I opened my eyes to darkness — no light, no shadows, not even the faintest outline of a shape. Just a vast emptiness stretching infinitely outward in all directions.
It was not the benign blackness of a moonless night or the gentle obscurity behind closed eyelids; it was a void, an empty nothingness, wide and still. It was almost as if I were floating, but I couldn't feel my body. I reached out instinctively, but my hands only hit empty air.
A weightless stillness enveloped me like the absence of pressure when submerged in deep water. There was no cold nor warm air — no thick nor thin air, whatever it was that surrounded me simply existed. But in that blackened void, I did feel something. No, someone. Watching me. Not in a hostile way, but in an unsettling way, as if they'd been waiting for me, going through the eternal dark, feeling where I was.
"Matte."
My name echoed from the blackness, sharp and resounding. The presence shook me, it was as if the void itself had spoken. The voice was melismatic, tender in a way that felt personal but had an authority that was unavoidable. If I could feel my arms at all, the hairs on them would have stood up.
"Who's there?" I asked. My own voice seeming flat, absorbed by that space.
"I've been waiting."
Her voice was silky, unhurried, and somehow familiar, like a half-remembered song or a murmur in a dream. It permeated my intangible body, yet I still couldn't see her. I attempted to turn, to locate the source, but the emptiness gave no orientation. Up and down, left and right — all meaningless. The voice enveloped me, holding me tight like a vice grip.
"Waiting... but for what... Why have you been waiting for me" I demanded, my voice this time firmer, driven by the tension that arose in my chest.
There was a pause — just long enough to make me question if she would respond. Then she retorted slow and calm, like the Euphrates River during a still desert night.
"You'll understand soon. But first, you must return."
"Return? But where?!"
Before I even finished the question, my chest locked up. I felt an intense, crushing tightness and gasped, clutching my chest for air.
A force unseen, pulling my breath from my lungs, like the void itself had come to claim me. I was paralyzed and couldn't think. Despite my vision blurring I regained my sight and then, just as quickly, everything made way for darkness again.
There was blackness all around me, but this time it wasn't the weightless stasis of the void. No, this was something much more painful.
I attempted to scream, yet not an audible sound escaped. The weight on my stomach was crushing, and I couldn't breathe. My body reacted instinctively before my mind did. I struggled, pushing against whatever was binding. I was surrounded by the feel of dense sediment, tightly packed in and unmoving. Earth caked my mouth, suffocating me like an astronaut in space with no suit on.
I was buried.
Panic flooded through me, and adrenaline pumped through my blood. With an abject power, I clawed at the ground, my fingertips ripping through the choking pounds of debris and earth. I pulled away inch by inch, my arms shaking and becoming more fatigued. The pressure surrounding me felt like it had no limits, kind of like the air all around me was being squeezed inwards. And now my breathing came in shorter and shorter bursts.
My lungs screamed some sort of reprieve. I was about to lose my sight, but every thought I had at that moment was concentrated on one last push.
Then, I saw it — a faint glow.
The soft, cool moonlight sliced through the strata of dirt, a beacon in the choking blackness. It was still a long way off, but just its presence brought me a sliver of hope.
The light was above me, and I clawed at the darkness, pushing forward, clawing with every last ounce of strength I had left.
At last, my hand broke the surface. The crisp night air was like a slap of life itself against my skin. I dragged myself up, struggling to breathe, pulling my body from the grave of suffocation.
When I finally broke the surface, I staggered, chest heaving and heart racing. When I raised my head, the panorama revealed itself.
A low moon cast a glow over a wide formless wasteland in every direction. Pine trees stood tall on the horizon, and their green feathery canopy was a stark contrast to the dry, cracked soil under my feet. Farther away, I saw water blurring faintly in the moonlight with patches of greenery beyond it suggesting life was present here.
I was home.
Somehow, miraculously, there was Earth below me instead of on top of me.
And then, with the barest sheen of a tear in my eye, I tried making sense of the hurricane in my head. I had been buried under the rubble of a world I hardly recognized before clawing my way back to life. But why? Why did I get this second chance, and why had my life been taken away from me in the first place?
My memories were still out of my reach, and I was still haunted by the woman from the void. Her voice was still there, repeating in the shadows, barely visible, like she was whispering the answers to me, answers I wasn't ready yet to hear.
I was kneeled over, with my knees pressed into the cracked earth and the cool night air brushing against my skin. Nothing but ruins lay out in front of me, and my desperate eyes saw no sign of civilization or humans in the horizon.
Just the desolate stretch, interrupted only by distant clumps of trees and the promise of water up ahead. I took a deep, shuddering breath, brushed the grit off my face, and stood shakily to my feet. If I was going to find any answers, I'd have to move toward the trees and towards the faint possibility of shelter or life.
The wasteland told its tale of ruin with every step.
Through the rubble of my surroundings were remnants of buildings that had twisted and crumbled around them as the unforgiving sands buried their proud facades. Shattered monuments, half-submerged and worn by time, jutted out like tombstones of a forgotten civilization. Rusted metal, shattered glass, and scattered debris gave way to a scene of destruction so expansive it left me nearly speechless.
Whatever had happened here had not only destroyed this world — but had remade it into a graveyard of sunken memories.
I carried on, through the blazing light of day, the persistent heat draining my power. My mind flooded with questions, helplessly drowning in the what if's. Had there been a war? A cataclysm?
There I found no answers, only the weighty silence of an ancient history. That silence pressed down on me, forcing me toward the only beacon of hope I could still see: the trees on the horizon.
The cool air that arrived as night fell was a comfort, but nothing more. I continued on, legs sore, mouth dry, fueled by a basic naturalistic need for water and rest. The trees came closer, their dark outlines cutting across the fading light. And then I heard it: the soft, gentle sound of flowing water. It sounded like music, slicing through the heavy silence of the wasteland. I hurried, my heart racing at the prospect of satiating my mighty thirst.
At last, I came to the edge of the forest. The thick roof of green offered the prospect of shade and an escape from the stifling emptiness. The cool, moist air of the forest struck my face, which offered a glad respite from the heat and stuffiness I had grown accustomed to. I staggered forward, one foot, then another, pulled by the sound of that sacred stream I had heard moments prior.
But my body had hit the wall. My legs buckled, the world whirled, and I fell into darkness once again before I made it to the water.
As I slipped away into unconsciousness, the questions came back, more frantic than before. Why was I brought back? Why now, when the world appeared broken beyond recognition?
The answers seemed nearer, but still just out of memories reach. And now lying in an embrace of the forest, my journey truly began: a journey to discover why I was back on Earth and what my purpose was in this fractured and unforgiving strange new world.