In the endless darkness, nothing existed. A bundle of thoughts drifted in silence, suspended in an empty expanse with no sense of direction or distance, waiting for the moment it would finally leave this place.
Rhys had no idea how long he had remained like this. Time no longer carried meaning. He could not feel his body at all. There was no weight, no breath, no heartbeat.
Still, he held onto his patience, enduring the stillness the way a soldier held his ground on a battlefield, waiting for orders that never came.
With nothing else to do, he let his thoughts circle back through his life from the beginning. He revisited the choices he regretted, the moments of relief when he stood by the path he had taken, and the doubts that returned again and again, asking whether things might have changed if he had acted differently.
Each memory surfaced with sharp clarity, one after another, with no interruption.
