Aditya had been sitting on the same chair with a cup of tea that refilled every time he took a sip for a long time.
"Are you done deciding yet?"
"Yes," Kaelen replied instantly.
The chair and table dissolved into nothing as Aditya stood up.
"Okay then." He snapped his fingers. "I will show you the way."
The place split into two: the city and Aditya's void. Aditya was already inside his void.
Kaelen hesitated at first. What if Aditya abandons him?
Aditya signalled his hands towards the city.
Kaelen looked at Rowan. Rowan nodded.
With his first step, Aditya's void disappeared with Rowan.
The city looked the same as before. On second look, the windows and doors came back.
Sounds of bones cracking came from one house, unreadable.
Kaelen realized he had fucked up.
It jumped through the window, flying towards Kaelen. Zombified version of Kaelen, its flesh covered with white strings that came from its mouth.
Kaelen killed it in one strike.
Another one broke through the door. Kaelen swung the chain blind. Its head sliced off.
Bone crackling sounds came again. Kaelen struck blind again. Kaelen was terrified. He looked around, then again. The gap between houses. Cars. Roofs. He read his surroundings. Nothing. But then, why were there only two dead bodies?
One zombie stood in front of him. Reattaching its torn neck. Then the sounds of bones cracking came again. The second zombie stood up. Another one rushed out of a car. Kaelen handled them with no difficulty.
Another new zombie entered the road. Then another. Groups came together. Waves of hundreds. The chains were tired and zombies were restless. Nothing stopped them.
Their hesitation was disappearing with each resurrection.
It was when the road was no longer visible that a zombie spoke, at least it tried to. Its voice sent a haunting memory.
His chain stopped mid-swing. The zombies around him stopped, but the wind didn't.
The scariest glimpse of his past. It was a dark day. His best friend had betrayed him. Years of work dissolved into the ground. And his father's side relatives were no longer related to him. For Kaelen, his father was the greatest man. He loved his father as a person. Kaelen wished he could say the same about him as a father.
Kaelen was in his bed, crying. He had already planned a new life. Ready to give it his all. Make his father proud. His room's door opened. His father stood there, crying. Kaelen got out of his bed to hug his father. He looked at it—a thick wooden stick in his father's hand. It came down, striking his leg. Kaelen's pitch suddenly turned high, "What?" He was used to it, only one word came out of instinct.
His father didn't stop. The blows kept coming, one after another.
Kaelen grabbed the stick. "Stop! You will injure me."
His father looked, biting his lips. "I don't care. I have the money for your surgery." His father grabbed the stick back. He shouted, "Do you have any idea how much you hurt me with these things?"
Kaelen snapped out of it.
This moment wasn't much different from it. It never occurred how much they had suffered due to him. His darkness had always been begging him to stop. Rotting itself for his well being.
"How long have you lived here?"
The being jerked its head. The strings flew in every direction. "Why do you care now?"
Another wave of zombies came. Kaelen killed them in one sweep.
The zombie twitched and grunted.
Kaelen held his hands straight and palms open. "I had to, I had to. Just listen to me. I can't be hundreds of zombies' therapist."
It nodded. And made its way towards Kaelen, grabbed him by the collar. "Why do you think I will forgive you?" Its vocal cords tore. Its hands ripped through its own chest until they touched its heart, and it went back to sleep.
A pile of them woke up, killed in an instant.
The zombie woke up.
"Listen, I know what I made you go through, but if we don't work together, we die together." Kaelen said.
"Better to die than help you."
The pattern kept repeating. The zombie woke up, neglected Kaelen's offers, broke its vocal cords to curse Kaelen, and committed suicide to curse him again.
"Can you listen to me just this once?"
The zombie stared down Kaelen from its position.
Kaelen wore a big smile, teeth painted by blood and lips tearing as his smile grew even longer. Kaelen said in an eerily calm voice, "You are my creation, and you will obey me. You can be the boss here right now. But I will make sure you suffer even more once I get out. You can't survive without me. I am the owner of this world."
The zombie's eyes widened. It backed down and kneeled before him. Every zombie woke up together and followed. His army stretched far beyond the city. They got the lord, the Kaelen they had been longing for.
Kaelen pointed towards the zombie he had talked to. The next second, the zombie was wearing shiny royal armor and a long sword with gems empowering it. In its other hand it held a flag, the flag of the voidborne's country, 'Earthright.'
Kaelen raised his fist in the air and screamed across the city. "We will conquer the world and give it to its righteous owner. ME."
The crowd erupted in joy. Their vocal cords didn't break this time. Kaelen had become one of them, and they had become a part of Kaelen. Kaelen glanced at his newly made army, durable enough that even gods would struggle to kill them.
The general opened a chest at the corner of the street. Kaelen could swear there used to be a sewer entrance in its place.
A cloth with red powder inside it.
The zombie knelt down and offered it to Kaelen.
"What am I supposed to do with it?" Kaelen asked.
The zombie rubbed it against Kaelen's forehead. Then his cheeks and his neck. "This will make you our true lord."
When he opened his eyes, his surroundings changed. Everything split into smaller units. His senses worked automatically. They observed at a level humans couldn't. It was impossible to see a building as a building rather than a group of rooms made from bricks. The zombies weren't zombies; they were close to being called an embodiment of darkness. The material and shape of the object were the only ways to tell what something was.
"You will get used to it." The commander said.
Kaelen screamed "Aditya!" as loud as he could. His army followed.
Aditya's void came crashing into his. His void felt different this time. The mystical feeling was gone. Everything made from unused potential.
Aditya wrapped the city in his void and flew it into the sky. Something had changed in both of them. Aditya was no longer a child. He looked four or five years older and Rowan lost his mysterious Aura.