(Slightly shorter chapter this time as I didn't get much time to write, next one will be slightly longer to make up for it. ~1330 words)
Light as a feather, a young boy floated within an endless expanse. Orion's youthful figure trembled. Surrounded by void, his otherwise tall stature appeared insignificant. The hairs on his body stood tall, fighting against the chilling temperatures.
His gleaming eyes, two lonely stars within the abyss, glanced around the profound darkness. They left no corner barren. But everything, no matter where he turned, looked identical. Only relentless desolation surrounded him, bearing no points of interest.
Devilish voices of unknown origin weighed on him. Baleful whispers wanting to drag him into the depths below. Their presence drowned the silence with an overbearing echo. Putting his stiff hands on his ears did nothing against their persistent mockery. Their assault persevered through all of his futile resistance.
The slight act of thinking turned into a strenuous task. Hushed voices overshadowed his muted musing. "Who are you?" Orion asked, but received no answer. Stubborn as he was, he kept trying. The echos of his feeble attempts loomed over him like a haunting ghost. Even when his voice grew raspy, he continued his questioning.
"Fine, keep your secrets. I didn't want to know, anyway." Orion crossed his arms and turned around. With the voices being ever-present, his comical act made no difference. He felt like talking to a brick wall would lead to a more insightful conversation.
'This isn't working.' After concluding his first conversation with the abyss to be useless, he gave up on the idea. The spirits didn't seem reliable enough for him to place his life on. Instead, he focused on what he could do by himself.
If he wanted a feasible chance at escaping, he would first need to understand the world around him. To his inconvenience, the many books he read in the past were useless in the current situation. The lectures known to him failed to depict the realm he was in. No one from his world knew of the abyss's existence, leaving him alone on his quest for answers.
His knack for uncovering the unknown went into overdrive at the prospect of unveiling the impossible. Imagine, a child known for the discovery of a mysterious realm. The mere thought of it made his knees buckle. Not because of the fame, but the ways it would support his family.
Thinking of the giants, he couldn't help but sneer. 'You made the wrong choice, locking me up in an undiscovered place.'
With his imagination set ablaze, he went to work. His eyes surveyed the perimeter, squinting at every little detail. The dark oozed with peril, challenging his ability to keep a cool head. The need to look away from it continued to surface, but he pushed it underwater every time.
After scanning his surroundings in their entirety, he squinted an astonishing zero times. No direction caught his eye for even a split second longer than another. 'My sight alone won't be enough.' One after the other, he inspected the other things he felt.
Starting with his sense of touch, he gave the freezing temperatures a closer look. The chilling air stayed constant no matter where he moved to. Something even stranger was it not stinging. His body was icy and shivering, but it didn't hurt at all.
After taking a mental note of his findings, he continued with his sense of hearing. The most noticeable thing were the ominous whisperings. Not only was there no obvious way of stopping them, they appeared to grow louder. His experience didn't amount too much, so he could only speculate at this moment.
Upon further investigation, he took notice of the tongue they spoke in. It was unlike anything he had ever heard before. The words they spoke, if one could call them that, seemed to bear no resemblance to those of his language. Their phrases were flowing like a river, carrying a hypnotizing charm.
Once again, he took note of his findings and moved on to the next sense. Neither smell nor taste bore any significant findings. His head hanging low, he pondered over the list he kept in his mind.
Since large spaces were most often cold, the senses of touch and sight seemed to be correlated. But his earlier discovery about the painless frost undermined this. Whatever made his body shiver wasn't the same chill he knew.
The oddball had to be his hearing. One could say that he was crazy and that the voices didn't even exist, but he refused that thought immediately. In an empty space, noises were uncommon. And cold air made no sound on its own, only when it froze something.
'But if it's something other than low temperatures?' What if the cold wasn't the voices's cause, but the other way around? That would explain its strange nature. But it would still leave the question of the whispering beings's origins. 'This really isn't easy.' Orion sighed, realizing that the path ahead contained many obstacles.
—
Time passed, and Orion delved further into his research. He achieved considerable progress in some areas, but not the ones most crucial. Determined to escape, he relentlessly took note of everything that transpired around him.
With no reference, time became an elusive concept for him. He made a rough estimate every time he wondered how long it had been, but even that became difficult.
From his point of view, roughly a month passed since his arrival. He had no clue how far off he was from the truth, not that it mattered. The duration of his stay didn't matter to him. As long as he made it out eventually, the passing of time didn't concern him too deeply.
Within the 30 days, two great discoveries were made. The first one had to do with his need for nourishment. After all, food and water were scarce within the consuming void. Fortunate for him, that didn't affect him, as he immediately noticed something distinct about his current constitution. Instead of getting its energy from nutrients, it gathered it from the surroundings. Like a magnet, it attracted a strange force to use it for energy. This was great news for someone who didn't want to die on his third day.
The second thing he noticed concerned his need for sleep and rest. Unlike normal, where the body required at least a few hours of rest every day to function, he didn't. Unless he overtaxed his mind, he never got tired. This had to do with the first discovery, as the same energy also invigorated the cells in his body with life. Or dead?
Orion wasn't sure what he was. The absence of most things that considered him to be alive, like his blood and heart, gave the impression that he was dead. But simultaneously, the ability of cognitive decisions and the need to breathe were at odds with the earlier assumption. To save himself from a colossal headache, he chose not to think too deeply about it for the time being. 'What if I am neither, and something else entirely?' He shook his head, trying to rid himself of his thoughts.
—
More time passed since then, and Orion made another substantial leap in his research. He discovered another crucial factor in his path toward the discovery of the cool temperatures.
It didn't just lack the painful sting, but also the dry humidity. Cold air would cause the throat to dry up when inhaling, making it potentially dangerous without the right clothing. But after a possible six months of daily note taking, this never happened.
"Another successful step toward my goal!" Orion waved his arms around, laughing at his feats. Every moment, he got closer and closer to his goal of escaping. He sensed it would only be a matter of a few more months before he left this god-forsaken place.
"Wait for me, I will make it soon," he promised himself, grasping into the distance. In his head, he already had one foot out of the water. 'And you, statues, should brace yourself.'