Silver Remains

Night still surrounded the sky. The full moon and star shined brightly while the silver merchant continued to shake Belze awake to no avail.

He didn't understand why. His magic seemed useless. Belze breathed. His heartbeat was steady. Everything internally was functioning. But there was no other indication he was alive. If he was asleep, he would have made slight movements, but there were none. His body was stiff as if he was dead.

The silver merchant began to feel worry that he has done something wrong. He worried about the child. He never felt any kind of attachment towards anybody throughout his everlasting life. There was only one thing that he could do. He prayed.

"Monarch of Time, at your messenger's request, please save the boy."

When he finished his plead for help, everything around him tore apart. The worlds as he knew it disappeared into the vast cosmic space. Branches and roots made of white light grew around him at an exponential rate towards infinity. Each root tip branched into another infinite number of white strands, but as each branch grew, the dark space around it grew twice as fast. Among the infinite strands, the silver merchant stood upon nothing. Belze continued to lay in the same position, while there was nothing but an empty bubble around him.

The silver merchant looked down to his feet standing up. Without looking, he felt a presence in front of him, but he wouldn't even take a peak to see it. But he knew what it was.

"Monarch of Time, please save the boy. Please save Belze," he begged.

A voice loomed among them, "It is unusual for you to request something from me. It seems your excursion has affected you. Has walking slowly like the humans changed your perspective? Why do you want to save this insignificant speck?"

The silver merchant paused and said, "I made a promise... but that is not the reason. I care for him. I tried to revert the wounds. He's alive, yet not alive."

"That is simple. He was dead and believes himself to be so. All you have done is trap his mind in an endless state between life and death. He will never be able to wake up no matter how much time you revert back."

"Isn't there something that you can do? Whatever you want in exchange, I shall give. Even my own life."

"Your life? I created you as an automaton made of nothing but metals superheated in a nova. You do not carry life. You do not have the qualities of life that other creatures possess. And your purpose is to serve me anyways. I have no need of anything from you."

The silver merchant had no words. He couldn't speak out against the being who made him, yet something stirred within him. He couldn't leave things the way they were.

He asked, "Is there a way to save Belze?"

"I cannot wake him up. I will not drag a Belze from another timeline and force him into your current timeline. But there is a way. Were you serious that you would risk yourself for the sake of him?"

"Yes, Monarch. I shall gladly give myself in exchange."

The Time Monarch paused for a moment to think and said, "I can drag his consciousness into your metal body's. However, your own consciousness will be erased."

The silver merchant took a step back, but nodded in agreement.

The Monarch continued, "There will be side effects. It will take time for him to adjust himself. But you're already aware."

"Yes. But as long as he is alive, he can pave through. I believe he will overcome this layer of cold armor. I learned that people are self-destructive, but they can adapt just as well. He will have to crawl, but over time, he will learn to walk. And soon, he will soar through the stars."

"Very well. Then, I will begin."

Before he completely disappeared, a small tear of liquid aluminum dropped from his empty visor. He felt relief that Belze would live once more, but felt regret that he wouldn't live as a human, but as an endless slave. He will live far beyond after the universe has been erased. And he will live only as a servant to the Time Monarch.

"It's a shame that I never had a name. Otherwise, you'd have something to remember me by," the silver merchant said before his mind faded into nothing. His body froze in place. Belze's body disappeared into dust and each particle consumed within the bubble.

After a few moments, the body of the silver merchant began to move it's fingertips very slowly.

Within this world, he felt nothing.

"You are awake, Belze," the voice said. When Belze began to look up to see who said that, his mind began to shatter. For a split second, he saw the infinite span of every universe all at once. His armor began to boil and melt.

But like a dream, he opened his eyes once more. But he had no eyes. He never blinked again. His memory of that what he saw erased itself. But he remembered his body melting. He remembered the aftershocks.

"The previous messenger never requested anything from me. You must have left an impact on him," it said. But instead of Belze looking towards the voice, he looked away to the sides. He

His eyes met with an infinite amount of white strands and besides them, there were an infinite amount the silver merchants. Each one looking down or to the side. They all looked the same, yet each one stood slightly differently.

Belze felt only confusion to where he was. He tried to remember the last thing that happened to him. His thoughts went back towards when he was stabbed. A sharp pain bristled around where he was pierced. As he looked down to see where he was stabbed, he looked upon his body. He noticed the silver armor around him. He tried to take it off, but he couldn't. As he tried to feel his face, he couldn't. He could see and hear, but his whole body was cold. There was no sensation of touch or pain. No smells, either. But there was a freezing cold around him. The only thing he could really feel was that chill. He tried to warm himself up, but there was nothing he could do.

What happened to me, he wondered.

"You were killed," the Time Monarch said knowing his thoughts.

Belze tried to talk, but he could only manage moans and screeches. There was no discernible mouth to speak out of. Belze wanted to ask whether this was heaven.

"No. I will be blunt with you. I am the Monarch of Time. Your body is essentially dead. The Belze that you lived as is no more. You are now my servant. A messenger to spread my influence. But for now, you have no missions to carry out, Messenger of Time."

It was too much for Belze to take in. He didn't understand, but the Monarch knew that. Instead of clarifying, he knew that it would be too much for a young mind to handle. The Time Monarch disappeared and the world that Belze knew began to form around him. The pieces of his universe looked like shattered glass coming together.

Eventually, the he came back to his own world. He felt cold and naked while silver armor covered every part of him. His non-blinking eyes looked around. He was back in the old shack. He tried to talk, but only moans came out.

He looked down upon the body of himself. His own body laid there motionless, but it continued to draw breath. Belze didn't understand what was happening to him. He thought that he was Belze. He recalled every instance of himself as a young boy, but the boy in front of him was indeed himself.

Who was the actual Belze, he thought, but there was no answer. He had hoped that the Time Monarch might tell him, but no voice came back.

Belze thought that he would feel uneasy by seeing his own body, but instead he was calm and collected. He couldn't feel any sorrow or rage for what happened to him. He just felt cold. But as he looked at his own body, he felt a deep connection. He felt that it was only a cage. Belze, as if he instinctively knew, held up his hand and shot a small white ball of light at the body. He had no idea how he did that. Only a feeling within himself telling him that he could. In seconds, the body stopped breathing and turned to dust. Belze thought that he would have felt either regret or relief, but there was nothing. Nothing but the freezing cold that enveloped his body.

He questioned what he was, but had no answers. He was no longer that small boy. He became something that wasn't human at all. He saw a puddle and tried to take off his helmet. As he did so, he saw nothing but a dark void in space in the reflection. There were no other animals or life to see it. He put his helmet back on and wondered what to do next. He wanted to be able to feel something. And he thought that the logical way to do that was to either see his parents or Nia. When he thought of Nia, a sudden feeling came to him. He had a feeling of where she was heading as if he was being guided by the Time Monarch. Belze created a large portal showing a purple pyramid surrounded in sand. He felt a magical surge within himself as he could sense the rip in space. He entered without looking back closing the portal behind him.

As Belze stood in front of the entrance into the pyramid, he waited for Nia's arrival. He didn't know how or why, but he had a feeling within himself that she was going to arrive here. Everything around him felt different than when he was a human.

The sun shined brightly against him, but he felt like he was in a never ending blizzard.

Eventually, Nia arrived as he felt she would.