Ugh, why does it hurt so much?!

A dazzling and sparkling pain in his eyes split *REDACTED*'s head apart with roaring and thundering pain, his attempts to block out the intense feeling by clenching his teeth failing. Short sharp bursts of light flashed through his eyelids, blinding him even with his eyes closed. He tried aimlessly to open his eyes, to see, but some strange force blocked him. Attempting to perform some sort of motion to appease his growing sense of anxiety, *REDACTED* ordered his limbs to move up.

He felt weightless for a few seconds, but gravity kindly reminded him to follow the laws of physics, smashing him back down on whatever he was lying on. The shock forcefully tore his eyes wide open, and he took in the sudden influx of information.

What the hell is happening?

*REDACTED* looked at the world around him, his eyes growing increasingly more confused and anxious every second.

He lay on top of an ancient, frayed hospital bed, right next to a side table hidden by dilapidated debris. The perforated concrete floor shuddered in intervals, crying in pain. The rotting walls seemed to close in around *REDACTED*, trapping him. The nonexistent roof was a window to the sky, revealing two large but dull celestial entities hovering over the world. One almost covered the entirety of the red, miserable sky while the other smaller one stood closer to the ground. They emitted barely noticeable light, but closer observation would reveal a dying life in the centre of both of these planets, stars whatever they were.

*REDACTED* sat up quickly, too quick. It felt as though someone had ruthlessly struck the side of his head with a baseball bat. Holding his head in his hands, *REDACTED* tried his best to focus, but gathering any semblance of control over his muddled thoughts was difficult with the shackles binding his mind with confusion and anxiety. Fortunately, this feeling was slowly subsiding since he had woken up.

After allowing the pain to lessen, *REDACTED* stood up, throwing the rotting blanket covering his knees onto the floor. The world was silent as he took small steps towards the plain door standing directly in front of the bed. As soon as *REDACTED* was about to turn the rusted metal handle, he noticed a small mirror in his peripheral vision, something he hadn't noticed before.

He suddenly felt a strong force urging him to keep staring at the mirror until he turned into an indistinguishable pile of dust. His entire focus was kept on that mirror, his hand slowly losing its grip on reality as it slid on the bumpy metal surface of the door handle. That small amount of force was enough to open the door, plunging *REDACTED* into a bottomless abyss. The last thing he saw in that room was a pair of eyes staring back at him from the ends of the mirror.

***

A god had punched through the world, creating a large void full of emptiness. At least, that was what the hole centred in the middle of nowhere looked like. A light futilely tried to expand its territory into the bleak rift, a clear line forming from the meeting point between light and darkness. The light at the top and the darkness lying at the bottom never seemed to get further away the more you travelled vertically up or down the shaft. Trying to look at the opposite end of the hole was impossible, as the chasm was too big and the light too dim to see far enough. The two contrasting concepts, light and darkness, were the only constant in this disconcerting and upsetting place. The only other thing that never seemed to change was the slow breathing emanating from the bottom of the forbidden depths.

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But, today, or whatever time system this uninterrupted place used, was different: a single object was plummeting down at rapid speeds.

"HELP! HELP MEEE!”

If the passersby walking in the city, which was infinitely far but as close as two atoms were far apart from each other, listened closely, they would be able to hear something resembling a scream for help.

How the hell do I slow down?!

*REDACTED* continued flailing his arms around, trying to get a bearing of direction. He assumed he was heading towards the darkness, but there was no way to confirm. It's unsure how long he had spent falling. The roaring breathing was deafening, threatening to drown *REDACTED* in a cacophony of noise, corruption and hysteria. He was close to turning mad with fear and horror, until something put a pause on his joyride between dimensions.

"Are you feeling better?"

*REDACTED* inadvertently touched a sentence as he sped through the cacophony of shouts of colour and tastes of sound around him, a hand pulling him through the distorted border between reality and insanity. A sudden bullet of information hit his brain, reminiscent of the initial agony he had felt waking up, albeit not as intense.

The passage of time between waking up and the present moment was blurred and mixed, like the fading memory of a forgotten promise.

*REDACTED* shot up, blood rushing to his head and his heartbeat too high for a normal human being.

The immaculate hospital bed he was lying on looked brand new, and the items on the side table lay organised. The floor looked spotless, with a matte finish, as if denying the holes and recesses that invaded the concrete previously. It was as if everything *REDACTED* experienced previously was a dream.

What the hell? Where am I?

*REDACTED* whipped his head back and forth around the room until the nurse standing directly to the side of the bed he was lying in looked at him quizzically.

"Are you sure you're alright? We could give you a bit more treatment if the pain is too much to bear.”

Finally stopping the frantic motions of his head, *REDACTED* looked at the nurse. His eyes peered directly into her soul. The nurse instantly broke eye contact and continued talking after a hesitant pause.

"Sorry, I'll repeat myself, would you like something to relieve the pain?" The nurse asked again nervously, small beads of sweat dripping down her neck. There was something wrong with this patient, she wasn't sure what. She took out a notebook.

*REDACTED*'s elevated heartbeat slowly calmed down after the nurse continued asking him questions.

"Where am I?" That was the first thing that popped into *REDACTED*'s mind, something he had been wondering since he woke up with that horrible, terrible pain in his head.

"Patient is showing symptoms of concussion..." the nurse quietly muttered to herself. "Don't worry sir, you are at a sanctuary right in Orion," she slowly answered.

Orion?

"Ok... how did I get here?” *REDACTED* asked, breathless from his excursion to the line separating sane and insane.

"It might have been a stronger concussion than diagnosed..." the nurse continued to mutter under her breath, this time while writing something down.

A concussion? This isn't a concussion. A concussion doesn't feel like someone is ripping your eyes out of your head!

*REDACTED* continued looking around the room while the nurse, who was easily distracted and seemed a bit apprehensive towards him, was still writing something down.

The room he was in now looked like a complete match to the one he had seen before, which was a more desolate and bleak version of the current room. Now the room was cleaner and had a touch of life with subtle torches and candles, while the other had seemed abandoned. There was nothing different with this room *REDACTED* noted after careful observation. Until he looked in the corner. There was no mirror there, only a blank wall to replace its presence.