Voices, he could hear voices sprout from the nothingness. They would suddenly start and stop, speaking in random intervals, sometimes interrupting each other with totally different conversations.
The first coherent voice he could properly discern seemed to be totally inhuman. "Soon, we will be able to get him soon." All the voices eventually stopped, and instead, he was left alone in the emptiness with nothing but a chorus of tears.
He felt a hand hold onto him; it was his sister''s hand. He could feel it. It was small and rough, probably rough from all the badminton she played. He wasn''t sure exactly where they were, but it seemed to be raining, if only localized directly over their entwined hands for some incomprehensible reason. He had the sense that she was trying to speak to him, but she was on a different planet; he couldn''t quite hear what she said.
There was another voice on that planet that his sister seemed so attached to, but he could hear that voice perfectly clearly. "I will see what can be done." The voice seemed to puncture through the emptiness, and he could almost see the doctor before him. It was the girl to whom he gave his number. "I''m sorry, but you will have to leave while we perform the operation."
He just realized that his sister wasn''t alone; his whole family seemed to be there, and also Kith, he totally forgot to pick her up at five. Hopefully, she wasn''t too mad at him for that.
He was glad his mom was here, though; he almost forgot that he had something important to say to her before taking his nap. ''Happy birthday mom.'' He wasn''t sure if she could hear him from that planet, but he thought he would say it anyway.
His sister tried to say something to him, but he couldn''t quite make out what she was saying. Only a blurred face, tiny on that planet far away. She seemed distressed; she was always the sort to overthink everything. He tried his best to squeeze her hand in comfort. He never wanted to see his little sister as sad as she was now; he only wished he could do something to make her feel more relieved.
He tried to squeeze her hand; for whatever reason, his hand barely responded to his whims, but still, the impossible gap between their planets seemed ever briefly shortened, like it could actually be crossed. There was a hitch in his sister''s voice, which he could not hear. She protested to the others in the room, but none seemed to believe whatever she was saying, and their father had to pry her away. Tears blurred upon the blur of her face, and she lashed out angrily, trying to buck herself free from their father''s hold.
He felt bad he couldn''t comfort his sister more, but he really needed this nap. ''Can you take care of Nubnub while I nap, Dad?'' No reply came, but he felt his father had answered.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Finally, it was just him and the girl no longer wearing her yellow headband. The two of them on opposite planets, she gave him her captivating smile. "When I wanted to observe you, I didn''t realize it would be so soon."
''Couldn''t stay away from me, could you?'' He didn''t seem nervous with her anymore; maybe it was thanks to this strange liquid that he had just realized was being pumped into him. It didn''t seem to matter much, though; her ears were no match for his own, and though he could cross the space between planets, she could not.
"I''m not going to save you. Sorry about that, but if it makes you feel better, for some reason, my eye looks at you, and I just can''t help but feel like I''ll see you again." His vision blurred until he couldn''t even see the distant planet anymore.
''You''re a weird doctor. What doctor starts off by saying they won''t save the patient?''
"We got him."
A room. He could suddenly see again, it felt like his mind had disappeared for eons, but he was finally back with all of his senses.
In the room before him were five beings. The five beings were humanoid but just not fully human in some hard-to-explain sense. They each wore long, flowing white gowns except for one at the back of the group, which wore a faintly glowing gold dress. The not-humans were each unique in size and shape, with many arms and large feathered wings. The beings reflexively repulsed Radix when his disgusting green eyes locked with their brown.
The one not-human at the group''s center quickly recovered and spoke up. "O great one, we have pulled your soul from time and space in its moment of greatest weakness. We have summoned you here to humbly ask of you to defeat the evil White Witch which plagues our world with unforgivable evil."
The end of the being''s sentence was followed by the chime of a bell. In front of Radix, there seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes.
While the ever-changing pink shape continuously morphed, the being spoke again. "To accomplish this task, we have blessed you with our divine Devadoot blood to reinforce your soul with god-like power and have granted you an invitation."
The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with two limbs. One arm was outstretched towards the being with the golden robe and the other toward Radix. Each arm held onto a glowing parchment. Radix looked at the parchment facing him: It read.
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<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">You have been invited to</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">The Tournament</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">You are The Antecedent</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
He reached out to grab the parchment with his left arm, but when no arm moved to do any such thing, his mind finally processed everything that had happened. He emptied his stomach, vomiting all over the pink organism and its invitation.