It started with the statue.
Next was the bustling marketplace, that never failed to be host to all the commotion.
I began running frantically, trying to wrap my head around what was going on.
Every single block was empty.
No....
I whispered under my breath, slowly seeping in the possibility of..
My eyes shot at every single direction, yet I couldn't find anything.
It was all gone.
I couldn't smell the freshness of the town.
I couldn't find anyone.
...
My house...
My family...
NO, THEY ARE NOT YOUR FAMILY.
Shut the fuck up.
I panted, again and again, wiping the sweat dripping from my eyebrows, hoping it didn't happen yet.
My footsteps that filled the empty darkness of Ophera began to slowly descend into silence.
I stopped in front of what was meant to be my house.
What was left ahead of me destroyed any attempt in keeping me okay.
There was nothing.
.
.
.
Decey?
This shouldn't be you.
You know that.
" .... "
Those tears of utter despair,
Shouldn't they be Lost's?
Those guttural howls, ignorant of the fact that no one is there to help you.
Shouldn't they be Lost's?
You're all alone again...
"Shut up.... "
Then again you're used to this, aren't you?
" ..... "
Your pathetic parents died when you were just born.
You couldn't do anything to save Kela.
You couldn't do anything when Atlas was trying to hit on Heet.
"What....? "
You knew deep down that they had a thing going on, right?
"Please... Shut up.... "
All of those useless thoughts of her liking you back, you know it's impossible.
It was as if she was the one who cared more when he fell ill.
You couldn't do anything right.
You may feel this world has everything against you, and you're right.
She could be better off.
This world could be better off.
" .... "
It was the same feeling again. The feeling of everything and nothing, cloaked around my body and inside me.
Walk...
"No.. "
Why not?
Why should you continue?
Why do you need to push further?
Just walk...
I couldn't move. I felt that I was moving, but I had no control.
"STOP. I DON'T WANT TO. " I screamed out in pure horror, but nothing came out.
...
In the distance, I heard the violent rush of water, gushing.
"Brother! "
Is that... Nera?
>>
That's right.
We went to the creek that day.
She went with her friends and asked me to watch.
But why was her voice coming in my head-
Why did it feel like I was right there...?
That's right...
Everything slowly started to gain color. It was as if every piece of information available touched my brain, ice-cold to touch.
I was slowly able to hear what was around me.
I was able to feel sensation.
...
I remembered that Nera almost tripped on a rock.
My instincts were screaming at me to avoid that rock, but there was a reason why I was able to see all of that.
Maybe I already have been defined.
Maybe I'm going batshit crazy.
But what choice do I have?
I'll trust it.
I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks. The expected smell of salt didn't greet me.
*CRACK*
I felt a jolt of pain, as I was finally able to use my body.
I hesitated to open my eyes, flinching at the thought of sudden sunlight.
Everything was pitch black.
The ground was transparent and yet, black.
I slowly made my way across this sunless glass world.
It was endless.
Something made me stop in my tracks.
My throat felt sore, my eyes completely dry, and my hands were shaking.
No..
Every part of my body was shaking.
I could hear the blood pumping beyond what I could handle.
My heart felt heavy, my breath growing shallower with every inhale and exhale.
Each and every cell inside me was screaming to run.
Yet I couldn't.
There was nothing there.
I could see nothing.
Maybe that was the point.
My eyes didn't want to acknowledge the existence of what was there.
Don't be a hero.
It didn't feel like words.
It felt like instructions, hammering into my body and forcing its frostbite touch into every crevice of my body.
I dropped to my knees, unable to face the entity in front of me. I was sweating profusely, shivering uncontrollably.
Pick it up.
I clawed blindly, my hands covered in sweat, trying to do what it wanted.
It was pathetic.
I was practically bowing to this monster.
P̴̠̳͖̙̙̰͔͎̈́̋̽̍̅̓̕͘̕ͅi̸̮̻̤̗̙̼̒̈́̑͆̿͜͠͠c̵̤̲̻̺̫̖̰̱̓͂͊͗̋̅̽͘͝k̶̥̙̜̟̙͍̪͍͊̓̀͗̓̒̅̓̚ ̷̖̙̺̥͉̙̬̯͛̽̀̋͌̋̎͊͝ḯ̴̝̗̦̜̠͙̯̟̓̏͐͑͌͒̒͘͜t̴͙̼̰͉̱̤̜̮̞͌̍͐̈́̓͗͘͠͝ ̸̥̠̻͗͐̅̿̓́̈́̄͘u̴̻͓̗̞͉͎̩̘͂̈́̓͐̔̑͛̔͜͠p̶̡̼̤̤̫̞̠̲͉̈́̍̂̉̓̓̓̕͠
An invisible force pressed down on me, knocking me flat on the freezing ground.
I gasped, trying to get as much air in me, but the force kept getting stronger and stronger.
I could feel the bones in my elbow and knees grinding against my flesh, as I lay limp, my head turned towards it.
I closed my eyes, tears leaking out in pain.
Cracks of my bones echoed throughout the endless void, followed by screams of pain that only grew louder and louder, ignorant to the ears of anyone brave enough to hear them.
.
.
.
A pool of blood slowly made its way up to my mouth, half open.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, with the puddle now mixed with tears and snot.
My legs were completely ruined, my kneecap shattered and were threatening to poke me from the inside.
My left arm was also shattered, my elbow bending the other way.
I didn't know how much time passed.
I vomited blood and whatever was inside me too many times for me to stay conscious.
My throat was gone.
My will was gone.
Finish it..
Please...
Something clicked inside my body.
I felt the rush of something that never existed.
It felt like sprinting barefoot through fresh snow
—numb and burning at the same time.
The blood crawled back from where it seeped from.
The shattered bones in my body that were sticking outside my body made its way back and snapped back in place.
I got up, unaware that the force stopped long ago.
I tore a piece of my white shirt, soaked in bodily fluids, and wiped my face.
I was delirious, my eyes bloodshot, yet everything else was perfect.
When I finally opened my eyes, I saw a blackboard.
It was a floating blackboard, and someone next to it.
I couldn't make out the features of the person, but it felt off.
He wore a black tuxedo, with a white shirt inside, his pants the same color, and his shoes polished to a crisp black.
Although his face was completely warped.
It didn't look human.
It looked as if it was a mixture of a bunch of shapes molded together by a five year old, and rubbed it with a thumb.
He approached me and handed me a chalk.
"Take it. "
I took the chalk and observed it- nothing unordinary.
"We each take turns writing a bigger number. "
His voice was soothing.
I couldn't understand anything. I couldn't move from the sheer confusion I had in this entire situation.
"I saved you from bleeding out to death. " He whispered, making sure I knew it was a threat.
His words instantly sobered me up.
It felt foreign and uncomfortable, the fact that the indescribable pain I felt had suddenly vanished. I limped towards the blackboard awkwardly, opposite to the entity.
It clutched the chalk between its three fingers and wrote down 1.
On my side, I wrote as many one's as I could, cautiously making sure I didn't step on the entity's feet.
I walked back to my side, and counted how many 1's there were.
34. I said, under my breath.
The silent footsteps of the entity, marching towards me, were the only reason I was able to be sane. It was a sadistic torture dance between confusion, depression, and fuck all going on inside my mind.
It rubbed the quarter portion of 32 of the 1's I wrote.
I tried to sob, but I had no energy to do so.
He perfectly played within the rules, and managed to create a number so ridiculously huge, I had lost all hopes.
' 11 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! '
I didn't know what to do-
1) Wait for my death.
2) Wait till it tortures me again.
3) Actually try to beat this, and face the ugly reality I had so eagerly waiting for me.
"What I assert and believe to have demonstrated in this is that-
following the finite,
there is a transfinite,
which by their nature are not finite but infinite,
but which just like the finite can be determined by well-defined and distinguishable numbers."
>
"'What was the use of this?
You virtually need to use dozens of symbols just to spell out ' 1+1 = 2 '.
It was irrelevant, clunky, time-consuming, and had no real use. "
The entity looked at me, or at least I thought it did.
Who wouldn't want to miss this?
Even I didn't know why I was laughing.
Set theory.
It's not meant to describe trivial numbers.
It's meant to break the system.
At that moment, something seemed to have taken over me.
It was the realization that I had discovered something this unfathomable.
Every number can be described by some statement-
If I'm holding one apple, it gives 1 a meaning.
A physical meaning, something we can humans can imagine and try to describe.
Set theory does exactly that- describes numbers.
But why the fuck would we want to describe things using set theory, we can imagine?
Using Set Theory, I'll make a condition that any number can be 'described'.
What if there was a number, a number who can be described with 10^100 symbols?
I don't have to explicitly write it down, because it counts as a consequence of the condition function.
And that number could even one more than the smallest number we can define using those gogool symbols.
It wouldn't matter.
It's basically adding a grain of sand to a beach,
to every single beach in existence-
Meaningless.
....
It doesn't even break the rule of loopholes, because this number is finite.
It's still finite, but it blows past every 'huge' number the rules let it touch.
As my thoughts ran at speeds I never could've imagined, the blackboard coughed white dust, chalk screeching and tapping across the void.
The silence slowly saturated with that sound as I giggled the entire time.
I took a step back and stared at what I'd done, completely out of words.
It was breathtakingly perfect.
I forgot everything that had ever happened to me since coming to this godforsaken place.
All I could think of was how fucking incredible I am.
The entity had no tell.
It stood there, almost paralyzed.
Its face suddenly began twitching and I instantly stepped back, scared for my life.
Amongst all the abstracts strokes of an attempt of a face, they focused into a mouth.
"You have passed." It said, with a warbled voice.
"Fuck...", I sighed.
I fell down to my knees, and rolled onto my back. It was coming back slowly, the memories of Kela.
The memories of my 'parents'.
The horrible thoughts I had while in the trance.
It was as if even though it's over, the damage was done.
The entity won by breaking me.
"Whatever it is you have to say..
Please do it once I wake up."
.
.
22 Hours Later-
The world was pearl-white, the glass floor reflecting pure light, the skies void of a sun. I groaned as I woke up to a cramp on my left leg.
"Did you make this world?" I asked.
It was sitting on a glass chair, elbows resting on its thighs, staring into the abyss.
"Yes."
"Can I ask you something?"
I stand up, setting my hair so it doesn't fall on my eyes.
"This 'test'.
Was all of this meant to make me a miserable sack of shit?
I mean, bait the orphan by giving him a chance to be in an actual family for once, and erase their existence.
I lost myself, you know? "
I took out the pocket diary from my back pocket and flipped through all the pages.
"I actually thought I was 'Lost'. It's so fucking ironic, you cannot make this up.
Ever since I snapped back to reality, it's as if I have two personalities. For god's sake, I had to personally check up on myself if I was Me or Him.
Now? I feel like a completely new person.
I am mentally ill.
So tell me,
What have I done to deserve this?" I practically spat.
The entity summoned a chair and signaled me to sit down.
"I am Lost."