His consciousness gazed at the talking visage of the creepy-haired man, a part of his memory. He looked around, watching the scene in the rifts change. On the road was a small pool of blood that began to flow up, against the effect of gravity.
It entered the opened area of the door, seeping into the many wounds on the youth. The iron rods that had pierced him moved backward, coming out of his body. His wounds closed; the scene felt as if everything was being reversed in time.
The traffic moved in reverse, the youth drove the car to a certain building. Pravaha Nigam; the car drove past the sign and eventually parked itself underground. The youth exited the car and walked in reverse, eventually arriving on the 14th floor.
A flurry of backward play later, the scene stopped at the moment when the big figure had entered the room. The scene began to play as usual, but this time, there was a mild difference. A scene from his memory matched with what had happened now.
The youth closed his eyes and peacefully died. His soul escaped the confines of the body and headed into a cloud. Scenes that he didn't know existed in his memory played out. Jyorta passively allowed himself to travel through it; the blue soul maintained a steady level of immersion using its abilities.
The doctor stationed in the hotel arrived to check his state, shaking his head eventually. The scene turned blurry, the next rift was the image of the traffic from before. The only exception was the absence of the youth and his car. Present in the location was an SUV, and seated inside were a couple.
Similar events repeated; the iron rods from the lorry shattered the windshield and pierced the couple. The consciousness remembered them; they were behind the car in the first scene when the youth died.
An intense feeling of sadness emanated from the memory, affecting Jyorta. His consciousness looked around, noticing another parallel rift to its left. The image in it was the first scene, of the youth's death. Suddenly, a massive bird—reptilian, with a wingspan of 2 metres—crashed into the SUV behind the car, killing the couple inside.
On his right, a couple of rifts later, the same reptilian bird landed on the SUV, this time not killing the couple as they were already dead. Five rifts later, both the ones on the left and right merged into a single line of rifts.
As the consciousness watched further, a couple more rifts joined into it. Eventually, the single line of rifts continued forth, without any disturbance.
'The ripple from my death disappeared within a couple of moments.' Jyorta sighed, feeling the insignificance of his presence in the grand scheme of things.
He was supposed to die in the accident originally. But thanks to the creepy-haired man's arrangement, he died around two hours in advance. But even then, nothing changed in the world. Some events were mildly altered but they soon corrected themselves into the original timeline.
'Insignificance…' Jyorta thought, making his consciousness tread further into the memory. The scenery around the bubble changed. The rifts disappeared, and replacing them were dust clouds.
Lightning sparked around them, many times coming threateningly close. Each lightning bolt was many times his size in their width, the power in them was frightening. The bubble seemed fragile, moving past the dust clouds and the lightning sparks.
Tornadoes arrived, their two ends extending beyond vision, each resembling mountain. Some were positioned horizontally, moving across like a snake through space, defending against the lightning strikes. Turbulent forces smacked the bubble from all sides, oftentimes causing depressions to form on its surface.
The surface rippled, with cracks forming in places. Every time a crack formed, the translucent fog escaping from the creepy-haired man spiked in intensity, fusing with the bubble to mend the cracks. The rate of the creepy-haired man's vaporisation became faster.
Soon, his stomach disappeared as his chest began to vaporise. The consciousness looked at the creepy-haired man's face, noticing his solemn expression. There was tension, anxiety, alarm, and fear in his eyes as he looked around, gazing at something way beyond the dust clouds.
A tornado approached a dust cloud, beginning to shred it apart. Suddenly, something white flashed from within the dust cloud, instantly destroying a major chunk of the tornado. The consciousness noticed something dark flash within the damaged part.
The scene turned blurry as the creepy-haired man bellowed, raising the speed of travel. His body began to vaporise even faster. The bubble disappeared from the area, arriving above a dust cloud with flashing lightning.
Each flash of lightning highlighted the cracks formed on the bubble. The bubble looked on the verge of being destroyed. The consciousness looked at everything, noticing the creepy-haired man emit faint fluctuations from his mouth as he spoke. As for the contents, he was unable to hear anything.
But, the consciousness noticed that his form had become sluggish, entering a state of slumber. The bubble suddenly slowed down, noticing four massive tornadoes block its way. Swirling around them were dust clouds, the lightning they emitted impacted the tornadoes, damaging them.
The creepy-haired man panted, looking exhausted as he stared at the scene, biding his time as the bubble steadily inched forward.
A large lightning bolt vaporised a portion of the tornado. The creepy-haired man bellowed, causing more of his body to vaporise. The bubble burst forth with speed, passing through the gap in the damaged tornado.
It was fully dark, as if the surroundings were covered by iron sand. The bubble began to shrink, the cracks increased with frightening intensity. The vaporisation of his body had reached his neck by now.
The bubble constantly mended itself as it broke free from the surroundings. The consciousness gazed at the back of two tornadoes, and at the damage of one using which the bubble had escaped through.
The consciousness shuddered. Jyorta's body trembled in fright; his face became pale while his hands and legs turned cold. It was a result of the scene the consciousness saw.
It was a ring, possessing numerous overlapping sections. It lacked any colour, its form ethereal, as if it wasn't something that existed in the material world. Two concentric circles were on the side of the ring, perfectly inlaid within.
The ring emerged from the tornado and crashed into a dust cloud. Outlined within the dust cloud—as a result of the clash—was a rectangle, two of its sides barely longer than the other. If not for that, it would have been a square.
Lightning flashed around, attacking the ring. Both were soon enveloped by the dust cloud, a part of which began to rotate, forming a bigger tornado. They clashed and separated, clashing again, stuck in a perpetual state of conflict.
The bubble passed through many dangers, eventually beginning to fall—based on what the consciousness had determined upon observation. Soon, the familiar voice of the creepy-haired man resounded as the surroundings turned calm.
The blurriness turned a shade of white, eventually replaced by sunlight. The creepy-haired man only retained part of his dissipating face. His voice resounded within the bubble, with each sound rattling it. It had become weak enough to shatter any instant.
"I have killed you, though I could say, I also did you a favour."
"In the original timeline, after signing the deal, you faced a car accident on your return journey that claimed your life. It was why I chose you; you, a person who is neither too old, nor too young."
"The older the person, the greater the Karma binding their soul; younger people are too immature and ignorant for my purposes. Only you, a person who is no longer a teen but possesses an abundance of knowledge and a mind for creation, is the right person for this job."
"You no longer feel an attachment to your past life, but you will remember everything, including me, in detail when you woke up. The laws of the world forbid direct reincarnation without erasure of memories; hence, I am taking this round-about approach. I will attach you to a newborn soul; take your time to conquer its ego and make it yours, finally becoming a resident of this timeline."
Sunlight shone around the bubble; it was gentle. A city was situated below the bubble, looking clear. The surroundings were no longer a blur now.
In response to the creepy-haired man's words, the consciousness noticed his form exit the bubble and fall towards the city. It passed through many sections of a skyscraper, arriving within a room where a woman lay on a bed.
"Mother!" A thought resounded in Jyorta's mind. It was feedback through his aura. The shout was from his body's instinct, a result brought about by the link shared with the existence that birthed it. As he was exploring the concept of aura personification, he could perceive the feedback with startling clarity.
Despite the form going to the city underneath, the consciousness stayed within the bubble, watching the form extend a soul tendril and attach it to the baby's soul. The baby cried, the same as all babies did after birth.
The mother, Henrietta steeled her nerves as she carried the baby and gently placed it within a cradle. Her arms trembled in fear while her expression was on the verge of crying. She looked at the baby in hopes, saying her prayers, all the while struggling to breathe from her emotional state.
The cradle was actually an apparatus, with many electronic parts embedded into it. It lit up with a faint green light and scanned the baby from head to toe, once, twice, thrice. The colour then changed to red as it repeated the scan. After a few minutes had passed—with the cries of the baby rising in magnitude—the scan finally stopped as a green light lit upon it.
Standing nearby, the man, Hancent hurriedly picked the baby up, an expression of relief on his face. He placed the baby in the hands of a happy Henrietta that began to cry in relief. She looked at her baby with joy, planting a kiss on its forehead.
Tears streamed out of Jyorta's eyes as his consciousness within the memory heard the voice of the creepy-haired man, "I pray for your safety, pray for your strength, and pray that you can destroy the…"
"Mother Parasite."