Ryven laid sprawled out over the nothingness below him. Every breath scraped at his lungs as his body begged for rest. Yet, for some reason, no matter how heavy his eyelids felt, his body refused to fall into a deep slumber.
His heart thrashed faster and faster, as if some unseen hand was gripping it with a tight grip, never letting Ryven loosen his grasp on consciousness.
He turned to his side, seemingly trying to clutch onto the side of his mattress, but only grabbed the nothingness. The eerie stillness around him seemed to make the silence louder. It pressed against his skull, suffocating, endless. The fatigue weighing him down was real, but rest was impossible. Something in the air, in the very void around him, whispered that sleep would never come here.
After a long while, he turned over, spotting something in the distance. More shapes were poking out of the void ahead.
'Here we go again.' He thought, images of the spider filling his mind.
"I fucking hate spiders," he muttered, trying to figure out what building the shapes outlined.
'What if I just don't enter the area?' He wondered for a moment.
The void suited him quite well. In fact, he seemed almost accustomed to it. Apart from the fact that he couldn't sleep, nor was there anything to eat or drink, the void didn't seem that bad.
Here, there was no one but himself and the silence. And for some reason, to Ryven, that seemed like paradise in the middle of this hell.
Ryven sat in the void for what felt like hours, maybe days. Time had no meaning here. He stared at the distant shapes, willing them to disappear, to melt back into the nothingness like a mirage. But they remained persistent and patient, waiting for him.
His stomach felt weird, yet it didn't growl. He felt no hunger nor thirst. Only a weird tiredness coming from his stomach.
Every second longer he spent in the void, he could feel something twisted happening to him.
It became quite obvious that he couldn't stay here forever. Whatever this place was, it wanted him to move forward, facing his fears.
Ryven eventually found himself walking towards the ominous shapes ahead, holding his stomach as he slouched over.
As he approached the shapes, the familiar process began. Streetlights flickered to life one by one, revealing cracked asphalt, twisted metal barriers, and… a familiar intersection.
The exact intersection where his family had crashed.
At this point, Ryven was no longer surprised.
Tiredly approaching the wreckage, he didn't seem to have any concern for his family inside.
It seemed like they had been crashed into by a small semi truck.
Ryven approaches the driver first, who was knocked unconscious at the wheel.
Ryven's hands shake as he yanks the driver from the crumpled cab. The man groans, blinking sluggishly as consciousness returns. Ryven shoved him against the side of the truck, the metal scraping against his back.
"Where is it?" Ryven demanded, voice low but sharp. "Where's the goddamn spider?"
The driver's eyes dart around. "Spider?" He mumbles.
"Where's the goddamn spider?" He repeated, sending his knee into the copy's groin.
"Ugmm," he groaned, the sound twisting into a mocking, cheeky laugh.
"Are you fucking stupid?" He asks, continuing to chuckle. "You think I'll tell you that?"
Ryven stares at him for a moment, his face scrunching into anger.
"You're lucky that knife fucking dissolved." I mutter, throwing him to the floor.
He was of no threat to me. Throughout my short time in this hellish landscape, not a single clone attacked nor harmed me. I was quite certain that they were of no threat.
Walking back over toward the crashed car, I spot someone trying to crawl out of the wreckage.
I plant my feet, watching as a delicate, bloody hand reaches out of the back seat, pulling its body out the window.
"R-Ryven?" Sylven's delicate voice calls out.
He can only look down at her in disgust.
"Please brother… help me." She continued.
Ryven's face scrunched as he pulled his leg bag, slamming it into the copy's face.
"Don't call me that." He muttered, Sylven's black blood spraying across the concrete.
A sick feeling churns in Ryven's gut as he grabs Sylven by the hair.
"Where is it?" He asked blatantly.
"Where is what?" Sylven asked, blood dripping out of her nose as she acts confused.
"Where is the fucking spider?"
Ryven's grip tightened on Sylven's hair, the slick strands twisting in his fist. His other hand slammed her face against the crumpled hood of the car. The metal groaned under the force, leaving black streaks of blood across her pale skin. As her cheek pressed against the cold, jagged surface, he could hear the sickening scrape of bone against steel
"Im fucking tired of this bullshit!" He screamed, an inhuman strength seemingly taking control over him as he continued her face down against the car. Ryven didn't seem to notice it yet, but for some reason he seemed stronger, and ever more confident.
Hearing his words, Ryven is surprised to see Sylven pointing far away at some distant alleyway down the road. "It's in there." She muttered, black blood dripping down from her face.
Dropping her, Ryven freezes for a moment, giving her a solemn look. 'Did I really just do that to someone?' He asked himself. 'I didn't expect her to actually give up its location…
Slowly walking toward the alleyway, Ryven's situation finally seemed to dawn on him.
He had no weapon, no plan, no nothing. He was merely a man who seemed too tired to fear.
Yet for some reason, even though the circumstances looked grim, he had a feeling that everything would be alright.