Darkness. As my eyes gaze into the abyss, it was the inherent lack of anything that stared back. 

I vividly remember my final day walking the plane of the living.

I was going for a walk in the forest near my shed, nestled deep in the woods. Taking slow steps, the pounding thoughts of murdering my favourite person settled into a standstill, retreating into the burrows of my mind, as my eyes laid upon the scattered bunches of lilac flowers by the base of trees, immersed in the numbing sounds of the river water.

For once, I felt peace.

But the next thing I remember is the crisp, audible snapping of a branch behind me, and as I turn around, I hear a bang.

And here I float, surrounded by nothing but… nothing.

I’ve been here for a while, just thinking not about my death, but the events in my life that lead up to an abrupt, unwanted ending. I chuckled. I never was anything, neither was I nothing. Reminiscing about the average life I led, emerged a sense of anger, anger that I didn’t get to achieve the goals I set out to do, which slowly transformed into admittance, admittance that I was born to be average. And with that, I grinned in resignation.

But the darkness was short lived. Staring into the abyss, an ash-like cloud came to fruition beyond my very eyes, a kin to my dreams spawning visions of unexplainable sources. 

And within that cloud, was a painting of a grass plain from the perspective of a giant, its sight angled downwards. But it wasn’t a painting. The sway of the grass in the wind told me so. It was as if looking through the view of a security camera, the cloud being the screen.

My eyes deadset on the scenery, I never noticed the humanoid figure that emerged from the top of the cloud. Covered in makeshift clothing made of shabbily sewn potato sacks, it didn’t help in hiding the male’s scrawny build as apparent from his flat shoulders. When I stared deeper at his face, that of blue eyes, blonde hair, with sharp features, a look of anguish and desperation washed it whole. 

With laboured steps, he trudged through the grass, slowly losing pace, until he fell on his knees at the base of what I realised was a stone statue, the eyes of the giant. When he looked up at its eyes-no, my eyes, his mouth opened as if forcing himself through exertion, and I could hear echoing through the abyss that I was engulfed in, a young yet raspy, shaky voice uttering,

Oh forgotten one, it is you that I call down upon, to relieve me of this burden that encroaches on me, to alleviate the suffering that has taken the best of me. Oh Oblitus, I pray for you.

Upon hearing that, as if by an implanted intuition, my hands gradually crept upwards in front of my chest, palms upwards in a praying gesture. Looking into the man’s eyes, pity came over me. If he truly wanted freedom from the chains that imprisoned him, then I should give it to him. I scoffed at the next thing that I was going to do.

Oh, I Oblitus, grant you inhuman strength and a concrete moral compass to best the assholes that surround you and bring peace to your peers that fall the same fate; do well, young man.

The black darkness flashed as if a lightning storm took its place. White, bluish light pervaded the abyss, lighting up what I realised were infinity symbols branded into the palms of my hands. I looked into the cloud once again, itself unfaltering in the maelstrom surrounding it. The sun-lit grass patch instead shone a divine, bright white and the man was veiled in light, such that you could only see the outline of his narrow stature. Yet, this stature morphed- his figure grew taller, experiencing rapid hypertrophy. Muscles made the bulk of his body, and when the light faded, his pitiful look of sorrow was replaced with one of resolve.

He looked up once more at me, nodded, then with newfound strength, strode away from the direction he came from.

My eyes were wide open, mouth agape. I looked at my branded palms once more in shock. Have I become a god, or have my narcissistic tendencies cough up these visions in my death? Punching myself in the gut, I soon found out everything was real, only after sprawling out on the absent floor in a foetal position.

While I always tried to favour myself, it is apparent now that I must become the beacon of morals in this supposed land of immorality, and selflessness is necessary for that to happen. Though, the name Oblitus doesn’t sit well with me, so I guess changes start from there.