Ariqa's quest: Origins of Maria

Chapter 1 (Full)

The Darkness was beginning to cover the North side of Maria. The animals began to die by what the darkness touched.

Trees, most bees, plants, fish, merpeople, animals, phoenixes, and the original humans were dying by the tens of thousands.

Then came a legendary phoenix... 

...Gisei, the first male phoenix to walk and fly to the known world of Maria. 

He told his granddaughter, "You are going to be ok... I'm going to make my own sacrifice to save all of the known world... For Maria... And for you..."

And so went the darkness got close to the three mountains island. Gisei flew up to the darkness with brighter wings than he normally would, and as the darkness touched him, he was quickly turned to stone.

As the stone touched the ground violently...

... The whole of the known world was blinded by an intense light...

30 years later...

The Darkness has always greeted us when we close our eyes to sleep. Either to give us deceiving dreams or realistic nightmares.

But I woke up to what was not my bedroom but rather on the floor, in the grey grass in the colourless plains that I don't recognise.

I got up by my own feet and somehow felt effortless, which was weird because I had never felt it before due to the fact that I was living in poverty, had little to no food and the fact that I get sick occasionally.

How is it possible that yesterday I was starving, sick, and homeless. But now I feel stuffed, my health is much better, and... WAIT!  WHY CAN'T I HEAR MYSELF OUT LOUD?!

Up until now, I could speak out loud just like everyone else and could talk about the weather and how they are doing today.
But in this case, I couldn't speak out with not just word, but with sounds like moaning and singing!

WHERE IS MY VOICE?! I thought loudly in my mind. SOMEONE, PLEASE GIVE ME BACK MY VOICE!!!

Unfortunately, there was no answer. Nothing! Not even a sound to acknowledge me or even to answer my question.

So much for asking to get help. I thought sarcastically. I decided to get something to eat,

so I looked around to find that on my left is a meadow where there were trees with light grey trunks and black leafs.

Opposite the direction of the meadow was a grey ocean because it had a light grey beach, but it was miles away from where I am, and there were also beehives that were probably a mile away.

In front of me, when I first stood up, there was a grey lake with lots of flowers and sweet berry bushes surrounding parts of the lake, and behind me from a lot more miles away was three white pointed bits that resembles mountain points with a tall point of a black skyscraper a little to the left.

Well, best I check out the meadows then. Before going to the meadows to investigate. I don't know why a god or something else would have me sent here, but it must have been my past that they felt like I needed a second chan-

My foot had stood on the handle of a tool, but unlike the other things that I saw, it had a light brown handle that was long and grey stone axe and hoe attached.

Oh! Guess who ever made this just wanted to cut fewer trees for more uses. Whatever it is that they did, they must have had fewer resources than what we had back in the Stone Age.

There was some writing from where my foot was on, so I moved my foot away from that part of the handle, picked up the tool, and read it.

The writing says 'Chopseed'. So that is what they had named, to two different sides of nature. One to cut off life and the other to bring back life.

When I thought of that, that is when I had learnt how to not only chop down trees but also where wheat seeds were and how to farm everything natural.

Ok then. As I got the Chopseed in my hands. Let's build some shelter and farm some food!

So I got close to the nearest tree, and just when I was about to swing, I spotted another coloured object.

This time, it was a red apple, so I decided to get the red apple, but upon getting to the trunk of the tree, I stopped cold. Nervously cold!

Was there a story about two people in the Garden of Eden where Eve tempted Adam to eat the apple of forbidden knowledge? Will the apple even give me so much forbidden knowledge that I'll be kicked out back to my old life?!

No, it will not. Went a thought I didn't recognise.
Huh? I thought. Who was that?

We are simply guardians watching from the mountains and the skies. Those apples didn't cause the demise of Animanity, only the darkness did, hence why you are here. To repopulate.

Wait! I thought out loud. What is Animanity? What is the darkness and why was it here, and  what happened to the... Original 'Animanity'?

I could hear a sigh from the 'guardian' before it told me telepathically: Look at your hand! I did what it told me to do, and when I did...

What the?!?

That was the moment that changed me forever...

There was a realistic yet cartoonish hand that was a healthy colour, which made me feel sick mentally. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HAND?!  I thought loudly. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!

I looked at the rest of myself with anxiety, and what I saw was shocking. Muscular arms, strong legs, a lumberjack outfit, a tight torso, and big feet.

Beginning to mentality break down, I ran over to the lake, avoiding the bushes and flowers carefully to see eyes a little more reflective and bigger than usual, a narrow and pointed nose, a thick yet friendly eyebrows and scruffy brown hair that was two weeks overdue for a haircut

We didn't have a choice because the darkness spread not just throughout this universe but to others too. Hence why we got a little help from a friend who lives in another universe. A half writer, half animator. Went the guardian.
So that's what the guardians did. Take me away to protect me from the darkness. A darkness that could have wiped out Animanity.

Now, I was one of them, ready to bring a little humanity to this world from a different universe.

As I continued to look at the lake, I noticed that there was a sizable island in the middle with just grass. It would be a good place to create something for that lonely island, which got me to ask another question.

Will I be alone? I asked in my thoughts.

More people will come, but it will take a while before you see anyone. So if you ever feel alone, just remember that you are never alone. Ever!

Those were the words that I needed to pick up from where I fell, and so I left the lake alone for a little while,  got back to the meadow, picked up Chopseed and got to cutting the tree.

Chopping the tree felt different because first, I was using a long handed axe/hoe hybrid tool.
Second, whenever I chop down a tree, the top bit that I chopped remains whilst the bottom part explodes out wood chips that are so blunt that they are not sharp at all.

Even the physics are very strange at times. As I pushed the chopped part away from the meadow, I didn't have to use a lot of energy moving the tree.

As I put my hands on my hips admiring what I could do, the apple I failed to pick up due to questionable morals about my religion dropped on my head and somehow had high pain tolerance.

So I took the apple off my head, looked at the colours of the red apple in a mostly colourless world, and had a bite off the apple.

I chewed plenty of times to get all the nutrients off the apple and swallowed it up.
A few seconds after that, I began to feel funny, but not in a good way.

"Is the apple poisoned? Just like the one that Snow White took before dying temporary?" I spoke with hopelessly as I began to sit down on the bushy side of the tree that I chopped and stared at the lone island.

I began to hear and see an old memory of some very loud thunder and a sea of darkness spreading.

People who were happy and in peace before slowly turning into a horror scene where a sea of dead stone merpeople were beginning to float up dead just like the sea of dead fish appearing as god ordered the apocalypse.

The people were then running away from the darkness, but the darkness was faster than the remains of the living people that used to live in Maria before being turned into a sea of dead stone people.

Then came a huge beast flying defiantly against the darkness with a glowing main body and even brighter white wings before turning into a dead stone beast before landing in the ground violently and then violently exploding with a light so bright that all the plants returned.

Then came the wild animals like pigs, cows, chickens, sheep, bees, and the horses.

Then came the next best intelligence animal to humans, Ants, who created several cities in different biomes before they began to die out suddenly, causing me to black out...

...

"Hello? Are you awake? Hello?"

I can hear voices. Other voices since coming to

"Oww!"

I felt a few pecks like it was a bird.

"Ow! Ow! HEY!!" I opened my eyes again. "I WAS Taki... OH GOD!!!"

Not only has the world regained colours, but I was also face to face with a giant bird! It had a blue and light grey aerodynamic shape with a yellow beck and small eyes.

"Sorry about that." It spoke apoplectic."I just need to make sure that you are awake."

It talks?! I thought in disbelief.

"You talk?" I asked in astonishment.

The bird turned its head slightly like if something was on my shoulder as well as looking funny.

"Seriously? You already have heard me talk." Said the giant bird. "All of us phoenixes do from a young age."

"Wait, phoenixes?" I said to my surprise. "I thought Phoenixes was a myth."

"Not in this world because phoenixes are real." Said the phoenix. "The name's Kesshō, the Marian phoenix. What about your name?"

"Arbour Lake Inn. Formerly homeless in Salt. Born by both British parents in Dale, USA, So what had happened?" 

Kesshō 

And with that, she snapped her left wing (which I'm not going to question how she did that) and flew away towards the mountains.

The snap that she used gave knowledge. But not on how to murder someone, but on how to make tools, build, farm, and what types of animals out there in the wild.

And so I named the lake surrounding the sizable island Lake Inn, and for a whole month, I made my own home where the sweet berry bushes were, created mitigation around my wheat, carrot and potato crops, replanted trees around the meadow I chopped the trees which somehow grows to a fairly high size in 2 weeks and only slaughtered weak or old sheep for their meat and wool...