Not feeling anything, she went through the hole without too much hesitation. “Why?” She couldn’t help but spit it out subconsciously. It echoed in her head repeatedly. Not just once, but hundreds to thousands of times. She had so many questions but no answers. They just kept adding up repeatedly, over and over again. What started with, why did I not sense any danger? Continued to pile up until she kept asking shorter questions. In the end, she could only ask herself why? Over and over again until the point she couldn’t help but say it out loud.

The second she entered the room, she was bombarded by a number of emotions. There was such a myriad of them, she first connected with a few negative emotions, but they were quickly overpowered by positive emotions. They were the easiest to single out and connect with. There was a natural want to connect to positive feelings. As if spreading bliss, they quickly shaded her consciousness with good times when she was happy. Connecting with those positive emotions that were coming from an unknown source.

She was able to stand up to this amount. Things become complicated when, like a sledgehammer to the back of the head, she quickly went down with no means of defending herself. For once the bridge was built, there was no way of stopping them. These emotions had been in this room for too long. They spent each day curving out their own realms. This was only possible as they were nurtured over and over again. As if sapping all emotions from the creator, they greedily absorbed from their god.

Seemingly with a mind of their own, they fought for their own territory. In reality, winning and losing had no meaning. They were like inanimate objects. While they were given life of their own, they had no way to move or act. The only reason they could feel was because they were emotions to begin with. Lining the walls with a downward stroke. What started off as just a game to pass the time turned into a venting that gave birth to something with its own life. For the creator, they didn’t exist. Having given birth to them, there was a numbness that had been felt every single day. A total immunity had been built up as tolerance.

Because of the strength of the emotions put in, they constantly radiated the heart and soul that went into venting when they were made. Like a moth to a flame, she entered with no defense and even connected with them. Once the connection was made, the overwhelming number continued to pour in like a mass of information. Soon the surrounding emotions had overpowered her own feelings. At this point, her mind wasn’t her own.

Little reason remained, as the ability to control her own thoughts was lost. She was currently on a raft in a storm without even a paddle, let alone a sail. All she could do was hold on the best she could. Hoping to ride the storm out. Only, she vastly underestimated the reality. A youth in her twenties going up against a series of emotions poured in every single day. This continued for many, many, upon many, years.

Even in total isolation, one didn’t always feel strongly. Like an ebb and flow, dark clouds would sometimes show on the horizon. This also meant that sometimes there would be clear, sunny days. But over a long period of time, the emotions would feed on the source as bits and pieces kept the feelings fresh. After an unknown period of time, what was created was something nobody could have guessed.

What started off as a small bit of loneliness continued as it spiraled into hopelessness. Like the collapse of a tower, the dark feelings continued to come until anger, hate, guilt, hopelessness, and sadness morphed into a deep depression. As the hole had been dug, without help, it was simply too easy to continue to dig your way out. Soon a new outlet was found.

Originally starting off weak, despair continued to be an outlet for all these emotions. Until finally, even as an outsider that had spent less than three minutes in the room, she couldn’t figure out why she was trying so hard. Even if John was still alive, he was only a Grade E being. He couldn’t save her.

Slowly as the seconds turned into minutes she could finally make out the voice she had been waiting for. What is the point? There wasn’t one. This was a place that didn’t have salvation. This was a place of greed and betrayal. There was nobody that would come to save her, so prolonging the inevitable would simply prolong the suffering. She was by no means a good or righteous person, so was there a point to suffer needlessly?

Even if she imagined being saved, what was the point? She was abandoned as a child. Her parents didn’t even want her. She was simply a burden. The place she called home didn’t even want her, she simply didn’t have a place where she belonged. So why did she need to continue to suffer like this?

If she let go, she would be released from this suffering. She couldn’t think of a single person that would be sad if she disappeared. Nobody would save her because nobody would even notice she was gone to start looking for her. There was nobody, nobody to suffer this torture for, since nobody was going to come looking…

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As her thoughts continued to spiral with an endless self-doubting question of why. Like her emotions that started off small, the reaction of her mana followed suit. Slowly at first the mana in her heart started to flow through her body as it naturally would. When it reached a part of her body, it would normally seep through and heal or strengthen her body to a minuscule amount. But at this moment the mana wasn’t leaving her arteries as it continued to flow faster and faster as her heart continued to beat stably.

Since the number of beats didn’t change, it was hard to tell a difference. But as the mana in her body started to seep into her head, she slowly started to generate more and more mana. Instead of slowly healing or strengthening her body, her mana stayed in her arteries until it entered her head, from there it started to gather in her brain where all of her mana was starting to congregate.

Emotions don’t usually get strong enough to affect mana, only when one reaches a critical point they can pass the threshold easier than they might think. Mana could be just as destructive as beneficial. Slowly as the mana was gathering in her head she was reaching a dangerous level.

Even with the advance in lifespan that was granted by progressing as a graded being. Never in history had anyone ever imagined a being sealed in isolation without rhyme or reason. Day after day of hope turning sour. Any happiness or joy dwindling as no hope for salvation could possibly be found. To have these thoughts and feelings put into place day after day as one came to terms with the sad reality, what would one possibly expect when those emotions were given an outlet.

Completely unguarded, Jessica didn’t feel anything. The pain that should have been the warning catalyst to awaken her from reaching the point of no return had been swallowed and lost by the dull edging of complete despair. As the pain of the reality of her physical condition reached a point there was no coming back, a slim rough looking face with obvious aging. Overlooking the sharp chin that was shaven clean, the mouth frowned ever so slightly with disapproval.

Regardless of the time or place, the frown was set up with permanent housing. His nose was easily overlooked, as he had a bit of a long and sharp set of eyes that showed an indescribable depth. While there was a messy and wavy pieces of white hair that would fall in front of his face, he would often run his hand through his hair, and it would stay slicked back. His skin wasn’t as tight as it used to be, and there were still signs of natural handsomeness that could still be seen.

Once the face appeared, once faded, it started to grow in complexity as the familiar face became branded into her head and wouldn’t leave. No matter what lines she heard come out from the man, the eyes never stopped showing clear and concise care and worry. Even when the voice was angry, and it was clear from the facial features, there was always care and concern in the eyes that never once hid itself from her.

As the face fueled her rationality, she was finally given a hazy picture of what was going on. She could physically feel her heart beating stably, but so hard that it felt like it was going to explode. Her mind was chaotic as her thoughts were spinning around so fast that any conscious thought she had was soon lost as new ones came a mile a minute. Only the face and the despair coming from the walls would continuously enter her head before joining the whirlpool of thoughts being fueled by her mana.

It didn’t take her long to come to terms with the dangerous situation she was in. At the moment, it felt like someone was trying to blend her brain. Like a migraine mixed with another migraine, each with their own unique sensitivity maxed to the highest level. She could feel herself drooling as her chin was a sloppy mess. Given a second of clarity she tried to wipe it but with a single touch she could already tell it wasn’t what she expected, the thickness and feel had an odd familiarity, she knew it was blood.

Even with the clarity she was given from the face that branded itself in her head, she was still finding it hard to stay conscious. Even conscious, she couldn’t stop the powerful beating in her chest. Mana continued to pour into her head, causing the pain to worsen, and the thoughts brought by both sanity and despair to quickly fade as soon as they appeared, as she started to feel the world spin around her. Focusing as hard as she could on the porch on that night.

Not bothering to stand, she dragged herself as she turned around. Using as much strength as she could. The mana that kept activating before quickly disappearing made it nearly impossible to gather any strength. As the world spun, she couldn’t tell if she had been struggling for hours or just a few seconds. Every attempt at controlling the mana in her body would grasp onto minuscule amounts of mana, only to have it slip away as the tiny bit of strength she got wasn’t enough to pull herself up. If she lost concentration from the pain or random thoughts, the mana would slip through her fingers like sand.

Each failed attempt at seizing her mana would result in a slippery floor as more blood was found to be coating the ground, making an already hard job impossible. Her rational thoughts kept spinning with her irrational thoughts. She would feel tired, as if she had been struggling to pull herself through the hole for days. Then in the next she would successfully grasp some mana and feel sore as if she had been going for hours without stopping for any rest.

From depression to bliss, her thoughts were exhausting her as she found it hard to think straight. The feeling she had was maybe twenty seconds out of a minute were filled with rational thought. They weren’t adjacent but sporadically inserted at random intervals. One second she felt herself feeling a second of elation for some reason before she was filled with annoyance and anger as there was a sharp pain in her stomach.

Those were the two last rational thoughts she was able to process as she lost control of her body completely as the face started to fade as even the irrational thoughts also faded into darkness.