In a void consumed by darkness, I took small, trembling steps, each one harder than the last. My body was drenched in sweat, my clothes clinging to me like a second skin, as though I'd just stepped out of a steaming bath. I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs in a relentless drumbeat as I moved forward on a path that seemed to stretch into an endless abyss.
"Where am I?"
"What is this never-ending darkness?
A thousand questions raced through my mind, ticking away like the steady hands of a clock.
Desperation clawed at me as I tried to remember. I gripped my hands and even punched my head in desperation. But no matter what I did, the memories refused to come.
All I could recall was that I was standing before my computer when suddenly, a hand—cold and foreign—plunged out of the screen and dragged me into its depths. And now, here I was, lost in this dark, never-ending solitude.
Anxiety pressed heavily on my chest, and fear clenched around my heart like a vice. Nothing made sense. I didn't even know who I was or why I was there. The only certainty was this endless path of darkness before me, stretching on forever as if I were a hollow puppet, twisted up and left to walk aimlessly.
I couldn't tell how long it had been. Hours? Days? Time seemed meaningless here.
But then, through the vast emptiness, I saw it.
A door.
A white door that glowed faintly in the darkness.
My heart surged with hope. I stumbled forward, my pace quickening with each step until I stood before it. My fingers brushed its cool surface, trembling. Without another thought, I pushed.
"Ahhh!"
A blinding light flooded my vision, piercing through the darkness like a knife. I covered my eyes, but it was too late. Memories erupted within me, filling my mind with painful intensity. My head throbbed as a deluge of images and feelings poured in, a torrent that overwhelmed everything else, drowning even my consciousness.
_____
As the world blurred further, my consciousness began to fade, consumed by the enigmatic darkness that had befallen the sunlit morning.
And then, I awoke.
Just as I opened my eyes, I found myself in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by impenetrable darkness. No light. No sound. Only silence—oppressive and infinite. It was as if I had been cast adrift in a sea of nothingness. Confusion and fear gripped my heart as I struggled to comprehend my circumstances.
"What is happening?" I whispered into the abyss only for my voice to be swallowed by the void. The silence was deafening, amplifying my disorientation.
Questions surged through my mind like a tide, each one a desperate plea for answers. Was I dead? Was this some kind of twisted afterlife? The absence of any tangible sensations left me feeling disconnected from my own existence, as though I had become a shadow of my former self.
What was this world?
I had walked so far, I transited the place filled with never-ending darkness and finally reached the light to only end up like this.
What is this shit?
Is this torture?
Is this my punishment for refusing the person who had offered me reincarnation?
AHHH!
This kind of solitude is sickening and it's killing me.
Staying in such a world with one except my own self…
Even calling it a world was perhaps wrong.
I tried to move, to break free from the oppressive emptiness, but my efforts were futile. I realized with a jolt that I no longer had a physical form. I was nothing more than a consciousness, untethered from the vessel I once inhabited.
'Why is this happening?' As I was lost in thought, my attention was abruptly drawn toward something that entered my field of view, accompanied by a chorus of voices.
Although faint at first, a whisper carried on an unseen wind and it grew louder.
Yes, it was a sound…
While I examined my new existence, I discovered that despite my physical limitations, I still possessed my senses. I could see and hear the world beyond this voice, though I was unable to interact with it. It was a peculiar sensation, observing the world without the ability to influence or participate in it.
Lost in thought, I yearned for answers, for a glimpse of understanding in this bewildering existence. Time passed, and yet, I remained trapped in my ethereal prison, as a mere observer of a world in which I couldn't participate.
Watching. Waiting. Hoping.
Even though I didn't understand what this world was, I just stood there and did the one thing I could do—observe. Perhaps, in the end, there was nothing I could do after all.
_____
Days passed…
That peculiar, gnawing sensation of not being able to interact with the outside world was eating me alive.
Imagine being a newborn baby—having your consciousness intact and fully aware, yet utterly helpless. You are able to feel everything, see everything, hear everything, but your body remains unresponsive, trapped in its infancy.
You can't do anything since the motor reflexes in your body are yet to develop.
That was how it felt.
And that feeling was eating me alive.
The suffocating inaction clawing at my sanity every moment.
The solace, the nothingness…
And yet, I wasn't entirely staying idle and waiting. Even though I couldn't move my body, I was able to observe. I could see subtle glimpses of the faint edges of the world around me, feel its vibrations and piece together all those details.
There was only one thing that I could truly do in this place: think and observe.
It was something I had always liked to do—whether in high school, college or while gaming.
The thing that I have done most of my life.
Watch and observe—looking for those little details.
And strangely, that habit of mine made this place bearable enough. Even though I longed to feel the world again, to truly live in the world again, I still managed to keep my sanity intact.
However, watching and observing did have one simple result or output, others might say.
It yields information. The information that would come whenever you choose to observe.
And that information was seeping into my consciousness.
At first, the only thing I saw was a ceiling. But soon, the view shifted as the scenes started changing before me.
It was like I was looking at the world through someone else's eyes.
And soon, I began hearing a voice. Though the voice felt somewhat familiar, I couldn't pin as to where I had heard it.
My memory of hearing was falling behind a little.
In any case, the voice I had been hearing belonged to a young boy.
Yet something felt… amiss. My years of gaming, immersed in VR worlds and FPS games, made me notice the subtleties.
And at that moment, the realization hit me.
I wasn't experiencing this world firsthand.
In fact, I was looking at this world from the eyes of someone else. Like a far screen, it played the video of the world as if I was watching a TV while floating in a bottomless abyss.
But the scene wasn't a pleasant one. The earlier days of just watching and feeling fun disappeared and soon the real thing began.
The experience of the boy was so gruesome and tragic that I felt like throwing up. It was because the mother of this boy tried to kill him.
Not his real mother but a spectre hiding in the shell of his mother. Thankfully, a hunter intervened, rescuing the boy and then delivered him to an orphanage. There, under the Empire's compulsory education program for the younglings, he was taught and trained a bit to increase the chances of awakening.
The boy clung to revenge, driving himself relentlessly.
But after turning 10, nothing good seemed to have happened to him, rather it worsened and with time, his hardships only multiplied.
And that was when I realized where I was—what this world was.
I was inside a game.
Not just any game.
Bloodborne
This was a game that I played day and night, traversing through countless scenarios, and cracking my head to clear all the hidden routes despite completing it a hundred times. The reason—each time I played the game something new seemed to have popped up.
And the boy's name was Lukas Star.
Acting differently in the play of choices, the boy was either bound to stay in the shadow, become an extra or a part-time villain after accepting a contract from a high-level wraith.
In various routes, the boy turned out to become a third-rate villain, just to show off the protagonist's difference from others.
He was a simple background figure destined to die at the start of the storyline because he was envious of the protagonist's achievements, and if by chance the route deviated, he would be hung down and disappear into the background like nobody.
Bloodborne was infamous for its unlimited branching narratives, to the point that one had yet to reach the true ending.
The game started with the protagonist at the academy, a place where strength was revered, and weakness scorned. There, he faced the weight of his choices and doubted his path but he gradually rose in strength.
Using this thirst for knowledge, the extra would soon become a pawn only to be killed and discarded later.
But that's not important, rather it's my confinement that consumed me.
With each passing day, I delved deeper into the art of observation. I became attuned to the subtle nuances of human behavior—the hidden interplay of emotions, and the underlying motives that dictated those actions.
Yet, as the days blurred by, the monotony of my existence pressed down on me, threatening to suffocate what little sanity I had left.
It was during this tumultuous period that I sensed a shift. The boy's consciousness seemed to resonate with the emotions he endured.
Despair, agony, anger, hatred—each wave of those negative emotions began to slowly seep into me. In the beginning, it was just a vague feeling, but gradually, I started to feel his pain as well.
The beatings and all the pain Lukas had endured were slowly transmitted to me, each blow reverberating as if I were the one suffering. It drove me to the brink of turning crazy since I wasn't able to vent my feelings despite being on the receiving end.
Just a crazy thing.
Why the fuck am I even suffering alongside this guy?
If I was in his place, I might have fought back—fucked all those sons of bitches.
The feeling of pain finally reached its peak as Lukas fell from the building. I watched through his eyes, helpless, as his body convulsed, air leaving his lungs until he stopped breathing altogether and darkness gradually enveloped everything.
And then, I felt something crumble. My consciousness began slipping away, merging into something unfamiliar.
Before I could guess what was happening, I opened my eyes and the first thing that greeted me was the sight of a cold, blood-drenched floor, dirt pressing against my cheek.