Chương 1: falling through darkness

Deep within a void of endless darkness, where no light could survive and even time itself seemed smothered beneath the weight of its vast nothingness, a storm raged without end. It carried no thunder, no wind, no lightning, only shadows. They twisted and tore through one another in silent fury, writhing like living things trapped in eternal agony. The darkness felt ancient, restless, almost aware, yet no scream or echo emerged from it. The entire abyss existed in absolute silence.

Through that storm, a single white thread descended. It stretched almost endlessly downward, impossibly thin yet a perfect opposite against the all-consuming black. The thread trembled violently as it cut through the void, as though it alone carried purpose within a realm that had long since abandoned meaning. At its end, tethered like a falling star bound by its own fading light, drifted a boy.

He was unconscious at first, his body falling weightlessly despite the merciless speed dragging him deeper into the abyss. Bruises and cuts covered his pale skin, while darker wounds hinted at battles he could no longer remember. His black hair streamed upward in the current of his descent, framing a face that looked strangely calm for someone suspended within a endless abyss. Torn remnants of what had once been a student uniform clung to his lower body, shredded and stained beyond recognition.

The upper half, however, was simply gone, replaced only by that endless white thread trailing beneath him into the darkness. Time didn't seem to have a meaning here. Perhaps minutes passed. Perhaps centuries. Eventually, the boy stirred. His fingers twitched faintly before his eyelids slowly opened. For several long moments, he simply stared into the void surrounding him. There was no horizon. No stars. No sense of distance or direction. Only the silent storm churning endlessly around him. At last, his lips parted.

"Where… am I?" The question vanished into the abyss unanswered. Only then did he become aware of the sensation pulling at him constantly, the endless downward fall that refused to stop. Confusion surfaced faintly within him, though it felt distant somehow, muted beneath an overwhelming exhaustion pressing against both his body and mind. Before he could gather his thoughts further, pain suddenly erupted through his right shoulder. Sharp, violent and unforgiving.

A quiet hiss escaped him as instinctively he reached across his body with his left hand. His fingers searched for his right arm, and found nothing. His expression shifted for the first time. Slowly, and more carefully now, he reached again. His hand brushed against torn flesh near the edge of his shoulder, slick with warmth still leaking from the wound. The realization settled over him immediately.

"My… my arm?" he murmured quietly.

"Why is it gone?" Oddly, there was no panic in his voice. No anger either. Only tired disbelief. A faint smile even touched his lips, not born from humor or happiness, but from resignation.

"What happened to me…?" Again, the abyss offered no answer. He searched his memories desperately after that, reaching into the fog filling his mind, but every attempt dissolved before anything meaningful could surface. Faces, places, voices, everything unraveled into emptiness the moment he tried to grasp it. There was no past waiting for him there. No identity. It almost felt as though he had simply awakened within the abyss already falling, with no beginning and no purpose beyond descent itself.

Strangely, that realization did not frighten him as much as it should have. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. The exhaustion swallowing him was simply too heavy. Then he felt it. Something moved nearby. Fast and subtle. A presence brushed past him within the darkness, close enough that he instinctively turned toward it despite seeing nothing at all. Another followed moments later, then another after that.

Soon countless unseen shapes moved through the storm around him, weaving silently through the void at impossible speeds. Some felt enormous, carrying a pressure so immense it was like entire worlds drifting past him. Others moved too quickly for his mind to properly register, appearing and vanishing in the same instant. Though invisible, each presence felt distinct, unique and most importantly..... alive. Yet none of them acknowledged him. They passed around him as though he did not exist.

"Maybe I'm just… not worth noticing," he muttered halfheartedly. The thought was meant to comfort him, but instead it hollowed him out further. A dull ache spread through his chest, not physical pain this time, but something emptier. Lonelier. Silence reclaimed the abyss once more. The shadows continued moving past him while he drifted deeper and deeper into the endless dark until eventually another quiet question escaped his lips.

"Am I ever going to stop falling?" The words had barely left him when something changed beneath him. A light appeared far below. At first it was faint, little more than a distant glow buried within the darkness, but it grew rapidly brighter with every passing second. White and blue radiance pulsed outward from its center while traces of violet shimmered around its edges, bleeding softly into the surrounding void.

Even the storm itself seemed to recoil from it, the shadows bending away as though unwilling to touch its brilliance. For the first time since awakening, the boy's expression truly changed. Hope appeared on his face. Small and fragile, but real. His lips curved upward into the faintest smile.

"Is that…?" The light continued expanding beneath him, pulling him toward it as though the abyss itself had finally opened an exit. He fell faster now, descending straight toward the glowing brilliance until eventually it consumed his entire vision. He shut his eyes tightly against the overwhelming radiance and braced himself. But just before he passed through, he felt something cold slither across his body. Metallic in feel it moved over his body as if alive.

It crawled over his skin like liquid iron, wrapping around him in an instant before he could react. Then the sensation vanished. Everything changed. The emptiness disappeared first. The silence followed immediately after it. Suddenly the world felt heavy, wet and suffocating. Water crashed into his lungs the moment he tried to breathe, forcing his eyes open in panic. He was underwater. Sunlight filtered down through an enormous ocean above him, casting shifting beams of gold through warm, impossibly clear water.

The surface shimmered far overhead, distant enough to seem unreachable. Instinct seized him instantly. He kicked upward desperately, fighting toward the light with every remaining ounce of strength in his body. But he did not rise. Something dragged him downward. His movements became frantic as panic overtook him. He kicked harder, thrashed violently, but the distance between himself and the surface never changed. It was as though an anchor had latched onto him and chained him to the depths. Then he looked down.

His body was clearly visible beneath the sunlight now, every wound exposed against his pale skin. But where his missing right arm had once ended in torn flesh, something new had taken its place. A smooth metallic arm, black and chrome in color, it seemed strangely perfect, unnaturally so. Faint light pulsed beneath its surface as it extended from his shoulder like a foreign parasite fused directly into his body.

"You've got to be kidding me…" he thought bitterly.

"Was that the thing crawling over me earlier?" No matter how desperately he struggled, the arm continued dragging him downward. His strength faded rapidly as pressure built inside his chest. His lungs burned. Darkness crept slowly into the edges of his vision. He was drowning. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Seems my luck finally ran out…" he thought weakly.

"Not that I ever had much to begin with." Eventually, he stopped fighting altogether. His body slowly sank deeper into the ocean while his fading gaze drifted across the world beneath him. It was beautiful. A sprawling coral reef stretched below, glowing faintly beneath the water in brilliant shades of blue and violet. Strange fish darted through the reefs like flashes of living color. Yet much of that beauty was hidden behind something enormous. A wall. Massive beyond comprehension.

It stretched endlessly through the ocean in both directions, towering higher than any skyscraper he had ever seen. Thick enough to resemble an entire fortress, the structure loomed over the reef like an ancient barrier built to imprison the sea itself.

"Huh…" he thought weakly as darkness consumed him.

"At least I'll die somewhere pretty." A faint smile touched his lips one final time before water flooded completely into his lungs. His vision dimmed. The ocean swallowed him whole. But just before consciousness disappeared entirely, The wall moved.