THE RISE OF AN OMEGA-Chapter 55: Trapped in illusions

Kira’s POV

"Where am I?" I muttered.

One minute I was in my house being attacked by the tendrils for like the umpteenth time and boom, in the blink of an eye, I am somewhere else. At first I thought I was back in my mind space where I had met the moon goddess, but after taking a careful look and a careful study of the place I was, I knew that this wasn’t my mind space.

Something about this place was eerie and off. It felt like there was something lurking in the shadows from afar off.

"Ryker! Ryker!!" I called out, but there was no reply.

Where could he be?

What’s this place?

Just then the whole empty space began to change, evolving into something that looked like a forest. I took a defensive pose immediately, ready to strike just in case anyone or anything came out.

There was nothing. The forest seemed strangely familiar to me. After studying it for a brief moment, I found out that it was the forest where I had met the stranger.

Oh no, why am I back here? I thought.

I stood patiently, waiting to see what was going to happen. Then it was like everything that had happened began to happen again but with a slight difference. This time there were bush meats everywhere around me.

The stranger stood at the far end, close to a tree, laughing ominously while I remained in the middle of the bush meats which had already turned into maggot-infested bush meats.

As if that wasn’t enough, the maggots began to move towards my direction. I tried to blast them with my powers, but nothing was happening.

"Come on! Come on!" I lamented.

Nothing seemed to work. The maggots were all around me; some had begun to climb my feet.

Eww.

Disgusting.

I threw up immediately I felt them on my skin. I shook my legs attempting to make them fall off, but they seemed to stick on them like glue.

Why was my power not working?

Even my claws were not extending. Did I suddenly lose my powers?

"What’s the problem, moonkeeper? You feel... powerless."

A strong wave of anger flushed through me; the hairs on my body were up. I recognized that voice so well, the laughter that followed, strange evil laughter. There’s no way I would forget it.

The entity. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

I guess it wasn’t tired from the earlier battles. I should have known he was behind this. Why didn’t I think of it at first?

Did he also find a way to block my thinking too?

Is that even possible? If it was possible, that means there’s no way I would be able to defeat this entity.

Thinking about it was headache enough.

"Where is Ryker?" I asked, my voice laced with a growl.

"Oops, Ryker, so sorry," he said in a mockery tone. "I forgot to include him in my illusion spell."

Illusion spell.

I knew it had to be this because that’s the only reasonable explanation to why I was back here in this forest filled with so many maggots.

His illusions are strong, no doubts. If he hadn’t told me that it was an illusion, it would have taken a longer time for me to be able to detect that it was just an illusion.

Probably by then the maggots would have covered me up, and that would be the end of me. The fact that he was so proud of telling me that it was his illusions says how confident he was in his illusion spells.

He probably thinks that I would not be able to come out of it.

Well, he was right. Even I didn’t think that I could come out of it. The first time he used it on me, he was the one that ended it, but this time, looking at him and the way everything looked, he didn’t plan to release me.

He probably wants to lock me in here for eternity. I couldn’t let him do that.

I wouldn’t let him exploit me.

I tried to crack my head for ways to free myself from his illusion spell, but I couldn’t even think straight with the maggots crawling all over my body. They were already at my waist region.

It was a really disgusting sight.

"There’s nothing you can do, moonkeeper. Here I alone have the ultimate power," he said, laughing ominously.

"No, you lie! This cannot be the way I end!" I shot back at him.

"Oh my dear, this is your end. You are trapped."

Trapped?

Why trapped?

Shouldn’t he kill me now?

Or was he waiting till I get to my highest power point?

I tried shaking the maggots off my body, but everything I did was worthless and fruitless. Nothing happened; they kept coming until they surrounded every part of me, including my eyes and my hair.

And that was it. Darkness enveloped everywhere one more time.

I jolted awake like someone who had been pumped back to life, my eyes wide with confusion, gasping for breath. I was somewhere else, not in the forest anymore. It looked like I was sitting in a compound.

Strangely, this compound felt familiar like I have been here before too.

I stood up, walking deeper into the compound. There was no source of illumination except from the bright stars that rested up in the sky. As I moved closer, I wondered why I didn’t die.

Back there at the forest, I thought I had met my end when the maggots enveloped me, but I was still standing alive in this illusion, just like he said. I was trapped and there was no way out. And even if there was a way out, I couldn’t think of it. Something seemed to be blocking my sense of thinking and reasoning. Could this also be a result of the illusion spell?

A theory began to formulate in my head as I got closer to the building that stood at the center of the compound.

The entity can’t kill me in his illusion space; he can only trap me here, which was why he said ’trapped’ not dead. I could be wrong, but this theory was the best explanation I could think of for the reason why I wasn’t dead yet.

I stopped abruptly as I got to the front of the building in the compound. My eyes rolled; they began to vibrate and shake in their sockets. I remembered this place. No wonder the surroundings felt eerily familiar.

It was my parents’ house, where I was born, where they were killed, and where I lost every memory that made me, me.

No.

How can this be?

Why am I here?

The sound of a loud, struggling growl brought me out of the thoughts I was lost in.

"Dad," I muttered.

With tears trickling down my eyes, I rushed ahead, breaking open the door, and that was the last thing I saw—not really the last thing I saw, but that was the last thing I saw as a moonkeeper, as an adult me.

Suddenly my eyes appeared to look downward, and I had to raise my head a bit higher just so I could see above me.

What’s happening to me? I thought.

I felt warm hands on my body. I looked back to see who was holding me, and it was my mom.

Gosh, I had totally forgotten how she looked. She had long brown hair with blue eyes just like mine, a perfect jawline just like mine too. In fact, the summary of it is I am her carbon copy.

I looked ahead and saw my father slashing and cutting with his claws something that looked like tendrils. As they came closer, I saw him, the entity, but this wasn’t the way the moon goddess said it happened.

But nevertheless, regardless of who actually killed my father, the entity was involved in my parents’ death, no doubt. I tried to attack, forgetting that I wasn’t the Kira I used to be. I was now a young, fragile little Kira that needed protecting.

Mom held me back; her grip was so tight you could tell she didn’t want to lose me. Shortly after, she stood up, carried me, and placed me at the far end of the room.

"Kira, you have to stay here. Wait for me," she commanded.

I nodded as tears kept trickling down my eyes like a never-ending flowing river. She went to join father in the fight.

The entity’s eerie laughter echoed in my ears, reminding me of how powerless I was in this realm, his realm, his illusion.

I watched as my father dropped dead and my mother made use of a teleportation spell to leave the room with me, but anywhere she went, the entity followed. There was no escape.

I noticed something—that the vision I had seen months ago, the night I found out I was the moonkeeper, was different from what I was seeing here in the illusion.

So he not only has the power to create illusions, but he’s capable of bending everything in it to his will, hence why I couldn’t use my powers, hence why I was in my little self. That was the way he planned it, the way he wanted it.

It was his game, so everyone had to abide by his rules. If I wanted to win, I needed to find a way to beat him in his own game. If I ever want to get out of this illusion space alive, I need to find a way to get out, stop abiding by his rules.

But how?