. I taste them—bitter, electric, humming with an essence. I cannot describe it.
Then—voices.
Not words. Not whispers. Just echoes. Shapes of sound, reverberate through the void like ripples across black water. They bounce off each other, infinitely. The vibration brush against me, feeling my form, testing my edges. Searching.
Then—motion.
My body starts to move. My fingers twitched, but they weren't mine. My limbs feel stretched, foreign, as if they don't belong. A hand. Cold. Familiar. It gripped my chest—not flesh and bone, but something tethered to the root of my existence. It yanked.
I gasped.
Air flooded my lungs like fire. My body convulsed, my senses roaring back to life all at once. I could feel again—pressure against my back, the dull throb of pain in my shoulder and thigh, the too-sharp light burning behind my eyelids. The last to return is the crater inside my belly. The pain returns to my body as if to balance out the infinity of nothingness of the void.
I was alive.
I sucked in another breath, the air returned to me so quickly and large it suffocates me. I started to panic, my muscles locking as my body fought to remember how to exist. The void had vanished, replaced by the heavy scent of antiseptic, the faint murmur of voices just beyond reach. I close my mouth and swallow my breathe, and the exhale brings me back.
A voice—light, amused, entirely out of place.
"Look who decided to wake up. Thought we lost you for a second there."
Then—light
A voice—light, teasing, and way too amused for the situation.
I blink, vision acclimating to the dim glow of a lantern hanging from the ceiling. Shelves line the walls, stuffed with books, jars of strange herbs, and instruments I don't recognize. A woman leans over me, golden eyes flashing with mischief as she taps a gloved finger against my forehead. I feel a large pressure no my side, I know what that is. I gulp instinctively, bruising my insides in the process.
"Names Elena," she says before I can ask. "Prime dragged your corpse in here like a sack of spoiled meat. You're lucky I was in a charitable mood." She laughs out, her smirk familiar. She is like a female Prime.
I shift slightly, pain flaring through my shoulder, down to my arm, straight to my bleeding guy, ending at my thighs. My body is wrecked. "I died?" My voice is coarse.
Elena grins. "Oh, it was close. You were about a coil flip away from bleeding out. Lucky for you…" she waggles her fingers dramatically. Smug. "I'm one of the Destiny's Thread."
I give no response, she expects a show from me. I simply stare at her.
Elena tilts her head, confusion and embarrassment stealing her face. "You know… The Fate Harvesters faction?"
I don't understand.
A deep voice rumbles from the corner. "Explain it. He is not from here."
I turn my head slightly, as much as I can. Prime is sitting there, arms crossed, watching like he's waiting to see if I'll drop dead again.
Elena rolls her eyes. "Ohhh, that must be why he isn't infatuated with me yet." She turns to me, grinning. "Bla Bla Bla, in short, I manipulate probability. The stab wound? There was a 78% chance it would get infected and fill you by morning. Now? Ba-ding. Zero." She talks like a child, fast and continuous. She is very proud of herself. "There was a 42% chance I'd screw up your stitches and leave you with an ugly scar—also zero. A 12% chance you'd wake up with an irresistible urge to marry me? I'd say I bumped that up to around 50/50"
"Stop trying to seduce my new friend you Harpy." Prime laughs.
A weak laugh even escapes me, paining me during the whole motion. "Generous," I say in respond to her joke, at least I assume it was a joke. We all laugh.
"Of course." She crosses her arms. "I only use my powers for important things—like making sure my bread never burns and making sure people like you don't keel over on my floor." She sits on the floor next to me, flat on her knees as she sits on her heels. She leans back as she explains. Unfortunately, I can't stop you from bleeding on my floor, and blood has the more horrid stench on stone. You're cleaning that, hear me."
I let that sink in for a second, my mind still sluggish. "You and Prime… You have powers just like Prime?" I state, could have been more direct, it doesn't even sound like a question.
"You really do know nothing." She looks at me like a man looks at babies. She turns to Prime, mocking. "I can't even be surprised, Prime was always the most terrible of teachers, he got through on brute strength and charms alone."
I look around the room curiously. She answers my gaze.
"We're Shamans. The powers that we have. These powers give us that title by the state, although we are retired from our duties." She explains. I am surprised to learn she is retired, she looks young. "Prime does whatever Prime does, and I run this little place, using my gift to help people rather than ruin them. Much more satisfying, if you ask me." She continues, scrunching her face at the climax. I blush red, she looks cute when she talks.
Shamans. The word sits heavy in my mind. "So you and Prime were Shamans together?" I guess. "Why do you guys have such different abilities," I ask.
"Shamans are those who earn or are granted supernatural power but that power varies. These powers match our personalities and abilities, divided into factions." She explains. She is geeking out.
"Factions?" I respond. My eyes stare blankly. She gives me a blank stare as if she is asking more from me. I hesitate to ask, "What exactly are these factions?"
Elena's expression lights up instantly, her teasing grin shifting into something far more dangerous. Pure excitement. She claps her hands and she shifts from her knees to a crossed leg position.
"Oh, you have no idea how happy I am you asked. Listen up because this is important."
She leans into me, golden eyes gleaming.
"There are fourteen Shaman factions. These factions each have a different focus, and different specialties, with all different levels of awesomeness or lack thereof. These factions have different cultures and responsibilities but they don't exist to fill a role, but their unique powers force them in place. Our powers are mysterious, for whatever reason these magic powers mainly follow fourteen odd archetypes, and these factions house those with those powers." She holds her breath, taking in a sip of oxygen before continuing. "Those who have immense physic-defying powers sit at the top of this hierarchy. Three factions hold this prestigious role. The Eternal seers sit atop the Shamans, their ability to peer into the future gives them a power the other factions don't have. These strange powers give us immense power to use in combat, the Seers have the strange power to use in any facility that benefits them. If the Shamans were a society, the Seers hold the power to help us prosper, or just as quickly dissolve. If you can now properly guess, Prime over there belongs to their kind. Heads up if anyone asks, we don't like their kind." She smirks a controversial smile to Prime, he responds matching her. "Sharing the spotlight are The Revenant Council and The Abyssal Descendants. They are idolized by civilians and Shamans due to their immense power. The Council deals in life energy, with their ability to manipulate it, at the highest levels, being able to even create short events of immortality. The Descendants have an ability even alien to Shamans, being about to affect time-space. The most powerful man alive belongs to this faction. Then there exist the middle factions, the ones who each hold important roles that make them indispensable but know their place among the hierarchy. My faction are the Fate Harvesters, and as you can guess we can manipulate fate, abstract… I know." She seems disappointed with her explanation. "The Sanguine Coven…"
"Blood." I cut her off. She looks surprised by my knowledge. I give a smirk to Prime.
"Yeah…" Elena resets. "The Arcane Archivists can manipulate space-time as well in a shorter sense, slowing time for themselves or speeding it up for opponents, stuff like that. The Iron Eternals are men or iron, literally, they gain a metallic skin that only strengthens and grows as they get more powerful. The Serpent's Covenant can manifest the powers of snakes, poisonous strikes, advanced taijutsu, and snake-like transformations. The Celestial Wardens can form barriers from thin air made of energy. For the most part, these factions are common with large numbers and respect from the society. That cannot be said for, what the Shamans refer to as, the 'low' factions. These include the Flamewrought Legion, The Verdant Heralds, and The Tempest Sovereigns. These factions either due to a lack of comparative power or a general disdain from the society gain them a poverty status among the factions. The Legion belongs in the caves of Echohollow, so rare in number they are little more than a myth even among Shamans. The Heralds call upon the earth to summon creatures imbued with energy to move to their masters' command. The Sovereigns call upon the air to aid them, they are strongest in the storm. The previous two are shamed by society for the unruly actions of their factions from years in our past, but yet our Government does not forget and so we will not either. There belong two more factions that don't exactly belong to the hierarchy in a traditional sense. The Runeweavers work for the state, as both Shaman instructors who guide generations as well as using their unique powers to imbue people and tools with symbols of magic that grant powers to the things they enhance." She takes a moment for breath. I think back to the symbols on my knife, and my mind starts to wonder… "And lastly exists the Eclipsed Shroud, their powers are mostly unknown. They work best in the dark, belonging to the shadows, but the extent to their abilities are limited. They work as an independent unit to the hierarchy, acting as spys are both friend and foe, making their own objectives priority. They most commonly interact with us as a sort of middleman working on internal investigations." Elena stares at me gaining her thought, hoping I have retained 10% of anything she had just said. "It's a lot and it's not too important." She looks from me to Prime, her tone embarrassed that she went too extreme in her joy explaining to me. "Just know your in good hands with Prime." I agree.
I stare at her. "...I think I need you to repeat that."
Prime chuckles from the corner. "You'll learn soon enough."
But I wasn't sure if I would. My mind felt like a fractured mirror, reflecting a world I had no place in. Shamans, factions, fate, magic—I had no past to anchor me, no future to aim for.
My body still ached, and my mind was drowning in questions, but one thing was clear—if I wanted to survive in this world, I need power. I need answers.
And I am not gonna wait for them to find me.
The stars do not choose their course. We do.