This story suffers from a pointlessness that I cannot remove, and maybe pointlessness is the point of it. It is based on a dream I had. I only dreamed of the setting. My dream was static and I thought of the events after waking up. It brought about many philosophical debates with myself about the certainty of death and the like.

I won't edit it or proofread it any longer, so I might as well share it instead of saving it somewhere and letting it gather dust like so many of my stories.

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^{Image taken from Pixabay}

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World of Gems

Suddenly, Samir remembered that he could not remember. He remembered the beginning, the first day. His smile vanished. He looked down from his diamond throne, to the dancers in yellow and red, heard the music playing. Drums and flutes. It all seemed so distant, tiny, almost in another world, as his heart beat harder and harder at the memory that had reached him.

What was he doing here? Who had placed him on this path? He had the urge to scream as numbness took over his brain. He opened his mouth and his vision turned to black.

Samir stood in the Gruslar Plains, looking at everything around him with uncertainty. He tried to remember what he was doing here, but nothing came to mind. Purple sky, purple ground with shining emerald patches. The earliest moment he remembered was standing there, his right hand sitting on the hilt of his soul sword. He looked down. He knew that this longsword was a part of him. He could remember it just as well as he could remember his hands and feet. He also knew his own name.

"Samir"

He spoke the word associated with "name" in his mind. He recognized the sound of his voice as his own, and this felt strange. Why couldn't he remember his voice, but as soon as it came out, it was familiar?

Silhouettes stood around him, all wearing the same beige drapes. They looked around into the horizon, others looked to the rest of the crowd and others crouched and touched the ground or other people. Every face looked thinking, gazing around, searching for the pieces to put together. But nobody talked. Perhaps, like him, they were in an uncertain lack of memories. He had flashed into existence open-eyed, wondering where he was, and maybe they had all appeared at the same moment, with the same surprise.

The dark silhouettes stood illuminated by the translucent emerald light coming from the gem ground and the dark light that poured down from the purple sky. A few steps in front of Samir, one man's countenance seemed terrorized. In this gloomy place, this strong fear stood out with intensity. The man should be uncertain and uncertainty brought fear in some. This was understandable, but the realization of this man's fear brought Samir from his thinking trance and back into the grim reality: everyone was just as disoriented as he was and was armed with their soul swords. He could die at any moment.

And just as that thought crossed his mind, a slash came out from the fearful man's sword. A beige-wearing woman with long brown hair was looking toward Samir with interest. The sword sliced her in two horizontally. Her torso blew up into little gems, purple and green like the ground. Her head, neck, and shoulders fell to the ground next, severed from the body, and blew into pieces as well. Her legs tumbled and in a few seconds, no trace of her was left but shiny dust.

Chaos was now in the air. Now everyone was uncertain and fearful, grabbing the hilt of their soul swords. Samir looked left and right, attentive. He did not know that he was so fragile. Right behind him, a man stood with a particularly desolate countenance. He looked into the ground with a hopeless frown. He had no right arm and no soul sword. The right side of his torso had been broken off. The gems inside him were bleeding his life energy out into the world. He would not die if left untouched, but he could not defend anymore.

To be hopeless in the void of answers, to be doomed to die, to be the victim of social uncertainty. Haunted by time, which could not pass or remain, but wait with open claws for the road to end, to zap the one knowingly pushed toward damnation, slowly and inevitably.

Samir wanted to close his eyes and think. He had a dream once, right? But his mind held no answers. He could not focus and only saw the blackness under his eyelids. Had he known anything before? He looked around, uncertain, panic taking over him, but he remembered the man and the woman in front of him. He did not want to be like them, for he could be the woman if anyone around him felt the same thing he was feeling, and he was certain that they were.

Was this a dream? He suddenly wondered. He touched his torso. He could feel the texture, smell the strange sweetness in the air, feel the drone brought by the wind. There was saliva in his mouth and his hands were particularly clear. Five fingers on each. He stamped. A sound came out. This was real, but why couldn't he remember what had brought him here? This seemed too much like a dream, like a broken reality. He looked toward the horizon. The mountains seemed distorted as if time were coming to an end and reality was giving its last breaths.

Perhaps that was it. He was the last generation of humanity, born from nothingness and into the void, already conscious and sentient, with a language and baseless concepts in his mind.

And then came the second sword, the horn of war resounded in his mind. This sword was nearer to him, piercing the broken man behind him. From the abdomen, a light was coming out, filling the sword. She smiled. Power was flowing from him and into her. Samir did not smile as the man behind him faded. He felt angry and sad. What caused a human to be so despicable as to kill another like herself? His sword flashed in his hand and her head exploded in the air into a thousand gems.

Another sword followed Samir's example and punished the first panic-stricken man.

This was getting out of hand, but who was he to exert authority to calm them down? He would try anyway. He opened his mouth to yell for order and a sword fell on him. He was caught unprepared and moved to avoid it, but it took an inch of gems from the left side of his hip. His leg felt weak as he moved to defend.

Next were days of senseless fighting. After the first attack came many more, and in the void of certainty, he killed those who looked fearful, those who might attack him later, those who might become a threat, and then everyone could be a threat. Swords clashed and clanged.

Samir noticed there was no sun. The sky was a monotonous purple and cyanish clouds sheeped forward, shepherded by the sweet Gruslar wind. There were cacti and stones around him over the sandless desert. But why would deserts have sand? He closed his eyes, now in peace, and saw sand dunes and the sun heating them, but they did not melt into diamonds. He stepped forward on the diamond earth and steps followed him. He now had a crew of followers.

On the horizon, there was a valley of silhouettes. That was where they were heading. Like black trees standing against the sunset, a new spawning place had been found. This crowd would soon start to turn chaotic. There would be war, and if he was there, perhaps he could grow stronger with his people and increase their numbers.

They saw him coming with his following. Their faces wondered what their purpose was. Samir had everyone surround the crowd. He tried to remember how to speak. It still did not come naturally. Words were puzzles hidden deep in his subconscious.

But like always, the swords came before words found his tongue. He rushed in and shattered a man whose sword was hammering time and time again down on another man. The beating sound stopped when Samir's sword slashed him down from the head to the waist, splitting him in half. The man shattered on the ground and Samir kneeled and pierced the ground with his sword before the shining gem dust faded. He closed his eyes and felt the energy flow through him.

He felt immortal now, after such a long time of hunting. There was not a sword that could pierce him, not a man who was faster. The air smelled of property, of home. He aspirated again, rejoicing in the words that the universe was raining into his mind. Everything around him would be his reign and there would be order and peace. He dreamt of a time where every spawning region would be under his rule. Here, nobody who had not offended would have to die useless deaths.

But he knew now that order had never been his true purpose. His eyes opened to terrified subjects thinking that their protector had simply passed away. The music had died and unreined shouting continued for a few seconds until everyone noticed that he was awake. Samir thought of the incredulous man in his first hours of existence, the first instance he saw of an incomplete being, devoid of hope or future. He remembered how he despised the blood-sucking smile on his killer.

He had held that smile, too. Now the air was not sweet but simply air. The world was not distorted any longer. He had become one with it. He had followed the path that he had been set on and had not questioned his actions. He looked around and realized that he had gained an illusion of certainty, but the uncertainty had never left him. It was roaming within, waiting for this moment of peace after a long road of gems hitting the ground, of broken hopes and futures, to come out and strike him with the sureness that he knew nothing and was but a puppet of circumstance.

And he was powerless in front of this. He could try to find the nature of this world, but if he did not succeed, he would remain in the dark. Crowds would keep spawning, there would be more killings. No changes would take place. Power had only given him life at the cost of other lives, and the wheel would keep turning in the same direction.

Samir opened his hands and led everyone to keep partying. He smiled, reclined on his throne and closed his eyes. He dreamed of cars, of smoke leaving the chimneys of tobacco factories, of plazas full of smiling people. He walked into his world of dreams and imagined fleeting purposes for himself. Perhaps he could rejoice in the absurdity of it all. No purpose meant he was free. And dreams took over him again.

What did you think of this story? (If it even fits into the category "story")

I was not very comfortable sharing it, but I did anyway.

Leave me a comment and a vote.

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