Burning.

Everything is burning.

As if there's no mercy left in this world. As if God covers His ears the whole time during my prayers.

Not fair. I never asked for this.

I don't want to end like this. Not like this. I deserve to die in a better way. I don't want it. I can't accept it. I don't want it. I can't—

All the fire is gone.

All the light is gone.

I am gone.

...Who am I?

The unbearable pain and hatred are disappeared. I am all alone, floating in the familiar cold and darkness. Something in the back of my head tell me that I've been here before. And the only present thing that I can't recognised here is the faint existence of mine.

The unbearable pain and hatred are faded, but the fear stayed and sticking into my skins. Tighten around my neck and suffocating me. I can't breath. If I can, I will pathetically call my mother in the middle of this void.

Mother... that word is like keeping my mind sane and not fading away. The more I try to remember about my mother, the more I feel the strength to resist the void that trying to seep into my consciousness and steal it away.

Mom, help, I don't want to disappear...

As my head diving through the sea of memories that I share with my mother, the warmth find its way into my chest once again. It's blurry, but there's a light that carefully greet my vision. A very soft light.

These eyes has blinked a few times, yet it's still hard to see everything clearly. The best I can do is sensed a figure— two figures, who standing in front of me. Even though my eyes can't catch their forms, their existences is too powerful to ignored.

I can also hear them talking.

"...His name will be Aynaz."

Aynaz. That's my name. The name is unfamiliar, but I am pretty sure that's my name. It's like it was carved on my heart to remember.

"Happy birthday, Aynaz."

When that voice called my name for the second time, my sight finally find its strength to recognized the tall woman who standing in front of me.

~*~

She introduced herself as The Sculptor, someone who carved a vessel for my soul to reside. There's also the other three people who shared the same fate as me here.

"It feels and look like a normal human body by the miracles of your souls, even though it was just a carved minerals a few minutes ago,"

The Sculptor laughed, while sitting on the chair in the middle of this garden of flowers, trees, and huge red crystals sprouting from the grassy ground. The another person, who introduced himself as Thirteenth and servant of The Sculptor, standing behind his master while keeping his androgynous face expressionless. Precisely, trying to not showing any expression.

I'd like to ask something, but my tongue is numb and my lips are stiff. My voice caught in my throat and making an audible embarrassing noises. I don't remember how to form a word.

The Sculptor in front of me, once again laughed. That's cruel.

"Seems like some of you have to be patient to gain ability to speak again," Her voice is deep and she intoned each words slowly. As if showing authority. "And please learn the situation patiently. I won't expect you to know everything at once."

Her soft gaze, suddenly shifts into a piercing ones.

"There's so many times to learn, since any of you have a lesser chance to die again. Just behaves well and follow the rules."

If it was supposed to be a threat, I am not scared at all. But, I got the message and currently don't have any interest to misbehaving according to her standards. It seems like the other three people beside me are not even gasped. The only one who seems to flinched was the servant.

"Now for the basic..."

The Sculptor continued speaking. By her explanation, the four of us are the chosen souls whose duty is to protect the harmony and consistency of space and time. We are addressed as Altair and our sole purpose of existing are to following rules and completing orders. I have a feeling that I supposed to find this demands as boring and bothersome, but I am not.

Next, she explained about the violation of rules of space and time.

"I doubt you guys will understand, but there are many cases where the boundaries of time and space are violated. Things moved by itself, deja vu, mind reader, or a portal to another world. Got it? Of course not."

I got it.

"The cause is a creature called Star Residue. Its came from, well, a certain star's residue. It appears randomly and caused what normally unseen can be seen, what usually unknown can be known, what supposed to be inaccessible become accessible. One of your task is to hunt it down and annihilate it." She shrugged. "That one task is easy. Instinctively, you can detect it."

After a few more explanation, she immediately gave us a mission to patrol. The Sculptor jokes that our deaths is an enough rest to jump into the action right now.

We are divided into 2 groups. The first group was me, unfriendly-looking blonde man, and the expressionless servant. The second group was The Sculptor, an intimidating man taller than The Sculptor, and unfriendly-looking short-haired girl. I regret has noticed these people besides The Sculptor, because seeing their faces make me getting cold again like back in the darkness.

After I try to pretending that they're not exists, both The Sculptor and Thirteenth hold a small, red-colored keys. There was a strange motive on the surface, but I couldn't speak to ask. Besides, it seems like The Sculptor won't explain if it's not important, so I'd better learn not to be curious until I be able to speak again.

"We can access the human world with this key." The Sculptor explain. "Just stab it to the air..." Can't you chose another word? "...And twist it."

A door magically appear. Without a farewell, The Sculptor and her party walk into the other side of the door and disappeared. The door also vanished into thin air.

"Let's go..." The Thirteenth called, as he already opened another door. The blonde man— now that I recall was named Alde, somehow looking nervous.

"I am not ready yet..." He whispered. So, this Alde guy can speak? Unfair. "Isn't it too soon? I'm still confused and uneasy."

"If your fear is to get hurt, it won't happen. I will also help if you are in trouble." Thirteenth calmly assured. Despite still looking hesitant, Alde finally nodded so that the three of us could undertake the great journey of walking through a door.

When The Sculptor mentioned about a human world, I was expecting a bustling city. I can say that I failed to guess our destination because the door take us to a quiet mountain instead. There were only trees as far as the eye could see. If it weren't for the fog far far away, I would be able to see even further.

I raise my brow at Thirteenth.

"Star Residue appears randomly and the key will take us to the place with huge possibility of it spawned." He explained calmly, understanding my gesture.

So it doesn't appear most of the time.

"That, or there's something else that the key recognised as a threats."

The latter would be interesting but somehow the mention of it makes Alde becoming more uneasy. I don't understand his anxiousness. The Sculptor clearly stated that we can't die again except for one condition. I wish I can ignore him.

"I wish we don't have to face the latter." Alde gripe quietly.

And so, the three of us started the patrol on a mountain that very quiet even from the chirping of birds. It feels like we've been walking for minutes, but nothing interesting has happened yet. Thanks to this experience, I understand again the feeling called boredom. If only I could talk, I would replace the task of the birds to chirp, because this place is too quiet for my liking.

Oh, wait, I can still make a noise, can't I? Yes, yes I can do it. I will chirping.

"Stop it! That's annoying!" Alde snapped when I chirp. That's so unfortunate, he is not fond of birds.

Ignoring oversensitive Alde who glaring sharply into the back of my head, I curiously look at Thirteenth who seems like thinking deeply.

"It seems that there is indeed a Star Residue here. As far as we go, there are no animals. Based on the information, this mountain is supposed to be full of animals at this time." Thirteenth turn around, facing me and Alde.

"It could be the cause of the absence of animals here." Alde replied. "But, aren't we supposed to be able to detect it easily?"

"Then, the second cause," said Thirteenth, totally sure about his prediction.

It seemed that afterwards they were arguing, but I didn't pay much attention because I heard a singing. It wasn't too far from us, but I had to walk away from the two of my team members to find out where the singing was coming from.

That voice took me to a waterfall area. It's like walking through a portal to an another, because finally there are fish in the waters and insects in air. This is the first time in this life I've seen the animals.

I watched closer and spotted something interesting. On a rock in the middle of the river, there was a human sitting on it. When I saw it, I immediately realized. She is The Dusted.

When The Sculptor explained about it, I didn't pay much attention. But the main point of the discussion that I caught, The Dusted is a human who has been exposed to too much Star Residue. That gives them the ability to break the human's limit on space and time, which is basically gained a super power in my logic.

Based on The Sculptor's explanation, it would be difficult to detect them. Luckily, we Altairs are still be able to recognises them the moment we saw one. So, I better not waste my chance and let her escape. What is she capable of is still unknown, but I don't need to worry about taking a risk.

Slowly, I take a careful steps towards her direction, and the singing stopped. She looked at me, with a mix of surprised and confused on her face. I noticed that there's a small white box in her grip.

I shouldn't stepped on that branch. Hopefully, she is not running away soon.

Without waiting any longer, I formed a small black sphere in the air, about a size of a lychee. My ability is pretty destructive, therefore I have to be careful. I don't need to destroy what doesn't need to be destroyed.

The sphere floated in the air, approaching The Dusted. The sight of it seemed to fill her with astonishment and awe, she even tried to touch it when it got much closer to her.

I am glad that she is stupid, because that sphere will brutally absorb and erase any solid objects that directly in contacts with it.

It must be hurt, because she let out an agonizing scream as her skin, flesh, bone, and blood were pulled into the sphere,. I stand still and watched it to understand better what my abilities is capable of since I only understood the theory naturally in my mind. The Dusted was being ripped alive, this scene is like torturing my brain but I don't know what to feel. She tried to pull her hand away, but it wouldn't let go.

"What is happened here!?"

I heard a shout behind me, definitely from Alde. It seemed that The Dusted's screams had brought that two people who I almost forgotten present on the same mountain here. Thirteenth seemed to nod to himself as he arrived.

"See? I am right about the second cause. This is definitely the work of The Dus—"

"Who cares about that!? Aynaz, stop it! She is just a kid!"

"Don't listen to him, Aynaz. You are doing a good job."

"You are sick!"

However, despite of whatever they're going to say, The Dusted's entire body was gone destroyed by the sphere. Only her box remained, which fall into the water, and dissipated. After that, I saw birds flying above the sky and a squirrel running up a tree.

The moment my sphere vanished, Alde fell to his knees.

"How can you easily kill another human? Do you even realized what are you doing, Aynaz?"

Don't guilt trip me. I am just trying to be competent here.

"Neither of us nor that girl is a human, Alde." Thirteenth correcting.

"Is that so? Or you just dehumanised her?"

I thought they were going to argue some more, but Thirteenth took out that red key again. He said that we should return soon as the task was completed. It was also mentioned by him, that there will be a big earthquake that destroying this land later.

"Then we should save the animals here first,"

Alde, you look smart, but I don't think you understand our job yet.

"No need. That's what caused that The Dusted to be executed. She knows there's going to be an earthquake soon and she intends to fight natural selection by keeping the animals with her ability." Thirteen give his response, while opened the door. "Probably intended to move them to the different place."

The door was wide open, inviting me to come back to a place that I can't call a home yet. Thirteenth waited for us to step in first.

"It's tolerable that you can't understand the situation yet, Alde. As the Master said, you still have plenty of time to learn. Let's go home and rest."

"That's not what I—"

Impatient, I shove him to walk through the door. I barely feel any emotions when I first wake up as Aynaz, but this guy managed to make me feel annoyed for the first time in this life. If he complain, I don't hear it at all.

As I walked through the door, I was suddenly trapped again in the familiar darkness. Faintly, I heard a voice calling me, even though it wasn't my name that was called. The darkness was only fleeting, then for in the next second, I was already in the garden where I first met The Sculptor.

Unfortunately, that fleeting darkness seemed to awaken a part of me that I had forgotten curled up deep inside my chest, even just for a moment. I collapsed to the ground, vomiting and crying.