The Chaos Sea, as termed by all existences of a certain level, was neither a sea nor a body of water as implied by the name.
Overall, The Chaos Sea was much more and much less, all at once. Yet, the term Sea was apt for its description, for it contained Everything and Nothing because from its depths Everything was born, and to its depths, everything would be reduced to Nothing.
In due Time, that is.
On the other hand, when that specific Time would come, none knew nor could predict. Neither was such an important fact valuable at this point.
Not to Adamu as he weaved and bobbed through what could only be defined as deep sea currents within the phenomena known as The Chaos Sea. As such, he had neither the Time nor the Will to ponder on such esoteric topics, for every shred of his existence struggled to contain and isolate his current existence from the Nothingness of the Chaos Sea.
If he failed, Adamu would return to being Nothing until the Time came for everything to be born anew. And if there was one thing that Adamu knew very well, then it was this. There was no chance of him being capable of surviving in the Nothingness of the Chaos Sea till that appointed Time.
After all, Adamu was not an Eldritch Entity who stalked the Chaos Sea and laughed at the bounding force known as the Aspect of Time.
No, Adamu was a Mortal, through and through. If more than a simple Mortal like the other 99.9% of his kind. And he was glad being so unique all the more, as technically being such a lower existence meant being protected from The Chaos Sea until such a Time came when his Mortality actually ran out.
Mortality was the offspring of the Aspect of Time and the Aspect of Karma.
Hence, Adamu loved pointing his middle finger at Mortality. However, there were times when Adamu was glad for his existence, unlike the other 99% of the times he cursed Mortality’s birth. After all, in his current circumstances, it meant that all Adamu had to do was hold on to his dissolving existence for as long as possible, and he would pop out somewhere else… eventually, and hopefully before his current mortality ran out.
All in all, it was an all-out kind of bet.
Hence, Adamu held on to his Sanity in the face of Nothingness reaching out its nonexistent tentacles onto him, for it was his last line of protection.
Every other safety feature prepared for this kind of improbable, yet not impossible, scenario had long since been ground to Nothingness.
***
Adam being a strange child was a shared common sense all villagers in the Nameless village agreed upon.
From birth, he'd had that vacant look in his eyes as though he was observing some distant mountain peak. At the same time, Adam spoke very little. In fact, the only time he did speak was in the form of a reply that he had indeed understood the task given to him by either his parents, siblings or the other villagers.
As such, Adam was also known as a Spiritless.
A human that never cried or laughed or expressed any other kind of emotions on its face or voice.
Yet, contrary to the standard beliefs of having a crippled child, a Spiritless was celebrated as a kind of blessing in the eyes of the mother and the family the Spiritless was born to.
After all, while it was unfortunate to be born a Spiritless, it was a blessing in disguise as it meant that the child born was just a Spiritless baby, instead of a hideous creature which should have gestated in the womb of the mother unknowingly, only to rip itself out through the stomach of the mother, thus killing her and most likely everybody else present near the mother at that point.
Unless, of course, you were an Essence Master, and since most were not, a tragedy was avoided, all while the parents gained an extra obedient child. Similar to receiving a free servant without belonging to an actual Noble House.
Unlike the adults, children could not fully understand the cause and effect of their actions and their understanding of the Spiritless. Therefore, it was agreed upon by all that the Spiritless would be separated from normal children if possible, and when not, to find a way and make good use of a Spiritless, hence make them seem busy and active to others at first glance, therefore avoiding the most troublesome age of a Spiritless.
Thus, by going through mindless and endless tasks like an automaton, with the only interruption being the scheduled feeding and watering to oil the internal machinery that kept him going, Adam spent fifteen years slaving away his brief Time in the living world.
Not that Adam minded or even cared about said wastage.
At least, he did not before Adam felt something echoing in his mind.
Similar to an order by either his parents, siblings or someone else from the Nameless village. Regardless, unlike the usual, no parent or sibling was present, and the closest villager was far enough that shouting was necessary to give any orders to Adam.
However, when Adam first felt the echo, none had shouted for him. Moreover, the echo reverberated inside his mind much, much deeper than anything he had felt before it.
In fact, the echo reached so deep inside Adam that he had not been even aware that such a place existed inside him. After all, it was universally agreed that one needed to have a Spirit to comprehend, much less make use of just such a hidden place in one’s mind.
In the end, whatever the consensus, none of that mattered to Adam. Not when the echo reached deep within him and embedded him with a single purpose.
A command so strong it overshadowed everything else in his Spiritless mind.
A command with such a high priority for execution that it made Adam immediately drop the hoe he had used to till the land outside the Nameless village.
A command that made him abandon his task and instead look up and set his almost white eyes, eyes all Spiritless possessed as a consequence of having no Spirit to colour their individuality, on the forest beside the farmland of the Nameless village.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
A forest which appeared simple at first glance, yet Adam knew it was not, as he had long since been impressed with the rule that he should never ever, under any kind of circumstances, visit the forest. Especially after Ina's Light left the horizon to chase away Ani’s Darkness from some other part of the world in an endless dance of Light and Darkness that no one knew when it began.
Yet, as dangerous as not seeing anything was, at least when compared to the horror of evaporating into the Darkness, which occurred from time to time, the Darkness could be chased away by carrying a torch or any other Light-creating tool.
Still, if only it were just that, Adam, and any other kid, would not have been indoctrined into avoiding the outsides of their village, especially during the night. No, they were indoctrinated as such because nighttime was also the juncture when Ani’s children manifested to haunt anything and everything that could think.
In other words, anything and everything that is spiritually alive, with humans being the number one priority due to their dense Spirits granting them their intelligence, yet not thick enough to bless every human with the ability to use Essence to overcome the Nightmare Creatures haunting every part of Ina’s Kingdom of Light.
Long story short. Even in his Spiritless state, Adam knew not to enter the forest and instead to return to the Nameless village when Night was upon him.
Regardless.
This day heralded the day when Adam, for the first time in his life, defied his brainwashing and marched towards the forest.
When he did, Adam ignored the already paved pathway for the farm field and instead went straight over titled rows, thus alerting everybody else who had been working with him to his condition.
Hence, when his fellow farmers saw Adam trampling over the already tilted rows for what in the future would be wheat fields, it was natural for them to be offended. After all, they had put in a lot of effort to make them as prim and proper as any field should be.
Thankfully, Adam only stepped a few times on each row, therefore, most of the damage would be easily fixed. There was, however, one that was more damaged than the others. And its steward was far more livid than the others.
Hence, it was he who shouted after Adam.
Most of the farmers were familiar with Adam, so they had expected him to stop and turn towards the one calling for him. Yet when he did not, frowns appeared. It was like they could sense that something abnormal was happening, only they knew not what. Thus, after a few more shouted at Adam only to get ignored, they knew things were not as they ought to be.
The middle-aged farmer with the most damaged field had enough of shouting and suddenly dashed towards Adam. Once by his side, he grabbed his right shoulder and pulled lightly back to turn the Spiritless boy to face him. When he did, and when he saw Adam’s face, he saw nothing strange.
Adam still adored the vacant look in his eyes. Only they did not point at the farmer. Not at all. Instead, they pointed at the forest just beyond the farm field.
Then, uncharacteristically, Adam shrugged his right shoulder hard enough to dislodge his fellow farmer’s hand and continued to march towards the forest.
On the other hand, the middle-aged farmer felt strange butterflies manifest in his stomach. His palms began to sweat as if his nervousness finally manifested into the world. In a hurry, he dashed for Adam once more, all while shouting Adam’s name even harder.
Once he reached the Spiritless boy again, he used both hands and firmly grabbed onto Adam's shoulders.
Being an adult and long used to manual labour, his grip was quite hard. Had it been somebody else, they might have exhibited some painful expressions. Even a Spiritless should have at least grimaced because pain itself was universal.
Not Adam, though.
No, this Spiritless simply ignored the pain as his eyes firmly remained locked on the forest just beyond the farmland.
Still, while the pain was disregarded, one thing Adam could not ignore.
For every second that passed of being held back from moving forward, the echo within his mind grew one bit louder. Hence, when the echo inside him grew loud enough, Adam, for the first time in his life, reacted violently in the form of a reverse headbutt on the middle-aged farmer's face.
Through sheer surprise, pain and disorientation, the old farmer urgently released Adam and tenderly touched his nose. Seconds later, he remembered about a Spiritless boy called Adam, but by that point, it was already too late.
Adam had sprinted away from the middle-aged farmer, and with every second that passed, he was closer to the forest.
Realizing the truth, the middle-aged farmer urgently shouted for his fellow farmers to stop Adam, but by the time his voice reached them and understood the meaning, Adam had already reached the first trees.
Seconds later, his visage was indistinguishable from the greenery.
For a few moments, the farmers stood there. Their faces filled with unbelief that a Spiritless had behaved so bizarrely. After all, it was common knowledge that Spiritless were fundamentally invisible to Nightmare Creatures. Therefore, a possessed Spiritless was essentially unheard of. Moreover, it was Day and not Night when possessions usually occurred, if not within the safety of the Ina’s Idol, around which the Nameless village had been founded.
After a few more moments departed, the middle-aged farmer came to his senses and urgently sent one of the younger farmers, whose knees could take the abuse of rough terrain, to run to the Village Chief's house.
Moments after moments passed as they waited for a response. Then they saw one old man run towards them with a speed that beguiled their experiences of what it meant to be an Essence user.
To them, all it took was a few blinks, and the Old Village Chief reached them.
After a brief explanation, the Old Village Chief glanced at the sky and made a mental note of just how much time there was before Ina's Light vanished and Ani’s Darkness arose. After taking note of Adam’s entry, he made his way into the forest as fast as he rushed to reach the farmers.
Still, unlike how eager he was to rush after Adam, the moment the Old Village Chief reached deep enough into the forest to no longer be seen by the village farmers, he slowed down exponentially.
One of the reasons was that it was much harder to run in a dense forest, especially with Essence backing his speed. However, the main reason was that the Old Village Chief was not as young as he used to be. Even with Essence, he could barely exhibit the reactions of a younger man during his twenties.
Plus, there was no need for him to expand too much of his Essence reserves just to save one Spiritless. Even if it had been a regular person, and not a Spiritless, the Old Village Chief would have been reluctant to spend that much Essence, after all, he still desired to return before Ani’s Darkens arose.
On top of that, he had to save enough Essence for a fight, just in case a Nightmare creature manifested and attacked him, which should not happen this close to Ina’s Idol. But the Old Village Chief did not get to his age for being reckless. No. In fact, he reached his current age because he was rather cowardly in nature. Otherwise, he would have achieved much higher ranks among Essence users.
Hence, multiple factors combined, the Old Village Chief failed to reach Adam, whose primary directive was to get away as fast as possible, despite having a trail to follow.
Hence, when Light began to wane, and Darkness chose to rise in challenge, the Old Village Chief abandoned his search and returned.
On the way back, an excuse for his failure had already formed in his mind. And considering his years of leading the Nameless village, it wouldn't be hard to convince anybody otherwise.
Still, the mystery remained stuck in his head.
What happened to the Spiritless Adam?
Why had Adam run off despite the attempts to foil him?
Was Adam possessed, as the farmers were convinced already? Or had there been something that they had missed with their unfamiliarity regarding Nightmare Creatures?
Whatever the case was, the Old Village Chief was sure of one thing.
If Adam, the Spiritless, indeed returned for one or the other reason, then he would kill the Spiritless on the spot, just to be sure.
After all, plenty of horror tales would justify just such a response from the Old Village Chief.