A hand within the abyss of nothing reached out and felt around.
The hand wasn't expecting to still be alive.
It wasn't expecting to still exist.
Underneath it, there was something smooth, but simultaneously grainy.
The hand slid along it, its nails scratching along the little indents caused by its actions, getting temporarily stuck in the tiny chasm between some sort of joining in whatever it was feeling over.
The hand continued its journey, travelling and stretching outwards along whatever surface it was on, before abruptly realising that it couldn't anymore, grappling with the notion and reality that its scope and motion was limited somehow by something that it hadn't discovered yet.
The hand then began travelling in the opposite direction, back into whatever gaping maw of unknown beast that it had come from.
The initial stages were at least fruitful, the hand being able to retrace its path with ease and then cover a little more distance before finding itself halted again by some sort of undiscovered force.
Frustrated again, the hand began lashing out, trying to find some sort of way of escaping the confines placed upon it, angry that it was once more kept in close quarters and not allowed to leave as it willed.
Thrashing to find some way to break free, the hand suddenly brushed against something foreign and new, something different to the smooth and grainy texture of whatever lay underneath it, but something soft and warm.
Oh.
The hand immediately sought the surface it was propped up upon and felt it more, spreading out the tiny tendrils of its being, and learning that whenever it stayed put for some period of time, the thing that supported it to keep it where it was, heated up, warming under its very presence.
The hand moved a little further outwards and immediately recoiled, wanting to stay where it was warm, suddenly finding all the cold elsewhere extremely unattractive and uncomfortable.
Restless and more annoyed by its new discovery, and the hand's very own new self imposed limitations, the hand began tapping outwards to try and test the boundaries of its prison, enjoying swinging about on the apparent hinge that it was attached to.
The hand wondered whether it could, in any sort of capacity, communicate with the hinge, already devising a system of movement based commands and questions, determined to use its finger projections to tap out codes or make symbols.
The hand was suddenly, without warning and interrupting all processes of thought, rendered lifeless and limp, the wrist of the hand suddenly finding itself awake and alive for no apparent cause or reason.
Whatever thoughts that the hand had ever experienced were gone.
Whatever explorations, feelings, or knowledge the hand had ever experienced were gone.
There was nothing left of it other than the skin, bones, nerves and flesh of its material being.
The wrist, now aware of its new consciousness, floundered and cowered, not knowing what it was supposed to be doing in its new higher state, having gone through the transformation of not knowing that it even existed to becoming self aware and intelligent.
The wrist felt out around itself and discovered that there was a hand attached to it - a hand that was at once heavy and something that the wrist was able to control with ease, for no apparent discernible reason made clear to it.
The wrist did nothing, seeing no real reason to move the hand, rationalising its action with the thought of not knowing whether there was anything out there in the realm of the unknown worth exploring, cowering behind the idea that there was a potential trap or scheme existing to extinguish its brief fleeting sense of reality before its life had even started.
No.
The wrist decided to see whether there was something within itself worth seeing and turned its sights to the direction opposite its hand, looking upwards towards the-
...
The mind of the wrist stopped existing, and something else took its first figurative breath of life.
The arm first learned that it was real when it jumped up as high as it could, before letting itself fall and immediately discovered the concept of pain.
It vowed to never do something so silly again, not at all enjoying the new sensation that bloomed within it, patently ignoring it as best as it could, shifting from side to side to loosen itself out and discover for what it was worth instead.
Impressed with what it was capable of, the arm brushed up the length of its entire body, carrying out a full sweep of what else it was connected to but couldn't feel or realise with the hand that was attached to it, and frankly very useful.
It was pleased when it discovered that it had a twin, and tried to prod and poke at it, trying to extract some sort of reaction from its identical image, unfortunately disappointed when it found out that such a thing was not going to happen.
It's twin's status, to the arm, did not lower in anyway.
The arm nonetheless honoured its sibling, and in its name and honouring its status, the arm reached up to the ball that sat comfortably above it.
The arm, if it still was capable of conscious thought, would have immediately regretted its actions.
The shoulders were not particularly pleased with the new development of their state of mind and immediately moved one of its working arms to slap itself for such a transgression against the name of peace and quiet.
The shoulders felt around itself and hated the body that it found itself in, seeing the whole vessel as a mediocre mess and an affront to the potential of what the creature could possess.
However, the shoulders at least knew what needed to be done to escape the fresh hell that it had found itself in.
With its final actions, the shoulders made the hand slap the face.
And then Xiao Ying opened his eyes to see Ming Cheng gaze down at him.