The world shattered with a flash not of light, but of being.
One moment, he was dazed, tangled in the wreckage of the bus, a dull pain blossoming in his ribs from the crash. Then came the tearing — an internal upheaval that had nothing to do with his bones. A spark ignited deep within him, and reality dissolved.
He tumbled through a realm that was neither space nor void, but something both and neither. The Blind Eternities, the "space" between all planes, filled with raw, chaotic energies—Aether, mana, time itself intertwined in a storm of sensation.
It was overwhelming—planetary silence and cosmic roar at once. There were no landmarks, no colors as he knew them. Instead, pulsing waves of energy slammed at his mind, threatening to unravel him. Time stretched and snapped, collapsing his sense of self.
And within that churning void, there were forms. Not beings, not creatures, but… impressions—fleeting ripples of will and hunger. They were conceptual existences, entities born of a realm where thought was stronger than flesh, where mind alone could tear a being asunder.
He felt it claw at him—not at his body—but at the essence of who he was. He nearly broke. Panic flared, dissenting voice raging within: This isn't real. It's a hallucination. But his spark—wild, shimmering—held him together. Against that indifferent cosmic appetite, his will burned. He refused to vanish.
Then, with jarring suddenness, he ejected into darkness.
He landed in a forest. Cold. Alive with sound. The breath that returned to his lungs felt impossibly sweet.
He lay trembling in the undergrowth, eyes wide, tasting the foreign tang of pine and frost on his tongue. His backpack pressed against his back, its straps harsh against that reality, as if mocking the life he'd clung to.
Here, the night air was crisp enough to create a cloud with every exhale—a stark contrast to the summer warmth of Sweden that earlier taunted his memory. He had no bearings, no idea where he was or when. Only the remnants of awakening terror lingered, alive in his nerves.
He gasped, fingers clawing at damp soil. He expected more. Those eldritch presences from the Blind Eternities might still be on the hunt. But around him there were only the subtle whispers of forest life—the rustle of leaves, distant hoots, a freezing wind through unseen branches.
This… was not the world he knew.
And yet it was real—more real than anything he'd ever believed.