A complete feeling of nothingness, no sense of touch, no hearing, no sight, nothing. Iago supposed that he was dead. "This is death?" His toughts ringing inside his mind like thunder, fear and desperation growing inside his heart as time passed
"No, I can't be dead. How would I be thinking if I was dead?" He tried to convince himself that he was not dead, that through insane luck he was able to survive being pierced in the head. "Maybe I'm in a coma, and because of my damaged brain I lost my senses…But that's even worse than being dead" Às realization hit him, he wasn't able to calm down at all
Either he was facing death, complete inexistence. Or he was in a coma, waiting for his family to try everything that they could to bring him back, only to be unable to and let him die.
"NO! IT CAN'T BE LIKE THIS!!" he screamed endlessly, losing himself.
He wanted to feel something, anything at all. He wanted to live, to lift up and run, to hear the endless screams of his mind echoing in his throat.
and then, he felt it. An intense coldness feeling him, a coldness that was beyond similar to the one he felt before death.
'No, I don't want to die! No!!' his consciousness becoming weak, dull, his thoughts becoming slower and slower, he screamed with all his might to move, to open his eyes, to feel anything, even if it was hellish pain.
"BOOM" An explosion raged and suddenly he could now see himself inside a black sphere. Inside it there were very small stars of different sizes, colors and nature. Some yellow, gentle and giving a feeling of warmth, others red, aggressive, shooting energy flares in their vicinity and transmitting a feeling of burning heat. Some were cold, some were sharp but most were a dull and neutral gray, with no redeeming qualities.
He looked at himself and his form was ethereal, blurry, he could see through his brown skin and even see himself completely in a third person perspective if he concentrated enough
a sharp jaw, thick lips and dark brown eyes filled with curiosity and a short, fit stature. Iago flexed his 'body' very hard to see his muscles, only to barely see any definition. "I shouldn't have stopped going to the gym. I'm barely muscular now". Seeing himself in a third person perspective was an intriguing experience to iago, he felt some insegurance towards his body, but also a strong desire to get better. "If I'm alive, I surely will strive to become jacked"
Then, he 'returned' to control his ethereal body, moving around the endless sea of stars. He grew curious and touched a gray star to his side with his hand but nothing happened. He could feel a pulling force from it soo he imagined himself going inside the star
Suddenly he was at home, waking up. He could feel his actions, his thoughts and sense everything around him, but he couldn't change what was happening. And when he went to bed after arriving home from college, he returned back to the empty space filled with stars.
'These are my memories and my feelings…' He could vaguely understand what each star was, some were entire weeks of dull living where others were merely moments. He touched one of the prettiest ones, its color a mixture of golden yellow, orange and red, very similar to a sunrise.
"I love you son, you are my greatest gift, my greatest pride. Be sure to study a lot " Iago saw his mother talking to him while he furiously ate the chocolate cake she baked for his birthday. "Eat slowly goddamit! Are you a beast? a animal?" She scolded, while giving a cup of soda to him. "flavor it, if you eat like this you won't even feel how it tastes!" He noddled with a bright smile on his face while drinking the soda calmly. While his mother seemed stern, she was patient, protective and kind with him. All her actions were always filled with love .
He returned to the sphere of stars, his 'eyes' shaking and the whole vicinity around him shining with a mixture of different lights. "These are my feelings…this is my mind, my soul" as he calmed down, the world around him returned to an empty black space filled with stars.
"I am alive" He whispered to himself, smiling brightly and laughing a lot. "I AM ALIVE" he screamed, his feelings no longer desperate.
He could feel his consciousness growing as he calmed down, becoming more familiar with the space around him. "The closest stars are the most meaningful things to me, or the most recent ones. The furthest are the least meaningful or the most painful" He could feel very close to the end of the sphere a black star, resembling a black hole in his consciousness. "This should be the night of my death, or at least, the death of my body".
He could vaguely remember what happened, how he felt in the moment, the sensations and thoughts he had at that night. "Moving around here is like focusing my mind in a specific part of the body, but it feels way more clear" He extended his consciousness to feel the whole sphere, and as he tried to go beyond it, he felt weak and tired.
"So I can go beyond it?" He grew excited and tried to focus all of his mind in a single point, trying to get out of the sphere, he tried over and over and over, until a part of him finally got outside.
But as soon as he got out, it was like putting his head out of a car's window, all of his consciousness was dragged away and he felt a strong feeling of pain.
"AHHHHHHHHH" the pain got worse, first it was like someone tearing off his skin, then it was like his whole body was burning and tearing apart.
"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!" It was insanely painful, but he could still feel the 'piece' that got teared away from the sphere. It transmitted back to him a cold and desolate feeling, like a piece of his body immersed in freezing cold water. 'I can feel things? holy fuck it hurts' He 'breatched' deeply.
he started to control the consciousness outside of his mind, initially it was like moving a piece of fog around and he could barely move towards a single direction, than he slowly grew more and more proficient in it, the space around him was cold and completely black and in contrast to the inside of his mind, it was denser and harder to move around, like swimming in a water pool
"So basically ,my consciousness is like a slime body and this ethereal form is the slime nucleus? so as long as I don't damage my ethereal form, I should be fine" The pain started to go away and he could feel the part of his consciousness that was torn apart from his sphere healing.
"So I can grow my consciouness with no consequences whatsoever?" He smiled, focusing another piece of consciousness and pushing it out of his sphere.
He coordinated both the part inside his sphere and out of it, so that they would slowly detach a small piece of his consciousness and drag it outside of the sphere.
"It still hurts, but way less" he grimmaced as the pain hit him, but as soon as his consciousness regenerated, he did it again, over and over and over…soon, the piece outside his sphere was as big as his sphere. and he no longer could do the dividing and growing process again. "Seems like there's a limit" He sighed.
He started to control the part of his consciousness outside of the sphere, swimming around the cold emptiness around it. Eventually he found a hard spot that he could pass through no matter what "It's curved, hard, i'm inside my head?" He went down the curve of the wall, trying to use his consciousness to find the holes of his eyes.
"tsssssss" Suddenly, part of his consciouness passed through a small membrane and he could see blurry lights and colors around him, "NEAT" he started to concentrate his consciousness into the thin membrane, making everything more and more clear.
"Flash" golden flames shone into Iago's empty eye sockets, his whole skeletal body shaking and vibrating as soon as he was able to look around.
"WOAH" the part of his consciousness outside the sphere started to dissipate through his body and like an engine starting, his bones cracked and shined with dark brown light and his mind no longer was bonded to the sphere but could clearly feel his whole body.
He jumped and stood still, and as he lifted his arms in front of his face, he could see his arms...completely devoid of flesh.