The Warrior Scholar Chronicles. Ink and Moon on Rice Paper.

Chapter Two Signal of Hope

Chapter Two Signal of Hope

Amid the faint beams of light that filtered through the slender gaps of the barred window. A feeble shadow was cast upon Tang Yun's stiffened and swollen frame. As time ticked away relentlessly, its value diminishing with each passing moment. Tang Yun's sight gradually dimmed, merging with the encompassing darkness of the night.

His mop of jet-black hair trembled in a frenzied dance. His once-vigorous movements gradually waning with each desperate attempt to draw even a simple breath. Until finally, his valiant fight came to a halt.

Tang Yun's dorm room enveloped in darkness and stillness. It seemed as if all life had fled, leaving behind a silence that draped the space in an unsettling stillness, akin to a desolate tomb.

Suddenly the child's body began to glow, a bright white light flooded the room, it imbues everything with an almost tangible energy. While five blood-red runes etched on a wall near the door, sucked the light dry. Darkness engulfed the room before, the boy's body faded from view.

But what transpired would shock any observer as a slight dim pinkish hue, Yet the glow started to illuminate the walls and floor, imbued with soul qi the room became awash with red, the runes that covered the walls and door glow brightened until they reached a deep rich blood colour. The room was illuminated with a warmth, while hidden blood-red light seemed to pulsate from the runes now fully energised. The runes twisted and squirmed before repulsing the bright light back into the boy's body tenfold in strength.

Lost in a dream-like haze, Tang Yun felt the mysterious allure of an unknown world pulling at him, its call growing stronger. A wave of intense unease washed over his mind, a profound sense of wrongness that permeated his every thought.

Until a bright light flashed in the room emanating from a small child's body.

Tang Yun's eyes flew open in disbelief. Gone were the trappings of his dorm room of the Silver Circle Sect Orphanage and school, his body felt lighter and unbound by mortal constraints. His urgent hunger to breathe subsided into nothingness, yet his face held a mixture of fear and apprehension as his gaze fixed on the pitch-black void ahead.

He braced himself, as a surge of electricity tingling across his eyes as he focused, allowing his vision to sharpen in the darkness. The lightning continued to cover his head, then body, before a form emerged in the distance. A young child standing on the edge of a cliff against a backdrop of emptiness.

As he approached, an eerie chill coursed through his veins, sending a shudder of unease rippling through his body, haunted by the unsettling presence of the child's pallid complexion.

Tang Yun's eyes ballooned, stretching to the size of a dinner plate, as his mouth opened in astonishment. He knew that face all too well. It was his! Thick eyelashes fluttered, unable to comprehend the surreal scene unfolding before him. The mere thought of it was unsettling. He couldn't help but imagine his life flashing before his eyes, or at the very least, the faces of his loved ones. His brows furrowed, knitting together in a puzzled expression.

Watching himself standing precariously on the edge of a chasm, surrounded by an abyss of pitch-black nothingness, stirred a deep sense of discomfort within him. It was an eerie sight, unlike anything he had ever encountered before, leaving him both mesmerised and disturbed.

"Dog turd, had he died? And what was this? His last hurrah?" The words echoed in Tang Yun's mind as he drew closer to his other self, his curiosity piqued. It was as if a magnetic force pulled his awareness towards the child standing on the precipice. A clicking noise reverberated inside his head, signalling a moment of realization. What is this? In a strange and inexplicable union, they became one.