The darkness was… calming.
After what he'd just been through, it was almost divine.
No screams. No blood. No deranged lunatic with red hair and a god complex yapping about revenge.
Just silence.
"Finally," Sareth muttered into the void. "No more pain. No more trauma. No more homicidal ginger yapping."
He paused.
"…Wait, shouldn't I be dead? I mean, I did get my arms ripped off and vaporized. That generally qualifies, right? So how am I still thinking?"
A beat.
"…Maybe I'm not dead? Maybe that whole nightmare was just a fever dream. Some crazy dream brought on by stress and too many instant noodles."
But the thought wouldn't stick.
Because deep down, he knew.
The pain… the gore… Zoran's maniacal laugh—it had all been too real. Too vivid to be a dream. Too terrifying to be fiction.
"From the moment I opened my eyes in that charnel pit," he whispered, "everything's been off. And the last thing I actually remember before all this—before waking up in front of Captain Edgelord…"
His thoughts snagged. A sharp, stabbing pain shot through his entire being as he tried to remember what came before Zoran. It wasn't physical—no limbs to feel it—but the agony was unmistakable. Deep. Ancient. Unknowable.
It made his essence tremble, even though he'd already known pain beyond most mortals' comprehension.
Then, just as suddenly, it vanished—like a blade pulled back before it struck.
He went still, panting in the void even though he had no lungs to breathe with.
"What the actual hell is going on?"
Before he could ask the question again, a flicker of light appeared ahead of him—sharp and sudden.
He jerked in surprise.
Not fear. More like that feeling you get when the horror movie is too quiet for too long.
The light didn't explode or blind him. It simply existed, small and steady, like the flicker of a candle in an infinite ocean of black. He stared, transfixed.
It wasn't expanding.
It was approaching.
With each passing second—if seconds still meant anything here—it drew closer, its glow steadily pushing back the darkness that cloaked his surroundings.
And when it reached him, he saw it clearly.
It was beautiful.
Soothing, like warm sunlight filtering through autumn leaves on a quiet forest morning—gentle, golden, comforting.
But it was more than that.
There was a strange pull to it, an instinctive draw—like the echo of something once lost, now returned.
Like the inexplicable feeling of meeting someone and knowing, somehow, someway, they were meant to be part of your life.
"What are you?" Sareth muttered aloud, gazing into the glowing mist. "And why do I feel like I'm being pulled toward you harder than a broke dude at a sugar mommy?"
He gave a tired chuckle.
"Oh well. What more harm could it possibly do? It's not like I've got arms to lose this time."
He tried to raise a hand.
But there was no hand.
That was when he noticed himself.
He wasn't in his body anymore.
He was… something else.
A formless, swirling gaseous mass of radiant purple and gold, his essence wreathed in shifting clouds of light.
Ethereal runes—ancient symbols in languages he didn't recognize—flowed within him like living ink, orbiting and dancing through his form in mesmerizing patterns.
"…Okay, not gonna lie," Sareth said, awe creeping into his tone, "this is kind of badass."
He looked down—if there was a down—and watched the magical motes drift lazily within him, as though he were a living nebula.
"Alright. I'm a sentient cloud of sparkly cosmic soup. That tracks."
Though he had no limbs, he didn't feel helpless. In fact, the weightlessness felt natural, the lack of form freeing rather than disorienting. His instincts told him how to move.
So he floated toward the light.
The closer he got, the stronger the feeling became.
The light pulsed, brightened, as if… excited.
Particles danced with joy, spiraling around him in playful bursts. As he reached the heart of it, the light welcomed him—not with warmth, but with recognition.
It began to merge with him.
The luminous strands curled around his essence, weaving into his form like threads of purpose. As they fused, his entire being shimmered, and the darkness—once endless—retreated.
Not abruptly.
Not violently.
It faded away like mist under morning sun, until only light remained.
Sareth was still.
Peace washed over him like a tide, dissolving fear and doubt.
He didn't feel alone.
He felt…
whole.
"This… this is what it's supposed to feel like," he thought quietly. "This completeness. As if I've shed something old, something that held me back. I feel… unshackled. Like I was always meant to be this. Like I've finally become me."
His gaseous form now pulsed in rhythmic harmony. The once-chaotic particles inside him now moved with intent—purple and gold entwined, flowing like twin rivers.
At the center of his being, the absorbed light formed a core—a glowing heart that radiated quiet strength. It tethered the strands of his form together, anchoring them in balance and unison.
He could see now—just a little.
Not far, but enough.
The void wasn't completely empty anymore. His new form granted him awareness—a sense of space he hadn't had before.
Still, the world around remained eerily still.
He pondered what to do next when—
A sound broke the stillness.
A voice.
He paused.
"…The hell was that?" he muttered. "Don't tell me I've finally lost it. Great. I die once and my ghost starts hearing voices. Fantastic."
[Sar… Saret... Sareth…]
He froze.
The voice again—clearer this time. Crisp. Resonant. Almost musical, but undeniably real.
His gaze darted around. "Who's there? Where am I? Am I in some kind of afterlife tech support queue?"
[Sareth. My name is Nytheron. I am the light you saw before. We don't have enough time, and I cannot explain everything to you just yet.]
The voice was calm, but there was urgency behind it. A weight that couldn't be ignored.
[All I ask is time. If we make it out of this… I promise, I will explain everything. But for now, trust me—just once. And follow what I'm about to say.]