"Wake up, wake up! Please, I beg you to wake up. Your body is so well-preserved, and you're so handsome... I just really... I really want a friend who looks normal."
Amid an endless, boundless world of darkness, where one could not see their own hand before their face—no, to be precise, he couldn't even raise his arms. For an incalculable amount of time, his entire body had been devoid of sensation, though his consciousness lingered, a faint awareness that he was, perhaps, still alive.
Silence. Darkness. Confusion. In this near-absolute void, the only thing he could cling to was the belief that he still existed and the unwavering conviction that he would someday escape this abyss. Over the immeasurable span of time, he had nearly forgotten everything except for the primal instinct to survive, even his own name having long faded into oblivion. Survival was paramount.
He couldn't explain why the act of living was so important to him, but deep within the relentless passage of years, he felt an unshakable need for a reason—any reason—to prevent his consciousness from dissolving entirely. As for why he didn't want to disappear... that, he lacked the energy to contemplate in his current state.
At long last, a voice broke through the suffocating silence—a tender, yet intensely earnest voice that reached him like a lifeline in a stormy sea. That innocent call stirred something within his unresponsive body, prompting the faintest flicker of change.
After what felt like an eternity, he forced his tightly sewn-shut eyes open with great difficulty and sat up abruptly, his movements stiff and unnatural. Gradually, his vision cleared, and he took in the petite figure before him.
"You're awake! You're awake! It worked! You've finally woken up! Haha! I knew I wasn't wasting my time!"
The first thing he saw was a small girl with short, rare orange-red hair. She appeared no older than ten, her petite frame marred by heavy dark circles under her eyes, which dimmed her otherwise youthful charm. Yet, despite her wearied appearance, her eyes gleamed with a profound joy, as though he were someone deeply important to her.
Wait—what was this? As his vision sharpened further, he realized that something was obstructing his line of sight. Although his stiff, slow-moving hands struggled to move, no amount of effort could dislodge the object before his eyes. Powerless to resist...
At the same time, the girl seemed to regain her composure, her small face lighting up with a mischievous grin. She approached him with casual confidence, her hands eagerly running over his body as though inspecting an inanimate object.
"Hehe, you're definitely special. Not only is your body in perfect condition, but it's not even that stiff. You're practically alive! Hmph, now they'll stop looking at me like that—I have a normal friend now!"
He silently watched the girl standing before him, paying no mind to the peculiarities in her words. Instead, he focused all his effort on tremblingly parting his stiff lips.
"Fr...iend? Then... we... are... fr...iends."
Those few words, simple as they were, drained every ounce of his strength. An overwhelming fatigue surged through him, threatening to drag him back to that desolate void.
But his words left the girl frozen in place, her small hands—previously busy examining him—now suspended mid-air, her tiny mouth agape in shock.
"You... you... you can talk?!"
"Wait here! Don't move!"
With that exclamation, the girl spun around and bolted out of the room, shouting at the top of her lungs, "Someone come! Hurry! Dad! The... the corpse spoke! It actually spoke! Come quick!"
And those frantic words were the last thing he heard before slipping back into the darkness. His heavy eyelids closed once more, and despite his desperate struggle to stay conscious, he collapsed with a dull thud.
Once again, he returned to the despairing void.