Lord of The Stars

Sairi walked down a long white corridor, at the end of which he found a closed white door. He felt as if he were in a hospital while walking through this long passageway. After completing the training exercises and competition assigned to him by the strange voice whose source he couldn't identify, he suddenly awoke with his memory slightly clouded about what had happened during the competition. The voice had instructed him to leave the place and go outside. After obtaining the key to exit, the voice told him that outside, he would understand everything. He didn't know how he would understand, but he surmised that he would find someone to explain what had happened and how he had ended up transported from the Buddhist temple to a facility that trained him in strange abilities and things he had never seen before. His beard and mustache had grown thick.

Sairi, thirty years old, spent most of his time at the temple contemplating nature and learning the art of fighting with the katana—an ancient Japanese sword, sharp and long, combining the thrusting capabilities of Roman swords with the cutting power of Arabic blades. The Japanese samurai of old used it in their wars. Because Sairi disliked technology, science, and the disturbances of city and humanity, the temple was his preferred place, offering tranquility amidst surrounding trees and invigorating breezes, with the sounds of birds and animals giving him a sense of comfort and inner peace that he lacked most of the time due to his difficult temperament. He studied energy flow centers and meditation to achieve inner peace and focus, attempting to eliminate unnecessary emotions like fear, spite, hatred, and greed, though he sometimes failed.

This wasn't all he did. He also channeled energy into many remarkable things, such as sensing someone approaching during meditation, and harmonizing with nature as if they were a single entity, feeling everything moving around him with extreme precision. He learned to kill physical pain within himself through harsh, strict training until pain became something unrelated to him. This helped him understand why he had been given this power to control and direct energy to accomplish various feats, like moving objects with his mind and manipulating energy.

Thus Sairi began to recall everything he had experienced since awakening, all he had learned in this strange place, and all the questions that had swirled in his mind as he attempted to find answers to satisfy his curiosity. But there was nothing. He continued walking, examining the empty white corridor with cold eyes until he reached the closed white door. Standing before it, he inserted the key and turned it. The door opened, and light suddenly flooded his eyes all at once. He closed his eyes in pain, then raised his hand to shield them from the light. Slowly, he opened his eyes as they adjusted to the brightness until he could see clearly. He stepped through the doorway and stood there, inhaling the fresh air, which made him nostalgic for the nature that once calmed his inner anger and hatred for everything.

He began to breathe deeply, then examined his surroundings, taking a long look. He found himself standing on a carefully paved path in a vast courtyard. The path extended before him, ending at two white granite columns that rose proudly several meters into the sky. At their summit, a rectangular horizontal beam connected them, ending with edges that curved upward. The columns appeared to be the entrance to the place. He shifted his gaze slightly to the left to find a statue of a horse standing on its hind legs, raising its left foreleg upward. Behind it was a small storehouse, and behind the storehouse stretched many trees surrounding the area. Beside the storehouse stood a house built in the classic ancient Japanese style. Directly in front of this house, to Sairi's right, was another identical house. Beyond the columns lay a vast square green courtyard that appeared to be a garden for the place, encircled by trees on all sides.

Around it ran a paved road that separated it from the courtyard where Sayri stood, winding like a serpent between them.

He began to feel that the place was extremely familiar, and suddenly he tensed severely and looked behind him once more, not believing himself. Sairi found a large white tower extending upward until it touched the clouds. The massive, circular tower was the place from which he had emerged. He hadn't expected to have been in a tower of such height, but what surprised him more was that he remembered this place well—this was the Buddhist temple where he had spent most of his life, but the temple had been replaced by this tall tower. He felt nervous at what he saw and didn't know what to do. He stared toward the tower for several seconds, many questions haunting him. He raised his hand, pointing at the large white tower from which he had exited, saying in astonishment:

"What is happening here? The temple is supposed to be where this massive tower stands."

Without hesitation, Sairi rushed toward the white tower's door and began pounding on it forcefully, saying:

"You, stranger! What happened to the temple that was here?"

But no one answered him. Sairi began to boil with rage—he who had learned self-control in the most difficult and emotionally charged situations could not restrain himself. He shouted in a loud tone:

"You scoundrel! What happened to the temple that was here? Answer me or I'll break this door and your neck with it!"

Still no answer. He kicked the door with his foot, but it didn't move a hair's breadth. He continued striking the door with his hand and foot, but to no avail—the door wouldn't budge at all. He used his strength to try to wrench the door free, but it remained immovable. Sairi stopped and caught his breath, then turned around and looked at the house on his left. He remembered it as the house where he and the other monks, the Sangha community, always stayed. They had been completely isolated from the public and external life, and all they did was read Buddha's teachings, contemplate nature, and engage in other primitive activities.

Sairi in particular was very familiar with the outside world because he had spent most of his life in Hiroshima, until he decided to avoid the city by going to the temple and getting closer to nature. But he felt that this wasn't Hiroshima—there was something different here that he couldn't identify, and he sensed he was in another place entirely.

Sairi ran quickly toward the house, opened the door rapidly, and began calling out to his monk friends, but received no answer. He couldn't remember their faces or the details of his life yet, as his memory was still weak, but he remembered that his companions had lived in this place. He entered the house and ran everywhere searching for anyone, but he couldn't sense the presence of any person. He changed out of the white clothes he had been wearing, which made him feel like a patient in some hospital. He donned the traditional cloth robe that the Japanese people used to wear in ancient times, and took the katana sword placed on one of the shelves in his room, hanging it at his waist.

He hurried back out to the temple courtyard and tried to sense the presence of any person with his ability, but felt no one. He said to himself:

"Where have they gone at this time? And where has the temple disappeared to?"

He began checking all places but found no one. He decided to go to the neighboring village to inquire about what was happening here; perhaps someone would know something.

Sairi crossed the carefully paved path and passed between the columns, then turned left onto the paved road, examining his surroundings and looking at the trees that lined both sides of the road. He cleared his thoughts and contemplated the breathtaking nature, with the breeze caressing his face. The sun had reached its zenith in the sky and cast its warm rays upon him, illuminating the path and surroundings, highlighting the captivating beauty of nature. Yes, Mother Nature.

Sairi remembered some of the conversations he used to have with the other priests, about how the planet was better before the advent of technology, and how nature was stunningly beautiful. Water didn't look like today's water; it was astonishingly clear. The air was extremely pure, and there were no traces of the pollution present today in the air, water, food, and everything else. Compassion was more widespread among humans than the contractual relationships that emerged with the modern era. With the emergence of technology, everything changed and no one paid any attention to nature anymore. People became concerned with anything that brought them money, even if it meant cutting down all the world's trees or polluting all water sources.

This saddened Sairi greatly, and he wished he could have lived in the era of the samurai, but there was no life for those who called out in vain. He had been born in this age for some reason, and he had to accept his fate and be content with it—this was the key to happiness, as Buddha said.