Nothing.
What is nothing?
Is it an incomprehensible infinity, or is it an infinitesimal minisculity?
Maybe nothing is just everything, a vastness so large that even such a thought would seem impossible.
Does the ground an ant walks on register it as anything other than the floor when in our reality, it may be an unheard of technological creation it could never hope to comprehend?
Is that nothing?
Or... perhaps nothing is truly nothing.
Absent of all.
Colorless; now, would that be black or white?
Neither, but how would the mind even begin to picture that?
I suppose a world of grey would be the easiest way to describe it, a grey world.
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Grey.
That's all the boy saw.
A dulling pain throbbed throughout his entire body as he shifted himself upwards, yet what was upwards.
The dark grey world around him continued to swirl, leaving him unable to tell up from down.
Yet, as if drums were pounding in his head, a blunt pain continued to thump through his skull, and a ringing sound reverberated in his mind.
"Ugh..." The boy's eyes flickered, taking in the world around him, "Wuh... where am I?"
BUMBUM
A dull strike thumped against the boy's head once more, "Ughh!"
He caved over, grasping at his head as pained grunts seethed through his grit teeth.
There was a ringing sound in his hears
"Where am I?"
The scene before him shifted.
The colorless blobs morphed into an illuminant pathway.
"This..." the boy struggled to his feet, and as he did so, he noticed the lack of burns, gashes, and holes on his body.
"I'm... I'm okay?" as the mental fatigue dispersed, he realized that his body was in an almost pristine condition, recovered from the onslaught of stress brought on by the living conditions from the last couple of days.
'That's good news, but...' he gazed suspiciously at the newly formed pathway in front of him, 'Where the hell am I?'
His pupils dilated for a fraction of a second, 'Wait, who am- wha- oh.'
Within that fraction, the memories of the past few days rushed through his mind like a stream.
Including the moments that occurred before he appeared here, "Oh."
He glanced around, confused.
'Am I really dead? This what heaven s'posed to look like?' he thought as he continued glancing around the grey space.
He moved his hands about, testing the boundaries of this plane to find that he could walk or move anywhere he pleased, yet the path would turn and expand with him, serving as a compass to where this place wanted him to go.
Finally, after some time of mindlessly wandering, Oz decided that there was nothing else to explore and decided to continue along the path that called toward him with its mysterious glow.
The journey was eerily silent.
With the ringing sound now gone, he realized how quiet it was here.
His footsteps made no sound, he couldn't hear his own breathing or even the sound of his own heartbeat.
"------" Oz opened his mouth to speak, yet no sound came out, causing his eyes to widen in shock as he stopped in his tracks.
'What the hell is this place?' even the sound of his own thoughts was muted, like a vortex was present in this place, sucking the noise from any and everything.
'I gotta get the hell out of where!' he internally yelled to himself, trying his best to communicate internally as he continued walking along the path, yet even his inner voice became more and more muted as he progressed.
The visibility around him decreased, not as if there were dimming lights but as if Oz himself was now losing his sense of vision.
He nervously gulped.
Now with no sense of direction, he begrudgingly continued forward.
His tongue started to numb in his mouth soon after, as even the taste of his own saliva become foreign to him before disappearing entirely.
Next, his swinging arms and tapping footsteps became dull, feeling like pendulums that swung automatically, a mechanism foreign to him.
Was this no longer his body?
Still, with no voice, no taste, no touch, no hearing, and no sight, the boy continued forward, unbeknownst to himself where he was even headed.
The feeling was mind-numbing.
Even his own mind was bare, without thought or imagery, a landscape barer than the meshing grey space around him.
Such a miserable existence seemed to bleed on forever as Oz felt his sanity slip away, consumed by the void around him.
Time ticked by for what felt like a century.
.
.
After some time...
FWOOOOSH!
As if a flashbang had gone off, bright lights tore through the wall of grey, awakening a boy from what felt like a nightmare.
"Aghh!" the figure who was walking amongst the grey veil suddenly stopped.
His bony thin body shivered under his own weight, "How... how long have I been here?" his rasped throat cracked.
A horrid bitter taste seeped through his mouth, a flavor of pure mold and decay.
His body ached, and his bones cracked and popped with each step he took by instinct, his body swinging lethargically, one step at a time along the illuminant path.
He nearly tumbled to his knees as hysterical coughs erupted from his dry throat.
"Am... am I really alive?" a wave of emotion overtook him, yet his parched body had no moisture to spare.
However, before he could dwell on that any longer, a bright flash of light burst from ahead, nearly blinding the figure as the crust from his eyes peeled away from him, squinting.
He had no energy to even raise his arms and shield his eyes.
Yet as the light died down, the previous grey surroundings were now pitch black, and now a golden ball of light the size of a car floated in front of him.
This ball of light rotated on itself, yet, there was something deep within it.
Now the figure was floating in an open space, with nothing around him.
With nowhere else to go, he swam forward, edging himself towards the mysterious golden ball that seemed to be calling to him.
UMMMMMMMM
The humming sound was like a beautiful hymn that soothed the swimming figure's mind.
The blistering pain in his head, the bitter taste in his mouth, the ringing sound in his ears, and the bloodshot stains in his eyes all seemed to soak away as he got closer and closer.
Finally, a youthful hand that was the color of chocolate pressed against the surface of the golden ball, and a pair of inky black eyes gazed into the ball, looking to see what was inside.
Black liquids slushed inside, twisting and turning as it splashed around.
The boy's mouth hung agape, "What is that?"
As if the sound had heard him, the liquid whipped around, lashing out at the golden orb that encompassed it.
WACKKSHHH!!
"Woah!" the boy backed away, frightened by the sight, 'I guess I'll stay away from that.'
But it was too late!
WACKKSHH!!
WACKSHHHH!!
As the black goop continued to strike out against the surface of the golden orb, until...
KRK!
A small crack spread along the orb, causing the boy's eyes to widen in panic, "Oh... no-..."
KRKKK!!
WACKSHHHH!!
WACKSHHHHHH!!
WACKSHHHHHHHH!!!
KRACK!!!
Like someone had smashed a glass plate, the golden orb burst open, erupting into shards of golden fragments that flew across the black abyss as the goop sped toward the boy.
"N-no!" he yelled out as he turned around and swam in the opposite direction, but it was all for naught as the goop quickly caught up to him and began entangling him.
Wrapping itself around his body as the boy struggled within its grasp, trying his best to breathe and pleading to a higher being or anything out there in the dark abyss surrounding him to save him.
"Nnghhh, nnnghhhhh!!"
He jerked and twisted as his arms and legs were pressed to his sides, locking him in place like a mummy in a tombstone.
His vision began to fade, and a single thought rang out in his mind, "One death after another... typical."
[Ding]
'What... what was that sound?' the boy wondered as his vision further darkened.
Finally, a single strand of text across his vision brought back new hope.
[Evolve Using Bloodline?...]
'Mmmm,' he grunted, yet his mouth was fully covered by the goop as it continued to suffocate and wrap him, and so he answered mentally.
'DO IT!!'
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{Meanwhile in an Office Space}
"Hmmm"
In a room that smelled of mint with paper strewn about and a large table placed in the center of the room sat a single man.
The man was elderly, apparent by his grey hairs, with streaks of green peppered throughout.
His disheveled clothing and eye bags were an apparent sight of how much sleep he had gotten as he rustled through a stack of documents.
"Good, very good." the man smiled to himself as he looked at the text atop the page.
"I look forward to what this school term brings," the man spoke as he read the text atop, "Academy Entry Competition."
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