A slim man in his mid-twenties with sharp features stared intently down at his legs, wondering if he should cut them off.
"I would probably do just fine without those sorry excuses for legs, wouldn't I?" the man said absentmindedly.
The reason?
They were already going to disappear, so why not get rid of them before they dragged the rest of him into the unknown as well?
Sultan once more examined the clearly growing gap that stretched between his shins and the floor, still not knowing what to make of it.
It was supposed to be a normal evening. Sultan had just checked on his sister, his only remaining family, and then headed to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
Until… A lofty voice suddenly spoke in his ears.
Humming and whistling, Sultan was just taking his time with his favorite part of the cooking process—chopping—when it startled him out of his wits.
It spoke like a whisper, yet clear and crisp in his head.
[Noumenon detected.]
[Preparing for numberization.]
Initially, he thought it was the voice of his digital assistant. After all, he had just updated to the latest version of RLISYS today and had been on edge since. The level of realism in its responses had left him questioning what was real and what was simulated.
Soon, however, Sultan realized that wasn't the case at all.
His RLISYS interface had been dormant the entire time. Even the music he had left playing in the background had gone entirely silent.
Assuming the voice was just a trick of the ear, or perhaps some outside noise, he tried to turn his body around and take a brief glance at his surroundings, fully expecting to find nothing.
Yet, he couldn't.
Looking down, there was nothing obstructing his legs. The floor was spotless and clean, with no indication that he shouldn't be able to walk on it.
Switching his perspective, Sultan gazed at his own frame. The usual sight of his stomach, covered by his deep green loose shirt, and his lean legs wrapped in cozy home pants formed a familiar picture before him.
Except… for the absence of his feet.
First came a halt of incomprehension.
Then, disbelief kicked in, followed by horror, dread, and fear.
A cold breeze of terror passed through Sultan as he witnessed his body…
What?
vanishing into thin air? disappearing into nothingness? There was no plausible explanation for what he was seeing.
Panic threatened to take control of his actions, and a scream lingered in the edge of his throat. His eyes dilated in every direction, not knowing what to do as death creeped up on him bit by bit.
Back growing cold, Sultan breathed deeply and forced himself to think rationally.
He still had a chance. If he could find a way to stop the remaining of his body from being consumed entirely, surely he wouldn't die.
Thus, here he was. Only one thought repeating in his head.
Just cut it.
The logic was brutal yet simple. If the vanishing grew like an infection, the only solution he had was to cut it off by getting rid of his legs, hoping that would prevent it from reaching the rest of his body.
But this reasoning had an obvious hole in it. The likelihood of this being any kind of disease was very slim. He wasn't a doctor, and knew little to nothing about human anatomy, but even Sultan knew that there is no kind of virus or bacteria that will deteriorate that fast and wouldn't leave any clear biological sign.
'Unless… it was there, and no one survived to tell the tale, since it vaporized the person in a matter of seconds'.
Or what if such a thing had just appeared in the world, and had chosen poor little Sultan as its first victim.
"What do you think, buddy?"
Sultan gazed at the old, well-worn blade in his hand. The knife was ancient, marked by scratches and chips in the blade, with some cracks in the handle.
This, nonetheless, was just a façade for the little deceiver. The wicked thing was still the sharpest blade he had ever held. In fact, Sultan never needed to use a whetstone or a sharpening machine for this knife.
It was a memento from his mother, and Sultan liked to use it on special occasions, during joyful moments and such. Particularly like this one had been supposed to be.
"Sigh. that won't do it."
In the end, he couldn't go through it.
The pressure of the danger bore down on sultan and thoughts rose and fell in his mind like small fish in a violent river.
There was no time to Call the emergency contacts, and even if there was, the possibility of taking him seriously was almost nonexistent.
Sultan's grip on the pommel of the knife tightened until his white bones showed as if they were going to pop out of his knuckles.
is there really no other way except for this foolishness?
He still wouldn't do it, and not for a lack of resolve, or a fear of pain.
Decisiveness was synonymous with Sultan in the dictionary of personal traits. And agony was a faithful companion of little absence in his recent years.
For Sultan, there was a much more important aspect than the efficacy of this solution to consider.
It was the consequences of its success.
While it is true that this desperate act had the potential to save him, the cost was too steep to pay.
Crippling himself in the process of avoiding this unknown and dangerous oddity was a worse fate than certain death in his case.
The reason? Sultan refused to run from his responsibilities. He loathed the idea of being a burden on the shoulders of a little girl ,his only remaining family, whose life hadn't shown much kindness to until recently.
And for what? So he could continue existing pitifully without will or purpose.
No. He would rather take his chances and have faith that it was going to be alright. And if it was truly the end, so be it. at least he was going to leave quietly without causing more suffering or disappointment for any of those he loved.
Using such thoughts to fuel his resolution, Sultan squeezed his eyes shut, and awaited the long unending seconds for the void to embrace his entire self.
Still, it was far from straightforward.
Being erased from existence was , to put it mildly, a nerve-racking experience.
'At least it was going to be over soon'.' Sultan seized a fleeting positive thought amidst the rollercoaster of dread and doubt inside of him, and latched on it.
soon enough, his entire body, except for his head, had completely vanished.
Fearing what he might see, Sultan hadn't dared to open his eyelids. Instead, he judged this by the unresponsiveness of every organ apart from his tongue, which had eventually fallen silent, as well.
In those horrible, endless seconds before he fully disintegrated, Sultan had experienced unfathomable, odd impressions.
He found his state of being utterly surreal.
It felt like he was inside a memory of himself. For instance, He could only recall being able to move his hand when he attempts to actually do so. There was no resistance to his will.
Instead, Sultan had the sensation that his thoughts had proven to be just an echo in reality, his actions are solely a replaying of memories, a mere repetition of what had already occurred.
A whisper of living that promised insanity as its inevitable end. A miserable and tormenting way of existing that was full of doubt and powerlessness.
Thankfully, It didn't last. A moment later, a rhythmic sound in Sultan's head had grown so deafening that it even muzzled his thoughts. It reverberated in his head like the drums of war, a cacophony of sound consuming him. It enveloped him in a world of vibration and rhythm, a painfully beautiful song playing in the unreachable island in the ocean of his soul.
He didn't know how much he stayed like that, maybe for a second, maybe for an eternity. There was no way to tell.
Then, as if the clashing armies of sound and chaos had reached their crescendo, an all-consuming stillness descended on him.
Following that, a distant booming voice rose from the horizon of time and, emerging from a place far in the future, announced in a grandiose tone:
"Let the challenge begin."