I was falling.
A massive, gaping hole swallowed me whole, darkness curling around me like smoke, like ink, like thick, suffocating oil. It wasn't a tunnel. It wasn't a cave. It wasn't anything I could name.
It was just nothing.
No sky.
No trees.
No ground.
No scent.
No sound.
Only emptiness stretching forever in every direction. An eerie, endless void that pressed against my skin like a thousand unseen hands. My breath fogged in the cold air, though I couldn't even tell where it came from.
The ground I landed on — if you could even call it that — was flat, smooth, black. Like stone, but not stone. It didn't reflect light because there was no light. Only a dull, grayish glow that seemed to leak from nowhere, just enough to see a few feet in front of me.
And there he was.
Batista.
On his knees.
