The burning heat in the palm of my right hand gradually subsided, leaving behind a warm throb that felt like a second heartbeat inside my body. After the masked attacker left, I didn't return home. The last clue Mbah Darma had whispered before I was ambushed kept circling through my mind: “If you want to see proof of your own destiny, go to the Ancient Cemetery Complex on the western outskirts of Niskala.”
My sneakers scraped against the paving stones as the road climbed higher, leaving the residential area behind for the silent hills. The pale, cold light of dawn began casting a silver line along the northern horizon, making a pathetic struggle to break through the endless fog. The air there was bitterly cold, carrying the scents of wet earth, old moss, and the lingering, nose-stinging stench of sulfur.
I pulled my faded denim jacket tighter over my black T-shirt and shoved both hands into my pockets. Dew had soaked my shoulder-length wavy hair. The mischievous, cheerful attitude that usually served as my main shield had completely evaporated, replaced by grim seriousness and a deep inner turmoil.
At the end of the uphill road stood Niskala's Ancient Cemetery Complex. The place was surrounded by ancient pine trees, their rigid, twisted forms like black giants. In the center of the complex, packed with thousands of gravestones thick with moss, towered a massive black stone monument more than thirty feet tall. Its architecture was steeped in an ancient Gothic style, with carvings of stone chains winding from its base to its peak. “ So this is the place...” I rasped into the dewy dawn air.
I stepped through the rusted, broken wrought-iron gate. Throughout the cemetery complex, a dozen faint spirits in the forms of ancient warriors and townspeople stood silently among the old gravestones. When I walked past, they neither fled nor showed fear. As one, the transparent figures bowed their heads respectfully, clearing a path for me toward the heart of the complex.
I stopped directly in front of the massive black stone monument. Its surface was covered in deeply carved Ancient Kawi letters. When I looked up, my inner sight and the knowledge gently seeping into my mind allowed me to read the inscriptions. They were a record of the names of every Guardian of Niskala from generation to generation—chosen individuals who had sacrificed their youth and their lives to hold back the darkness beyond the gate.
I slowly reached out and brushed my fingers over the rough, cold carving. Evara—the First Guardian. Arya—the Second Guardian. Savitri—the Third Guardian. Name after name was carved neatly into the stone, carrying centuries of heavy silence and grief. I sank weakly onto the stone ground at the base of the monument, hiding my face between my knees. “Why...” I whispered as frustrated tears dripped onto the faded jeans I was wearing. “Why does my life have to be controlled by a scenario written hundreds of years ago? I was born twenty years ago. I have dreams of my own. I just want to be an ordinary girl who helps my mom... Why does my soul have to be dragged back to this filthy place?”
My defiant side rebelled fiercely inside my chest. It felt so unfair. For twenty years, I had fought to be seen as normal, hiding my supernatural abilities so my neighbors and school friends wouldn't hate me, only to discover that from the moment I was born, my path had been set—to become this city's living shield. “You can choose to run away, Nirwana,” I whispered to myself, staring at my right palm, where a faint golden symbol glowed. “You can take Mom and move out of this rotten city today.” But beneath that inner turmoil, the image of the old newspaper woman from the town square yesterday, the little boy who had nearly been grabbed by the black shadow, and the warm kindness of Mrs. Sarah kept spinning through my mind.
If I ran, the filthy elders and the Dark Lord would destroy Niskala—and eventually devour the entire human world, including my mother. The courage and unwavering dignity hidden beneath the ashes of despair slowly began to flare back to life.
“I’m not Evara, meekly accepting her fate as a sacrifice,” I murmured, wiping the tears from my cheek with the back of my jacket. “If I have to stand on the front line... I’ll do it as Nirwana. Not as a shadow of the past.”
Suddenly, the stone at the base of the massive monument before me began to emit a dim golden light. Scrrrt... scrrrt... The faint scrape of stone rang out in the silence of dawn. I jumped and took one step backward, my light-brown eyes widening.
At the very bottom of the monument—directly beneath the last Guardian's name—the black stone surface, which had been blank, suddenly began carving itself. Invisible engraved lines moved rapidly and precisely, scraping away at the dull stone as though an unseen chisel were at work. Letter by letter, the name took shape, radiating a pure, warm golden glow: N—I—R—W—A—N—A My true name was now permanently carved into the ancient stone monument, standing beside the names of the legendary Guardians of the past. As soon as the final A was perfectly carved, the golden light at the monument's base exploded into brilliance before finally fading into eternal black stone.
KABOOM!
At that exact second, the earth beneath my feet began to shake violently. Brutal tremors spread from beneath the cemetery complex, snapping several branches from the ancient pines around me. A heavy, deep boom echoed from the belly of Niskala—the sound of dimensional chains groaning as they broke and cracked. From beyond the distant hills of Niskala, thick gray fog suddenly churned wildly and billowed high into the dawn sky, turning an ominous black. A gigantic shriek from beyond the supernatural gate rang out faintly, announcing the terrible news: the seal on the Mist Gate holding back the Dark Lord had cracked even further, and the door to the supernatural realm was beginning to open wide.