Chương 81: Sandman

June woke up in the void once again, and he quickly stirred himself awake and slathered his face with a palm to be sure of his location. A little bit of nostalgia and terror washed over him during his coma. He was tossed back and forth from the mundane realm and the Nightrealm repeatedly without any hope, and after his reformation, his trip back and forth would stall momentarily within the void. He still didn't quite understand what the void was. Was it a world? Was it a gateway or a boundary between death?

Was it him? June felt an odd familiarity with the world around him. It had no floors, ceilings, walls, or light, but if he wanted to sit on a chair, he simply could; if he wanted to walk up stairs, he simply would. The void was an odd place between the realms, and it was only accessible after the Voice descended into his body.

"Voice, are you here?" June felt a light tapping sensation on his shoulder as he turned around and saw the jarringly mundane silhouette of his old self, colorless and lightless, not as a shadow or as darkness but as pure absence in a world of absence, yet somehow still distinguishable from everything else.

"Did I die again? Wait, no, dying in the sim wouldn't kill me." A distinct sound of a bag of chips crumpling resounded out before it weakly bounced off June's forehead.

"Why did you do that?" After a brief silence, the voice spoke with his usual boisterous tone.

"You get whatever was going on with you out of your system?" June rubbed crumbs off his forehead and held a hand out in disgust.

"What? God, you made a mess." He dusted specs from the thrown bag off the rest of his face and looked at the voice. Despite being a faceless being, he felt like the Voice's poise or expression wasn't as rambunctious as he usually was, as the entity's own voice dropped to a serious, raspy monotone.

"June…" His cadence was familiar, considering that was how he spoke when he was trying to be serious. It was also how he used to sound when consoling someone.

'Did I—'"No, you did not do something wrong?"

"Is this a dream?"

"It's reality."

"So why are we here? What's going on?" Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. The Voice sighed.

"Sit down, June. Your mental state hasn't been well recently… Well, I know since… y'know."

"Same person, same mind?" The voice gave a back-channel agreement.

"I'm not going to try to therapy talk you; I know your problems as well as my own, and frankly, I think you, or well, we would prefer not to talk about our 'issues,' so yeah…. Instead, to make you feel slightly better and to maybe help you impress Lilia when you get back, I will help you learn one thing and impart 3 pieces of knowledge onto you, as your self-imposed guardian angel and stuff." June sat silently for several minutes.

His dynamic with the Voice was odd; it was as if a more experienced version of himself came back to chat with his lesser version.

It wasn't like the Harths' alters, since the alters carried their own souls and opinions, but having the Voice occasionally descend into him was like suddenly remembering crucial knowledge that he never learned, its descent came with something akin to muscle memory, things became easier to understand, June and the Voice didn't even need to speak out loud, or think to themselves, they were the same person and yet separate. The first thing that popped into June's mind was, 'What could I ask myself?'

He knew what the Voice intended when he offered one thing and 3 pieces of information, but June felt a curiosity about the true nature of the Voice and a deep loathing that came with a faint understanding of what he was.

'It makes no sense.' June sighed and decided to ask some practical questions.

"What are the strings in me? Why are they in me? And what do they do?"

"That's 3 pieces of knowledge. I can't answer the second and third questions fully since some things are better left unknown. I'll just rapid-fire, the strings are us, the non-flesh and blood us, like me, and for what they do, that's mostly for you to figure out, but to just label things, they can spawn bones, flesh, whatever you are made of, mainly, they also work as a conduit to channel magic, Qi, Will, Spirits, Sword Aura, etc…

basically it's why I melted your second brain, it's my superior replacement to it, oh and it can let me descend into your body if you decide to."

"I'm going to count that as 2 questions since I didn't properly answer all your qualms." June rubbed his temples and groaned. It was a jarring feeling, suddenly understanding something's purpose.

"Do spirits hate violence? Like, I don't know how to use spirit magic, but I feel like forcing someone to kill someone else on my behalf isn't something I could do in good conscience." The Voice suddenly burst into a wheezing laugh and slapped his knee before wiping a non-existent tear away from his eyeless face.

"No, no, those little homicidal maniacs prefer peace, but they have no issues killing people they don't like. I know what technique you were going to ask about anyway, so I'll just explain. Spirits are born of mana, eat mana, and shit mana, meaning that they are forces of nature itself instead of just influences. There are different tiers of spirits that you can ask Leonard about later, but the higher the tier, the more mana they were born from.

There are nuances, but then again, you can ask an elf about those since I don't want to spoil you too much; anyhow, spirits are stronger than regular magic since magic is just an imitation." The voice's jovial tone died down back into his usual boisterous tone.

"Anyways, if you want to use their magic, just ask them; that's it." June looked at the voice's figure with squinted eyes.

'He basically just told me to ask Leonard instead!?' June cleared his throat before standing up.

"Well… uhh… thanks? I know you said only 3 questions, but you said something about descending into me. Is that something that's willing or… well?" The Voice inhaled and exhaled with exaggerated body language.

"Same as spirit magic, just ask, I don't particularly want to steal your body, since I have my own, just think of it like Harth's alters changing personalities. It has been a while since I stretched my legs, so I'm ready most of the time unless I'm busy."

"Busy?"

"Being your guardian angel is my full-time job, but I have other hobbies like you, the same as you, in fact. Now, tootles, my shift is almost over, and you're going back now." The voice waved goodbye as light slowly filtered through June's eyelids as he stirred awake back in the simulation.