Take a deep Breath.
Huuuu~
Spread your arms into a T-pose and slowly bend sideways until the Fingers reach the Ground without you crouching down.
Breath out slowly.
Haaa~
What I'm doing?
Yoga.
I don't know what yoga is?
Uhm... so what?
And I don't have a body to even try it?
Well but I can imagine it, okay.
Actually I don't even need to breath?
But… but… well...
Just let me enjoy stuff okay! Stupid rational me...
Why am I pretending to do yoga?
No, I wasn't pretending – I did do yoga.
I puff my imaginary cheeks while discussing with myself.
Back to the topic; I am doing yoga to gather my energy and becoming more aware of the being I am.
Or something like that.
To be honest I was just bored and vaguely remembered that yoga-thing from hearing it in my past life so I wanted to give it a shot.
How can I be like that after what happened to me?
Hmm… good question.
Don't worry you sadistic monster; the mass off terror, pain and anxiety is still dwelling deep inside me. Haunting my existence and hoping for a chance to break free and devour me.
But I am not that weak.
I won't break again, like in my past life!
It's been about two years since I was [summoned] into that awful world for the first time and just thinking about it gives me the shivers.
Not that I can actually shiver without a body…
Ah yes… I said first time as in there was another time… there was…
But I'll maybe get to that point later.
After that first experience I was a total wreck.
One's picture only lasted for a few hours and then everything just crashed into me.
Every pain I ever felt.
Every bit of me that got broken over and over again.
Every darkness that swallowed me in my whole life.
Every memory I suppressed until now.
It destroyed me.
Simple as that.
Over and over again.
The bundle of thoughts that I am just exploded, got ripped apart and devoured by darkness.
A million times per second? Maybe even a billion? Probably more…
But it was weird;
every time I felt the alleviation that death would bring me I was brought back to being complete again and then instantly got ripped to shreds once more.
It was an endless circle made from my personal hell.
Experiencing this surreal nightmare for the hundreds of billion times probably made me go insane eventually.
For quite a while I didn't feel anything and laughed at the absurd situation of me getting destroyed in this bizarre spectacle.
But after a dozen billion more times I got seemingly bored of this and the terror swallowed me again.
There are some fragmental memories of me getting summoned a few times but I can't be sure if those are real and after endless years of torture there was a change.
The mass of pain didn't reduce but a tiny part of me got more and more accustomed to it with each time I got ripped apart and recreated.
And so I noticed that there were some points of gray in the masses of black that are my memories – those where my happiest moments ever.
Also one tiny white thing, barely noticeable in that whirlpool of terror but to me it looked like the brightest sun.
I grabbed it.
It was the moment after I [hatched] in this world;
the moment, I was not alone anymore.
I clung onto that memory as hard as I could.
There can be as much fear as there want.
As much pain as possible.
I WON'T LET GO!
Fixated on this one, tiny bright thing, I survived whatever my broken soul threw at me.
After what felt like a few millennia the pain slowly started to dull out and after another eternity I started to get the information of [humming].
"One!"
Shouting their name without making a sound I broke free from the world of despair that was my whole existence until a second ago.
They still were there.
All three of them.
One and Seven sending out information like a rope that I only need to grab and let myself getting pulled to safety.
Even Four sends out informationless waves of their existence, so that I know I am not alone.
I felt like crying from happiness and didn't even realize that this feeling banished the raging darkness deep into me.
It wasn't just a memory; I really am not alone.
"You even scared away the empty ones." One [said] with an information flow that showed their gladness.
I nodded in an apologetic way, hoping that my information reached them.
"Just don't get lost again, okay?"
This time I nodded stronger, sending everything I had into the presented information so it should surely reach the other three.
With them being there for me I am sure that I could manage.
But life is never that good – it is the most gruesome monster one could imagine.
I wanted to show something like a smile to the lot but at the moment I gathered my information I felt the strong grasp on my nape.
NO!
There was nothing I could do against it and the next moment I already was back into that bright room with wooden walls and sealed in the motionless, small body again.
Please not!
The man with the book was there again. This time he wore a fabulous red cape and sat seemingly exhausted in a chair.
A small part of me noticed, that an eternity passed in the dark world, but in this one it should only have been a few months.
Not as perplexed as last time but way more afraid of what will happen now I realized that there were two Zeros beside me and in front of us stood three men.
All three of them looked down to me and pure disgust mixed in their glances.
The tiniest part of me was curious, if they are grossed out by the horns and tail but most of my existence was just frozen in terror.
Then something odd happened; they started arguing.
Not understanding a single word I at least assumed they where arguing.
They sounded angry and got louder with each word.
After a few seconds nearly screaming at each other, they dragged the man with the book into their discussion and he bowed many, many times in an apologetic, nearly submissive way whilst seemingly trying to calm them down.
Finally he took something that looked like money out from his pocked and gave it to one of the three men.
That one snorted, roughly grabbed the money and left but not without spitting at me.
What is wrong with these people?!
The other two seemed pleased with the situation and each happily pointed at one of the Zeros before they left my field of view.
Uhm… what happens now?
I was still terrified, but it seems that I would at least not have to feel "that" pain this time.
The man with the book answered my unspoken question by grabbing one of my horns and dragging me to the wall where he forcibly turned me around so that I saw a quite nice bar-room mostly made out of some light wood.
On the edge of my vision I saw a small [person?] gently being guided through an open door by one of the two men.
I could feel, that this was one of the Zeros but I could not cope why they where being threatened nicely.
The Zero was a female like me it seems and she had a tail too. Even though I only saw her from behind I still noticed that there was a pair of horns on her forehead reaching a bit over her head.
Her size was around the same as me, but the body wasn't childlike in the slightest; it was way more proportioned, had curves where they should be and gave the impression of a miniature-adult.
She had blueish violet hair and glossy, purple skin.
Was that normal here?
No, none of the few humans I could see had weird colours on them. Well except for their clothes and accessories at least.
The man with the book said something in a declaring tone while pointing at me and then quickly stepped aside.
The people in the room who until now where eating, talking or listening to the music all started booing at me and soon someone threw some food at me that looked like a green mushroom.
It didn't stay with one thing as other food and silverware soon followed the mushroom. Some people even ran outside to grab some stones and then aimed at me with them.
Why am I getting threatened like this but the Zeros are okay?!
Actually it wasn't that bad.
It surely hurt, was disgusting and confused me beyond limits but if it was only this kind of pain then even the old me wouldn't have minded it.
"I had worse experiences when I was five so you lot can't do anything to me!" I shouted in my mind provokingly, even though no one would hear it.
These idiots are only at a level of childsplay, so I can mock them as much as I want.
Being quite excited, I didn't even notice that the stones, knives and forks actually did some damage.
The whole [stoning] ended after about half an hour with some words from the man with the book.
He seemed to have recovered and his breathing was normal now.
As soon as the people stopped throwing things, he held the book in front of me, showing me the pages I already saw the other day and after a short feeling of getting sucked in I was back into the world of nothing.
One, Four and Seven all send out a wave of surprise and nearly in an instant I got to [see] the ruin in jade-green sunlight.
I enjoyed it for a few minutes and then tried to tell them, that I am in fact fine. One shouldn't exhaust themself for no reason.
...
With my limited ways of sharing information, it took quite some time to [tell] the others what happened.
The small part of my mind that was counting stopped for a moment to realize, that the two zeros came back after a few hours as well and then went back to some calculations. I actually didn't care.
Struggling for a few more hours, I somehow managed to share the information of what happened.
Leaving Four and Seven in confused silence – well silence was normal for Four - only One had something to say.
"That's unusual. Normally they are quite fond of us..."
I nodded. This matched with what I saw happening to the Zero.
"Did you do something to them?"
I shook my head. Nothing that I would know of at least.
"Well, good for you!" One shared a warm smile with me.
From this point it got uphill.
Not good. But from "the worst" my situation made a big leap to only "bad".
A few days after my mind cleared up from the devasting fear, Seven got [summoned] and returned in their slightly hollow state again. It made me angry.
While One was caring for them it happened again;
The grasp on my nape only surprised me for a moment and I didn't get confused by the exhausted man with the book at all.
But one thing irritated me on my third time in this place.
There were four people looking at us, but the four Zeros plus me; there are five of us.
Again I was greeted with disgusted and somehow hateful glances before the four people each chose a Zero and left.
Like last time, the man with the book grabbed me at one of my horns and dragged me around but this time I was guided to a corner hidden behind an indoor tree.
At this position people could still come around to throw things or spit at me but I would not interrupt their whatever-they-doing.
So; I'm bad for business or what?
After the man recovered from the summoning, what took about half an hour, he would come back and let me get sucked in by the book again.
This would soon be some normal part of my life.
Not just that I seemed to be [summoned] quite often, I also learned that I could let me get chosen on purpose.
A day like every other, one of the Zeros disappeared and with them Four seemed to fade away too.
NO!
A single thought dominated my whole existence at that moment.
"If they get into that place, it will destroy them to the point of no return!"
With a feeling of throwing my whole existence between Four and the dragging I myself landed in that wooden bar again.
Panicked I tried to feel the existences around me and a waterfall of revilement hit me when I noticed that only me and a Zero got [summoned].
The small man in front of us didn't even look at me and quickly the man with the book dragged me into the already familiar corner behind the indoor tree.
He seemed annoyed and it wasn't hard to guess why; he now always had to call fourth one more of us, so he won't loose any income in case I showed up.
Deserves him right!
An evil smile crossed my mind and after that I would volunteer to get [summoned] every time I could just to annoy him.
If they hate me that much, why don't they just kill me you ask?
Oh they did.
Quite often actually.
Every few weeks there is a person who just can't cope with me and straight up kills me, seemingly just for the sake of it.
The first time was the worst of all.
A quite drunk, massive lady just jumped onto me, locking my already motionless body to the ground and stabbed my head with a fork that got more and more twisted with every hit.
At one point she broke my skull open like that and started to rip apart my brain with that thing while I was still conscious.
Just remembering it made me feel really sick.
Uhrg~ I want to throw up…
Luckily the situation didn't stay like that for long and as if a light switch got used it was dark all of a sudden. I was back into the world of nothing.
Sure, they could just kill me every time I showed up but they tried to refrained from that because when I die in the other world and get brought back here, everyone else who is in the other place gets back too and then it takes a few days until anyone gets [summoned] again.
It's just a guess, but I assume killing one of us exhausts the summoning process.
And yes; as soon as some of the Zeros disappeared the next time I volunteered again just to piss off the man with the book.
It worked quite nicely.
But it isn't just for my personnel amusement.
No, I swear it is not.
Really.
Well maybe mostly it is, but of course I use this so that One, Four and Seven won't get [summoned].
I am a good person after all.
Plus, with nearly thirty minutes about two times a week in that other place, I slowly learned to understand the language.
Not that I can talk anyway but if I could, I am sure that I would be able to have a basic conversation… probably…
maybe..?
At least I know a hell lot of swear words.
So, over the past two years the dark world, that I first thought was hell, became quite bright.
Well in a metaphorical way.
There is still nothing in this place but the mere feeling of our existences.
But instead of being a place that scared me by just being there, it is now a place I can imagine wanting to be there.
Not just me.
Seven started to [talk] more and seem less fed up.
Four didn't have an existential crisis that threatens to break them in weeks.
And One… well they are just One; shining like an invisible sun and giving their warmth to us.
Being with them makes me… happy.