Where am I...

What is this place...

As he slowly began to regain consciousness, he looked around his surroundings. All he could see was endless darkness, a void like place where nothing could be felt or seen; not even the smallest speck of light.

Is this what death looks like?.....

When the thought of death crossed his mind, he wasn't shocked or afraid, there was no regret in that moment and he felt relaxed for the first time in a long time, like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He'd finally get to see his mother and father again and although he didn't remember what his father looked like he still wanted to see him again. until...

'Wait, I'm dead?....those pieces of shits killed me!'

When he remembered how he died his blood began to boil, there was no other thought except burning that entire town down until not even the ashes remained!

The thought quickly dissipated though; after all, he was already dead.

After wandering around in the dark for a while, he found he still couldn't find or feel anything that could provide any clue as to where he was.

It was almost as if he was in an actual void.

'Az...re....'

"eh? there's someone else here?"

'Come...'

"Come?.......What the hell?? I can't even see anything"

The voice sounded no louder than a whisper and he couldn't help feeling drawn to it.

Unfortunately, after looking around for a while he couldn't locate the source of the voice, like it was coming from far off into the distance but at the same time right beside him.

Any normal person trapped in a dark unknown place hearing voice would start becoming afraid and going a bit out of there minds.

But he had a different perspective, over his years of isolation he had already grown to accept solitude as something that was very normal—in fact he enjoyed it—and although the darkness did bug him a little there was nothing he could do about it and as for the voice, as far as he cared, it was just someone who could explain what was going on.

After searching around in the dark for what felt like an eternity he was still being unable to locate the source of the voice.

Azreal took a deep breath and was about to give up when off in the distance he saw something that he didn't notice before, a silvery glow.

'Light? how am I just noticing it?'

He knew something was off because that light hadn't been there before, but he still needed answers so he swallowed his suspicions and ran toward the silvery light.

After running for a while he noticed he wasn't getting any closer to the light.

'Why aren't I getting any closer......'

No matter how fast he ran or how hard he pushed himself he couldn't get any closer to it, if anything it seemed as if it was a bit further away from when he had started chasing it.

Feeling like he was left with no other choice he started to call out to it

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"Wait!! Do you know what this place is??"

In that instant, as if it could understand him, the light stopped moving.

Seeing this he was a bit happy but also a bit apprehensive.

Still he continued to run towards it but when he got close enough to roughly make out what the light was, he unknowingly slowed down slightly.

'A person?'

Although he had already roughly guessed that there was another person in here, the discovery made him slightly surprised, especially the fact that the man didn't seem to be holding a lamp or anything else to produce that silvery light. it almost looked like his body itself was made out of light.

As he inched closer and closer to the 'person' his speed continued to decrease until he had come to a complete halt.

When he got about halfway to the 'person' only then did he begin to take notice of the fact that his entire body felt as if it had weights attached to it, the closer he got to the person the heavier the weights got and the more it pushed him down.

Everything that was happening was beyond all logic, making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

In this moment the only thought going his mind was that he was going to be crushed under the weight, It got harder and harder to hold his body up.

Every cell in his body was telling him to run but he couldn't move under the weight.

'Why have you stopped?...'

He heard the voice again and this time he was positive that it was coming from the 'person' in front of him but the weights were killing him, so he didn't feel the slightest bit happy.

Hearing the question Azreal tried to respond but no matter how hard he tried no words would come out of his mouth.

Watching the boy in front of it struggling the 'person' tilted its head to the side in confusion before nodding as if it understood.

'Oh...I see'

After saying that, the light around its body began to dim until it became a faint glow.

As the light around its body begin to dim the pressure on his body diminished as well until it was barely noticeable.

Even without the light on its body, Azreal couldn't observe what the 'person' looked like, its body looked almost illusory, aside from seeing the slight outline of its body which proved to him that it was at least human, he breathed a sigh of relief but he still didn't drop his guard.

'Come...'

Hearing the voice again he walked slowly towards it, still trying to observe it.

He stopped when he was still a few steps away from the 'person'.

"Ahh~ Hello, Do you know what this plac-"

'How disappointing...'

Before he could process what the ‘person’ had just said, the ‘person’ shook its head in disappointment and spoke again.

'...Truly disappointing...inferno...'

As the words exited its mouth Azreal's entire body was engulfed in flames, pushing him into complete agony.

He couldn't scream no matter how hard he tried, even though he wanted to do it so badly, it was almost as if the fire burned the very sound that tried to escape out of his mouth.

He couldn't even think straight.

It felt like his very soul was on fire, no matter how much the flames burned it didn't cause any harm to his body as if enraged by this, the flames began burning with even greater intensity.

Even though his body wasn't being harmed, it still didn't spare him from the agonizing pain that came with being burned alive, he wasn't dying but he was continuously engulfed in the flames like purgatory.

'Strange....'

Crack....

Crack....

Continuous cracks ran across Azreal's vision until everything in front of him blurred then shattered like glass.

When his vision finally came into focus he was still standing where he was before, there wasn't the slightest scar on his skin or anything to prove that what just happened was real.

There was nothing in his eyes but deep fear, even though there were no flames anymore and it all seemed like an illusion, he had still experienced every ounce of that pain, a pain that deeply scarred him.

All he wanted to do was to get as far away from this 'person' as possible.

"It wasn't real....?"

'Strange, truly strange, you're mortal but at the same time you're clearly someone from the chaos plane.....'

While talking the 'man' slowly walked toward him, and when Azreal came to his senses wanting to escape, his body refused to listen to him no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even speak, that terrifying weight was pushing down on his body again but this time it was far stronger.

He felt as if he lost all control of his body, his heart started racing thinking that what just happened was going to happen again.

'No....no......please don't!!....'

All he could do was scream inside his head but no matter how hard he screamed the 'person' ignored him and slowly walked towards him.

The 'person' slowly rose its hand towards Azreal's panic-stricken face.

Everything felt as if it was moving in slow motion, he felt completely helpless in the situation, he didn't even know why this was happening to him...

"Enough"

A voice appeared out of nowhere.

The voice sounded aged as if the person had lived through countless lifetimes.

Despite the fact that the voice was that of an old man, there was only one word that could be used to describe it accurately: Absolute.