Slowly, my eyes began to open, the oppressive heat of the sun beating down on me from directly above. My eyelids fluttered, but there was something strange about it—something almost unreal. I could see the sun as clearly as if it were an object right before me, its blistering rays seeming to pierce through the blackness that had engulfed me just moments ago. I expected pain, the kind of searing discomfort that always accompanied staring directly at the sun, but there was nothing. No burn. No sting. Just… emptiness.
My pulse quickened with confusion. I squinted against the brightness, disoriented by the unnatural calmness in my vision. I wanted to look away, but something compelled me to keep my gaze locked onto the sun. The moment stretched on, unyielding, and I began to realize something far stranger was happening—something that went far beyond the strange events that had led me here. The air around me felt dense, heavy, as if the atmosphere itself was a part of some dream or illusion.
A voice, deep and powerful, sliced through the silence of my mind like a blade. It was feminine but commanding, and somehow, I felt it resonate within my very bones.
"I see you've come to, finally."
The words echoed with such intensity that they vibrated through my chest. To my utter surprise, when I opened my mouth to respond, my voice wasn't cracked or hoarse as I had expected. No, it was strong—clear and confident, like a reflection of something inside me that hadn't been there before.
"What are you?" I asked, my tone sharp, cutting through the haze in my mind.
"And what have you done to me?"
The voice inside me chuckled, the sound not mocking but filled with an odd amusement. "Oh, you're not fully awake yet. But soon, you'll understand. I'm inside you, child. The very beast you saw… yes, that was me."
I froze. My body stiffened as the pieces of the puzzle began to shift and click into place. The creature, the sudden rush of power, the agonizing pain… It all made sense in the most disturbing way possible.
I shook my head, disbelief still pulsing through my veins. "No, that can't be true. You're just a hallucination… a fever dream."
"Oh, how quaint. You can call it whatever you like, but I'm real enough. And we'll have all the time in the world to sort out the details." The voice purred, its tone soft but edged with an undeniable certainty.
The events of the past hour—or was it days?—came rushing back like a flood, playing out in vivid detail behind my closed eyelids. The strange creature rising from the river, the blinding pain as it entered my body, the agonizing transformation. I could feel it—the thing inside me, thrumming in the back of my mind like a beating heart.
"What have you done to me?" I demanded again, my voice cutting through the suffocating quiet.
There was another chuckle, this time darker, more knowing. "What I've done to you? Child, I've given you the gift of life. The gift of power. I've merely made us one."
"One?" I repeated, my voice barely a whisper as the enormity of the words hit me. "I don't want to be one with you."
But I could already feel it—the bond that tied me to whatever she was. Something twisted inside me, a presence that wasn't mine, and yet, it felt like it had always been there. "Say the word 'void,'" she said suddenly, her voice coaxing, "and we'll speak face-to-face. We can have a real conversation then, if that's what you desire."
I didn't understand what the "void" meant, but my instincts, the same ones that had kept me alive in the depths of the forest, told me to do as she said. I took a deep breath and muttered the word, barely believing I was even speaking.
"Void."
The moment the word left my lips, everything around me vanished. The warmth of the sun, the oppressive weight of the air—gone, like smoke slipping through my fingers. In its place, there was only darkness. Endless, suffocating blackness. The sensation of falling, as though I were drifting into an abyss where no light could reach.
I stumbled forward, my feet feeling nothing beneath them. It was as though I were suspended in nothingness, my body floating in an ocean of darkness.
"Where am I?" I shouted, the words lost in the void, swallowed up by the eerie silence. My heart pounded, panic rising in my chest. "What have you done?!"
The woman's voice, steady and calm, responded from somewhere within the abyss. "This is your void. Your personal headspace. A place where we can train and converse without distractions."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This couldn't be real. "This can't be real," I muttered, more to myself than to her.
"Oh, but it is. Anything you think, anything you want—will appear. This is your space. Your mind. We're just… getting started." Her words were both cryptic and compelling, as if each syllable carried weight that I couldn't fully comprehend yet.
I wanted to scream, to beg her to explain more, but I couldn't form the words. I just stood there, feeling more alone than I had ever felt in my life.
"Now," she continued, her voice light with amusement, "be a gentleman and summon us a couple of chairs. And a spot of tea, if you please. I'm quite parched."
What? Tea? Was she serious? I blinked, confused, my thoughts spiraling. But there was something about the command that pushed me into action. Without thinking, I focused on the space around me, trying to imagine what she wanted. The void seemed to respond to my thoughts, shifting in response, as though my mind were pulling the strings of reality itself.
To my astonishment, two soft-cushioned chairs appeared before me, facing one another. In the center, a small table materialized, a steaming kettle placed atop it with two delicate teacups. It looked as real as anything, the faint scent of herbal tea wafting through the air.
I stared at the scene, then turned to the empty air around me. "I've done what you asked," I said, my voice strained but growing steadier by the second. "Now, show yourself."
For a long moment, nothing happened. The silence stretched on, and I wondered if I had made some terrible mistake. Was I supposed to be more formal? Did I need to summon something else?
But then, without warning, a dark mist swirled around me, thick and cloying. It was suffocating, heavy with the scent of ash and something metallic, like blood. My heart pounded as the mist coiled tighter, and I braced myself for whatever came next.
The smoke cleared as quickly as it had come, and standing before me was a woman.
She was impossibly tall, her frame slender but graceful, like a figure carved from alabaster and shadow. Her dress was deep crimson, rich and vibrant, though the edges seemed to bleed into black. A slit ran up the side, revealing a glimpse of her dark heels. The corsets that cinched her waist added an air of refinement, as if she were some kind of monarch.
Her skin was pale—so pale, it nearly glowed in the dim light. Her black gloves, long and sleek, hugged her arms, their claws gleaming menacingly at the tips.
I couldn't take my eyes off her face. It was both beautiful and unsettling. Her lips, dark as midnight, faded into an almost unnatural shade of red. Her eyes were black, but there was a ring of red in the center, a vivid, burning hue that made my stomach churn. But it was her hair that truly captivated me. It was as white as snow, almost ghostly in the darkness, glowing faintly like a halo of light in a world without it.
I swallowed hard, heart racing. "What… who are you?" I asked, the words trembling on my lips.
She smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips that sent a chill down my spine. "I am the one inside you. And now… we are one."