Chapter 2: Reincarnation
Darkness.
Aron opened his eyes, but the world around him was incomprehensible. It was an endless void, silent and still, yet it felt heavy, as if the universe itself weighed upon him. His mind swirled in a haze, unable to focus. Every time he tried to grasp a thought, unconsciousness dragged him back into the abyss.
When Aron woke again, he felt as though he were drifting, floating in an ocean of nothingness. Time was meaningless here. Seconds stretched into eternities, or perhaps they passed in the blink of an eye—he couldn't tell.
He tried to move, to make sense of his surroundings, but his body was utterly unresponsive. Even grasping the situation felt impossible. Exhausted and defeated, he slipped into unconsciousness once more.
Suddenly, something changed. A wave of color began to ripple through the void. It grew brighter and closer with each passing moment, an incomprehensible explosion of hues that danced and shifted like a living kaleidoscope. Aron reached out—or at least, he thought he did—but before he could comprehend the phenomenon, the wave engulfed him. His consciousness froze.
When he awoke, he felt different. His entire being was compressed, trapped in a tight but strangely not suffocating space. Panic surged through him as he thought, Am I back in that place again? But his mind was too clouded to process the thought clearly. Over time, his awareness began to sharpen, and he noticed subtle but undeniable changes.
His senses were returning, one by one. For the first time, he felt hunger—a primal, insistent need that gnawed at him. Yet, occasionally, he sensed energy flowing into him from something connected to him, quelling the hunger momentarily. It was incomprehensible but real.
One day, during a moment of clarity, he perceived light again. It wasn't like before—no clear shapes or forms—just brightness, unfocused and blurry. The faint, muffled sounds that followed were familiar, yet distant, as if from a dream. He couldn't make sense of them.
Movement was the hardest struggle. He tried to shift, to stretch, but his body felt weak and unresponsive. Even the smallest movement drained him completely. Yet he persisted, driven by an instinct he couldn't ignore, a desperate hope to escape this strange space.
These fleeting moments of awareness were interspersed with long stretches of unconsciousness. Aron couldn't comprehend what was happening to him, but one truth became evident: he was alive—and perhaps even growing. Or was he? The sensations and experiences were beyond anything he could fully understand.
And then, one day, everything changed again.
A sudden release.
The tightness that had confined him for so long was gone. His world exploded into sensations: vibrant light, swirling colors, and a cacophony of sounds. A rush of cold, sharp air struck his skin, making him shudder. For the first time, he could move freely, though his movements were clumsy and weak.
He opened his mouth to speak, but what emerged was not words. A loud, piercing wail escaped him, raw and unrefined. He couldn't stop himself—it was instinctual, a primal plea to be noticed, to be heard.
As the chaos around him slowly settled, Aron's hazy thoughts began to form a single realization. He had been reborn.
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