Emptiness is rarely understood by the living.
To say it was dark would imply the existence of a dimension in which light could theoretically travel. To say it was quiet would suggest an atmosphere capable of carrying soundwaves.
This was neither. True emptiness is the absence of the observer. It is a state completely devoid of the symbolic order, no language to categorize it, no time to measure it, no "I" to experience it.
There were no boundaries to define where I ended and the void began. It was the absolute lack of existence, stripped of all sensory input, leaving only the agonizing awareness of being. The mind, starved of sensory input, turns inward, devouring its own memories and structures to sustain itself.
It was terrifying. To simply be there, suspended in nothingness, without the anchor on the physical form. I did not know how long I existed in that state. Decades? Millennia? A fraction of a second?
I had no choice in the matter.
Mentally, I did not feel like a person anymore. Human cognition is built on chronometry: the ticking of a heart, the rhythm of a breath, the rising of the sun. Without a body, time's significance ceases to be a river pulling you forward and simply becomes a stagnant ocean. I was a consciousness drifting across the void, a ghost that haunted a universe yet to be built.
And then, the universe collapsed inward.
Sensory input was not just brought back, it flooded. An unprecedented amount of data entered my mind.
Cold.
Friction.
Noise.
I tried to scream, to vocalize the terror of sudden embodiment.
"Khhh–"
My vocal chords were tight, rigid with disuse. What was supposed to be a roar of existential shock was just a wet, pathetic gurgle from a throat that felt the size of a straw.
Breathe. You have to breathe.
My body kicked in with violent, stuttering gasps. I felt the air burning through my trachea, hearing its path and feeling my chest expand, with every detail overloading my mind.
I was lying on my back. The fabric was scraping against my tissue as if it was protesting against my very existence. I tried to open my eyes. The eye muscles, uncoordinated, twitched. When the eyelids shot open, the unforgiving light stabbed my retinas welcoming me to a brand new world.
I attempted to raise my hands to shield my eyes. A wobbly limb flopped weakly against my chest, the fingers twitching in spams.
Panic issued. I was trapped. Paralyzed inside a body that refused to obey my commands. I tried to lift my head, but my skull was disproportionately massive. I could only roll it to the side, my cheek pressing against the rough mat beneath me.
As my vision adjusted, the blur sharpened.
I was in a room, but "room" implied a space meant for living. The walls were constructed of cheap, stained wood. The floor was packed with rows of thin, closely aligned futons. A gray ray of light filtered through a single window, highlighting the dense clouds of dust particles floating in the air.
But it was the sound that defined the nightmare. Wails, wet coughs, and the shuffling of small bodies. To my left, a child no older than two was curled into a fetal position, sobbing. To my right, another lay still, staring at the ceiling with hollow, sunken eyes.
The air was heavy.
A shadow came through the light. Heavy steps approached.
A woman stood over me. There were no warm feelings in her eyes, only a semblance of exhaustion distinguished her.
She reached down. Her hands were rough, smelling of tobacco. She grabbed me by the armpits with no consideration. My neck snapped back, unable to support the acceleration.
"This one's awake" she muttered, her voice was flat. She didn't speak to me, she spoke over me, addressing someone else in the hallway. "The rationing board is coming at noon, we can't have them smelling the dirty ones. They cut our rice stipend enough last month. "
She dumped me back onto the futon. She didn't check my state of confusion. She just turned and walked away, her steps fading into the distance.
I lay there once again, staring at the water stains on the ceiling.
I am a child. This realization was difficult to accept. My adult consciousness, my memories, my understanding of the world, all of it was locked inside a body unable to use it. If a fire broke out, I would burn. If the food ran out, I would starve to death.
I needed to know where I was. I needed a variable, information, anything to build a framework to ensure my existence.
The window.
It was perhaps ten feet away. A distance that, to a grown man, was three easy strides. To this body, however, it would be challenging.
I rolled onto my stomach. Beads of sweat broke out across my forehead. I planted my small, shaking palms against the tatami mat and pushed. My arms screamed, trembling violently under the weight of my torso.
Move. I dragged knees forward, one inch at a time. The friction against the floorboard burned the skin in my kneecaps. Every movement required adjustments and enormous conscious effort. There was no muscle memory to rely on, no subconscious coordination. I basically had to dictate which group of fibers had to contract.
Left hand forward. Right knee up. Shift the center of gravity. A toddler nearby bumped into my side, nearly sending me collapsing to the floor. I gritted my blunt baby teeth, and kept moving. Time passed very slowly. The ten feet felt like a marathon. The physical weakness was humiliating, a constant reminder of my vulnerability.
Finally, my small, trembling fingers brushed the wooden base beneath the window.
I couldn't stand. The leg muscles lacked the density to hold my weight. I gripped the wooden shaft, and pulled myself up to my knees. My arms shook, the muscles close to failure.
I pressed my face against the glass, my breath fogging the window. I wiped it away with my elbow and looked out.
I expected a city, with cars and paved roads.
Instead, rows of circular buildings stretched out beneath me. Dirt roads went between the structures, packed with distant, tiny figures. Surrounding the village, there was a crater wall of solid rock.
Looking at it while squinting my eyes made me capture its details better.
I caught my breath in my throat. My mind froze and my heart fastened, with thuds pressing against my ribcage.
Carved into the towering mountain, there were three, giant stone faces.
They were cartoonishly huge, reminiscent of a history I knew only in fiction. The stern look of the First. The fierce expression of the Second. The aged figure of the Third.
My brain processed it slowly, colliding my vision with my previous memories.
This wasn't just any world.
I looked down at my small, trembling hands, still strongly gripping the wooden structure, making my knuckles turn white. I was a nameless child in a village that would happily hand me a sharpened blade the moment I could walk without tripping, and send me into a forest to bleed out for a geopolitical dispute I did not care about.
If Minato's face wasn't on that mountain, it meant the timeline was currently lodged somewhere in the bloody era of the Second or Third Shinobi World War.
Regardless of the exact month, in a few short years, a masked man was going to drop a nine-tailed demon fox right in the middle of this place.
My arms finally gave out. I collapsed to the floor, my chest heaving.
I stared at the dusty floorboards, my reality settling over me. The void had been empty, but it had been safe. Here, survival was going to be an unending war to keep breathing.
I could not rely on the adults. I could not rely on the village.
I needed to be stronger.