Lyre felt a powerful impact all over his body, and after looking around, he realized the bus had crashed. He knew he had sustained multiple fractures and injuries because of the accident. He noticed that everyone's situation was just as dire--except for one boy, who stood amidst the chaos, smiling.
Lyre could hear the boy's maniacal laughter, even over the screams and cries of the other students. Confusion gripped him--why was this boy laughing in the middle of such disaster?
But Lyre let the thought slip from his mind. He knew he was about to die, and he didn't want to waste his final moments pondering the boy's madness.
As the pain overtook him, Lyre lost consciousness. Just before the darkness claimed him, he heard a voice, faint but unmistakable: "Finally, I found the missing piece."
As time passed, voices shattered his slumber.
"Shit, what's happening?"
"I don't know!"
"How could this happen? Everything was going according to the plan."
"We're going to die at this rate--use those souls!"
"Capture them. Don't let the World Seal Array break."
...
...
...
...
"It looks like we have no choice but to use him. Otherwise, we're finished."
Suddenly, Lyre felt soul-crushing pain ripple through his entire being. It was as though his soul was being torn apart from three different directions.
The agony was overwhelming, yet he was helpless, unable to move or even scream, trapped in a body he could no longer feel.
Eventually, the darkness claimed him again.
After what felt like an eternity, Lyre's awareness returned.
Darkness.
Complete and utter darkness.
That was all he could perceive.
No light, no sensation, nothing.
He didn't even know if his eyes were open or closed.
Lyre couldn't feel his body. He couldn't see, hear, or even breathe. And yet, somehow, he was still... conscious.
Time passed.
Or did it? he thought.
The void stretched endlessly, leaving him disoriented. To keep from losing his mind, he began to count.
One... Two... Three...
A desperate attempt to hold on to some semblance of reality.
Four... Five... Six...
Was he dead?
In a coma?
Or had the world ceased to exist?
He had no way of knowing.
Seven... Eight... Nine...
The counting became his only tether to sanity in this abyss of nothingness.
Ten... Eleven... Twelve...
Days? Years? Time had lost all meaning.
Hundred... Two hundred... Three hundred...
One thousand...
One thousand three hundred forty-two...
One thousand three hundred forty-three...
His memories began blur.
Who was he?
Why was he here?
The questions swirled in the void, but the answers were elusive.
Five thousand... Six thousand...
Hundred thousand... Two hundred thousand...
One million... Two million... Three million...
The numbers grew, an unrelenting measure of his endurance. Each one a small victory against the overwhelming emptiness.
One billion...
Still, he counted.
One billion, one...
Would he ever stop? Would he ever escape this darkness?
...
...
Ten billion...
Hundred billion...
...
One hundred sixty one billion five hundred ninety million...
Finally,
He stopped counting.
Because he felt something.
His body.
His eyes, his ears, his hands, his fingers--he could feel everything again, though they felt foreign to him now.
Yet, despite the sensations, he couldn't control his body. It was as if he were paralyzed, able to feel but not move.
Still, hope flared within him. If he could feel his body again, perhaps he was close to regaining control. He lay there for what felt like days--or was it years?--focusing on the sensation of every part of his body. Slowly, painstakingly, he tried to reconnect with himself.
And then, he made progress. He opened his eyes.
Though his head and body remained immobile, his eyes roved around the room. The world looked different now. He found himself in a dark, ruined building, its interior etched with strange, glowing runes and ancient symbols. Even in its dilapidation, there was something eerily beautiful and vivid about his surroundings.
As the days--or perhaps years--continued to pass, he gained more control, enough to start crawling across the floor. He moved slowly, inching across the cold ground, exploring his surroundings. He was on the ground floor of a crumbling structure, surrounded by walls carved with cryptic paintings and runes.
For months, he crawled, feeling every inch of the place before reaching a staircase that led to an upper floor. He slowly climbed the stairs, his movements painstakingly slow. When he reached the next floor, he found several doors, all sealed with strange symbols.
From one of the doors, a black wisp of energy began to seep out. Lyre felt a sense of dread and danger rising in his chest. He tried to back away, but the wisp quickly wrapped itself around his legs, tightening its grip. A feeling of weakness and helplessness washed over him as the wisp dragged him toward the sealed door.
Panic set in. Lyre instinctively knew that the black wisp was dangerous, and that the sealed door it came from was even more so.
"Help!" he screamed, his voice filled with desperation. "Please, someone help me!"
But there was no one to hear his pleas.
And soon, Lyre was pulled into the door, swallowed whole by it.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On the other side of sealed door
An ethereal figure stood, her presence commanding and eerie.
Raising her hand, from which black wisps flowed like smoke, she seemed to control the very shadows that surrounded her.
Her face was obscured in darkness, except for a pair of piercing obsidian eyes that glinted with malevolent intelligence.
Her long, flowing hair shimmered like the night sky, dotted with tiny stars, and she wore a dress made of shadow, absorbing any light that dared approach her.
The air around her swirled with dark mist, thick and suffocating.
In one swift motion, she pulled back her hand along with entangled boy into the room.
Lyre, disheveled and helpless, was trapped in the grasp of her shadowy tendrils. She looked down at him, a hint of satisfaction crossing her darkened features.
"Finally..." she whispered, her voice echoing ominously. "I can leave this place."
But just as she prepared to act, a bright, white portal opened above the boy. From it, four radiant hands emerged, ethereal and glowing. In an instant, they grabbed Lyre, pulling him up toward the portal.
"Thank you very much, Thaylol," a sweet, melodic voice echoed from the portal as it enveloped the boy. In a flash, both the portal and Lyre disappeared.
Thaylol's eyes widened in fury, her voice shaking the very walls of the dark room.
"I will kill you, Quetzal!" she roared, her voice thundering through the shadows, her rage palpable.