What's going on?
Xavrix's perception shattered as an irresistible force yanked him, Eren, Annabel, and Ellie into an endless void. His body disassembled piece by piece, his consciousness splintering into fragmented awareness barely tethered to reason. He recalled the moment his hand brushed the little girl's shoulder—then came the tear, the overwhelming pull, and the sensation of being unmade.
They were hurled violently into a new world. Xavrix's eyes flickered open just long enough to glimpse a stormy sky before he and the others plunged into a tumultuous ocean. The icy water wrapped around them, dragging them deeper with unrelenting force. He gasped, his lungs flooding with freezing liquid, Annabel's muffled scream lost in the churning waves. The currents crushed their attempts to rise, drowning them in moments.
Before the abyss could claim them fully, an unseen force ripped them upward, their bodies disintegrating into light as they were ejected from the water. The suffocating cold turned into searing heat as they materialized midair—above a lake of molten lava.
The fiery surface rushed to meet them, and they fell, screaming. Lava engulfed them on impact, incinerating their forms. The excruciating pain of being consumed by fire was overwhelming, yet their minds were too fragmented to process it fully. Flesh burned away, and the air itself seemed to laugh at their torment.
But before the agony could solidify into death, another wrenching force tore them free. Their molten forms reassembled and were flung across dimensions, landing with a deafening thud on solid ground. Relief was short-lived as gravity, twenty times Earth's, pinned them down mercilessly.
Xavrix groaned under the weight, his body compressed into the unyielding ground. He turned his head to see Ellie and Annabel struggling to move, their faces twisted in pain. Eren growled, his fists trembling as he tried to push up, but the crushing force refused to relent.
The land itself seemed to mock them, the unbearable weight threatening to splinter their bones. Xavrix's vision blurred, his senses screaming for reprieve.
Before the crushing gravity could end them, the environment twisted again. A jagged tear in the very fabric of existence appeared, a void devoid of light, sound, or meaning. They were sucked into its merciless pull.
They entered the elongated expanse.
Their bodies unraveled into threads of light, stretched impossibly thin as they were hurled across an infinite chasm of warped geometry and nonexistence. Time twisted into meaningless fragments—an eternity, a moment, a memory—none of it real, all of it tangible.
Within this place, incomprehensible entities loomed. One slithered closer, its form an amalgamation of contradictions, radiating predatory hunger. It bore down on Xavrix's fragmented awareness, a monstrous presence that threatened to devour whatever essence he still clung to.
Before it could strike, another entity—a colossal, galaxy-consuming maw—erupted from the abyss, swallowing the predator whole. The two titans collided in an explosion of pure chaos, bending reality into knots as their conflict obliterated space itself.
As the chaos subsided, Xavrix felt his fragmented consciousness pulled forward. He glanced at the others—or what was left of them—Ellie's form shimmering, Annabel's presence barely holding together, and Eren's essence burning with sheer willpower.
Together, they drifted toward an imperceptible barrier of logic. It shimmered faintly, the only semblance of structure in an otherwise alien void. Yet as they drew near, the barrier shattered, unraveling the rules of existence entirely.
And then, there was nothing—except the pull of the next world.
In the brief silence of the void, Xavrix's fragmented thoughts clung to an echo, in this hollow expanse, no meaning could be found. A phrase rose, bitter and final:
"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss."
His mind reeled with the realization. The rope had snapped, and there was no "overman" on the other side. Only the abyss remained. Only nothingness.
_____________
A woman sat alone in a stark, featureless room. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were coated in flawless white, a pristine expanse devoid of texture or imperfection.
The air was still, heavy yet soundless. The absence of shadows made it seem as though the room existed beyond the constraints of natural light, suspended in a space untouched by time or reality.
Her lips curved faintly as she read a book, the gentle rise and fall of her voice barely audible as she recited passages to herself. Occasionally, a chuckle escaped her—a soft, melodic sound that broke the oppressive silence like a ripple on still water.
Her hair, obscenely long and wavy, tumbled down in a cascade of deep silver, the strands pooling like liquid light at her feet. It shimmered faintly, reflecting the emptiness around her. Two alabaster horns curled gracefully from her head, their smooth, polished surface catching the room's ambient glow. They arched like a crown, framing her face with an air of quiet regality.
Her skin, pale and glass-like, shimmered as though carved from the finest porcelain. She looked less human and more like a living doll—delicate yet untouchable, her movements exuding an unsettling, flawless precision.
Pausing her reading, she let her crimson eyes drift upward, staring at the ceiling. Her gaze carried a weight of thought that belied the room's stark simplicity. After a moment, she sighed softly and let out a long, irresistibly elegant yawn. Even this simple gesture seemed deliberate, a display of effortless confidence.
"Haaaa, this naughty sister of mine," she murmured, her voice as smooth and measured as the flow of a tranquil river. "I was starting to grow worried that she'd been too quiet, but she's still up to her usual shenanigans."
Her tone was calm, almost amused, but there was an edge of something sharper beneath—anticipation, perhaps, or something far more calculated.
She stood gracefully, her movements fluid as water. The book slipped from her hands, but instead of falling, hovered in the air, suspended as if gravity held no sway in her presence. It remained open, frozen on the last page she had read.
With a faint hum of satisfaction, she turned toward a point in the room. From nothing, a staircase began to take shape beneath her feet, each step forming soundlessly out of the whiteness. She descended with purpose, her horns catching the faint, nonexistent light as they gleamed like priceless ornaments.
At the bottom of the staircase, the air rippled. A river of semi-liquid material began to flow upward toward her, shimmering and undulating like quicksilver.
She stepped forward without hesitation, the liquid engulfing her feet, then her ankles. "It's been a while since I went out," she mused aloud, her voice soft yet firm, as though the world itself bent to listen. Her expression shifted into a faint, knowing smile. "This should be fun."
The river rose higher, swallowing her entirely, but she did not falter. She let herself sink into it, her hair and horns disappearing into the shimmering substance until nothing of her remained.
The room returned to its stillness, its perfection unmarred, save for the book that remained suspended in midair