Paradox Saga: Rising Sun

Appius Lets Me Take A Look In My Coma Ritual (Part 1)

I looked outside. The circling Latin signs have now disappeared. The beetle was also skittering back hurriedly to Appius. However, what caught my attention were the workers chasing something flying in the air. I realized it was an actual floating head. Its body was now trying to find its head, walking on itself and bonking its head, or where it should be, a few times into the backyard wall.

“That’s weird,” I uttered.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Appius said with a mischevious grin.

I tried to ignore the men trying to catch the floating head above them in panic. “Anyways, there’s something I wanted to ask, umm…what should I call you?”

“A simple Appius sounds fine.”

“Okay. Appius, I wanna know something. It’s about my age gap…why was– ”

“Your age is still 16?” he continued as if he was reading my mind.

“Y-Yeah…”

He put his hand out in the air and reached for his Inventory. He put his hand inside the semi-black vortex and seemed to be having some difficulty finding something. 

“I think it’s time to show you what really happened after we did our Labors," my godfather said as he pulled his hand out. 

His hand was still closed as if he just caught a very agile frog. I wished it wasn’t another Memory Talisman. I’ve had enough of the nausea and magical pullovers.

“I hope it’s not another Memory Talisman,” I said hopefully.

“No, Alonio. This is what I’d call a Nostalgia Sphere, one of my greatest inventions. It lets you store some memory on it temporarily and show a speck of it to others. This tool is just like the Memory Talisman but in a more easy and anti-head spins kind of way,” he said as he opened his palms to reveal a small bronze ball.

I looked at it. Two lines were etched on the ball’s surface – intertwining to form an X. It also shone a gold-like luster to my eyes. Its size was almost the same as the golden square minutes ago, just much smaller.

In a normal human’s eyes, it would look like a useless regular ball that kids would like to play with. And again, you can’t judge a ball, a book rather, by its cover. Appius made a gold cube transform into a beetle robot minutes ago. I hope this won’t morph into a robot grandma and translate my story like a fairy tale because that’s going to be so embarrassing.

Appius pressed the sides of the ball delicately. The surface on the top of the ball suddenly opened, revealing a hollow space inside it, and spurted something like green smoke.

“That’s it? The ball releases some flatulent green gas and you’ll dream your memory as you faint?” I asked.

My godfather put a finger between his lips. “Shhh…”

I looked back at the ball. More green smoke was now starting to erupt out the ball. The smoke then started to gather above Appius’ palm and formed into a square made of fog.

“Ianuarius XXX, MMXXI,” Appius etched into the foggy vertical square with his hands. The letters glowed green.

“January 30, 2021? That’s years ago, ain’t it?” I asked Appius. He simply nodded.

 The glowing letters on the foggy square disappeared before the smoke expanded – revealing a clear screen in the middle of the mist. The screen illuminated to life like a hologram and a video played.

Seven people were talking to each other in hushed tones as if they’d wake someone if they speak loudly. They seemed to argue about something while the seventh person, probably a man, paced back and forth around the room. I looked closer and realized it was our room, our living room actually.

“I still have doubts about this plan but we have to do this,” a familiar voice said from the gathered people.

The pacing man stopped. “But…is this even humane, Saemon? I can’t just let my son sleep for a long time and miss out on the world…”

So, it was Dad and he was objecting with Saemon-san. Though I don’t know what isn’t humane, my Dad saying that I’d be sleeping for a long time seemed strange.

A woman with semi-white long hair put a hand on Dad’s shoulder. “We should do this, hon,” she said, putting an emphasis on this. I realized it was my Mom. “We’re doing this for his safety. This may be difficult but after his coma, he’ll be back to his normal self.

“Even I am devastated with the fact that our godson is going to be sleeping for a long time, but it’s a lot better than combusting to his end, right?” a woman with golden hair said. She rummaged on her Inventory and got something hazy but glowing out. I cannot understand what I was saying. The golden-haired woman was holding something glowing and by the way the woman held it, it must be spherical, like a ball. If you can touch the light, it would look like that.

“You ancestor’s essence,” Appius explained – probably noticing my confused look.

“Why is it not in a container?” I asked. “I mean, I drank an Essence Potion.”

“The raw essence of humans and Figures are too powerful and pure to be contained in a container, Alonio. That’s how unique we humans are,” Appius replied.

He looked back at the swirly screen and I did the same. I need to watch what this coma-stuff is. Everybody was now brandishing glowing balls of essences on their hands except for my parents. Mom and Dad were reluctantly looking at the room, my room, upstairs.

“I think you’d better call Shiro, Takechi,” Appius suggested.

"Yeah..." Dad uttered sadly and walked upstairs. He went inside my room and as he held the doorknob, I could see his hands shaking nervously. He went inside my room and stayed there for a minute.