The moment Noll desired it, the stillness ended.
The pain returned. It was mind-wrenching, ancient. It demanded he stop his useless resistance. This was no longer a pain born from a physiological response to damage. It was new, and it sought something else.
His consciousness.
With each moment he resisted, it grew exponentially, seeking to tear apart his consciousness, his very sense of self. But Noll knew pain. It was his constant companion, the only thing in life he was sure of. He was kin to it.
He did not fight the invasion; he met it. He offered himself to the storm, his will certain. He would not lose.
Then he felt it. Something else was there. All around him, a darkness so thick it was palpable, but there was a presence within it.
Then it appeared. The darkness morphed, and the image that met his mind's eye was so repulsive he shut it out the instant he caught a glimpse. It was an infinite number of eyes staring at him, their singular message conveyed in their millions.
Cease.
Even with his eyes shut, their demand did not end. The pain cutting into his consciousness intensified, becoming impossibly sharp. If it continued, no amount of willpower could stop his soul from disintegrating. Even knowing this, even as his resistance tipped towards its end, Noll did not stop. His life was empty. There was nothing. He was nothing.
But for once, he wanted it to be for something. He wanted Lune to live.
He felt a switch in the intention of the numerous eyes that watched him. Curiosity.
Then.
Excitement.
The consciousness-obliterating pain exploded, trying to cut apart his very being. He resisted with all he had. If he were anything but a flicker of will, he would have screamed, but he couldn't. He powered on in silence.
It felt like forever. Then, a new shift in the tussle for existence. His consciousness was beginning to resist on its own. His eyes weren't open, but he could feel the infinite gaze observing his struggle.
The struggle continued, until—
Krack.
A profound relief spread from the center of his being, a cold comfort washing over him.
Curiosity… Surprise.
The intention in the infinite eyes shifted. Noll felt the intensity of their presence diminish. He opened his eyes to see what was happening.
The first thing he noticed was the endless crack that spread across the void around him. Then he saw its origin: his mighty tree. The single tree that had stood at the center of his Quiet Forest.
It was back. It had pushed its way through the void to reach him. As Noll looked at it, he felt its call, a silent invitation to take comfort. He began to fall towards it.
His fall was silent. He landed softly beside the tree, his hand brushing against rough, shrubby ground. Slowly, he dragged himself to the ancient trunk and let his back rest against it.
Lifting his head, he noticed it.
His Quiet Forest was gone. All that remained was his tree and a cramped, shrubby circumference of land that bounded him. He was certain it did not stretch up to a hundred of his feet, were he to measure it. But at this moment, he couldn't care less.
He pushed his back further into the tree, resting his head against the familiar, scarred bark. But his gaze did not meet the familiar blue sky. It met something new.
A perfect mirror reflection of his old Quiet Forest, except it hung inverted in the darkness above him, fuller and more expansive than the tiny patch of ground he now sat upon.
Then it hit him. He was suddenly no longer beside the mighty tree on its small, shrubby land.
He lay in his familiar, expansive Quiet Forest, but the mighty tree in the middle was missing. In its absence, a tiny, lone sapling was sprouting from the damp earth. It looked comical, a tiny toothpick trying to occupy the space once held by a titan.
The image shifted.
He was back on the diminished island, his hand on the great tree's rough bark. Then it began to flicker.
One moment, he was defined by touch: the feel of the ancient tree against his back, the scratchy shrubbery under his feet on a cramped island of reality. The next, he was defined by scent and space: the phantom smell of damp earth, the vast emptiness of a forest whose great tree was now just a memory, a lonely sapling in its place.
The development was mind-wrecking. Noll knelt, hands pressed to his head in an instinctual position to ward off the broken nature of his own being. But it did not stop. The sensation continued. His mind was in two places. He was in the expansive forest. He was also on the lonely island beside the tree.
He was stuck in this contradiction of existence, until his mind could not hold on any longer. The images dispersed, and in their place, a different kind of darkness crept in.
It was absolute. He could not resist it as he did the other. But this sensation was different. It felt protective.