What is the meaning of love if you do not choose it..
What is the meaning of love if you reject its existence.
I stood frozen in a foreignness I could not comprehend..
I drifted among countless possibilities I could never understand..
But in the end...
I turned away..
I chose..
The source of light that shaped me...
The beautiful form that chose me..
Father...
I do not understand what I feel...
But my heart speaks...
Of love..
A love that could never be understood by a mortal creature such as you...
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•
"i... Must gooo....."
"But whe.....re.... Where must I go..?"
The question merely hung there. Settling in air that did not exist. Rotting in a silence that could not be broken. Nothing answered it, nothing could reach his breath within this void.
It—whose name had been erased from every scripture. It—whose name had been blotted out from the order of every revelation... Concealed behind a veil that even the angels dared not part.. It was a space deliberately emptied—an anomaly created with full consciousness, a mystery installed at the center of creation like a key deliberately thrown to the bottom of the ocean... Not to be found. Not to be understood.
It drifted among clusters of stars that had not yet been born and nebulae that had long since perished. At a crossroads where angels folded their wings and turned back in reverence, because even they—the beings closest to the Throne—were not permitted to gaze... It was an empty space deliberately allowed to stretch forth—a hollow expanse permitted to drift among the order of the Almighty.
Here...
wind was merely a nursery rhyme whose existence could not be trusted. Temperature was only a fable... Gravity was a legend told by particles that had never existed... Only silence. A silence so absolute, so total, that any sound—if any dared to speak—would perish before it could be born. A silence that swallowed not only noise, but meaning itself. Every thought that dared enter its expanse would only feel foreign to itself. Every memory would fade, evaporate, vanish like mist consumed by the sun—but... what could you call the sun if you only beheld the expanse of Darkness breathing all around you?
Even color held no meaning here. Direction had no purpose. Time did not tick... It simply existed... and was always questioned—its existence merely hung between two seconds that never occurred. Like an eternal pause between two notes in an unfinished symphony of creation—a symphony that might never be completed.
In the midst of this Void...
Ken, the longed-for, could only lie adrift in the currents of despair... like a speck of dust... like a foreign particle uninvited, somehow lost within a space never designed to receive his reality... He was no assassin here. He was no legend. He was no shadow feared by demons. He was merely a speck of dust—a speck of dust that could not even decide whether it truly existed, or was merely an illusion born of a consciousness long dead.
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•
He did not know how long he had been drifting. Perhaps a minute. Perhaps a thousand years. Time was a concept that held no sway here—a jest told by mortal creatures to console themselves. He tried to remember his name.
Ken. That was his name, was it not? Or was it merely a sound that happened to cling to his memory, like a chip of paint clinging to a wall already collapsed? He was not certain. The longer he pondered, the further the memory felt. Like trying to grasp smoke. Like trying to hear a whisper in the heart of a storm. Like trying to catch a shadow that kept drifting away.
He remembered, faint and indistinct, faces... Gaius. Kael. Meira. Elyra. Those names streaked past like falling stars—a fleeting flash, then swallowed by a darkness even blacker than darkness. Were they real? Or only a dream? Had he—Ken—ever truly loved them? Or was love itself merely an illusion conjured by a lonely soul, desperate to find meaning in the midst of the void?
Tears wished to flow. But here, tears possessed no right to fall. Sobs wished to erupt. But what could a mortal do with his frailty—here, sound possessed no right to be born. He wished to pray. But to whom? In this place, even God felt like a concept yet to be created—an idea still slumbering within the mind of Eternity.
This void did not judge.
Did not torment.
Did not care.
And that very indifference was the most terrifying thing of all. For even in hell, there was fire. There was pain. There was something that could be felt. But here?.. it was all the same as closing your eyes.. Only silence. Only emptiness. Only a hollow space that swallowed every definition constructed by mortal beings, every meaning, every hope. Like an ocean without water. Like a sky without stars. Like a death without end.
Ken tried to move. But where to? There was no forward. No backward. No up or down. All directions were illusions. All destinations were mirages. He could have already moved millions of miles, or not moved at all. He would never know. And even if he knew, what difference would it make?
He tried to scream. But his voice vanished, swallowed by a silence more absolute than death itself. He tried to remember light—the warm sunlight of Viman'pura, the soothing candlelight at the altar of Elysion's temple, the light of Elyra's love-filled smile. But all of it felt like fiction. Like stories told to children injected with freedom—
Had he ever truly seen light? Had he ever truly felt warmth? Or was it all merely an illusion conjured by his desperate mind—trying to create comfort in the midst of a discomfort that pierced to the depths of his soul?
In the midst of that Void, Ken felt something he had never felt before—a gaze that continued to watch him. He saw nothing there. No eyes... No pupils, no glimmer of light reflecting from a retina.
But that gaze felt real... piercing him from every direction, like air that had suddenly transformed into needles—seeping into Ken's soul, slipping through the crevices of his consciousness, and settling there like a parasite that drained his awareness.
He was an object under examination. A specimen placed upon a glass slide—illuminated by a microscope light whose source he could not see... Every corner of his being was inspected. Every memory he tried to grasp was dissected, unraveled, then reassembled in an alien order. He was no longer Ken. He was a sample. Data—an ongoing experiment, and he did not know its purpose.
This Void was not an empty space. It behaved like a gigantic aquarium, walled with transparency that separated him from something he could not comprehend. And behind that wall, someone—or something—was watching. Recording. Studying. Every futile movement of his—was data. Every thought—though he could not control them—was information. Every pulse of his consciousness was a signal captured by an observer that never revealed itself.
I.....ca..nnot move....
That thought surfaced, and immediately felt like a foreign object planted inside my brain. I tried to resist. Tried to move my hands, even lift my head, even clench my fingers. But nothing responded. My body—no longer in its rightful place—was a prison.
A prison of powerlessness. Every command I sent from my brain vanished midway, like a letter burned before reaching its recipient.
I tried to hide. But where? Inside my own thoughts? They were already there... peering from behind every memory I had kept tightly locked away. Inside my dreams? I could not even sleep. I was a naked soul, suspended in empty space, illuminated by thousands of gazes that never blinked. Every memory I had hidden—Viman'pura, the waterfall, Kael, Meira, Elyra, Gaius—was pulled out by force—Examined—Recorded in a cosmic archive that could never be erased.. Then returned roughly, as if they did not belong to me—as if those memories were nothing but useless refuse...
Who....am I in the mi...dst of this void...?
I am NOTHING but a prisoner...
My FREEDOM has been seized, not by physical force, but by something subtler.. More deadly—More absolute. I cannot choose. Cannot decide. Cannot desire—My own will feels like a joke—a concept I once possessed, but now has been revoked without a trace.
I was once a shadow that moved freely between the crevices of light. I was once an assassin who determined life and death with the tip of my blade alone.
But here... beneath this unseen gaze.
I want to scream. But they are already watching my vocal cords, ready to record the frequency and amplitude—I want to weep. But they have already measured the volume of my tears, ready to analyze their chemical composition. I want to rage. But they have already mapped the circuits of my fury, ready to document every synapse that fires. I want to die. But even death—if it is possible in this place—is merely another data point to them.
"The subject exhibits auto-destructive tendencies."
Recorded... Measured... Evaluated....
Then stored in a cosmic archive that may never be opened again.
I am nothing but a puppet...
A marionette moved by a puppeteer who never steps onto the stage. Every movement I thought was my own choice turned out to be nothing more than a script already written... Every thought of mine is a dialogue already determined. My emotions are nothing but scenes already designed. I am no longer Ken.
I am nothing but a character in someone else's story.
And I cannot break free from this role.
Is this hell? Not fire.
Not physical torment.
Not demons with pointed pitchforks.
But total surveillance... The total loss of myself...
I am no longer Ken. I am an object. A specimen. Data. An entry in a cosmic catalog that may be deleted once observation is complete. And they...
Who am I?
What do you want from me?!
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•
And at that moment they... The unyearned-for... the unwanted... emerged without materializing.
Not from any place, for here there is no place. Not from any direction, for here there is no direction. They simply... bloomed. Like flowers of darkness suddenly blossoming in a garden of void. Like bubbles of consciousness rising from the bottom of an ocean that possesses no surface.
Eyes. Hundreds. Thousands. Perhaps millions. A number beyond counting, for every time Ken tried to count them, the number increased, multiplying, like cells dividing within the body of an unseen giant. Every time he tried to comprehend their formation, the formation shifted, flowing like quicksilver poured into a labyrinth of glass. They did not blink. Did not move. Only stared. Silent—cold.
Those eyes possessed no bodies. No faces. Only enormous eyeballs drifting in the Void, encircling him from every angle he could not even define. They were not merely eyes. They were windows. Portals. Lenses directed toward something beyond the Void, something Ken could not see, yet which could see him. Every eye was a door. Every iris a corridor. Every pupil a telescope peering in from a dimension he could never know.
They formed impossible formations, geometries never taught on earth. Circles that were simultaneously squares. Spirals that were simultaneously grids. Patterns that shifted every time Ken tried to grasp them, like a giant kaleidoscope made of eyeballs, rotating slowly, observing him from every possible perspective—and from impossible ones. They were constants in a realm that possessed no constants. The only certainty in a place where certainty was a concept yet to be created.
They all stared at him. Not with hatred. Not with curiosity. But with something colder. Emptier. More... professional. As though Ken were an ancient document discovered in the ruins of a long-extinct civilization, and they were archaeologists reading him with magnifying glasses. As though every inch of him—every thought, every memory, every fear—were hieroglyphs to be translated.
Measured.
Recorded.
And evaluated.
The Void, once empty, now felt suffocating. Not with matter, but with presence. Those eyes filled every available space, leaving zero millimeters of freedom for Ken to simply breathe. Air that did not exist—now felt dense. Heavy. Like adhesive freezing around his body.
He was the stage.
They were the audience.
But what performance were they watching?
He did not know. He did not even know whether he was performing, or being interrogated, or being judged.
All he knew was that he could not hide. That there was nowhere to hide. That even his own mind was not a safe place, for that mind itself had become a transparent aquarium filled with unblinking eyes.
"He is conscious."
The first voice. Heard through ears that were merely a suggestion.
It sounded like a thought planted directly into his consciousness.
Like letters carved upon the surface of his brain. Cold. Clinical. Devoid of emotion.
"Consciousness is irrelevant."
The second voice...
Or perhaps the first? Ken could not distinguish them.... They were identical. Uniform... Like a choir trained to sing the same note, in the same room, at the same time, without end.
"Observation continues."
"He resists."
"Resistance is irrelevant."
"Observation continues."
"He questions."
"Questions are irrelevant."
"Observation continues."
"He exists.
The voice paused for a moment. A pause that felt longer than the rotation of time that did not exist.
As though they were considering something. As though Ken's existence—the fact that he was something that existed, not something that did not—was an anomaly incompatible with their protocols. A variable disrupting the equation.
"Existence is irrelevant."
"Observation continues."
Each word merged with thoughts that were not his own, yet somehow he could hear them...
Clear....
Cold...
Clinical....
Each word was a scalpel slicing through his soul without anesthesia...
Each sentence was a stamp marking him as an object.
Not a subject—not a living being—not Ken. Only an object—
Only a specimen—
Only data—
Only one among millions of entries to be examined...
Recorded—
then forgotten.
"This is the end?"
I cannot breathe. And for the first time in this realm, I realized something, I don't want to die.
But I also do not want to drift as a living fossil.
I am a naked soul, suspended in empty space, illuminated by thousands of eyes that never blink... They observe every inch of me—not my body, for I have no body, but my soul. My naked soul. My defenseless soul. My soul pried open by force and examined like a corpse on an autopsy table. They see every corner. Every crevice. Every stain I had hidden even from myself.
They grant me no freedom. Even to think, I must first ask myself: is this thought truly my own? Or did they plant it? Is this desire to resist truly my own will? Or is it merely another variable they are testing? I cannot distinguish what is me, and what is them. The boundary between myself and their observation has blurred. Perhaps there was never any boundary to begin with. Perhaps I have always been an object. Perhaps I have always been watched. Perhaps my life—my entire life—has been nothing but an ongoing experiment, and I am a rat that never knew it was inside a labyrinth.
I want to scream. But my scream has already been predicted. I want to weep. But my tears have already been measured before they fall. I want to rage. But my fury has already been classified as "emotional response to external stimuli." I am data. I am numbers. I am an entry in a cosmic catalog that may be deleted once observation is complete.
And they... they continue to observe... Entities without faces, without bodies, without emotion. Only gazes. Only forms whose exact shape I do not know.
Watching me without end...