Blue Start
Palic Country, Mandu City
Palic is a landlocked country, wedged between two larger nations. It shares its border on three sides with Nida, while its other side is bounded by Yani. With no access to the sea, it relies heavily on its neighbors for trade. One might think a nation bordering two powerful countries would have developed robust infrastructure, but Palic has always suffered from political instability. With governments changing every few months, it has consistently failed to build or maintain good roads and facilities.
Mandu City, the capital of Palic, is home to ancient temples and religious pagodas—a place sustained by tourism. As the country's political and administrative heart, it is considered developed; at least, that's what people say. Since Palic is a mountainous country, roads don't reach every corner of the land. For this reason, people must travel to Mandu City for all government work, be it starting a company or any other official business. But that is another story.
On the outskirts of Mandu City stood a row of houses. While Mandu is the capital, its development level suggests it still has years of growth ahead. One of these houses, built against a hill, stood out. It was a two-and-a-half-story structure with a garden, a farm, and an open courtyard, all heavily surrounded by a brick wall. It was so beautiful that the word "house" hardly did it justice.
Inside, however, told a very different story. Bottles of beer and alcohol were stacked high, and clothes were thrown all over the place. How could the owner maintain two such different realities? In one of the rooms, a man lay stretched out under a bed, his legs and arms splayed. Clearly, he was so wasted he had blanked out completely.
As sunlight pierced the windows and fell upon the man, his face began to frown. But as they say, every evil has its nemesis—and from the looks of things, the sun was this man's.
When the sun had risen to 45 degrees and the man still hadn't woken up, even his phone had had enough. It started to ring. But evil is evil; the man simply raised his hand and turned the phone completely off. From this, we can see how truly wicked this man could be.
Just as the man had gotten rid of his phone, his door—seemingly outraged by the injustice the phone had suffered—began to bang.
With the door swinging open, the precarious stacks of beer and alcohol bottles were sent flying. With a series of cracks, the bottles shattered on the floor. From the now-open doorway, a shadowy figure with what appeared to be horns emerged. With a heavy tread, the shadow marched towards the room. As the sunlight fell upon it, the figure resolved into a petite girl with black hair braided into a bun, fair skin, and a heroic aura. She strode fiercely to the bed and, with a single punch, jolted the man awake.
"Gwake!" was the sound he made as he was roused. He turned, ready to see who had the audacity to wake a sleeping tiger, but the next second, his ferocious aura vanished, replaced by the cowering demeanor of a dog with its tail between its legs.
He saw the one figure he was truly afraid of: his childhood friend, Tiva Apa, the daughter of his parents' friends. She was the only person he feared. He couldn't do anything to her—he wasn't a better fighter, his parents never believed his complaints over hers, and ignoring her was impossible because she was too clingy.
Then he thought of something, and his mood and aura completely deflated.
Seeing this, Tiva, who had been fierce until now, softened. She spoke in a tone that was soft but firm. "I know you're saddened by your parents' death, Amoris, but it was an accident. The one who caused it died as well. If you give up on yourself, I will look down on you."
Seeing the man was still gloomy, Tiva knew she had to do something. So, she said, "You know, there's been news about some kind of virus spreading abroad."
She had heard this news on a video-sharing app called FitFot. Nowadays, with any kind of story popping up online, she wouldn't be surprised if this was another AI-generated hoax. But she continued anyway.
"Don't you have a dream of traveling the world? You don't know what will happen if you don't start now. Just like with the Covid pandemic in 2019, it could spread around the world."
Amoris was a name given by his mother, meaning "of love." Just from the name alone, he could still feel the love his parents had for him. Their death had made him completely lose his goals in life; without the people to share happiness with, what was the point of a dream?
Seeing Amoris still in gloom, Tiva knew he had not yet come out from the shock and grief of his parents' death. She and Amoris had been childhood friends. As long as she could remember, they had done everything together—from swimming in rivers, to stealing pomelos from the neighbours, to running away from home to attend a concert. It could be said they were like conjoined twins in different bodies. So, seeing him like this made her heart ache.
But she still had to give him time to recover from the grief. After seeing that Amoris still didn't react, Tiva silently accompanied him, cleaning the house and the broken bottles of beer and alcohol.
As Tiva was silently cleaning up the house, Amoris could be seen gazing at her almost tenderly, as if to melt her in his eyes. Amoris knew that, as the person who had known him most of his life, Tiva could be said to be the most important person in his life after his parents; she was even as important as they were. With his parents gone, Tiva was the only person left in his heart in this world. So, while Tiva could see the grief and gloom of his parents' death in him, he knew he had almost recovered. But he thought he could at least keep them in his memories a while longer, so she would sense the feeling of grief in him.
After cleaning up the house, Tiva took one last look at Amoris and said, "I am going to come every day, and every day you are going to get punched if you don't recover from the death of your uncle and auntie. Your uncle and auntie entrusted you to me, so I will do any amount of harm to help you recover."
With that, she left the house, slamming the door behind her.
As moonlight shone on the roof of the house, Amoris could be seen gazing at the stars. With a sigh, he got up, went to his room, and picked up the last bottle of alcohol. He muttered while gazing at the bottle, "Last time, buddy. Let's part after this."
After drinking the last bottle of alcohol, he lay in bed. A single tear fell down his cheek. As his cries turned into sobs, hiccups, and tears, Amoris silently fell asleep.
While Amoris was in a heavy sleep, a ray-like mist began creeping into the house. The grey mist sometimes acted like water, seeping through gaps; sometimes it rose like a gas to the ceiling; and sometimes it behaved like a solid, completely occupying a corner of a room. As the grey mist invaded the room and touched Amoris, there was an instant reaction. A golden point of light appeared on his eyebrows and, with an intense flash of golden light, the mist that had covered the house completely vanished as if devoured by some kind of beast.
The golden light, still not satisfied, brightened the house next door—the home of Tiva and her parents. There, too, the mist completely vanished as if it were some kind of forbidden area.
As Amoris and the Apa family slept heavily, the world had turned upside down. The Blue Star, as we know it, could be seen almost doubling in size, with all kinds of trees and shrubs growing at a visible rate. The grey mist covered Blue Star from the northern to the southern hemisphere. Finally, when the moon was at its peak, it completely enclosed the planet.
And with the enclosure of Blue Star, chaos and havoc began.