Adam was dragged under. The bathwater swallowed him whole, but it didn't feel like a bathtub anymore.
It expanded.
No, it became something else.
The water stretched endlessly in every direction, cold and crushing, as if he were being hauled down into an ocean trench. Pressure wrapped around his body from all sides, immense and unrelenting. For an ordinary person, panic would have come instantly.
But Adam remained calm.
The deeper he was pulled, the clearer he felt.
Not his mind, but his soul.
Each passing moment, the soul pearls dissolved further, their essence flooding into him in violent excess.
This wasn't normal absorption. This was an overdose. The kind that should have shattered a person's soul, the way too much of a hard drug would rip apart the body, but instead of euphoria, Adam was dragged toward an abyss.
Water forced its way into his lungs. His mouth opened, filling without resistance. His body should have screamed for air, but it didn't.
