The world was nothing but blurred shadows and fractured echoes. A faint, trembling voice of a woman pierced through the darkness—gentle, desperate… fading.
"Stay with me… please…"
Each word sounded as if it were sinking underwater, swallowed by silence, together with the sound of a heartbeat and the ticking sounds of the time, that echoed through room.
On a white cot lay a frail boy, his body was slender with a pale skin, his bluish eyes are completely swallowed by pain, washed out to a pale, lifeless hue. Every breath rattled like cracked glass, shallow and uneven. Cold sweat slid down to his pale face as unseen hands worked frantically above him, patching, mending—yet his vision darkened with every blink.
Above, a flicker of light—blinding, unreachable. A human silhouette hovered, movements frantic yet drowned in haze. The boy tried to speak, to beg for air, for life—but his lips only trembled soundlessly.
"So… this is it? I'm really going to die… like this?" A bitter, broken chuckle echoed only in his mind.
"Figures… my whole life was nothing but a cruel joke… heh… oh well… at least…"
Darkness crept closer and closer…
Finally, he thought, "it's over… finally, I can rest...".
And then—
"Okay, clear!" a loud, clumsy voice shouted above him, maid His dying thoughts screeched to a halt.
"...Wait. What?" he muttered in his fading mind.
A sudden zap of energy jolted through his chest, forcing his eyes half-open. Blurry figures hovered like ghosts over his broken body, monitor's screams, echoed Waverly, fading slowly.
"Oh, for the love of… can you people just let me die in peace?" he thought bitterly, coughing weakly
Then—
A blurred shadow formed above him, pressing something gently against his chest. Through the haze, a faint outline of a woman emerged—her face trembling, eyes wide with desperation.
"Hang in there… don't die," she pleaded, her lips moving slower than the broken sound escaping them.
"Save my ass… You're actually the one who's gonna kill me… idiot…" he thought bitterly, frustration clawing through the numbness, as they tried to drag him back from the darkness he had finally embraced.
The only thing he can ever do is to let out a silent sigh in his mind, before even his thought could turn to action. a violent jolt of energy tore through his chest.
His body convulsed, a ragged cough ripping out as a fragile breath slipped, fading like smoke.
'poor dude'.
'You're probably in his situation too, though I don't really know. I can barely figure out whether I should laugh or feel sorry for him.'
For the next seconds. His eyelids grew unbearably heavy, every blink a struggle. The blurred shadows above him wavered then slowly faded.
Their frantic movements blurred into nothingness. Each breath rattled from his chest, quieter, weaker. The darkness crawled inward, swallowing the edges of his sight — until even the light became just a memory, fading into the void that claimed him.
And then—silence.
Darkness gradually swallowed him whole. But however an echoe from his dying thought crawled through the darkness.
"If it wasn't for me… they'd still be… I'm sorry…"
The words slipped out like a dying breath — fragile, trembling. It wasn't just an apology; it was a confession carved deep into his soul. His voice quivered with the weight of something he'd carried far too long.
before it claimed him completely, memories stabbed their way back.
***
He saw it—the heavy rain hammering the windshield that night. His father gripping the wheel, knuckles white. His mother's trembling hands clutching his tiny frail body as they sped through the storm.
He'd been sick again. Always sick.
Always the reason they rushed to hospitals at night.
Water sprayed violently from the tires as the car raced through the storm. Then—for a moment without warning— the wheels lost grip, skidding helplessly across the slick road. Metal screamed as the car spun out of control, gravity dragging it toward the cliff's edge.
His mother's voice shrieked his name, his father fought the wheel—but it was already too late. The car burst through the guardrail, weightless for a single, terrifying heartbeat before plunging into the abyss below.
The impact shattered metal and glass alike, flames licking the night sky, the storm hissing against the inferno.
And through the mangled wreckage,
through twisted steel and broken cries,
only one small, blood-soaked boyopened his eyes. Alive. Breathing. While his parents, never would again.
Empty days spent wandering alone, with no friends—just the weight of guilt, blaming himself for the loss of his parents. Seven years painted his world in grey, a time where the sun never truly rose. Cold hospital rooms replaced any sense of home. White walls, silent halls…and the quiet voice of the doctor, delivering the final blow
"You have cancer."
He'd fought, he'd cried, he'd begged for a reason to live, but in the end, the world gave him... nothing...
As the last memory dissolved like ash in the wind... The world has comletely swallowed into an endless void. Like a dream in nothing Ness.
"Whe… where am I?…" His voice cracked, barely a whisper swallowed by the void.
"I can't see… I can't… feel anything…" His thoughts echoed inside his skull, sharp and hollow.
There was no light, no sound—only an endless black that pressed against him like a suffocating weight.
He tried to move, but there was nothing to move. No arms. No legs. Not even the faint ache of breathing,
The pain that had been his constant shadow for years… gone.
And yet, that should've been relief. It wasn't.
For the first time, true silence wrapped around him, not gentle like a blanket—but cold, heavy, and merciless. It felt less like rest… and more like being buried alive in nothingness.
Then, for the briefest heartbeat, it appeared — a flicker of light tearing through the endless dark, sudden, defiant… alive.
"what the hell is that?... huh?"
Small at first… then growing brighter… closer… until it consumed everything.
The world, once consumed by darkness stretching beyond sight, was now replaced by its opposite — bright, white, blinding. Yet somehow, it felt the same… that same hollow feeling of being swallowed into nothingness. Only now, it was its opposite that devoured him.
That's what he thought — until it boomed.
"...Come, Joseph."
A gentle voice echoed, soft yet powerful, calling his name from somewhere beyond the void. It wasn't his mother's voice. Not anyone he knew.
Not even for a second...
He jolted awake, gasping — eyes snapping open to a vast, endless void.
'again?'
Weightless. Breathless… alive.
Confusion clouded his gaze as he tilted his head from left to right, trying to make sense of the endless void surrounding him. Slowly, he lifted his hand — hesitant at first — watching it rise before his eyes. His fingers trembled, catching a faint shimmer of blue light that shouldn't even exist here.
For a moment, he just stared, silent, heart pounding in disbelief. This time, his body was there — visible, suspended in the emptiness.
"...Why am I naked?"
Yet something was wrong… he couldn't feel it. No warmth, no heartbeat. And still… when he willed his fingers to twitch, his hands moved, almost unnaturally, as if obeying a stranger's command.
"What the… where am I? Is this hell?"