The Beginning

Among the clouds, far away in an infinite space, among nebulae and stardust. A blinding light disturbed the darkness, so powerful that it illuminated the entire universe, as if it were announcing its dominion over all creation.

Suddenly, there was an enormous roar, which seemed to shake the very foundations of life itself, immediately followed by silence.

Among the myriads of stars and galaxies, the enormous light that seemed to dominate over the universe began to lose its vigor, leaving room again, for darkness.

"Aaah how tired I am!"

Another terrible day for Rada, back from training.

It was still afternoon and the town where he lived was full of life; Being very close to the city he was greatly influenced by it and the traffic seemed to never end.

However, Rada didn't pay attention to the comings and goings of cars anymore, too tired to think, better to listen to music.

Indifferent to his surroundings, he continued on his way home. But since he could not hear, he had to pay much more attention to cars and people.

His light brown eyes were always focused whenever he had to cross or avoid colliding with passersby.

"I don't feel like making the climb, I'll take the shortcut."

On the way home he used to take the longer route that involved a climb of no small amount. Nothing against shortcuts, but his mother's words: "Shortcuts don't always lead to a good path" had remained in his daily routine.

That day, however, this was not the case, the training had been very hard and he had very little energy left for the climb.

So he thought it was better to cross the "grove".

Although the grove had little to do with it, it was called that by the people of the village. More than anything else it was to make fun of the town council that no longer took care of the green areas.

On the way, Rada continued to walk listening to music, while his thoughts were still taken by the movements studied in training: "Lap sao", "Pak sao", "Chi sao", "Bon sao", "Tan sao".

All those movements, were techniques that were part of "Jkd", famous martial art as much as its creator, Bruce Lee.

In a few days he would have to face an important exam for the passage to the second level and he absolutely had to be well prepared not to make a bad impression with the master.

There were not many levels in jkd, you went from the first level, to the second, and then to student-instructor and finally master (or instructor).

In the meantime the grove was near, the branches of the trees could already be seen. The thinner and longer ones were already starting to bother him, getting stuck in his rebellious light brown hair.

Precisely because of this rebellion on the part of his hair he preferred to cut it short even though he liked it long. So, just on a whim, he grew a lock of hair behind the nape of his neck, creating a small curly ponytail.

Being about six feet tall, he was in perfect reach of those pesky branches. So much so that he had to remove his headphones to take extra care not to scratch his face.

Suddenly, as he was avoiding the branches, he caught a glimpse of a small light near a bush a few steps away from him.

"Someone must have dropped their LED flashlight."

From the light so vividly he thought that was indeed the case.

But after he walked over to pick it up he realized he had misjudged.

"But it's not a flashlight.... Is it a marble? A marble with a light bulb in it?"

He was rather dubious about the found object, as he watched it, the light grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared altogether.

"It must have lost its durability I guess."

When the light disappeared he could see through it and noticed something curious.

"What the... It's like seeing space..."

As he spoke to himself, Rada noticed these tiny lights swirling inside the marble.

It was a one-of-a-kind spectacle, the stuff of movies she thought.

"Unbelievable!"

After recovering from his amazement, he noticed something even stranger happening around him;

The trees that used to seem to be standing still, began to dance conspicuously, almost as if they had decided to stretch themselves from their perennial static nature. They shook left and right as if struck by a powerful gust of wind, the point being that there was no wind.

Shaken by this event, the boy thought about running away and getting out of the grove quickly. But any thoughts he had of escape, were immediately nipped in the bud, as a loud ringing in his ears caught him off guard. Followed by a constant headache.

"What the hell!"

"Argh!"

Rada dropped to his knees at the pain that seemed to split his head open. His breathing became labored and he began to sweat profusely.

"Someon..."

He tried to call for help, but the words suddenly stopped. It was too late, his vision darkened and a sudden numbness made him unable to make any kind of movement. In a matter of seconds, Rada fell to the ground unconscious.

The marble, which was still in his hand, began to emit a blinding glow again.

Slowly it began to burn the skin creating a gash in the hand, taking advantage of this opportunity, it crept with vigor into the palm, merging with it. After that it went out again, resting and waiting to be awakened.

Also, something else was happening around her unconscious body.

The drab grove, devoid of aesthetic beauty, was constantly changing.

The few perished trees, in the blink of an eye, made way for large oaks and shrubs of gigantic dimensions. They looked centuries old to the eye, their dark, grayish bark revealing the passage of time on them.

Animals and birds of various kinds hopped from tree to tree, concealing their presence among the wild and uncultivated bushes from time to time.

Of what had previously seemed a small, bare grove, there was no longer a trace. Even the light, which struggled to filter through the foliage, was having a hard time claiming its presence.

The landscape had drastically changed, from any point of view the place where Rada was was a real forest.