Robert could only see the concrete of the sidewalk but it was clearly grayscale. The mass of writing bodies above him, however, still moved.

"Hey, what's happened?"

"The boss is frozen!"

Confusion struck the acolytes in the nuts. The grayscale world of the void was not welcoming.

"Situation code omicron! Situation code omicron!"

"Where are we?"

He felt the pressure above him relent as people decided that figuring out what the fuck happened to them was more important than keeping a stupid future slave pinned. Soon, Robert managed to free one arm and move his torso.

"Patrick, why are you—"

"Fuck, why is everyone—"

“They are not moving. Hey, you—”

Fewer and fewer acolytes were hanging onto him. And for some reason, they only spoke once. Robert struggled and thrashed, soon breaking free. He ran and stumbled on an acolyte. Both fell to the ground.

"Watch out! Fuck!"

Robert pushed the acolyte and climbed over his back, running toward the park. Distressed, he was trying to figure out why these guys had all followed him.

They had followed him.

Into the liminal void.

No.

Wrong.

He brought them here.

No.

It was not his fault.

The acolytes that were grabbing him came along.

Robert wasn't hearing any footsteps chasing him.

But he didn't stop.

Panic made his legs pump and put distance between him and his assailants.

Who wasn't following him.

To confirm that, he pulsed sense life. He picked up around a dozen signals, all one-star Archhumans. No two-star or above. They weren't moving.

Robert stopped and let his wits catch up with him. Then he started laughing nervously, a staccato of titters. He slapped his knees and panted for breath even though there was no air to breathe.

Then he turned around. The sight was gruesome but he grinned wickedly. They deserved it.

The baker's dozen of Kraven acolytes were there, by the sidewalk outside the park, frozen in time but in full color. As he approached, he sensed something. Wisps. An abundance of Time wisps was floating around the acolytes. Robert closed his eyes and started gathering. The wisps were dragged toward him, funneled into his star. It was the biggest treasure trove of Time wisps he'd ever found. What the hell was happening? Even as he gathered the wisps, more appeared.

He sensed movement behind him. Footsteps. Turning around, he saw Mickey rushing toward him. The cartoon mouse seemed distressed.

"Oh, boy! Oh, boy! This isn't good!" Mickey said.

"What is wrong?" Robert asked.

More time wisps appeared and now Robert could tell where they were coming from. They were seeping out of the acolytes.

"You brought people here!"

"And why is this wrong?"

"They are dying! The void is not somewhere ordinary people can visit!" Mickey gesticulated frantically.

"They are all Archhumans," Robert waved a dismissive hand.

"That's why they are dying, and not instantly dead!" Mickey retorted. "You are a special case, but living creatures in the void without protection leak their essence. Where do you think all these Time wisps are coming from?"

Robert checked. The place was saturated with Time wisps again. He concentrated and dragged them to himself.

"I have no idea."

"Their power is fighting against the void. Your prime vestige gives you immunity, but others, not so much."

One thing struck Robert. "Why are you fine, then?"

Mickey blinked. "My affinity is with the Void, Robert. Only the void. As I lack the Time affinity, that's why I can barely move when I'm not near you."

He glanced back at the frozen acolytes. Then in the others in the real world, immobile statues dyed as coal and graphite. "They are dying," he said.

"Yes. Once they run out of essence, the Void will claim their souls. They will vanish, soul, star, vestige."

Robert gathered more Time wisps. Nobody would gain from letting the ephemeral packets of energy in the shape of cartoon clocks vanish in the void. Unless one of these acolytes had the Time affinity, they were useless to anyone but Robert.

"If I touch them, they will move again, right?" He asked just to confirm. it was pretty much what happened during his escape.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Yes. But they seem dangerous. And I can't let them see me."

Archhumans needed vestiges, spirits, and even eidola to evolve their abilities. Mickey was probably a unique spirit, worth dozens of millions of dollars.

"Tell me one thing. If they are leaking Time wisps, will they age?"

"No. It's just... Do you know how Fire and Water are often said to be opposites?"

"Yes."

"Time and the Void are like that. Opposites. The Void is the absence of time. As their essence fights against the void, it gets filtered by the void and comes out as Time. This is also why everything in here is frozen and why Time wisps don't last for much longer. Remember when I said that every intrusion into the void creates a Time wisp? That's why. The way the others survive here is to burn energy into a burst of Time wisps. They spread and pop everywhere."

Robert gathered again. Mickey gave him all the reasons he needed to let no Time wisp escape his grasp. Not only was it a waste of a very precious resource, but they could pop elsewhere and alert Mickey's former captors that someone else was using the Void.

"You are correct, they can't see you. Go back home, Mickey. I'll deal with them."

Mickey nodded slowly. He spared one last glance at the acolytes, then made his way back.

*

*

Robert stared at the acolytes. Their being in the void was their fault. Robert didn't ask them to come along. He didn't willingly drag them. He was just escaping. They could've let go or not grabbed him in the first place.

They would die if he did nothing. They kept leaking Time wisps. They weren't his problem. The Kraven clan was a cesspool of evil and their bad reputation was well-deserved.

All that were excuses Robert's mind came not to help the acolytes. He could save them but it would cost him his freedom. He could let them die and it would probably still cost him his freedom. Not because he would be charged with their death but because the Kraven wouldn't let him go. Especially not now. He needed to make a choice but he couldn't push himself to commit. And by doing nothing, he was condemning them to die.

Robert knew about moral dilemmas. He often put his characters into such situations to make their good points shine. The character would find a clever solution and then save the day and keep their virtue. But right now, he felt like shit for doing that to them. Being on the receiving end of said moral dilemmas was heart-wrenching.

He had no clever idea. Either he let them die and would be fucked later, or he tried to save them, would probably fail to save all of them, and he would be fucked either way.

Robert checked his wristwatch. Why did it always stop when things on his person shared his personal time? He took note of the time, entered it on his notepad, calculated the interval, times ninety-nine... he had around twenty-four days before he would go back to the real world.

They would die before that, Robert was sure. Letting the acolytes die would net him quite the profit with these Time wisps. They were really rare to obtain. But that was a slippery slope. Soon, he'd be kidnapping people into the void to harvest their essence as wisps. He imagined himself justifying murder by only catching criminals, but as the number of wisps he needed increased, those standards could become ever more relaxed...

Fuck.

Letting them out would require keeping them touching him for twenty-four days. And they would bring information about the liminal void to the outside world.

Double fuck.

Robert felt awful. Murderer by omission. He would throw up if only his body functions worked in the void. His mind came with all sorts of excuses to justify the choice he had already made.

Some readers in the comments would always whine and complain when the protagonist didn't eliminate threats as efficiently as possible. If he were a character, saving the acolytes only to have them enslave him moments later would trigger exactly that kind of comment.

Maybe those readers were onto something. Fictional characters were forged in the crucible of adversity. But it also came with considerable, often tragicomical amounts of pain and suffering.

Robert validated all of those little shit commenters that clamored for the blood of the protagonist's enemies. He made the coward's choice. Let the acolytes suffer the consequences of their choices. If they didn't want to come to the void, they shouldn't have grabbed Robert.

"What a hypocrite I became", he said to himself.

Robert sat there, gathering the time wisps until no more came out of the acolytes. Then he stood up and went home. He slept for three days.

*

*

And as the moment he'd have to return approached, he realized he had to move the bodies away from the spot he entered. So he looted the bodies, dragged them one by one, and set them on a pile between the park wall and a thick bush. Out of sight, out of mind.

He laid down exactly where he was when he escaped. Some acolytes and the Blood Arch were still outside. Unless he did something, they were enough to capture him.

Unless he repeated the trick. With all of them. That would seal his descent into darkness, though. His sanity was only held because he had justified the deaths that already happened.

Colors washed over the world. Wind blew. And Robert sprang to his feet.

"What? What happened to the– Get him!" Bernard shouted.

The few acolytes who stood on the sidelines watching the pileup shook the cobwebs inside their minds.

They grabbed Robert.

"Let me go and never show up here and you walk away with your lives," Robert threatened.

"You little healing piece of shit," Bernard said as he walked forward slowly. "What did you do with my acolytes?"

"Wanna join them? It's not my fault if they came at me first!" Robert cackled.

"Bloody motherfucker," The Blood Arch raised a fist and punched Robert in the gut.

The moment the fist connected, Robert went back to the Void. They parted and the Kraven man froze in place.

"Go check on your boss," Robert said to the remaining acolytes. "I am not leaving."

Not for the next half an hour, anyway.

“Bernard, sir! Hey!” One acolyte called.

They let go of Robert and froze. One of them remained holding Robert.

"W-What did you do to them?" The acolyte stuttered.

"Nothing," Robert the hypocrite half-lied.

The acolyte punched Robert in the nape. Robert stumbled forward and fell. That was enough to break contact. One glance around him saw him surrounded by lifelike statues of the people who wanted to harm him. Yes, statues.

Making the choice for the second time was much easier. Robert felt his morals board the slippery slope ride. He sat down and gathered the wisps.

*

*

The documents looked legit. They also looked to be the only copy of his astronomical and artificial debt. Robert ripped the papers into confetti and then burned them. At least he tried, because the half-charred scraps of paper just floated on top of the glowing campfire.

Now he had one spot of the park he'd never visit. Ever again. And a pile of evil-looking items whose owners would never come looking for. And a massive knot of guilt in the back of his mind.

Robert entered his Ethercosm. His star had filled by a decent chunk. The Time and Void slices no longer felt too small compared to Life. But the feeling of powerlessness, of being threatened, pushed him into making bad choices. Those of the past, and those being made in the present.

At least the fact that the park goes and bystanders fled reduced the number of eyeballs who saw the vanishing act in the real world to just a handful or so. Robert had checked. This meant his troubles with the Kraven weren't over. They would come looking for their missing acolytes.

And if they came... that forbidden place still had plenty of room. Yikes.

Robert needed more power. If he was strong enough, people wouldn't toy with him. He would be an asset too expensive to pin down. Power. Power and money.

Not even in the void, his void, he was safe. He stood up. His eyes jumped over the bad spot behind those tall bushes. His heart squeezed on its own, and the last drops of humanity wrung out.

Melodramatic?

Yes. But that's how he felt.

Mickey hadn't shown up. Robert had no idea if his cartoon roommate was there or had fled in disgust. He knew he'd disappointed Mickey.

But it didn't matter. Both of them share the feeling of being walking commodities, up for grabs.

Robert stood up and walked around. He found a place away from anyone's line of sight and waited. He closed his eyes and waited. When sounds of life in the park returned to his ears, he opened them. The afternoon sun greeted him.

He then went to the one place he knew he could gain more power fast.