The world was nothing but blurred shadows and fractured echoes. A faint, trembling voice of a woman pierced through the darkness—gentle, desperate… fading.
"Stay with me… please…"
Each word sounded as if it were sinking underwater, swallowed by silence, together with the sound of a heartbeat and the ticking sounds of the time, that echoed through room.
On a white cot lay a frail boy, his body was slender with a pale skin, his bluish eyes are completely swallowed by pain, washed out to a pale, lifeless hue. Every breath rattled like cracked glass, shallow and uneven. Cold sweat slid down to his pale face as unseen hands worked frantically above him, patching, mending—yet his vision darkened with every blink.
Above, a flicker of light—blinding, unreachable. A human silhouette hovered, movements frantic yet drowned in haze. The boy tried to speak, to beg for air, for life—but his lips only trembled soundlessly.
"So… this is it? I'm really going to die… like this?" A bitter, broken chuckle echoed only in his mind. "Figures… my whole life was nothing but a cruel joke… heh… oh well… at least…"
Darkness crept closer and closer…
Finally, he thought, "it's over… finally, I can rest...".
And then—
"Okay, clear!" a loud, clumsy voice shouted above him, maid His dying thoughts screeched to a halt.
"...Wait. What?" he muttered in his fading mind.
A sudden zap of energy jolted through his chest, forcing his eyes half-open. Blurry figures hovered like ghosts over his broken body, monitor's screams, echoed Waverly, fading slowly.
"Oh, for the love of… can you people just let me die in peace?" he thought bitterly, coughing weakly
Then—
A blurred shadow formed above him, pressing something gently against his chest. Through the haze, a faint outline of a woman emerged—her face trembling, eyes wide with desperation.
"Hang in there… don't die," she pleaded, her lips moving slower than the broken sound escaping them.
"Save my ass… You're actually the one who's gonna kill me… idiot…" he thought bitterly, frustration clawing through the numbness, as they tried to drag him back from the darkness he had finally embraced, He let out a silent sigh in his mind, but before thought could turn to action, a violent jolt of energy tore through his chest. His body convulsed, a ragged cough ripping out as a fragile breath slipped, fading like smoke.
'poor dude'.
His eyelids grew unbearably heavy, every blink a struggle. The blurred shadows above him wavered then slowly faded.
until even their frantic movements blurred into nothing. Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, closing tighter, until the light itself felt like a distant memory, slipping away once more.
And then—silence.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
But before it claimed him completely, memories stabbed their way back.
"If it wasn't for me… they'd still be... I'm sorry…" his weak inner voice whispered.
***
He saw it—the heavy rain hammering the windshield that night. His father gripping the wheel, knuckles white. His mother's trembling hands clutching his tiny frail body as they sped through the storm.
He'd been sick again. Always sick.
Always the reason they rushed to hospitals at night.
Water sprayed violently from the tires as the car raced through the storm. Then—without warning— the wheels lost grip, skidding helplessly across the slick road. Metal screamed as the car spun out of control, gravity dragging it toward the cliff's edge
His mother's voice shrieked his name, his father fought the wheel—but it was already too late. The car burst through the guardrail, weightless for a single, terrifying heartbeat before plunging into the abyss below.
The impact shattered metal and glass alike, flames licking the night sky, the storm hissing against the inferno.
And through the mangled wreckage,
through twisted steel and broken cries,
only one small, blood-soaked boyopened his eyes. Alive. Breathing. While his parents, never would again.
Empty days spent wandering alone, with no friends—just the weight of guilt, blaming himself for the loss of his parents. Those years painted his world in grey, a time where the sun never truly rose. Cold hospital rooms replaced any sense of home. White walls, silent halls…and the quiet voice of the doctor, delivering the final blow "You have cancer."
He'd fought, he'd cried, he'd begged for a reason to live, but in the end, the world gave him... nothing.
As the last memory dissolved like ash in the wind...
***
"Whe… where am I?…" His voice cracked, barely a whisper swallowed by the void. "I can't see… I can't… feel anything…" His thoughts echoed inside his skull, sharp and hollow.
There was no light, no sound—only an endless black that pressed against him like a suffocating weight. He tried to move, but there was nothing to move. No arms. No legs. Not even the faint ache of breathing.
The pain that had been his constant shadow for years… gone.
And yet, that should've been relief. It wasn't.
For the first time, true silence wrapped around him, not gentle like a blanket—but cold, heavy, and merciless. It felt less like rest… and more like being buried alive in nothingness.
Then—A flicker of light pierced the endless dark. "Wha, what is that?... huh?" he thought.
Small at first… then growing brighter… closer… until it consumed everything.
Then—
A gentle voice echoed, soft yet powerful, calling his name from somewhere beyond the void. It wasn't his mother's voice. Not anyone he knew.
"...Come, Joseph."
***
Then —He jolted awake, gasping, eyes snapping open to a vast, endless void. Weightless, breathless… alive. confusion clouding his gaze. This time, his body was there—visible, suspended in the void "why am I naked?"
Yet something was wrong… he couldn't feel it. No warmth, no heartbeat. And still… when he willed his fingers to twitch, his hands moved, almost unnaturally, as if obeying a stranger's command.
"What the… where am I? Is this hell?"