He floated in a state of ethereal levitation, an enigmatic, silent suspension that felt like sinking and soaring all at once. His form was weightless, a ghost in an ocean of perfect black.
"Wake up. Don't just float there and watch yourself."
A cryptic voice, ringing with the resonance of a long-forgotten bell, tarnished yet clear, echoed in Arlot's non-existent ears. He snapped his eyes open, but the action yielded nothing but the same, lonely, impenetrable darkness.
Suddenly, a fragment of light appeared, not a welcoming beacon, but an inverted sun. It pulsed with a feeling so dejected, so utterly forlorn, gloomy, and sorrowful that it choked the air. It was a luminosity born of pain; as if darkness and light were not opposites, but two faces of the same crushing essence.
"Why am I feeling this crushing weight of sadness? I can see the light, can't I? A clear, burning light. Then why? Is something fundamentally wrong with this light itself?" Arlot's feelings were a tempest, his soul torn between the visual promise of dawn and the emotional reality of despair.
He landed in a secluded place—a hideout that felt like the last corner of existence. He was lying on his back, gazing up at a sky of deep, bruised crimson and burnt orange, a warm-toned red that bled across the vast expanse. It was choked by murky, impossibly wispy clouds that looked like old, tattered cotton. The surface beneath him—a still, dark, seamless substance—mirrored the sky perfectly, creating an unbroken, infinite sphere of scarlet reflection.
This desolate world, he instantly knew, was the perfect, terrifying manifestation of Arlot's own deepest melancholic emotions. It was beautiful only in its profound emptiness. A sudden, almost seraphic wind of hope—cool, clean, and carrying the ghost of a floral scent—touched him, offering a brief, precious respite from this luminous solitude. After this winsome, cleansing air passed, Arlot sat up where he had been lying and scanned the endless dome of sky and its perfect reflection. The clouds, though looking vaporous, were frozen in an eternal sigh, yet the steady, unbending wind continued to move past his back, a silent current pushing him gently forward.
"So, is this another dream, or a void? An astral projection, or the anteroom to madness? This world must be a part of my own manifestation, but an isolated, purely emotional version of me," Arlot mused, his eyes filling with a strange, contemplative tranquility and mellowness. He had accepted the impossible.
The oppressive shade of the clouds—heavy with unshed sorrow—and the persistent, directional wind from behind prompted him. "Maybe I should look forward." Curious about the laws of this self-created void, Arlot wanted to see if he could find a horizon, an exit, or perhaps even another entity. He started walking forward, his steps silent and leaving no ripple on the reflective floor. But no matter how far he went, the crimson sky and its reflection remained identically the same. It was a visual, inescapable loop.
Then, the final, chilling realization struck him: this was not a place, but his own soul and consciousness given physical form. The void was the space inside him. He settled down, sitting on his heels with his hands resting on his knees, and started thinking. "Does this void belong to me? If it is the chamber of my self, then why is it so lonely and vast? And…" Arlot was fiercely inquisitive. He couldn't understand why his soul and consciousness were trapped or stuck here, or how much chronological time—if such a concept even existed here—he had already spent in this place.
Arlot walked for what felt like days, and rested in countless identical spots. No matter where he wandered, he saw no changes, as if he were traversing the circumference of a dimensionless prison. He grew weary, baffled, and his earlier tranquility fractured into desperate fatigue. But then, a terrifying, radical idea struck him. His expression widened—an open mouth combined with raised cheeks and crinkled eyes that dared to hope, showing cautious optimism in the face of absolute despair.
"Should I kill myself? A radical reset, perhaps? I guess so, but how? Is it even possible for me to do such a thing here, in the heart of my own being?" Arlot spoke in a pensive, almost clinical tone, wondering about the method and the consequences.
"Alright, let's do this. The only way out is through," Arlot's apprehensive tone confirmed his terrifying resolve. He quickly formed a rigid ridge hand, channeling his entire emotional force into the strike, and thrust it with full strength against the left side of his chest. His action was met not with impact, but with a tearing, agonizing psychic surrender. In his hand, a crimson heart—not flesh, but pure, pulsing light and sorrow—pulsated, and a torrent of viscous, dark-red light began flowing down from his hand and his chest, staining the reflective floor. Everything went dark for a second.
The cryptic voice returned, but this time its echo was not just ringing—it was cackling with cruel, knowing amusement.
"You fool! This is not a place to kill yourself; this is a place to rest! In fact, you can't even lay a scratch on yourself here! Don't you understand after all of this? You are the reason this place exists!"
Arlot woke up with a sharp intake of breath, in the exact same spot, lying on his back. The red light of the sky was identical.
"That creepy voice… what was that? A Guardian? A trickster? If he's telling the truth, then if I want, I can simply return back anytime." Arlot was in a place where he could rest, yet his desperate, violent actions showed he was not resting at all, but fighting. He forced himself to calm his turbulent mind, the wind still steady at his back, and closed his eyes. After some measured time, Arlot felt a slow, miraculous return of vibrant energy, fully lively and restored.
"This world was created by you, and you are the only one who can truly rest here. No one is going to touch your soul and consciousness here, and I will protect it," the same voice said, but this time its tone was strikingly different—pleasing, gentle, and imbued with profound sincerity.
A wave of palpable relief, warm as the sunset sky above, washed over Arlot. His facial expression softened, his features showing the first sign of genuine unwinding and surrender. Arlot once again sat cross-legged, adopting a meditative posture, and closed his eyes. He heard an aeolian sound of wind, a haunting, breathy melody that was mysterious since there were no obstacles, no mountains or canyons, to create such a sound. Lulled by the mellifluous, sorrowful siren song of the winds, Arlot naturally fell into a deep, protected sleep.
After all the internal turmoil, the fight, and the eventual surrender to his inner sanctuary, Arlot returned to his normal, earthbound dreams, a gentle, natural smile finally gracing his sleeping face.
Arlot woke up.
The return was not a gentle awakening, but a sudden, visceral jolt of recognition. A deep, internal groan—a protest from his very core—was all he could manage, for the reality that greeted him was the same inescapable, crushing one. He had been pulled back to that place again, the strange, desolate plane that felt less like a dream and more like a carefully crafted prison.
He stared upward, his heart a dull, heavy stone of dread in his chest. A profound sense of confusion and weary resignation washed over him. What is happening here, he silently pleaded, and why must I be subject to this? Just moments ago, it seemed, he had felt the first, fragile tendrils of release, finally shaking off the burden of his sorrow and sadness. Yet here he was, confronted by this baffling, perpetual loop. There was still one lingering question, one terrifying ambiguity left to be explained: he was growing exhausted by all of this, by these perpetual things.
Everything was precisely as before. Nothing had changed.
The sky, an eternal, depressing canvas of a warm-toned red, was scrawled with low, murky, wispy clouds. The light it cast was sickly and oppressive. The atmosphere remained utterly gloomy, dejected, and forlorn—a tangible, heavy blanket that smothered all hope. And below, the surface of the strange, still water mirrored the entire scene with an unnerving, perfect fidelity, creating a desolate sandwich of sky and reflection. Nothing. This immutable constancy was perhaps the most unsettling fact of all.
Arlot wondered why.
He spoke the question aloud into the silence, the sound absorbed and muffled by the heavy air, a confession to the void. "Why have I returned here again? Am I got trapped in my own consciousness?"
The mysterious voice, the source of which he could never locate—it seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere—came again, speaking with a distinct, prudent caution. "You are not The original creator of this world, your just another version of Arlot whole soul got swap with his."
The revelation hit him. Arlot remembered everything. The missing pieces of his true self slammed into place. He sat down heavily, sinking onto the strange, unseen ground, feeling his true memories entangle and coalesce. Last time, when his dreams had been shattered, he had briefly regained these memories, but after he entered this dream realm, he got engrossed in it, losing the true thread of his identity.
Suddenly, Arlot got a powerful retrospection, a full flash of his real history. His mouth curved into a strange, Tragicomic smile, tears welling in his eyes—tears of tearful gladness at the rediscovery of his own story. "Yes," he admitted, his voice firming with conviction. "Maybe I'm not the Arlot you know but I'm him."
He wiped a hand across his wet eyes and challenged the unknown presence, his newfound clarity giving him boldness. "How do you know that I'm not the Arlot you knew?"
The mysterious voice answered his question with a very sage way, its tone conveying ancient, uncompromising knowledge. "Your soul doesn't match with His soul's fragment, but it's fine your presence is the same as his so I don't mind to keep your soul and consciousness safe here."
Arlot, his inquisitive mind now fully engaged, pressed on, seeking to understand the mechanics of his bizarre existence. "Do you know how did I came here? By any chance," he asked.
To his next question, The mysterious voice replied in a judicious way, a note of regret coloring its response. "I wish I could know about this arcane, alas, my comprehension have it's limits."
And then, the voice's tone shifted, delivering an absolute, sapient warning. "Your soul's existence is an absolute error in this world, you should be careful while your around someone who has low soul energy, and one more thing after you will leave this place your memories will be erased as you don't know anything about your first world and this Realm."
The profound facts hung In the still air. Arlot remained seated, gazing into the murky reflection, his mind struggling to hold onto truths that were already beginning to slip away.