Chapter: Vanished
The night had descended upon Damien's village with an eerie stillness, one that was only ever broken by the occasional rustle of the trees or the distant calls of nocturnal creatures. But tonight, the air was different—thick with an unnatural tension, as though the very fabric of the world was trembling in anticipation of something unspeakable. The moon hung high, casting long, skeletal shadows across the village, but it seemed dimmer than usual, as though veiled by an unseen hand.
Damien sat alone in his room, the flickering candlelight casting strange, elongated shadows that danced along the walls. He had always been a skeptic of the rumors that circulated through the village. The stories of whispers in the night, the tales of strange figures seen lurking just out of sight—he had dismissed them all as the ramblings of those with too much time to let their imagination wander. But tonight, as he sat there, the air around him felt... different. He could feel the presence of something that wasn't quite there, yet couldn't be denied. A pull, an unsettling force that tugged at his very core.
The whispers, soft at first, had begun to grow louder over the past few weeks, and though Damien had tried to ignore them, they had persisted. He thought he could hear them now, faint at first, like a distant murmur carried on the wind. But they weren't coming from outside, no. They came from inside his own mind, clawing at the edges of his thoughts, whispering of things he couldn't comprehend, of places and people that seemed to be just beyond the grasp of his understanding.
The words were indistinct, fragmented, like half-remembered dreams, but their tone... it was one of hunger. Of malice.
Damien shook his head, trying to dispel the thoughts, but the whispers only grew louder. His fingers twitched, and he gripped the edge of his desk, the wood digging into his palms. His eyes darted around the room, as if expecting to see something lurking in the corners, but all that met his gaze were the familiar objects of his childhood—a small, worn-out chair, a bookcase stacked with books that had long since lost their charm, and a window, now obscured by the shadows of the night.
He rose from his seat, pacing the small confines of his room, trying to steady his breath. The pull—the pull was growing stronger. He felt as if the very walls were closing in on him, as if the room itself was shifting, twisting around him, blurring the lines between the real and the unreal. His heart hammered in his chest, and his skin prickled with a cold sweat.
Suddenly, a tremor rippled through the floor, a low rumble that seemed to come from deep beneath the earth. Damien froze, his breath catching in his throat as the sound echoed in the air, reverberating like the warning growl of a beast in the distance. His mind raced, but before he could gather his thoughts, the tremor intensified, shaking the walls and rattling the windows. He stumbled backwards, his legs unsteady beneath him.
The candle on his desk flickered violently, and then, as if in defiance of the natural order, it extinguished itself with a sharp hiss, plunging the room into darkness.
Damien's pulse quickened, and the whispering—no longer distant—seemed to grow more distinct. The words, once unintelligible, now felt almost... familiar. They were beckoning him, pulling him, calling him to something. His mind screamed at him to stay, to fight whatever was happening, but his body was no longer his own. It felt as though some unseen force was in control, guiding his every movement.
He turned, his body moving against his will, towards the door. His hand stretched out to grasp the doorknob, but as his fingers made contact, the very ground beneath him trembled again. The sensation was unlike anything he had felt before. It was as though the world itself was unraveling, like the threads of reality were being pulled apart.
The floor beneath his feet shifted, buckling like the surface of water, ripples spreading out from his feet. Damien gasped as he tried to steady himself, but it was no use. The room around him was dissolving into a swirling black mist, the walls vanishing as if they had never existed, replaced by a vast expanse of darkness that stretched on forever.
Before he could react, the floor gave way entirely, and he was falling. The sensation was unlike any physical fall he had ever experienced—there was no sensation of gravity, no pull of the earth beneath him. He was weightless, floating in a void, his body tumbling through the air, helpless and disoriented. The last thing he saw before the world around him was swallowed by the abyss was the faint, flickering glow of the candle, now completely extinguished.
There were no whispers anymore.
Damien's senses were overwhelmed as he plummeted deeper into the void. The very fabric of existence seemed to stretch and warp around him, as if reality itself was being torn apart. The familiar sounds of the world—his breath, his heartbeat—seemed distant now, muffled and faint. He reached out, but there was nothing to grab, no solid ground beneath him, no walls to anchor him. It was as if the universe had abandoned him, leaving him to fall into an endless, bottomless chasm.
His mind raced as he tried to comprehend what was happening. How had he ended up here? Was this death? Was this some kind of twisted nightmare?
But then, something began to shift. The darkness around him seemed to pulse, as if alive, and Damien's heart skipped a beat. For a moment, he thought he saw a faint glimmer, a flash of light far below him. It was distant, but it called to him, a beacon in the overwhelming blackness. His instincts screamed at him to reach for it, to pull himself towards it, but how? He had no control. He could do nothing but fall.
The air around him grew heavier, thick with a sense of oppressive weight. He could feel the darkness pressing in from all sides, as though it were closing around him, squeezing the very breath from his lungs. He tried to scream, to call out, but his voice was lost in the vast emptiness, swallowed by the endless void.
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the sensation of falling ceased. The darkness around him seemed to still, and for a moment, Damien was suspended in a strange, unnatural calm. His body hung in the air, frozen in place. He could feel nothing, hear nothing—just an eerie silence that stretched on for what felt like an eternity.
Then, without warning, the light he had seen earlier began to grow brighter. It was no longer a distant glimmer, but a burning, blinding brilliance that seemed to fill the void, pushing the darkness back. The light radiated from a single point, a source that Damien couldn't fully comprehend, but it was there—beckoning him.
He reached out, his hand trembling, and as if answering his call, the light surged forward, enveloping him completely.
And then, just as suddenly, it was gone.
Damien's senses returned all at once, the world snapping back into focus with jarring intensity. He gasped, his chest heaving, as his eyes adjusted to the new surroundings. The familiar, oppressive darkness had lifted, replaced by a strange, otherworldly landscape.
He stood now in a place unlike any he had ever seen. The ground beneath his feet was a soft, iridescent surface, like the surface of a calm sea, but solid—stable. The air was thick with an odd energy, a hum that seemed to vibrate through every part of his being. The sky above him was a swirling kaleidoscope of colors, shifting and changing in patterns that defied all logic.
Damien's mind reeled as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, but one thing was clear—he was no longer in his village. This place, whatever it was, was beyond his comprehension. And the whispers... they had stopped. The oppressive feeling of being pulled, of being watched, had vanished, replaced by an unsettling stillness that hung heavy in the air.
It was then that he realized—he had vanished.