Chương 1: Into Nothing

Aaron wasn't sure where to start, but he latched on to how the Voice of Nothing acknowledged that he'd been pulled under by seven other people. Looking at his arm, he could even see that he was still bleeding slightly where that woman had scratched him badly in her attempt to hold on.

"Why am I alone? You said that they were my group, but why were we separated? What makes them my group?" {Ah, how do I say this, not all of you were separated. As a matter of fact, you are one of very few that the System insisted be placed alone.} {All the others you came with are in their own group, and you are here by yourself.} {The System wishes to see how one will fare without the support of others, and you were dubbed one of the unlucky few. Through what criteria, I haven't the slightest, but this was its choice.}"So I'm alone because it wants to learn from me. To see what I'll do, and how I'll get back," he said through gritted teeth, "Completely uncaring of my own wishes?" {Sadly, that is correct.}"Well thank you, Mr… Voice. And you're saying this place is dangerous? That the System is pushing me to fight for survival?" {You may call me the Voice of Nothing, or Nothing if you wish. To tell whether it is dangerous is a difficult question to answer, but the simplest would be yes.}"Why? Are there… monsters?" he asked quietly. {None, not on this floor. As for how? I will only say that there is nothing here normally - hence the name- but this floor interacts with what the System is calling the "Fifth Universe" the most out of every floor. It is the net that catches everything that falls into the Underworld.} {The Nothing is where the Underworld is weakest, but this also means that it is heavily susceptible to outside influence, such as the System, though the System will be the least of your worries here.} {To tell you clearly, the floor is of no threat, but you do not contend with only the floor.} {The universe is a wide place, with many strange and unusual things out there that your human mind cannot even begin to fathom. All it takes is the right occurrence for such things to fall into the Nothing, and that was before the System's interference.} {Now, many things have been pushed into the Underworld, and all of them land here, in the Nothing.} {Even parts of the System itself have been severed and cracked as they touch upon the Underworld, giving rise to things unusual even for this empty place.} {Before the System's descent, this place was close to empty, but now, many creatures from across our universe, and some from outside, pour in. You have arrived with the first wave, so you will get temporary peace, but this will not last.} Aaron truly could not believe what he was hearing or seeing. He was trapped in some kind of hell with a voice in his head telling him that everything everywhere was crashing down on his head, and he was currently standing at ground zero.

This horrific place had always existed on Earth, and he'd never heard of it despite people continuously being pulled down. Aliens and monsters were about to flood the tunnels, and he had no allies to work with. No amazing power, just the ability to not die quite as fast. Despite that… he didn't collapse, didn't freeze or start crying, because he realized, immediately, that he would die if he did. And for once… he didn't want that. He didn't want to die.

"Alright, Nothing," he said, the quiver in his voice absent.

"How do I get out of here?" {You don't. Or at least, you didn't. Until now, you could only ever go down in the Underworld, hence the name. Earth, as you know it, is in the Overworld, the topmost layer, and everything else trickles down from there, never up.} {With the intervention of the System though… traversing back may be possible, but who am I to say what is or isn't viable?} He would search for a way up if possible, but if he had to go down, he would.

"In that case, how do I make it to the next floor?" {Who is truly to say?} Nothing said mysteriously. He grimaced, "Are you on my side or a neutral party?" {Hmm, I do believe I am neutral. I have no stake in whether you live or die.} He sighed,'At least he's honest.' He shook his head.

"Anything else you can tell me?" There was no reply, so Aaron could only assume that Nothing was done with him for now. He inhaled deeply, releasing the last of his tension. He'd been stuck in a haze for the last two years, and only minutes ago did he wake up, did he start thinking, but it might very well be too late.

'No,' he told himself,'The System wants me to live, it thinks I can. If I don't, how will it get its precious data?

'I can make it out of here. I WILL make it out of here, and when I do, I'll live the life I thought I couldn't.' It was time to move on. From his family, from his agony- hell, from this random spot in the hallway. Unsure of where else to start, he decided forward- oriented from how he'd arrived- was as good a spot as any. * The… complex he was in was utterly unnerving.

Holes in the ceiling made him think that monsters would drop down at any moment, and the paths branching out extended to what he guessed was functional infinity, as there was no way he would ever explore the entire thing. He tried sticking to one path, just always going forward, but it forked in places, so he did his best to estimate a straight line by choosing things like "Left, then right, then left." It was most difficult when the incline changed.

Sloping down, he fought not to fall or slide, sloping up, every step was a struggle. Seeing the darkness of the tunnels above him, he had to wonder why there were never any ginormous holes in the floor, so he guessed he was at ground level? That implied some kind of boundary, but he couldn't exactly do anything with that information. He also realized that he'd never done the "Status" command that the blue screens told him about so, with nothing better to do, he tried now.

'Status.' {Primary Ability: Onward Evermore Resistance: 0 Sensitivity: 0 Weight: 0 Corruption: 0} Looking over it, he could only shake his head. The words meant nothing to him, but he gathered that he functionally had no magic, if all the zeroes were anything to go by. He couldn't expand them either. He tried whispering to the Voice of Nothing, but it did not respond to the questions. * It took him longer than he would like to admit to realize that he couldn't hear his own footsteps either.

Even when he stomped down, there was nothing. He cleared his throat, and noticed there was no echo. Saying "Hey," much louder than he'd spoken before. nothing came back. The silence of it all made him shiver. It'd been maybe half an hour- though timekeeping was utterly impossible- and he already felt like he was going insane. He needed sound, to hear a voice or something, and there was only one real option. Despite sound supposedly not carrying, he whispered "Hey Nothing.

I heard you mention the System called us the Fifth Universe before. Does that mean there are four other Underworlds?" He prayed that Nothing hadn't responded before, simply because he was asking about functions or how things worked. It seemed like Nothing did not care to tell him the "Behind the scenes" of things. Much to his amusement and relief, the Voice of Nothing whispered back. {Yes, but there are no other Underworlds, and this I know. When the System arrived, it appeared quite surprised to not have everything handed to it.} {The moment the Underworld began to fight back from the System's attempt to control and change everything, the System appeared to not understand how, or why.} {It is my belief that, until now, no other Universe was able to put up any sort of resistance, and thus, there are no other Underworlds. For all others, the System arrived, it began to run its experiments, and you were forced to either fall into line, or perish.}"Why does it do this? To what end?" he asked quietly. {I don't believe there is one- nor is it truly alive. The System, and Underworld for that matter, are simply… forces. Laws. To ask why the System tries to organize and categorize, or to ask why the Underworld pulls people down, is to ask why magnets stick to metal, or why there is an equal and opposite force when two things meet. It simply is.} Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

{The System's only goal is to decipher everything. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less.} {The Underworld's only goal is to… well, I'll leave that one for you to find out.} {But you must understand, they are only responsive. If every person in existence stopped interacting with both, they would functionally cease to exist. People leave ripples when touching upon them, and both laws respond to these ripples, making it seem like they are acting; in reality, they are only reacting. To you. To us.} {And when two forces that will always react to interaction meet, do you know what happens?} His throat went dry. The System… the Underworld… Aaron and all of the rest of the universe never mattered. The quests given to them weren't a result of conscious decision, but the point where waves met- the ocean didn't choose to throw water into the air when that happened, it just did it. The System and Underworld impacting each other was like when two tectonic plates met, but worse.

The two would respond to each other infinitely, cascading into something far more dangerous than an earthquake.

"War," he finally muttered, "A war with the Fifth Universe caught in the middle." {I suppose that is one interpretation,} Nothing said thoughtfully.

"You disagree? What would you call what's going to happen?" {A conversation.}"A conversation? One that pulled all of us into a dark reality and, by your own admission, broke up our planet?" {Is it so strange that this is how forces like the System interact? With no language to understand, they only know how to do, and how to interpret the actions- or, again I shall say, reactions- of the one with which they speak.} He… could honestly see that; it was a believable view, even if Aaron himself did not agree.

"How do you know all of this?" he asked, "How do you interact with the System and Underworld?" {Who is to truly say?}"You," he responded drily. {Perhaps, but I believe you have other worries than me.} Aaron's brow scrunched, "Why?" {You've been found by the natives.}"What?!" he shouted. No point in hiding if he was already found.

"I thought you said The Nothing was empty!" The ground began to rumble. {Not quite, I said that there was nothing here normally. In this case, I refer to the natives as those who were in the Underworld before the System's descent.}"Just… people?" he said, confused.

'And why is the ground shaking?' {Cannibals.}"Oh." One of the walls behind him started to crack, and he didn't bother waiting before he began sprinting in the other direction. He ducked into one of the side paths right as he heard an immense shattering noise, and a lot of shouting.

"WHERE?!" the loudest screamed, obviously panicked.

"Where are they?!"

"I don't know, sir! I felt the footsteps right around here!" another responded frantically.

"WELL THEY AINT!" A slow, deep, clicking resounded from whatever opening the cannibals had made in the wall, and they went silent. It sounded like a Muto from Godzilla"We're out of time, throw Max overboard and let's roll out."

"No!" someone squealed, but his protests were obviously ignored.

"Go go go!" the loudest voice shouted again, and Aaron heard the treads of a tank skid across the ground. They didn't collide with any more walls, instead venturing down an already-open tunnel. Luckily, they went the opposite direction of him, giving him ample time to sneak away, but the Voice of Nothing cut his slinking off. {Glance around the corner.} He wanted to say'Hell no,' but Nothing continued. {This may be your only chance to see this creature without a guarantee of death. Both the victim and the band went the other way. Moving too quickly will only get you killed, so remain still, and just take a peek, they do not have eyes either way.} He made a compelling argument. Aaron leaned out, looking back the way he'd come, and seeing a massive hole with jagged edges. Every other tunnel he'd seen was shaped like a smooth oval, but this one was a broken circle with a massive pile of rubble in the front. Only moments after he processed the scene, an…

appendage shot out, hooking on to the opposite wall, crushing through the black obsidian that made up the entire place with ease. It was unlike any limb he'd ever seen. It held an odd pattern to it that reminded him vaguely of military camo, but rather than splotches, they were square-shaped spots overlapping with one another in a mixture of dark orange, a sickly green, and brown. Its "Hand" reminded him of a logging crane, with two curled claws on the top of it and one between those at the bottom.

Strangest of all, he could tell there was a sheen over all of the bone-white talons that sparkled with a beautiful crystalline clarity A single claw was larger than his entire body It embedded itself into the stone, and barely a second later, a second arrived. They bent at strange angles as its joints carried the rest of its body forward.

Its "Head" came around, and he saw that it was larger than him, and shaped like if a pyramid were stretched to precarious lengths, like an elongated wedge sitting on a neck he couldn't see yet. Looking closely, he found no eyes, ears or any other sensory organs, its entire head a featureless block, though maybe they were simply obscured by what jutted out from every inch of its face.

Covering the head was some kind of "Feather," each of them sparkling just as its claws did, the pattern of squares coating them as it had the creature's arms- he could have sworn he saw the feathers ripple like a disturbed lake for a moment. Aaron found the creature incredibly difficult to describe, with nothing on Earth appearing equivalent to it. This was an alien.

Sharp wedge for its mouth that took up the entire head, sparkling feathers coating everything but its arms that rippled with muscle, and logging cranes for its arms. Despite that, he couldn't help but find it a little cute, mostly due to the feathers and unique pattern Its skull split in half down the middle, revealing inward-facing wolf-teeth that ensured anything going in its mouth was not coming out- and that its entire head was a gaping maw'Not that cute.'

It let out a slow whistle as it inhaled deeply for several seconds, and he froze when he realized it was likely this things version of sniffing. Its head moved left- towards Aaron- and he very nearly shit his pants. Then it moved right, towards where the others went. And it finally began dragging itself forward. He fought every urge to sigh in relief, choosing to do nothing instead. When it started to move, it did so rapidly.

He could only estimate its speed, but if he had to guess, it was around thirty to forty miles an hour. Far too fast for something that large. Its front two limbs weren't the only ones. Just thirty feet behind those was another. Though the feathers obscured its shape slightly, he was pretty sure the back of it gently tapered down for about a hundred twenty feet, leaving what he could only assume were tail-feathers after that. Contrary to his expectations though, it kept going. And going. And going.

At some point, he realized that these weren't tail feathers, as they bent too much. The monster at the front was moving fast, so it was hard to get a real reading, but he knew that it was simply too much for it to just be some loose feathers, but it couldn't have a tail either, as a veritable cape dragged behind it, far wider than a tail might have been A thought occurred to him, but he immediately pushed it away.

'Surely not, this thing is too large. The feathers… are vestigial, or something.' He convinced himself that animals on whatever planet it came from simply had wide tails, but the Voice of Nothing dispelled that confusion. {Those are its wings,} Nothing said, and his jaw dropped, {And they use them to fly.} He shook his head violently,'NOT POSSIBLE.' {Allow me to introduce you to what other humans call the Mushkhushshu, most just call it the Mushki. Originally named by the Mesopotamians, as they were the first humans to really start getting pulled into the Underworld, it was named after one of their mythological creatures, and it stands for "Fierce snake," "Reddish Snake," or something thereabouts.} {The Mushki are the most lethal lifeform in the universe.} {Every time one is pulled into The Nothing, it reigns supreme over everything else.} {Native to a gas giant, the only one with habitation on it in the universe, they live on a feral planet- a planet incapable of allowing for intelligent creatures to evolve.} {Using their wings, they ride the powerful storms of the gas giant, preying on animals as large as blue whales.} {They are, of course, the apex predator of their planet, but they are unique in that they are populace everywhere across it, always at the top of whichever ecosystem they sit.} {Their muscles are denser than any animal of Earth, they hold a frankly unfair olfactory sense. That creature doubtlessly scented you, but considered the bigger prize to be the band of cannibals, so it ignored you.} As Nothing said that, the Mushki's wings finally finished curling around the corner, darting off into the distance. Nothing continued, ignoring Aaron's horror.

{They have a form of echolocation that can pierce through the diamond storms of Ishtar, their home planet, and extends for around half a mile.} {If you'd run, it may have chosen to hunt you as you were closer, but their predator drive didn't quite lock on to you.} {And if all of that was not enough, they are venomous. Heavily so. A single drop could kill eight elephants in three minutes; and they are capable of camouflage, altering the patterns of their- what humans might call feathers. You only saw this one as its natural color because it was on a hunt.} Aaron hadn't even moved an inch, too afraid that the Mushki would decide to come back.

"How… How do we even… survive against that." {You wait.}"What?" {Everything comes at a cost. An energy cost. There simply is not enough food in The Nothing to sustain them, and they tend to starve within a month. Perhaps the deeper floors hold enough to feed them, but I would not know.} {Some do succeed in traversing to the next floor before dying, so it may be possible to meet them again.} {The one you just saw has only been here for an hour- same as you, as the System pushed it into The Underworld as well.}"But… How do they survive the lower gravity? Surely a gas giant has much heavier gravity then they're used to, and they would expand under Earth's gravity?" Nothing did not respond.

"And… since a bunch of things are currently being pushed here… doesn't that mean they won't starve nearly as fast? Even if more Mushki mean a higher food requirement, won't they just eat each other? How the hell do I survive?!" Again, he was left in silence.

"Fuuuuck!" he groaned.

"I have to get off this floor now. As soon as I can, I don't care if I make it back to Earth anymore, I have to leave before more of those things arrive!" He was going to start moving again, going opposite the first Mushki, when he paused. At the jagged opening of the tunnel the cannibals dug into the wall, was a large, glittering, feather.