In the beginning, there was nothing.
No light… No darkness… No sound, time, or direction.
Just an absolute, infinite void, so vast that even the idea of vastness lost its meaning. It was neither cold nor hot. It neither oppressed nor comforted. It simply… existed.
Or rather: it was.
Strax was there.
Standing still.
He didn't float, he didn't fall. There was no ground beneath his feet, but he remained upright, as if the very notion of gravity obeyed his presence. His body was motionless, but his mind… his mind moved like an ocean forcibly contained.
That void was not an external place.
It was him.
His consciousness stripped of stimuli, reduced to the essential. A space where there were no voices, expectations, or interferences. Where there was no system. Where there were no imposed rules.
Strax breathed slowly.
