26 Chapter 26: History Lesson

"Let's talk for a little bit, Vivienne Anika Raji," The Most Powerful murmurs, as if weary of what he has to tell me. "First of all, this isn't a dream. Well, your dream self is in this place, and only we can see you, but this place here," he gestures with his hands, "Is real. The creature realm is like the human one; what happens there happens here, and vice versa. Both realms mirror each other," I silently scoff but nod at him as if I believe what he is saying. My brain is a messed-up place, and this is a messed-up dream.

The Most Powerful looks at me like he knows what I am thinking and sighs. "I know that it is hard to believe, but just keep an open mind," We stop walking as he puts a hand out to halt our meager progress. The hall has expanded infinitely now.

"You see the images lining the mosaics, like a border?" He asks quietly, and I question myself for a moment if I actually heard him.

"Yes, they are all beautiful, in their own way," I say thoughtfully. The Most Powerful shakes his head, chuckling.

"For some reason I always thought that you would be more like my partner than myself, even when all the prophecies said you'd be the best combination of us,"

"Really?" I murmur. If my brain is going to mess with me, might as well play along. "Well, Most Powerful, what is your real name?" He looks at me, a little taken aback, but he quickly recovers.

"Seeing as you are going to become our savior and Queen, I might as well tell you. My real name translated into your tongue is Abacus, and no, the abacus was named after me, not the other way around," I give a slight smile at his joke. "Moving on, though, I must quickly explain to you the rest of our history, little Queen," I grimace at his new nickname but motion for him to continue. I am curious what my brain can conjure up.

"Long, long ago, there was only nothing. Nothing at all, except for God, which we don't know for sure, but the most religious of us believe so. His name is something that cannot be spoken nor heard. Only the brightest Light angels or the most shadowed Dark angels could take His name, but anyone who happened to hear would combust into ashes," I almost ask him what exactly the angels are, but the wistful expression on his face makes me keep my mouth shut.

"As the legends go, He became tired of holding the nothing together, and looked down at the nothingness and decided to create living beings that would be trained in order to combat something murky and evil that lay beyond the nothing. This evil, murky creature was created when He first tried to create a world where every being was as powerful as Himself. He realized that the creatures held too much power and too little goodness, and when He destroyed the world it became the vile creature, just a little less powerful than the original creatures," I nod to show I am listening and he continues, pointing at specific places in the border. I see a black sludge take the form of a man with red eyes, trying to break into the black of the nothing, while a giant humanoid figure made of golden light held the sludge back.

"That first world is what we now call the Dead Realm. Even though the remains formed into the evil being, we refer to it as the Dead realm when we need to speak of it before its destruction. Then was formed our realms, His first and last successful attempts at an army. At first, He tried to make animals and organisms into an army, but then realized they didn't have nearly enough brain power. When he re-created the human universe, he made it basic and without much magic, not too much power. At the same time, when he re-created the creature universe he made it with much more magic, but not nearly as much power he put into the Dead Realm. What you humans understand as outer space is only a tiny speck of the hundreds of galaxies in your universe, which you already know, but what you never knew for sure is that there is no life anywhere except for your planet. No aliens, no plants, no organisms, because they all died out since they all had too little power. Only Earth survived. Since the creature universe mirrors the human world, the same thing happened, except the creatures that died out had too little good will," Goodness, where does my psychopath brain come up with all this?

"Okay, so fast forward a bit in time, and both the creature world and the human world have about a few hundred inhabitants, and they both lived side by side in peace. The humans didn't and still don't know the creature world exists, but the creatures have always known humans exist. It was quickly realized that humans lacked the physical power and brain power in order to fight against the villain. They also didn't have enough goodness, nearly all of them sinned without reason. But they always had one thing creatures never had: heart. They were compassionate and they felt things, and they knew how to better deal with their emotions. Now, creatures surpass them even in control over the heart, but never the understanding of the heart and emotions," I see the creature and human worlds, side by side yet separated.

"Fast forward a bit more in time, up to a few thousand years before your birth. As there were different kingdoms in the human world forming and taking over, there were dozens of little kingdoms divided across the creature world. But something changed in the creature realm. According to religious creatures, God had finally decided to build His army and each creature, no matter what shape, size, or species, would be split between Light and Dark. The human realm never separated like this since humans are much too diverse yet the same to be split up into two groups. So then grew two empires: The Kingdom of Light, and the Kingdom of Dark. The kingdoms were both wary at first, when they chose the strongest former small kingdom leaders to become their rulers. The people formed a democracy for a moment and then formed a monarchy. Alas, the two great kings chosen for each kingdom where former brothers, belonging to the same kingdom of angels before being split apart by the Light and Dark," I look up and see two similar-looking handsome men with dark hair and light eyes sitting in different throne rooms. They look familiar, like they were in one of the visions I saw before blacking out.

"At first, the two kingdoms fought for power. The unmarried brothers were envious of each other. King Lucius Aaron Nikolai, the King of Light, and King Erebus Araysh Nikolai, the King of Dark, both got married to beautiful angel women on the same day. The difference was that King Lucius picked a woman who actually despised him, Queen Lola Cecilia (Aurelius) Nikolai, while King Erebus fell in love with Queen Aisha (Everly) Nikolai. King Lucius had one child, who would become King Cato Aurelius, who took his mother's last name instead of continuing his father's line, and King Erebus had three children, two daughters and one son, who would become King Magnus Nikolai and Princess Anna Vrochí (Nikolai) Angeles and Princess Catherine Madeline Nicolai. Princess Anna would grow up and get married and have children, but Princess Catherine passed away from a very terrible disease, the first creature to fall ill and die from it, remember that for later. After they had children, they both calmed down though they both despised each other and the families worked side by side, without interaction, to keep the malevolent being away from the kingdoms," Abacus says, looking at me, and I nod while observing the new tiles. I see marriage ceremonies and babies swaddled in blankets, but none of them look like the black-haired and electric blue-eyed cute infant I saw most prominently in my visions.

"King Cato would then fall in love with a beautiful Light fairy who would become his mistress but birth him no children. King Lucius forced him to marry Queen Anastasia (Gaurav) Aurelius, who gave him two twin boys, King Ouranos Luke Aurelius and Prince Adam Aetos Aurelius. Prince Adam died as soon as he turned the age to be considered a man by his brother, and Prince Ouranos became King Ouranos. Meanwhile, King Magnus had recovered from his grieving over his sister, Princess Catherine, and soon got Princess Anna married to a Light angel of high ranks she loved. Afterwards, he himself married after meeting the beautiful Queen Eliza (Ayiti) Nikolai. They were only able to have one child, King Alex-Roy Nikolai," He pauses and I look again at the border, seeing more babies and marriages, along with one chilling scene of a man's slit throat while another with a crown stands above him with a bloodied knife.

"When King Ouranos and King Alex-Roy were ruling, things turned for the worse for both kingdoms. The Kingdom of Light was plagued with attacks from an army of demons and malevolent creatures the evil being conjured. He found enough strength to whisper into King Ouranos' already unstable mind and cause him to blame the Kingdom of Dark. Soon, a war broke out between the two kingdoms and the evil being. When the kings finally came to their senses and defeated the evil being, there was still much enmity between them," I see pictures of bloody battlefields and creatures fighting each other and dark, sludgy creatures. They are the same images from my visions, except with less detail.

"Little did they know, the evil being, who we now call Abaddon, was nowhere near defeated. He took advantage of the malice in the two kings' minds and turned it into an illness, a highly contagious disease, when he remembered the similar non-communicable disease that he gave to Princess Catherine, made from her father's evil bits. Keep in mind that every creature that is born is born with a clean, impure aura of either Light or Dark. All of the royalty had such tainted auras that they were gray with impurities. He spread the disease that first affected the lowest, most poverty-ridden citizens of both kingdoms that no one kept track of. The Light creatures died a few days after catching the disease because of their lighter tolerance, but no one knew until a horrible exchange was made," I look up to see tiles like the visions I focused most on in my dreams. The creatures in the battle fields changed, becoming tainted and impure.

"At this point in time, it is about the sixteenth or seventeenth century, when, in the human world, the British began conquering the world and territories expanded. To some degree, the human world still echoed the creature one. Meanwhile, the disease spread until nearly every Dark creature had fallen. What the disease did was after a few days of being completely ill, it changed the bodies of the creatures. For the living Dark creatures, their wings and hair turned murky and a sludgy, toxic black. Their skin paled and their eyes reddened, and they grew to unimaginable sizes with bulky muscles. Most importantly, though, their auras inverted, making themselves more powerful. What they still don't know, blinded by power, is that the auras drain them off the power high slowly, so that by the time they notice that they are weakening, they are on their deathbed. But the disease, which Abaddon developed cruelly, keeps them alive for one century until they die, so the walking corpses could do his bidding," I see the creatures now as Abacus described them, with pale skin and gray, inverted auras.

"Now lets go back to the royal families. King Ouranos of the Light Kingdom was on his deathbed. He had a child with an unnamed queen right before she passed, and after he passed Prince Abner Ezekiel Aurelius became King when just two years old. On the other side, King Alex-Roy also had one son and a daughter, Prince Erebus Aron Nikolai and Princess Aurora Rose Nikolai. His daughter died at the age of ten with her mother, Queen Rosalie. Once King Erebus II took the throne, King Alex-Roy had passed, letting go of his hold on life. King Erebus II and King Abner had lived half a century and Abaddon got ready. He struck, and King Erebus II became one of the new Fallen Dark creatures. King Abner died, unable to survive such an attack. King Erebus II, under Abaddon's control, stopped fighting the Fallen creatures and started hunting down the untainted Dark creatures. Every single one of them were killed before the handful that were left fled and hid in the ever-shrinking Light Kingdom," I notice the tiles painting the pictures of the horrible murders and massacres.

"Thankfully, a new King took the throne, King Julian Aurelius. He was a cousin of the previous king and was most qualified for the seat. But he was also a foolish ruler. King Erebus II captured a scheming Dark witch and helped her capture dozens of Fallen Light Fairies. He traded them for the hiding untainted Dark creatures, and King Julian accepted before realizing that they would all die in a day at most. But the deal was done, and King Erebus II slaughtered the rest of them. King Julian soon passed and his nephew became the ruler of the Light Kingdom, King Lucius II, while King Erebus II had a child with a Fallen Dark angel woman and they found that the disease was also genetic. His son, after living a quarter of a century, quickly killed his father and became King Vesper-Roy Nikolai," I see the tiles making out all the slaughters in gory detail, and I want to look away but something holds me there, my gut telling me something is important. I notice we are getting close to the dais, maybe only double the actual room length left.

"King Lucius II and King Vesper-Roy are the current kings ruling the kingdoms today. They both started their rule in the eighteenth century, and Prince Leonidas Ouranos-Cato Aurelius of the Light Kingdom and Prince Alexander Magnus Royce Vrochí Nicolai of the Dark Kingdom are two angel creatures who you should pay attention to," I look up again when Abacus prompts me to and I almost gasp. There is the tile with a painting of the dark haired, blue eyed baby who I saw at the end of my visions. This infant is somehow very important to me. I quickly tear my gaze away when Abacus starts talking again.

"Both kingdoms are suppressed. The Dark Kingdom, with its Fallen Dark creatures killing anything with an ounce of goodness left, and the Light Kingdom, living in fear and knowing its just a matter of time before they are besieged. While they are preoccupied, Abaddon is building strength and numbers through an unknown ambassador who works for no one of the creature or human world,"