The Storytellar (Shadows Of A Massacre)

Truth IV

In a fantasy-like lecture hall known as MAG101, with its walls covered in green flowering vines, a stage made of stone, lined with gold and silver trimmings, and long seats made of fine mangrove wood, it was there, somewhere in the mystical world at another time that the question, "What is 'Truth'?" was asked.

"Pardon?" replied a man, a professor of the mystical arts as he was surprised by such a question in his class. The professor in question had round-rimmed glasses with dark lenses that hid his gloomy eyes well, he also had a blue silver bracelet, black shoes and a big lab coat that he hung on the left shoulder of his slim body, never fully worn.

The student that proposed such a question was a female who had green eyes and wore a black hooded robe just like every other student in the lecture hall wore as well. She seemed curious about something that the professor had previously discussed so she explained herself, "What I meant sir, was with what you just lectured us on the other day, I wanted to understand what 'Truth' had to do with it."

"I see..." The professor calmly stood up from his seat, went towards a huge whiteboard, stood there facing the board then he asked the student, "Tell me something, young lady, what do you believe in?"

And the student replied, "I believe in Reality, what I can see, feel, touch, hear..."

With his hands in his pockets, the professor laughed and laughed, his shoulders shuddered as he did till he could laugh no longer then he said, "Quite an adept answer, maybe you should be asking such a question to a philosophy professor."

The student uttered, "Well..."

"Oh, whatever, let's do it then... Let's have a philosophical lecture on today's topic, why don't we?" The professor had a certain unbothered swagger about him, he may have been in his mid-thirties but he had the attitude of a moody teen. He first wrote the word 'Truth' in all caps on the board then he made a short and simple statement, "Nothing matters anymore, only you matter." Mind you, he was yet to show his face to the class.

The entire class murmured for a moment as there seemed to be mass confusion caused by his statement. Even with the atmosphere as it was in the lecture hall, he chuckled and said, "Ah... If this is how it's going to be then I may not be able to go answer your question, after all."

Almost in an instant, the class became silent and the questioning student's brows furrowed, flustered and confused as she was, she inquired, "B-But why, professor?"

He turned towards the class, stared deep at the curious student then with a dominating smirk, he answered, "Because, my dear..." And pointed right at the curious student as he declared with gravitas, "You! Simply! Lack! IMAGINATION!"

"How so, professor?" asked the student, even more curious about the answer to the question.

He sighed, then began to wipe the board clean as he said, "Very well, let me explain... You see this word;?" He exclaimed whilst pointing at the word, 'Truth'.

"Yes, sir," answered the student then followed up with another question, "What is 'Truth'?"

"That term... 'Truth' simply doesn't exist," stated the Professor as he wiped the word clean off the board.

"It doesn't exist?"

"Not anymore, it doesn't..."

Then, with a black marker, he proceeded to draw a large circle on the board. He tapped a few times on the circle on the whiteboard then asked the student, "Now child, tell me, what is it that you see here?"

"I see a circle, professor?" the student answered.

"Wrong! What you see here is the possibility of a circle! Try again!"

"Uh... I see a sphere?"

"Haha! Wrong again! That is simply just another possibility of what could be on the board but it is and never was actually a sphere."

"Forgive me, professor but that's clearly a circle on the board."

"I see... Let me tell you something interesting, what if I told you that this was neither a circle or sphere but actually..." The professor took out his marker once more then drew two equally long lines against the top and bottom of the large circle then a large curve connecting both of the lines finally forming, "...a cylinder!"

"But professor, that's redundant, you hadn't drawn that part yet..." the student rebutted.

The professor denounced, "And yet you believed it to be a circle or a sphere. You assumed reality when the actual truth was that this was nothing more than an unfinished cylinder."

"Well yes, but it's not like I could predict the future?"

"Why can't you?"

"Pardon?" the student uttered, even more confused than before.

The professor insisted, "Why can't you predict what's to come? It's not like you're not capable of doing so with the amount of Aura in your control."

"..." Both the student and the class fell silent as they were a bit confused about what he meant. Upon seeing this, the professor realised that he may have brought up something a bit too advanced for them so he adjusted his explanation to a simpler one, and he did so with an exercise...

"Hmm... You, you, you, you and you... Each of you that I pointed, to the stage right now." Just as he had summoned, about five students came onto the stage from which he lectured them and stood side by side, facing the entire class. He went towards every single one of them and whispered instructions into their ears.

Then, he called for the female student who had questioned him from the very beginning, "Now... It's your turn, my dear. Come down for a moment, join the crowd, and let me show you what 'Truth' really is..." The professor's pupils shined of a purple glow as he got excited.

***

At Prime News Station(P.N.S), everyone was witnessing something unreal, a tall dark hooded man with purple glowing eyes had suddenly appeared in the video when he wasn't there before.
The scary part was that during the video, no one in the video could perceive the mysterious man, almost as if he was completely invisible to the human eye, the entire time. But yet, the only thing that was able to capture his presence although glitchy, was the camera they used to film the news report. Then again, it was only after a few video edits that they were even capable of catching his glitched image in the video.

'Oh my God...! He was right next to me, the murderer, all along!?' Ms Pathfinder shuddered at the thought. There wasn't anyone more terrified of the purple-eyed man's presence than her, even as there still wasn't any audio she'd noticed a point in the video where the man looked at her, stared and expressed himself as if he was saying something that none of them could hear.

At least not until Ted worked his magic by isolating the audio and focusing all audio on a single frequency, a frequency that the man with the purple eyes was producing with Aura and using to communicate. To listen to his words, Ted had to rewind the edited video footage to the very beginning just so they could get all the context to his words and those words were...
"Ah..." A rough, deep and eery voice could be heard from the mysterious purple-eyed man. "It seems that I have a great audience... Hehehe, that excites me..." It was faint due to the darkness that obscured his face but there was definitely a devilish smile under that dark hood.

There were a few gulps from the staff behind the newsroom as they were in the closest vicinity to the audio from the video, in short, the eery voice of the dark hooded man terrified them.

The man in the video continued, "Oh well... Tick tock, there's not a minute to waste. I'm sure... You'd all like to know...who I am..." His eyes glowed even brighter and his smile seemed to widen.

...