...All right. Let's sit somewhere out of the way, though. I think I'd get tired standing to tell the whole thing.

*heading that way*

The last time I saw you like this was fifty years ago, before I left for that place. It really has been a long time for me.

Does it really seem that strange?

There's probably a lot about this story you'll find just as unbelievable... but I swear none of it's a lie.

I know. And I'm glad I can trust you to believe me.

I think the insane stuff we lived through together in our world was the only thing that helped you believe any of this in the timeline I lived through... and even then, traveling to another world is a pretty crazy start to a story.

*nods*

Another planet. One that, without interference, would have died on its own generations before we got there. But it was a world where the gods were absolutely real, and they found a way to sustain it to keep themselves alive. In the beginning, they may have truly meant it to try to keep the people of their world alive, too, but as time went on that original intent was more and more corrupted. By the time I was taken there, the original people had been gone and replaced countless times, over possibly thousands of years.

In some worlds, at least. This one, apparently, and that one, as well. I've seen at least two of those gods here, as mortals, since I arrived, and I've heard a third is here somewhere, too.

They were being replaced as a source of energy for the gods in Sabra. They could heal us and bring us back from death, but there was at least one thing against which they were powerless. The ground itself would consume people, to feed a planet being kept alive long past its time.

For a wish.

Do you remember the Promised Day? The fighting on that day? Or did you not...

*yeah let's just not finish that thought it's depressing*

It wasn't an easy day. And a lot of people were dying. During the fight... it was like time stopped. And I was offered a choice, to keep fighting, or to go to that other world, give up my memories, struggle to get them back, and at the end be granted any wish I could imagine.

It was a chance to save everyone still alive. So I agreed.

I couldn't see not at least trying... and at the time, I wasn't warned of the risks, that more people were lost to that world than succeeded at getting their wish and going home. But I wasn't really that surprised, afterward, when I remembered anything. Of course they wouldn't warn anyone of something like that.

I knew there had to be some kind of catch. Though I didn't quite guess at just what it would be. The god from there who contacted me was one who wanted to end the cycles and let their world finally die. All of us there at the end got caught up in that fight, even those who didn't want to be involved.