And thus, all became dark.

...Or at least, that’s what should have happened. And while it was true that all else seemed to have disappeared from his perception, there was one undeniable truth: Martin could still think.

‘I’m alive’

A wave of euphoria spread throughout Martin’s body. Most his fears had become irrelevant as he’d aged, but one thing had remained constant. The looming threat of death had been ever-present, a pair of eyes observing him, never approaching particularly close, but always staying close enough that he’d remember; remember that all it took was a single moment, and his hopes, dreams, aspirations, feelings, desires, everything, would vanish without him even noticing.

Recently, he’d begun to be able to push those feelings away, even the delicate ticking of the clock counting down his seconds being pushed to the furthest recesses of his mind, and yet...

How could he have been so careless?

Choosing to focus on the situation at hand rather than brooding over what was almost stolen, Martin refocussed on what was happening around him. Now that he’d taken the time to clear his mind focus on his surroundings, and reflect, two things became immediately apparent.

‘No matter how I approach it, there’s really nothing here. No matter, no energy, nothing. In that same vein, that also applies to my body’

Perhaps in disbelief at the situation, or perhaps in a display of mental fortitude that completely contrasted the attitude his fear of death would have suggested, Martin seemed almost unfazed by the fact that both he –well, his body- and the world as he knew it had completely vanished.

‘I suppose I should have expected that, with what just happened’ Martin unintentionally shuddered at the memory of what had caused him to end up like this in the first place. ‘At the very least, my mind is still alive. Well, since I have no brain to think... would I be better described as a soul? Regardless, as long as I can think, I’m alive. As long as I’m alive... well, anything can happen’

Throwing out a definition of life that would have definitely raised some eyes if others had been around to hear it, Martin gave a show of his determination to survive, and began to reflect on what he could glean about his situation.

Some things quickly became clear.

For one, his mind had significantly degraded compared to mere moments prior, before all this had happened. If it was previously a living tapestry of thoughts –a network of individual streams of information, flowing around, through, into, and out of each other, arranging themselves into a myriad patterns each second- then in his current state he was a stream, if he was being generous.

In reality, he’d become no more than a slight trickle of consciousness –something no doubt facilitated by the loss of everything that should have constituted his ability to think.

Even just thinking to himself now became a herculean task, but Martin was able to manage by making his thoughts... quieter, in a sense. To put it into perspective, rather than mentally speaking to himself, he would have best been described as ‘acting’ solely on instinct.

Something else that had become apparent was that, despite having no body at all and no environment to interact with, he could still feel something. Despite the fact that however he’d checked earlier, he couldn’t feel even a slight semblance anything even vaguely like a physical form, he’d somehow felt euphoria spread through his ‘body’. Although he didn’t think much of it at the time, it was, although vague, a sensation. If that wasn’t enough, he’d managed to shudder at the memory of his... unfortunate incident only moments later.

This seemed promising. Sensation proved there was still substance to him. Maybe the sensation of euphoria was too vague to prove anything, or it could have been his mind playing tricks on him after what he’d just experienced, but being able to physically shudder gave him hope.

Begrudgingly, Martin summoned the memory of his ‘death’ into the forefront of his mind to try to recreate the sensation.

‘There,’ he exclaimed as he felt the unmistakeable sensation of a shudder through... somewhere.

He wasn’t quite sure how to describe what he’d felt. On closer inspection, the sensation lacked almost all similarity to what a shudder actually felt like, and Martin wasn’t exactly certain how he’d identified it as one. It was more like... a weak rumbling, feeling both like it wasn’t actually happening, and as if the entire world- the boundless emptiness stretching infinitely in every direction- had experienced it all at once alongside him.

The exact logic behind what was happening was far beyond him, but he knew one thing for certain: unless he suddenly woke up as if nothing had ever happened, either in his own body or someone else’s, understanding this sensation was his ticket to... well, he wasn’t sure yet. Whilst he didn’t entertain the thought, in the back of his mind, he knew wishing for a new life and finding out it wasn’t possible would have broken him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

And so, Martin started to experiment with what he was capable of. He found recounting different events associated with a particular emotion would bring about a sensation that he mysteriously identified as being the physical reaction to that emotion, despite it always, on closer analysis, being an almost completely different feeling. This pointed to the conclusion that what he was feeling was more akin to the environment’s response to his emotion, proving him and it were inexplicably linked.

The exercise also conveniently helped confirm that, at least at first pass, Martin’s memories seemed to be fully intact. He’d been worried upon realising how far his mental capabilities had deteriorated, but was now at least somewhat reassured that he wasn’t forgetting his former life whilst waiting for some sort of reincarnation to occur.

He’d have to perform the exercise often, just to check.

For a moment, Martin smirked to himself, wondering if the unique method in which he’d died was responsible for the fact that, despite definitely no longer being alive in the more traditional sense, there being no one to come collect him, and nothing awaiting him where he was. Maybe... this was all there was-

‘Enough of that’

Quickly pulling himself out of that school of thought before it spiralled out of control, Martin continued to experiment to test the effects of whatever sensations he could conjure upon himself. That smirk earlier was definitely new...

Time passed. Martin wasn’t sure how much exactly –time in his current state seemed quite blurry, and the complete lack of any form of reference point definitely didn’t help much, either- but it was enough time to familiarise himself with his new existence.

What he’d managed to glean so far seemed promising, but it wasn’t enough to point him to any ideas as to what he should do to escape his current state.

Firstly, he’d found that the void around him continued to react to whatever emotion he’d gotten himself to feel. With time, he’d found that if he simply focussed on a particular sensation hard enough, he could will it to happen actively, rather than it happening passively in response to emotion.

He also found the opposite was true, where, whilst feeling a particular emotion, he could will the void around him to remain still, with varying results depending on how hard he focussed. He’d quickly found that this seemed to dampen whatever emotion he was feeling, so out of fear of somehow corrupting his own consciousness when performing something completely outside his understanding, Martin had immediately moved on to something else.

Secondly, he’d found that the more he experimented, the more... awake he seemed. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but after a while it became more and more obvious. His trickle of consciousness had become closer to a shallow stream... if you were being generous. Still, all streams eventually grow into a river, and all rivers flow into the ocean; he was nowhere near his former state, even disregarding the lack of anything besides a mind, but a lack of physical restrictions whispered a future far beyond what he could ever imagine.

Regardless, the future was the future, and now was now. He wasn’t getting caught up in any fantasies before he could, at minimum, be certain he properly existed.

Thirdly, Martin had found that, other than his ability to think, his ability to manipulate the void around him had also grown. Other than being able to make certain sensations stronger or weaker (he’d come to the conclusion just weakening a sensation should be fine, as long as he wasn’t trying to nullify it completely), his control over them had further increased.

He could will two to happen at once, which resulted in something Martin instinctively felt resembled wave interference in the way that certain parts of the result were strengthened and others weakened.

He’d found that sensations linked to similar emotions tended to complement each other, whilst those linked to opposite ones would more generally disrupt each other. When he tried to induce the result of two sensations combined all at once, he’d also found the former easier to produce and the latter more difficult.

Martin still wasn’t able to separate any two sensations into different parts of the void, as each sensation seemed to always reverberate throughout its entirety, expanding infinitely in all directions.

His level of control only grew, and his increasing cognitive ability helped complete more difficult tasks, but, for some reason, he felt there was something inherently wrong with trying to induce two sensations completely separately from each other.

Still, he didn’t completely disregard the idea. He wasn’t sure why, but unlike completely dampening out a sensation, he felt like this still fell within the realm of acceptability.

Combining everything he’d learnt, Martin had become certain of something.

‘This void, my mind, how closely they seem to be linked... This is my soul’

As he uttered –well, more ‘thought aloud’- the latter part of the sentence, something fundamental to Martin’s existence seemed to shift.

His consciousness –not his ability to think, but his point of view itself- rapidly expanded outwards; rather than being a fixed point looking out into the infinite darkness surrounding him, he began to unify with it.

Everything, everywhere, all at once... it all became him. But, despite how miraculous it seemed, the experience quickly overwhelmed him –it felt like he’d suddenly discovered a limb he’d never known about; one that at the same time outscaled everything he ever knew, functioned in ways he couldn’t understand, wasn’t made of physical matter, and was simultaneously the entirety of his body and none of it.

The fact his discovery seemed to be elevating his level of consciousness at the same time as it tore it apart was the only thing that prevented his mind from immediately dissipating, and Martin could feel his thoughts waning to a level lower than they’d been the moment he’d been taken to the void. He didn’t know what would happen if he passed out in this state, and he wasn’t keen to know.

Afraid of dissipating into nothingness, he did the only thing he could; he thought. It couldn’t be said that his life flashed before his eyes; that was far too much to comprehend at the time.

Attempting to find a single thought to think felt like the most strenuous exercise he’d been through. But he didn’t know what that meant. His memories were out of reach. Words were too difficult to remember. Not even flashes of meaning were going through his mind.

Whatever defined ‘Martin’ spilled out into void:

Hope

Dreams

Nightmares

Feeling

Emotion

The colours painting a picture on the canvas were melting off.

And yet, as existence itself became blurrier and blurrier, a single thought reverberated throughout the infinite expanse, spoken without words, yet its meaning still clear.

‘I want to live’