Firefly in the Dungeon

「Fractal of Hope」A Light Amidst Darkness

She was born into the world. Devoid of names, devoid of personality, like a white flower brimming with innocence.

That innocence makes her curious about her surrounding. Thus she began to learn about her existence by observing the other.

. . .

She observe an old man; stoic in emotions, holding a spear in his hand, accompanied by a pair of crows. One which she received a piece of 「Wisdom」.

Feeling nothing left to observe from the old man, She decided leave.

From there, She find a woman beneath a giant tree of thousand height. On the woman's head, rested a wreath of myriad flower. Thus She knows about 「Life」.

Following the wind, She arrived to a temple in which eternal fire was kept. There was the Hearth and its Keeper, as She began to understand the word, 「Kindness」.

There was a light yet isn't bright. The sweetest honey might be a poison that drown the ant. She encountered one that laugh amidst their trickery. Thus She find the world full of 「Deceit」.

Holding a hammer tempering above the anvil; one-eyed with a red hair blazing like the furnace. Caught by the fiery sight, She find herself burning withthe fire of「Perseverance」.

Shadows cast as light fades, yet only darkness remains in silence. She met one that isolated themselves in self-proclaimed arrogance. 「Evil, yet kind; Merciless, yet compassionate」.

In the end, She learned about everything She could from observing them. But akin to hollow statue, She knows nothing about herself. She couldn't find it; something that define her own existence. For that, her curiosity take a turn beyond the edge, to the place beneath.

· · ·

The first time She gaze upon the lower world, something caught her attention. They were the people of these lower world. It was, rather interesting, existence that bore a resemblance of her.

Their resemblance however, merely a glimpse that held nothing after. For they are the mortal; existence that triump not over the trial of time, nor the grasp of death.

Therefore, struggle is their destined companion in these world, as they need to fill their own belly to keep living, while sickness could kill them by touch, as even the tiniest of wound. Avoid it they could, to life long enough. Age however, held their necks to snap it any moment.

But knowing what awaits them in the end, She was puzzled. Why would they struggle that hard, trying to be alive, just to delay the inevitable? Why would they afraid of it?

Without an answer, She choose to observe them more.

Time brushes pass, but nothing had changed for the mortal. They remain lost in the world that seemingly always at the odds against them.

. . . Until that day.

The earthen belly ruptured, and a surge of pure malice released upon them all; coming from the deepest abyss. Monsters they were, devious in appearance with the only desire to destroy everything.

So it began to flood the world, as She witnesses every mortal alike trampled by this malice born creature.

Not even the magic that children of the forest always proud of could ever stop it, nor the weapon of those children under mountain. As the agile feet of the small born crushed, beast born find their ferociousness faltered, and the ungifted mourned for life.

She couldn't bear to witness such a sorrowful path. She, was sad, yet there is nothing She could think of to aid them. How could She, when She has yet to understand her own self?

However the string of destiny held no mercy, and She began understand what is 「Despair」.

So She wept for them, and herself; because She learned about her existence, bound to it.

Unbeknownst to her, a single tear fall upon the lower world. Unforeseen, a gift born from despair, that would become the first light amidst calamity, and a late gift, for the ungifted.

It starts with a frail beginning, small, and insignificant to the darkness that shroud everything. This insignificant light, however, remains alight.

Defying the Heaven itself, the light began to spread among mortal. Carried by 「the Fool」, a new light appears one after another, as it grew into a torch strong enough to fight the world malice.

She didn't understand. Couldn't. Why does such a feeble one that could die any moment spread quickly among humanity?

But then, She laughed. A laugh about her own foolishness, because only after witnessing everything that She could find her true self.

She is「Hope」― yet She follows「Despair」. One that brings light from mortal heart, to observe and guide their path amidst darkness, no matter where it leads.