Nathan drifted through an absolute and suffocating abyss.
There was no sky to anchor him, no ground to catch him, and no light to pierce the infinite expanse. He was suspended in a sensory vacuum, floating like a forgotten leaf on a perfectly still pond.
Time had lost all meaning. Had it been hours? Days? Weeks? He had checked his phone until the sheer repetition felt like madness. The screen remained violently cracked and completely black; no amount of frantic tapping or desperate praying could coax it back to life. Initially, he had tried counting the seconds to maintain his sanity, but his focus had unraveled somewhere past the first thousand, leaving him with only a hollow emptiness.
Three weeks. That was his best theoretical estimate.
Three weeks.
That was his best guess. Maybe. Possibly.
