Chapter 2: Prologue – Part 2
Consciousness returned to me like a reluctant guest—slow, hazy, and disorienting.
At first, I thought my eyes were still closed. Everything was white. Not bright… not glowing… just infinite, empty white stretching in every direction. No shadows. No ceiling. No texture. No horizon. Nothing.
For a moment, I wondered if I had gone blind.
But then I felt myself drifting.
Floating.
Weightless.
There was no ground beneath me, no air brushing against my skin—no skin at all, actually. The realization hit me like a cold slap.
I… didn't have a body.
Not arms. Not legs. Not a chest rising with breath. Nothing.
And yet, I could see, feel, perceive. My senses existed without a vessel. I looked down—or what I assumed was down—and the truth cracked open inside me like a dropped egg.
I was a sphere.
A small, white, softly glowing orb of light.
"…What… what the hell…?"
My voice echoed strangely—clear, but not spoken. It wasn't sound. It was thought turned into vibration. I wasn't speaking. I was resonating.
Panic surged.
It roared through me with no heart to beat it, no lungs to anchor it. It was pure consciousness unraveling. I spun, or maybe the world spun—I couldn't tell. The emptiness swallowed all sense of direction.
The silence…
God. The silence.
So quiet I could almost hear my thoughts scraping against the edges of this void.
Quiet enough I could hear the phantom memory of a heartbeat that no longer existed.
"This can't be real… this can't be real… I'm dead… I actually died…"
A crushing sadness squeezed what used to be my chest.
My life wasn't good—but it was mine.
I wasn't even thirty.
I had plans—vague, pathetic plans, but still plans. I wanted to travel. At least once. I wanted to try those stupid expensive cream-filled pancakes everyone raved about online. I wanted to sit on a quiet beach somewhere and waste a whole day doing nothing. I wanted to fall in love someday… or at least lose my virginity before dying.
I wasn't ready to disappear.
Not like this. Not without living.
My glow flickered—fear manifesting physically.
"I… I want to go back…" I whispered into the endless white.
"I want my boring world back… please… please…"
My panic rose like a tide, swelling until it felt like it would drown me—
"Calm down, child."
The voice shattered the silence like a stone thrown into still water.
I froze—metaphorically—every flicker of light within me tightening. A figure appeared before me, as if he'd been standing there all along, simply waiting for me to notice.
An old man.
White beard. Long robe. A calm presence that barely disturbed the stillness of the void.
I would say I looked at his face—because I did—but the moment I blinked, or turned the slightest bit, or thought of anything else for even a second… the memory evaporated.
I looked again. Memorized the lines of his features. Held them firmly in my thoughts.
The instant I glanced away—
Gone.
Erased.
Like his face existed outside the ability of the mind to store it.
My entire being trembled.
"W–what… what are you…?"
He chuckled softly. "Just an old man, child."
I didn't believe that for a second.
His presence felt like… everything and nothing. Like he fit naturally into this space, and this space existed because he allowed it to.
"H–how are you here? Where am I? Why can't I remember your—"
"Do not try to remember my face," he said gently, but firmly.
"It is for your own good. Even the knowledge of my name would cause the death of thousands of worlds."
My light dimmed in fear.
He said it so casually.
Not as a threat.
Just a fact.
"As for where you are," the old man continued, "this is my domain. A small corner, outside time, space, matter, and existence."
My thoughts stuttered. "…Your… domain…?"
"Yes."
He folded his hands behind his back.
"And your presence here is my fault."
If I still had a stomach, it would've dropped straight through this endless floorless space.
"What… what do you mean your fault?"
"I was fishing," he said simply.
"…Fishing."
"Yes. In the River of Time."
I couldn't process it. My mind genuinely stopped. Each word fit individually, but the sentence itself was madness.
He continued calmly, as if explaining why he was late for tea.
"My rod snagged unexpectedly, and when I reeled in… I found your soul attached to the hook. A strange occurrence, even for me."
My entire glow pulsed like a strobe light.
I was caught like a fish.
Caught by this man.
In a river of time.
The world freezing.
Space cracking open.
The pull.
The void.
It all clicked horribly.
I didn't die of some metaphysical destiny or karmic punishment.
I was an accidental catch.
He accidentally fished me out of existence.
"I…"
Words failed me.
This was too absurd, too surreal for any living being to accept.
"I want to cry," I muttered, voice cracking. "But I don't even have eyes…"
The old man's expression softened with a touch of pity.
"Can you… send me back?" I asked with a trembling voice.
"Please. I still had things I wanted to do. I wasn't ready. My life was miserable but… it was mine. I… I had savings… I wanted to use them… to give myself some comfort… I wanted to live, even if it was boring…"
A pause.
His voice lowered to a gentle rumble.
"I cannot."
"…Why?"
"Your soul is tainted with my aura."
I froze.
"Aura?"
"Indeed. Your world is a low-grade world, one without consciousness, operating like a refined but rigid program. It rejects anything foreign to its system. Including you, now."
My light dimmed in despair.
He wasn't lying.
Somehow, I knew he wasn't.
"I cannot negotiate with that world," he said quietly.
"It has no consciousness to hear me. No will to persuade. Only functioning laws, like code."
I felt hollow.
Cold.
Lost.
Like a leaf torn from its branch, drifting through a seasonless void.
The old man watched my glow flicker weakly.
"Do not grieve so deeply, child. One day, you will return. But not now."
"…Return?"
My voice shook with desperate hope.
"Yes. Time is vast. Fate twists in curious ways. Your story is not severed from that world forever."
I didn't fully understand. But I held onto those words like a drowning man clutching driftwood.
"For now," he continued, "why not travel to other worlds? Did you not find your previous world boring? Did you not crave adventure?"
"I…"
I didn't know what to say.
Part of me wanted to scream that boredom was still better than being dead, better than floating as a glowing orb in cosmic nothingness. But another part—the part that had always wished my life was more than commuting and spreadsheets—stirred faintly.
"Travel… to other worlds?" I whispered.
He smiled.
A warm, ancient smile.
"Yes. If you wish it."
"C–can I really?" I asked, a fragile anticipation building inside me.
"You can. Leave the preparations to me."
His tone then grew solemn.
"But hear me well—the worlds you visit cannot handle my presence. If I enter them, they will collapse under the pressure of my aura. I cannot intervene. I cannot save you. Your life, your journey, your survival—will be your own."
I swallowed—or tried to, though swallowing as a soul felt strange.
"So… if I die there…"
"You die," he confirmed simply.
"Truly. Permanently. No return."
My glow trembled, but beneath the fear, something else sparked.
Expectation.
Possibility.
A strange, childlike thrill I hadn't felt in years.
"I will, however," the old man added, "grant you an artifact. One capable of helping you travel between worlds, guiding you, and offering protection to some extent."
My light brightened involuntarily.
"Are you ready, child?"
His voice echoed through the white void like a bell ringing at dawn.
I hesitated for only a heartbeat—
or what would've been one.
Then the excitement burst through me like a sun rising behind clouds.
"Yes!"
I said, my voice ringing with raw, genuine emotion.
"Please send me! And… thank you. Truly. Thank you for giving me this chance."
The old man's smile broadened, gentle and approving.
"Then go."
He raised his hand and made a small, dismissive gesture—almost like brushing away a speck of dust.
The space rippled.
My vision blurred, spinning into a spiral of white and then—
Nothing.
Darkness swallowed me whole as consciousness slipped away once more.