Sai was a loner, living in the depths of his own dreams. His life, a quiet dance on the edge of reality, seemed destined for nothing more than ordinariness.
Having completed his studies, Sai was on his way back to his hometown. As he stepped onto the train, a sudden pain gripped his chest—sharp and unforgiving. Clutching at his heart, he collapsed onto the platform, the world around him fading.
The local authorities rushed him to the hospital, but fate had already sealed his path. On the journey, his life slipped away. As his body lay still, his soul began its quiet departure—a brilliant ball of color drifting from the world he once knew.
Grief-stricken, his family prepared for the final rites. They spoke of loss and farewell, unaware that Sai was still present, watching them from the shadows. His soul, curiously alive, hovered at the edge of their reality.
But as his gaze stretched beyond the veil of life, something more mysterious unfolded.
A river, vast and endless, stretched across eternity, its waters teeming with countless souls, each guided by enigmatic, shadowed beings. The current was strong, pulling the spirits toward an unknown destination.
Sai's soul, suspended between realms, struggled to understand why he wasn't moving.
Then, a rumble like thunder reverberated through the very fabric of existence. A force, darker and more terrifying than anything he had ever felt, yanked him toward a vortex.
His essence quaked with fear as the once-calm river erupted in violent tremors. From the chaos, a dark, colossal figure emerged—soaring toward the source of the relentless pull, its presence filling the air with suffocating dread.
This was the final sight of Sai's wandering soul.
But then, a roar. It shook the earth and the heavens, a sound so deafening it seemed to crack the very foundation of the universe. A voice, powerful and ancient, bellowed, "Who dares to defy the resting of the dead?"
The very fabric of reality twisted and writhed, warping around him like a distorted dream.
The darkness that had once seemed so endless now felt suffocating, as though the weight of something far greater than himself pressed down upon him, folding the universe in on itself. The air around him buzzed with an unseen force, vibrating with an energy beyond all comprehension.
Every fiber of his being quivered, not from fear, but from an indescribable awe—an understanding that whatever lay ahead was something so ancient, so incomprehensible, it defied all the knowledge he had ever possessed.
The world he had known was a mere fragment of a greater, more unfathomable existence. And now, in this moment, he was caught between those worlds, on the precipice of the unknown.
A colossal hand, larger than anything Sai had ever imagined, reached out toward him, its fingers stretching across the void with an unnatural grace, seeking to capture him in its grasp.
But before the entity could react, the vortex sped up, pulling his soul relentlessly toward the unknown, trying to swallow him into the depths of the void.
Sai, caught between the unknown, was terrified, his soul trembling with fear. Just as the dark entity neared the black hole, ready to strike, something unimaginable occurred.
The soul vanished in the blink of an eye, disappearing into the fabric of reality like a fleeting shadow. A deafening roar, louder than any sound known to man, erupted—its power reverberating like thunder from the vortex.
The shadow entity stopped, perplexed, and began to think.
Something felt wrong—deeply, unnervingly wrong. The soul of a mortal should have entered the river like all others. He was dead, yet his soul lingered, adrift and untouched by the current.
It probed the void, searching for traces of the elusive soul, but found only silence.
A faint unease stirred within. This was no ordinary soul. It carried something hidden, something that resonated beyond mortal comprehension.
The shadow entity gazed at the soul's body, searching through its life and past lives, yet it found nothing.
The entity murmured, its voice a low echo in the darkness. "How has it vanished from me and that entity? Who is it?"
A troubling thought surfaced—one it dared not dwell on. Could this be the work of another? A force as ancient as itself?
It paused, the void around it trembling with unspoken tension. A name whispered through the emptiness, heavy with meaning.
"Karma…" it muttered, its essence darkening.