I was traveling in the Himalayas towards my destination to record paranormal activities for my new WowTube channel. I began to reminisce about my old channel, which was banned because of continuous copyright strikes, on which I spent almost 2 years of my life.
I created numerous videos on different topics from martial arts, history, science breakdowns—along with frequent livestreams, gaining 1,220 subscribers by the time the channel ended. Not a bad number for a niche channel, but nowhere near what I had hoped.
The true reason was simple: I spoke like a textbook. My explanations were accurate, detailed, and, according to the comments I tried not to read, truly challenging to sit through. I had started working on it—looser phrasing, more personality, less lecture—but the copyright strikes came before I could find out if the changes would have made a difference.
My initial idea was just to make travel blogs in the Himalayan mountains, but when I was conducting the research for travel, a peculiar article grabbed my attention that spoke about a place where different colors of lightning had been seen.
The article was published during the Covid pandemic crisis, in which a few local people who claimed to have seen lightning of colors—crimson, teal, sapphire, saffron, violet, pink, and gold—striking the mountains without making a sound were mentioned.
Because the lightning produced no sound, the public assumed it to be a fake and forgot about it in the pile of such news. It inspired me to create videos of locations in the Himalayas where paranormal activity had been noticed or said to be observed for my new channel.
My initial idea of creating travel blogs while simultaneously creating videos about paranormal activities and having the opportunity to explore seemed like a triple threat.
I woke up at 5 AM. I didn't even remember the dream I had. All I knew was that it went south very fast and that I woke up right as it did.
Knowing that I couldn't go back to sleep, I dragged myself out of the tent and headed to make tea. I grabbed my morning cup of tea and stood on the edge of the cliff enjoying the view in the cold winds.
The Himalayan landscape stretched out before me, a breathtaking panorama of snow-capped peaks and rugged cliffs. A marvelous scene on its own. No need to create an additional clickbait thumbnail.
My eyes shifted to the village from where I came. From the cliff the distance didn't feel large, but once I started the journey, it was entirely a different story. My legs remembered the pain from the journey just by looking at the village.
I started to remember the conversation with the local people who claimed to have seen lightning in the COVID pandemic crisis and after. They didn't know much about it, but almost half of the people among the population of 40 who lived there had seen it once.
They also told me it lasted for about one to one and a half minutes, and because there was no electricity, no network signals, and a low socio-economic level, they couldn't buy normal necessities, let alone spend money on smartphones and other equipment to prove their claim.
Even if they could, who was willing to spend so much time looking for it, as there was no fixed time for it to occur and the interval between the reappearance of the phenomenon was nothing to joke about? I decided to stay because of their persuasion.
They believed I might be able to observe it. Part of me wondered if it was just a story to attract tourists and boost the local economy, as I had spent my money on supplies and local guides.
The probability of more people coming here because of rumors was not a far-fetched idea. Well, whatever, I would upload a video with some other title like "Spend 10 days on a cursed cliff," and the view from here would be sufficient.
According to them, the cursed cliff was the place where the paranormal phenomenon was intense and could be more accurately observed, but they never came here because of their belief, which was present before the lightning phenomenon.
But I didn't believe in such things. Pathways towards the cliff were difficult, but I somehow managed to reach here with my equipment and necessary supplies for the purpose of remaining here for a long period of time.
When I looked down the cliff, it reminded me of the God of War game and the face of that bastard friend who used to take money to let people play on his PlayStation for 30 mins but never let me play for the full 15 mins even after taking the money.
I moved my head towards the sky, wishing to see the lightning phenomenon, and suddenly, I saw the thing for which I had been waiting; I moved a bit forward subconsciously. Countless strikes of lightning with different colors could be seen.
The lightning strikes were unique in colors, and none of them produced the typical sound. The rate of incidence of lightning strikes increased. I imagined it to be similar to the polar lights, but I was far off from what was in front of me.
The normal blue sky was just like a landscape on which lightning strikes appeared as strokes of the brush. It felt as if lightning strikes seemed to form a painting in the blue sky. I noticed the absence of flying creatures from the sky and clouds that had been visible just a few seconds before.
After a few seconds of admiring the wonder in front of me, I started to get a bit dizzy. My gaze was firmly glued to the silent, kaleidoscopic light show above. Then, the earth buckled. I tripped, the cliff edge vanishing beneath my boots.
When I was in the air, I saw golden lightning coming towards me and striking me. My last words:
"What the f**k!"
When it struck me, I didn't feel anything, like burning flesh or the smell of ozone. Just a sensation of disintegration and darkness.
As I was floating in that darkness, I saw my whole life flash before me over and over again like a video on a loop.
The most painful memories were of my father's last moments when he was on the hospital bed fighting third-stage cancer for 16 months.
Looking at the ceiling in delirium told me to live my life on my own rules, to enjoy it, and to never let my spirit break. He kept shouting, "Soon I will be with you, soon I will be with you," while singing his favorite song and my name.
He never completed the full treatment because he feared that even if we gave everything we had, the cancer might return and leave me financially ruined, and our business had also not fully recovered from the pandemic.
I didn't have many close friends after my father's death. I had friends from school, but most of them were just people I saw and hung out with. Most of them didn't even know about my family circumstances. I had no relatives who mattered—those I did have had broken ties with us long ago because of my parents' love marriage.
Memories of my mother were absent from my mind, besides what I had seen in photographs of her, as she died shortly after delivering me. My grandmother died when I was 2 years old and my grandfather when I was 4 years old. I drifted there, reminiscing about the memories that had gathered over the years.
The time that I spent with my father, as he taught me from cooking to riding a motorcycle to just being a decent human being, was the only moment that I didn't regret.
However, looking back, I was disappointed in myself. I had been so relaxed back then, spending most of the time on TV or the internet, doing nothing but messing around and constantly fighting with him. While he was trying to put food on the plate.
After my father's death I decided to set my life on track. I put in a lot of hard work. I managed to complete my college-level education, which at one point in life I decided I was never going to do. I started my diet, exercise, and meditation, which improved my body and personality.
I was physically at my peak but mentally still struggling. The result of the improved physical appearance then led me to find myself a girlfriend (two fewer things to regret); the relationship lasted for 13 months, as education, the WowTube channel, and managing the business of my father, which was in dire straits, left me with little time for social life.
I had lost track of how many times I went through the loop while I was floating in the void. It was then that I realized how much the words of my father and mentor regarding the weak were true.
"They needed to work very diligently and maintain discipline from the very beginning if they ever wanted to make something of themselves and for inner peace."
The desire for a second chance intensified in me.
In the void, I felt like I was spinning longer without knowing which way was up or down when suddenly I felt an attraction toward something. I tried to reach it as soon as possible because if not, then I would be in this void for eternity.
When I reached it, I felt peace, safety, and love in this place that I had never experienced or had a memory of. It also gave an automatic sensation that it would surely increase with time, but the trouble soon arrived as I felt the presence of something similar to me; it gave the same vibe when a human met another human.
But it was a little different because it could not communicate with me as I was trying to do, nor could it understand my intentions—behaving like a thing without consciousness.
Like a zombie, it attacked me and tried to push me out of my territory (domain), or the correct word would be "consume me," trying to destroy me again, due to which primal rage flared within me, so I started to repeat the process that it was doing to me.
A battle of wills started. The opponent's will felt cold compared to mine. I quickly realized that the opponent's will was far weaker than my own in our battle. The fight felt like it was between a human and a Saiyan.
Our battle soon ended with me fully consuming it and giving me a feeling that was like a balloon filled with air to maximum capacity, which could burst at any moment.
But my problem didn't end with it; after consuming, I gained an understanding that my domain, which provided a sense of peace, safety, and love, was not stable. This situation automatically filled me with fear.
The domain, in response to my fear or sensing extra energy in me, began to siphon the extra energy in order to stabilize the domain. In doing so, it siphoned a slight amount of my own energy, making me tired and sending me into a deep sleep.
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