1 Beginning of the Karma

There once existed a legend, once every 1000 years, a curse would befall upon humanity, taking the lives of millions upon millions of humans. The Legend was disproven by scientists a long time ago, but the day came.

One by one people suddenly started combusting; wild animals went into frenzy howling and attacking each other. From deep within the ocean, an alter rose into the air, absorbing the clouds of karma of the peoples that combusted.

Both positive and negative karmas gathered by those peoples divided into two parts. One part was white, and the other part was black. Those black and white clouds compressed to form a circle.

After that, a heavy wind blew across the planet, blowing the remaining uncompressed clouds of karma, revealing a coin. The wind became stronger and stronger, eventually blowing the coin away to somewhere in the world.

...

Two brothers, orphaned at the age of 7 and 8 respectively were scared at the things that were happening. People were being combusted left, and right, they were holding their hands very tight.

It was the little brother's 17th birthday, and they were visiting a shop to buy some milk to celebrate it. Most of the days, the brothers had to go hungry, only occasionally getting to eat something from the wastes.

It was the first time they were going to taste some milk in a decade, and this happened. Suddenly, the older brother combusted in flames. Instinctively, the little brother let go of the elder brother's hand and stepped back. Shortly after only thing left of elder brother was his ash.

"NOOO!" The Little Brother ran towards the ash of his brother, but along with the ash, he was blown away by the wind.

...

"Ugh... Where am I?" Rikan slowly lifted his head. Looking around with his blurry vision, all he could make out were mountains of debris. He was heavily injured with only being to move his hands. He couldn't feel his body below his waist, but miraculously he could fully use one of his hands. There wasn't a single scratch on it.

As he slowly turned his head around, he realized that he was on top of one of the mountains of debris.

"What hap-" Unpleasant memories flooded his mind as he uncontrollably shouted,

"BROOOTHEEERRRR!"

"No... No... you can't be gone. We promised... we promised never to let go of each other in the face of anything... noo! Come Back! Nooo!"

Just then, another piece of unpleasant memory hit his brain.

He remembered, at the last moment, when his brother was in danger, he left his brother's hand, the same hand that was uninjured. The heart that had become empty due to his brother's loss had thorns of guilt and anger poking it.

"Why? Why? Why did I leave my brother? Even if I couldn't save him, I could join him. Why?" Even though it was just a human instinct to jump away from any danger, it was unacceptable for Rikan.

"Why? Why?" He started to repeatedly slam his hand on the mountain of debris in the hope of breaking it. Breaking the hand that let go of his brother.

The uninjured hand, which all this while seemed to be made of iron, easily got injured. Even while all the parts of his body were nearly destroyed, the hand was without any scratch, but now, it easily got injured. The bones broke, and the skin tore apart along with the flesh, bursting out what little blood he had left in his injured body. The hand looked like it got mutilated.

The blood from the hand ran down the debris into the inner parts, and there it fell upon a luminous black coin.

As soon as the blood touched the coin, it combusted like those humans earlier. But it didn't last for long as it absorbed all the fire and radiated a black and white light. The light started getting more and more intense and finally resulted in an outburst of black and white light along with a shockwave.

The already unconscious and injured Rikan was blasted off due to the shockwave, making his injuries even graver.

The shockwave blew away all the debris and created a crater around the coin. The coin then flew at a breakneck speed towards the general location of Rikan. He was buried by all the debris that went flying after him, and it looked like he would die any second now.

The coin became ethereal and entered into Rikan's body through his slightly unburied leg. It traveled through his body into his left hand, the same hand that seemed indestructible but was mutilated now.

The coin settled into his left hand in an intangible state. Few seconds after the coin settled in, a white fire covered Rikan's hand along with his body. The fire was densely concentrated on his hand and became less concentrated as it got farther from the hand.

After some time, the fire went out on its own, and his hand was fully healed with his body healed enough to be alive, still buried under the debris.

After a few hours, Rikan woke up, confused, until the memories rushed backed in. It looked like the memories were so traumatic that his brain wanted to hide them away, but Rikan still managed to recall it after a few seconds.

He cried, cursed himself, cursed the gods, the devils, the fate. He went into madness. He couldn't live like this. Buried under debris, he couldn't move an inch. Unable to bring out his anger, frustration, he wanted to die.

He tried to choke himself with his own saliva. He breathed in as he tried to swallow his saliva while praying inside his heart,

'Hey God, Devil, Anyone that is listening. Take my life, but please return the life of my brother. Take me as a sacrifice…'

He himself didn't believe anything was going to happen, but he couldn't stand his state. It was the only thing on his mind. He couldn't think of anything.

Cough! Cough!!

His body involuntarily tried to expel the saliva reaching the windpipe, but he forcefully tried to stop it. He wanted to cough so badly, but every time he was about to do so, the face of his brother appeared before his eyes, and he would stop.

Cough! Cough!! Cough!!!

He could no longer stop himself. What he had done till now was beyond human capability, but it was too late now.

He couldn't breathe anymore, and after a few minutes, he died.

…

Rikan opened his eye.

'Didn't I die?'. It was all that he could think nothing else. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember a single moment in his memory.

"Where… am I?" Rikan softly whispered, looking around in the black and white world. The ground was white, and the sky was black.

Far away in the flat black and white world, he saw some kind of structure. Pinching his eyes together, he saw what he thought to be some kind of temple or an altar.