"Hmmm…."
Aside from the persistent thrumming sound that echoed what felt like an eternity as "he" regained consciousness, the first thing that registered in his sensation was the coldness. Not the bone-chilling kind, but a pervasive, all-encompassing coolness that seeped into his very being.
Then came the throbbing. A dull ache pulsed faintly behind his eyes causing him to squeeze them shut against the sudden assault.
*thump*
"Ugh…" He groaned.
As his head felt gradually pounded like a jackhammer, he tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt heavy, or more like he felt there were no eyelids to flutter.
"What the heck?!" He exclaimed, his voice sounded raspy and unfamiliar, echoing strangely in the vast emptiness around him and a surge of panic quickly clawed its way up his throat.
He strained, forcing them open, expecting the harsh glare of fluorescent light or the dim glow of a street lamp. Instead, there was nothing. It was a featureless inky black expanse stretching forever in every direction: no walls, no floor, no signs of life – just an endless void.
"What the…" His voice trailed off, a tremor of fear running through him. "Where the hell am I?"
He tried to pinch himself, a desperate attempt to jolt himself awake. But his calloused hands wouldn't move. Panic clawed at him again, sharper this time. He willed his arm to lift, to feel some familiar weight from his limb. But there was nothing: no sensation, no pressure, no weight.
He froze, a chilling realisation dawning on him.
"Wait a minute… my arm… I can't feel it."
Fear turned to a cold dread that coiled in his gut. He tried again, focusing all his energy on moving a finger, a toe, anything. But his body wouldn't respond. It was as if he wasn't even there.
"N-no, no way," he rasped, his voice cracking with terror. "Is there anyone out there? Can someone help me?"
Despite his desperate plea, there was nothing that could offer a response or reply and out of nowhere, a terrifying thought snaked its way into his mind but he quickly shot it down and as he was trying to calm his emotion, he began a one-sided conversation with himself.
"Okay," he rasped, his voice barely a whisper now, "What is going on? How did I even get myself into this situation?"
He tried to focus, to remember. Where was he? How did he get here? It didn't take long before a horrifying realization dawned on him. He couldn't remember. Not the place, not the journey, not even…
"Wait. Who even am I again?"
The question hung heavily in the emptiness. A sense of panic clawed back up his throat. Taking a shaky breath, he tried to calm his racing emotions. "Alright, let's just calm down and think for a second."
"First things first – why the hell I can't remember who I am?"
He squeezed his eyes shut, and tried again, harder this time, forcing his mind to recall any kind of memories that can help him remember. But his mind was somehow full of swirling darkness to the point that he couldn't tell any sort of landmark that could be useful.
"This is insane! I can't even remember my own name! Or even how did I even get here?"
A desperate laugh escaped his lips, a humourless sound that dissolved into a choked sob.
Ba dump~
Out of nowhere, a sharp pain suddenly shot through his head with an influx of information being shoved into his mind.
"Ughhhh…."
He couldn't help but groan deeply.
During the painful turmoil, a name surfaced or rather a single phrase that anchored him to the swirling chaos in his mind.
"Victor," he croaked, the sound barely a whisper. "That's right, my name… it's Victor Gabriel."
A sliver of relief washed over him. At least he hadn't completely lost himself. But the relief was short-lived when the question of how he ended up here in this place hadn't been answered yet.
Without wasting any moment, he desperately grasped through his fragmented memories and tried picturing his last moments by frantically trying to piece together the puzzle. "The last thing I remember was…"
"Oh god…" He whispered, the sound barely a breath as a series of images flashed through his mind - A damp, cold, and slightly dark alleyway, the clash of steel, and the metallic tang of blood in the air.
Out of nowhere, Victor suddenly burst into a fit of laughter that echoed through the desolate wasteland, a sound that was both tragic and absurd.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….."
He laughed and laughed until he felt that tears streamed down his face and his body wracked with sobs.
"I'm dead," he finally managed to gasp out between laughs. "I'm actually dead."
He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked around, still laughing. He couldn't believe it. He had died. And yet here, he was laughing maniacally.
After a while, his laughter began to fade. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He was dead, but he was still alive. He could still think, feel, and experience the world around him.
"This is such a crazy situation I am in," Victor said, trying a reasonable answer for the current feeling this surreal twist defied all the logic that he knew of.
!!!
Out of nowhere, A shiver soon ran down Victor's spine as for whatever reason, he gradually recalled the sensation of searing pain in his abdomen and from his own life slipping away.
"Ok, ok," he gasped, his voice a mere whisper. "It's fine, it's fine…."
He tried to calm his breathing, trying to shift his focus on something, anything. But the pain for whatever reason was so overwhelming to the point that he could feel that he was gradually losing focus.
"For fuck sake…." He groaned, trying to overcome or the very least resist the pain as much as he possibly could and remained conscious.
During that moment, some kind of light suddenly shone brightly from his entire self. The brightness from the light was so overwhelming that it managed to shine twenty meters around Victor.
However, the "man" himself was completely unaware of the situation that was happening and before he could take notice of it, the light quickly yet gradually dying down with Victor's expression having loosened up.
"Oh man…." Victor groaned, feeling a little relief that the pain had subsided to a tolerable level he could withstand. "What the fuck was that?"
He quickly checked every corner of himself and even waited for a moment to see whether the pain would come back or not. When he saw everything was fine, Victor let out a sigh, feeling relief.
"Holy shit," Victor muttered, his voice barely a whisper. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to shake off the lingering terror. "That was...that was insane."
"I…I've felt many kinds of pain before," he said, his voice trembling as his mind remembered those days when he took his first step until he became a well-respected man in the underworld, Victor went through various training and tortures throughout his journey that have inadvertently made his sense of pain to become dull.
"But that...that was really something else," Victor whispered, recalling the searing pain, the feeling of his life slipping away. It had been so intense, so overwhelming, that he had thought he was going to die. "It was like...like my soul was being ripped out."
"Anyhow…" Victor blurted, lying down.
Despite the pain having subsided to the level it was almost gone, he still can feel his body feeling weak with his breath ragged and his heart pounding strongly.
"Where am I?" he whispered, his voice echoing in the void. "Is this... is this hell?"
As he tried to look around again, he quickly realized that something was completely off caused him to be really confused on the spot.
"What the heck?! What is going on here?!?!" He exclaimed.
From what he could understand at the moment, he couldn't see anything aside from complete darkness as he couldn't open his eyelids at all. Yet somehow, he could still perceive his surroundings and in his "eyes", it is as a cold, empty void, devoid of any life or warmth stretching out infinitely in every direction.
"No…" Victor said, his voice barely a whisper. "Let's just not question it."
"It's way too pointless now." He uttered, closing his eyes, and trying to focus on his breathing. He was in a strange, unfamiliar place, and he didn't know what was going on. But he knew that worrying about it wasn't going to help.
"I'm just going to focus on staying calm," he said to himself. "Maybe if I can relax, I'll figure something out."
He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. He focused on the feeling of the cold air on his skin. He tried to sense the presence of anything else in the void. But there was nothing. Just absolute emptiness.
"Is this really hell?" he wondered. He had always thought of hell as a place of fire and brimstone, but this was something completely different. It was cold, dark, and lonely.
"Maybe it's purgatory," he suggested. "If I'm not wrong, that's the place where you wait before you go to heaven or hell."
Despite being the guy who wasn't very particularly religious which also included whether heaven or hell is even real, Victor felt that it was the only explanation he could come up with.
"Wait a minute," Victor muttered, his voice barely audible in the oppressive silence, quickly realising his initial assumption was incorrect. "Purgatory isn't a waiting room for judgment, is it? It's more like... a punishment for sinners, right?"
"If that was the case, why am I still intact?" Victor questioned, feeling the absurdity of the situation and his existence. "If I were stuck in purgatory, I should be a broken yet messy shell of my former self by now."
"I mean…" Victor chuckled nervously, a bitter smile playing on his lips. "I've done quite a lot of jobs in my entire life that were so dirty and evil that it can easily book a one-way VIP ticket straight down to the bottom layer of hell."
As he closed his eyes again and tried to imagine what the hell would look like, the image in his mind showed vivid images of a hellish landscape, demons with grotesque faces, and flames that danced with malevolence.
"Despite the fact I don't regret any of it, not one damn bit…" Victor sighed, opening his eyes with a solemn look. "I was kind of expecting some kind of divine retribution after I died and not… whatever this is."
A sudden gust of wind, though there was no discernible source, somehow ruffled Victor's hair. "Honestly….'
"Where's the punishment I deserve? Where's the torture? Is the devil on a coffee break or something?" He questioned, glanced around, feeling perplexed that nothing had happened to him yet.
"Maybe is this the punishment? Or I'm just stuck here? Awaiting for some kind of judgment?" he mused, his eyes scanning the featureless landscape.
As Victor gradually adjusted himself to his situation, he felt a sense of calm wash over him, a foreign and yet familiar peace. It was like a warm blanket on a cold night, soothing and comforting.
"If anything…." Victor muttered, the words barely audible in the silence. He had never felt this way before. "This felt really…nice."
To Be Continued