There was freedom and there was being completely lost. Chaden could not tell whether he was moving at all, because he had no point of reference. There was no ground to stand on, he might have jumped off the ground to never return to any ground, maybe he was falling somewhere where it would just keep going. He tried to sleep, but it did not work, there was nothing to do, but there was a lot of nothing. What was worse, moving away from the ground, or not moving at all? The pain, overwhelming at first, had become less and less, somehow he was healing. He had not believed it possible, but he dreaded when the pain would end, it was now his only way to measure the passing of time. Of course he could rythmically count, but counting was something he had never regarded as anything but unnecessary torture - unless it was counting points for sports. So he imagined playing against his enemies, how they would be overwhelming, but he would power through.

He lived through each stumble again and again, because there was nothing else to do - no counting was needed, because merely having a feeling for time was enough, the numbers were irrelevant. Chaden thought about Lisaac and his unborn a lot. They where probably somewhere out there, doing something, hopefully something better than what he was doing. There was nothing he could do for them but hope, but he was not doing it for them, there was nothing he could do for them, he was hoping for them in order to live with himself and to hope to see them later.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Time passed and his memories became foggy, what had been baked so hard into his mind became a pulsing haze of loosely connected words. He grasped for other memories as straws and became aware of the pattern that had numbed his body spreading into his mind. Whenever he had something, it would be taken away soon after, as if there were a big hand in the void somewhere. A big hand that was stealing everything he aspired, instead of pressing memories into his mind. Only others could give him, he himself could not persist in the void, when would it steal the last memory, what would he become?

The hysteria drained and replenished, but he calmed down eventually, this was an enemy he could not fight, the only way to fight was to not think.

Chaden stopped all he had been trying and did nothing. There was a pulse in his mind, a force that was building, something was brewing now that it was no longer stealing.

The void hand symptome grew and Chaden observed it. For the first time in this place it felt cold, after a while his body started shivering involuntarily, then his teeth rapped against each other, his arms began beating against his unfeeling body without any action on his side, there was a flicker in the darkness, a flicker of light and then something snapped into place - Chaden fell unconcious.

The steaker gang was celebrating, the new guy had finally broken through and was currently transforming. Soon they would introduce the newbie into their society, there was much to do.