And then came... The Shadows.
Even in complete darkness, these two shadow-like entities were visible, their form was like circular blobs of pure darkness and the presence full of evil. They surrounded him, closing in with an aura of malice so palpable it sent shivers through his illusory form.
'What in the world are those things? Get the hell away from me!'
He fought, resisting with all he had. He kicked, and they retaliated. He punched, and they slashed back. They bit, he bit back.
But the struggle was futile. The shadows overwhelmed him, converging on his luminous soul. One by one, they began to devour him, their maws ripping pieces of him away with each bite. He had no physical skin, flesh, bones—just a silhouette of light, a fragile illusion.
And yet, he felt it. Every loss and every fragment that was torn away.
The pain was unlike anything he had ever known, not physical, but deeper—a harrowing, unexplainable dread of losing parts of himself forever.
When they were done, He was dead. No his soul itself was destroyed—erased him from the reality of his universe...
***
Then he woke up. Somehow reassembled as a soul body, he found himself falling into a bottomless abyss.
All Alone.
He became aware of himself again, now an aimless spirit trapped in the endless void. At first, he thought he had died, that this was either an afterlife or hell itself. But after some reflection, he doubted it. The trauma of his last memory hadn't felt like a finale, but a beginning.
'Why am I here? he wondered. What did I do to deserve this? Is this punishment, or something else?'
He waited for something to happen, for something to change, but time in the abyss was meaningless. Seconds, minutes, hours—they blended into an eternity of monotony. With nothing to do but fall, he tried experimenting with his soul-body form.
He attempted levitation, thinking perhaps he might be able to move horizontally at least. But without a point of reference, he couldn't tell if he had succeeded. There was no air, no stars, no ground—nothing but darkness.
Eventually, hopelessness crept in. Every effort to escape the unchanging realm failed. Desperation led him to a dark thought: the only way out might be to end himself. But he remembered the promise he'd made to his mother—to keep living, no matter what.
So, he endured.
In time, the sensory deprivation began to erode his sanity. He hallucinated—visions of mundane life, then increasingly fictional tales, born from memories he could barely recall. But even those delusions faded, leaving him questioning the very fabric of his existence.
'Was I ever alive?' he wondered. 'Or is this all I've ever known?'...
'No! That can't be right,' he thought to himself. 'I was alive once. I lived.'
…
A long time had passed. The soul had forgotten most of hi's old life already, including his own name, so he just decided to name himself Nameless.
'Irony is gold, I am right Mr Nameless aren't I?' Nameless really was going crazy.
So the falling Nameless soul decided to use the few of his original life's remaining memories as an anchor to hold onto his fleeting sanity. He remembered his mom and dad, his friends and the good times they had together, his dreadful job in the biting cold. He welcomed all the memories he could remember, bitter or sweet, they reminded him of what it was like to be a human, to be alive.
But recollecting that string of memories ended up with him being reminded of his last day on earth, the last day he felt what it was like being a human. The day he saw the -unknown- and the day he first fell into the abyss.
This made the falling soul angry, really, really angry. He gritted his teeth and tried to shove all emotions at the back of his mind to not lose control of himself. But doing so would have led to him losing his humanity even further. So he tried to think of a different answer.
His mind teetered on the edge of collapse when he came upon a simple solution to give him mind rest: sleep.
Though his soul-body form didn't sleep in the conventional sense, he found a way to dim his consciousness, entering a passive, half-asleep state. It wasn't true rest, but it was enough to stave off the madness.
He closed his illusory eyes, and then the act of falling half-asleep was as easy as flicking a switch.
And so, he drifted through the endless void, half-asleep, half-aware, waiting for something—anything—to break the monotony. But at least he wouldn't go insane if nothing happened… he hoped.
Then, after what felt like countless ages, something changed.
The constant speed of his descent shifted; he began to rapidly accelerate. The sudden motion jolted him awake from his half-asleep state, filling him with lucidity. This change filled his mind with two emotions; fear of the unknown, and more importantly; exhilaration of a new adventure.
But as he opened his eyes to see what was happening, a melodic voice whispered in his ear:
[New area unlocked.]
"Huh?" he thought, startled. And with that, everything changed.
Before he could question the strange notification, a vision burst into his mind.
***
It felt like he had been transported into someone else's body. He lay sprawled on the floor of what appeared to be a dimly lit room with a dungeon-like appearance.
'Now where in the hell did I end up again? At the very least this is better than that damn bottomless abyss… or wait is this room the bottom of the abyss? How did I land on solid ground after falling for an eternity and not turn into illusory mush? No, it's more likely that I was transported into someone else's body like the protagonists of those sloppy novels.'
The soul of the nameless body tried to look around. The dimly lit room had no windows but just two doors. One led outside, while the other opened into what seemed to be a factory, from which bright lights and waves of heat emanated. Directly in front of him was a clock ticking steadily; its sound was the only indication that time was moving forward.
He tried to move his arms but found himself unable to control the body he now inhabited.
'Heh, why can't I move? Did I somehow transmigrate into the body of a cripple? I sure hope not, or else I would be called the most bland protagonist…'
His gaze shifted automatically, scanning the room without his input. Then, as if by instinct, he attempted to levitate.
To his surprise, he found that he could. However, the experience wasn't quite the same as when he had levitated as a soul. Instead of being completely separated from his new physical body, only his perspective detached, allowing his vision to float freely in the air without even needing an illusory soul-body.
Seeing himself—or rather, seeing the host's body—from a third-person view was unsettling. But after everything he had endured, it wasn't as shocking as it might have been.
This detached perspective was different from when his soul had been evicted from his physical body in his own reality. Here, he had no visible form. He was not even the white luminous silhouette soul body he had grown accustomed to. He was just... an invisible presence, a hovering perspective in this new world.
'This just keeps getting weirder and weirder, what am I some kinda formless spectator now?'
Despite the freedom of not really feeling anything in his formless perspective existence, one unpleasant sensation remained: the persistent feeling of descent. His soul body—wherever it truly was—continued to fall endlessly. But the fall itself was different. Usually in the abyss, he fell at a constant speed, but right now he felt like he was rapidly accelerating.
'Wait... have I truly transmigrated into this person? Or am I just observing their life like a vision as a spectator?' he wondered.
As if a reply to his thoughts, the world around him froze.
The clock stopped ticking. The noises from the factory ceased. The air grew unnaturally still.
A faint unease crept over him, though he wasn't entirely surprised—this stillness of frozen time was reminiscent of his initial transformation into a soul. But what happened next was not something he was prepared for…
The world started moving again—but in reverse.
The hands of the clock began to rotate counterclockwise. The sounds returned, but in reverse, creating a distorted symphony. However, the reversed flow of time did not proceed at a constant rate; instead, it accelerated rapidly, resulting in a surreal spectacle. The hands of the clock moved back faster and faster until the second hand of the clock turned into a blur.
As Nameless reflected on this sudden reversal of time, he saw a group of people walking backwards into the room where his host's body lay unconscious in this new world. All of them wore clothes similar to the host. Their shirts and pants were like khaki uniforms, but unlike any he had seen in his own reality.
Then the Nameless spectator witnessed something shocking: The presumed leader among the dozen people—a monstrous figure with a uniform more complex than everyone else, was attacking—no, more like beating up—the defenceless host's body.
'What an ass!'
The assaulter struck him in reverse, each of his punches somehow healing the host.
'He healed the injured, What a great person!' Nameless thought sarcastically.
The leader seemed very angry at the host for some reason, his screams at the host created a rather screechy yet humorous melody as it played in reverse.
Quickly, however, the fight was resolved. Well, not really; the world simply reversed to the point where the fight hadn't even started.
'Hmm... So I must have transmigrated into the host because he died after this fight? Nah, that seems unlikely—the fight was severe but not truly fatal.'
He thought for a while and then said to himself,
'Then how am I watching this scene? This scene is a bit similar to how I view my own memories... Wait... Am I currently experiencing the host's memories in reverse for some reason? Maybe there's something that happened during this time span of memories that I need to pay attention to. Could there be a key to my escape from the Abyss hidden in all of this?'
Before he could finish his thought, though. The host stood up and was already walking back out of the factory. Time was reversing at an extremely fast rate at this point, and the Nameless spectator could barely keep up with the host's activities. He hovered around him like a bodiless ghost as the host swiftly ran backwards, crossing a long distance.
He briefly stopped somewhere, and at that moment, a gentle and melodic voice called his name: "Ihba.
'Since it was in reverse, the true name must be Abhi.' Just a few seconds after stopping at this unknown place, the host left and started running backwards again.
For some reason, he did a backflip while running backwards on the streets.
'Wait, if it's a backflip in reverse, wouldn't that mean it's actually a front flip in normal time?' Nameless thought to himself
The host kept running, and soon enough, he stopped inside a bus. The Nameless spectator watched as the bus travelled in reverse, going up and around a mountain to reach its top. At the end of its journey, he saw the sunrise—but from the western horizon.
"So a reversed sunset?'
The backward flow of time became too fast to follow by then.
Soon, the host turned into a blur as the sun flew past the horizon and landed directly overhead at its zenith in just a dozen seconds.
For a brief moment, everything became slightly more comprehensible as the host reverse-walked back into a beautiful marble building.
The host remained stationary in a room for a few seconds. The room was full of people, mostly teenagers, with an adult standing at the front.
'I assume this is his classroom and the woman standing upfront is their teacher. The interior seems too lavish to be a school, though.' Nameless thought while observing the scene.
This comprehensible scene came to an end as the host walked in reverse out of the room and soon left the building.
Finally, he stood outside the marble edifice, gazing at it nonchalantly. His face was full of youthful excitement, awe, and nervousness.
Suddenly something unexpected happened. The constant feeling of endlessly falling Nameless was intimately familiar with… disappeared.
And almost at the same moment, time resumed its normal flow.
Suddenly, a realization hit the Nameless spectator like a truck:
'Am I supposed to sit through and watch this guy's entire day in real time now? This is going to be one long ahh flashback…'
'And no way did I finally land on something? Why and how did my feeling of falling end?'
Nameless grinned ear to ear, his illusory eyes sparkling with newfound joy. He was happy to finally not be in a constant state of falling. But after a moment, he frowned,
'No, really, how did my soul body stop falling?' He lingered for a bit then continued his train of thought.
'So is this reversed time scene of the host just an interactive vision inside my mind? And my actual soul body is still falling… or was still falling as it always did?
'So something happened that made my fall accelerate out of nowhere. The same thing also sent this vision in my head so I could see this scene with Abhi mentally as a spectator, while my illusory soul body continued falling into the abyss.
'And then the time in this vision starting acted goofy... What could've caused all of this?
'Did I somehow end up landing at the bottom of the Abyss, is the bottom of the Abyss the "New Area" that melodic voice talked about?! Is the bottom of the Abyss some kind of special thing that not only stopped my fall but also gave me this weird vision?
'That possibility is somewhat scary itself. Who knows what awaits me at the bottom of this infinite Abyss... I hope I don't find out…'
With that, the Nameless spectator decided to not worry about the condition of his soul body for the time being, and rather focus on watching the vision sent to his mind in real-time. But he wasn't excited about having to watch the mundane activities of Abhi's day with complete focus. It was infinitely more entertaining than the absolute and unchanging dark fall into the Abyss. but still, could cause Nameless to go insane with boredom regardless.
So to get the best of both worlds, he decided to make his soul body enter the half-asleep state again so that his mind could only passively observe Abhi's entire day at school in real time and not go insane while doing so.
...….