Prologue
Showers of brightly colored beams saturated the atmosphere, drowning all those who live in waves of Essence, the collective energy of the Light. Colorful crystal spires reigned over the city of Entellica, and it looked like they were infecting the skyscrapers and buildings as if to replace them. Strangely, the phenomenon occurred only in two places, Entellica and Grasildt, the two largest cities in the continent. And in this phenomenon’s awakening came the Color Marks, abstract symbols found on our left hands that glowed in our respective Colors, which represented our personality, our will, and our selves. In its discovery, we found power lying deep within the hearts of man.
However, there are those who weren’t deemed fit to wield such power by an unknown force. There are some who saw the power as an abomination. There are also those who tried to utilize it for several different purposes.
And then there was us, those who first chose to stand against the Lascer Foundation, an organization who sought to utilize the Colors and their wielders for their own goals and radical ambitions by spreading out false information.
Personally, I was surprised at how a research I made for my school project turned out to be extremely useful in helping me know more about what was going on, and how it was actually also being researched by the Lascer Foundation. That is, unless, they had info that there was someone researching about something so strange... and powerful.
We went through a lot to regain the daily lives we’ve lost.
In the first moments when the sky erupted, everything instantly became hell.
We, the group of seven that I formed for the purpose of researching about this phenomenon-- the Spectrum, were immediately called to battle; to handle our powers, our emotions. They depended on our state, on how we felt; that should we have lost control over our feelings, we would’ve died or suffered a fate worse than that of death.
Many thought that the end had come.
They panicked, and lost control.
Their emotions were able to attain an impure physical manifestation due to the doses of Essence toward the atmosphere; manifestations we called Shadows. As the name implies, they took on the physical form of the bearer of the color. However, they were impure Essence, literally condensed and molded into existence to take over the body that has lost its grip over it as if some act of vengeance.
Some were echoes of those who died, and those who were inhumanely used by the Lascer Foundation in their laboratories made solely for harvesting Essence...
Due to all of that, countless lives were lost.
I still remember it like yesterday...
But, that...
That, ended two years ago.
Our efforts were counted as we ended the phenomenon known as the Spectrum.
And after that, we went into hiding. We never sought fame as “the ones who ended the Spectrum." In the first place, we were like vigilantes when it all happened. We didn’t seek fame. We hated the Spectrum for what it had done to the lives of all who lived in the city.
But, I couldn’t fully do so. It provided me with the data that I needed. My ambitions for the project, however, was lost. And the only cause that I possess is being aware of such a thing able to happen again, in the future.
Until today, we continue to monitor the Essence flux levels using artifacts we call the Shards, colorless, bright crystals shaped in triangular and/or rectangular prisms; they were found at places where Essence condensed before the Spectrum happened. Now, they can only be found whenever a Spectrum should occur. They glow brightly whenever there is a disturbance in the Essence flow, and they’d constantly vibrate when the levels breach the charts.
Luckily, there’s not a single reverberation ever since. But an ominous feeling still shrouds my thoughts, even though this artifact not vibrating at all before me is assurance that it’s not even close to happening again. I can’t seem to find the courage to actually believe what’s before me. Simply because we know close to nothing more behind the Spectrum’s manifestation, other than the conclusion that it may due to the Essence imbalance.
