...

I woke up, my eyes snapping wide open, only to find myself standing on an endless white path path that stretched into infinity, leading into nothingness and beyond.

I looked around, wondering if I was still dreaming or if this was somehow real. Everything seemed to blur together in the endless, infinite expanse that stretched out before me.

I frowned, looking down at my arms, at the mangled and bloody mess they were supposed to be, and then at my legs.

Spotless. My transformed dress was pristine, and my skin was hairless and smooth.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes, and turned around, taking in my surroundings.

Then, I pinched myself. Hard.

"Ouch," I muttered to myself.

Okay. Not dreaming then.

Maybe?

The world around me seemed to ripple and distort as I looked at it. It was as if reality itself was bending under the weight of some unseen force that I could not see nor comprehend, and that thought terrified me..

The place felt real enough to me.

But it was so quiet here. So still. So... empty. Like all the color and life had been drained out from existence itself. There was nothing but the endless void and me, floating along this endless white path like a lost soul.

I sighed and started to walk, following the path wherever it would take me.

"Hello?" I called out. "Is anyone there?"

My voice echoed through the vast expanse of space, like it was bouncing off non-existent walls. I waited for a reply, but none came.

"Hello?" I tried again. "Can anybody hear me?"

The only response that I received was silence. The sound of my own breathing reverberated through the air, but there were no signs of life.

Was I... Dead?

Was this limbo?

No... that didn't seem right. There was something wrong here.

I continued to wander forward through the strange, alien landscape, taking in everything around me as I went.

"Nen, nen korori yo, Okorori yo..." a soft, hauntingly beautiful voice suddenly sang from the distance, a voice that felt as old and distant as time itself.

It was a familiar voice, but one I couldn't place. It was the kind of voice that could make you feel safe, or scared depending on the mood of the singer.

"Hello? Is somebody there?!"

I paused for a second, wondering where I had heard the voice from before. The lullaby sounded like something from a memory long forgotten. It felt... familiar somehow. It felt comforting, almost like home.

It sounded so sad and so distant.

"Hello? Please, can anyone hear me?" I yelled, my voice cracking as my throat dried.

I couldn't see anything. Everything was blurring together and fading away into nothing. It felt like I had been walking forever, but I could still feel the path beneath my feet, even though it was barely visible now. The white path that I had followed was growing fainter and fainter as time passed.

I looked down at my hands and stared at the smooth, clean, pale skin of my palms, as if trying to find some kind of sign that everything was going to be alright, that this wasn't all some sort of crazy dream or hallucination brought on by my death.

"Please... Somebody..." I whispered, my voice shaking. "Please..."

"Bouya wa yoi koda, Nenneshina..."

And the world shook.

I fell onto my knees as the path shook and trembled around me, cracks forming on the surface. I screamed, scrambling back to my feet, trying to keep my balance. I tried to run, but my legs refused to move, and the world around me began to crumble, falling into pieces all around me.

The world shattered into fragments, like a glass that had been thrown against the ground. Everything became a kaleidoscope of colors, spinning around and around me, swirling faster and faster. A maelstrom of broken shards that threatened to consume everything that was left of this strange, ethereal place, leaving only a void in its place.

"Is anyone out there?! Please, help!" I screamed, clutching at my head.

The colors swirled around me, blinding me with their brightness. They twisted and turned and spun in circles, and the entire universe shattered into millions upon billions of pieces, leaving only the void of oblivion behind.

"Help me!" I screamed again, but there was no one to answer me. I could hear my own voice echoing in my ears, my words being lost amongst the deafening silence that surrounded me.

The colors continued to swirl, and I watched as they broke apart and reassembled into new shapes. They formed patterns and designs, swirling in circles, forming lines and shapes that were impossible for my mind to comprehend. I watched in horror as they twisted and turned, merging and splitting, creating and destroying each other as they swirled in an endless cycle.

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The colors began to take shape, and they formed an intricate mosaic that seemed to be telling a story. I watched as the patterns and images slowly became recognizable to me, and they started to tell me a story that was beyond anything that I had ever seen or imagined before.

A story about the creation of a universe.

"Bouya no omori wa Doko-e itta..." The singing continued to grow louder, as the entire universe exploded into existence, expanding outwards from the epicenter where I was, like an explosion of light that pierced the darkness of existence itself.

And then it stopped all at once, coalescing into a room as if nothing had happened at all.

I stood on a balcony that overlooked an endless field of orange wheat, swaying in a warm, gentle breeze that blew through my hair. The sky above me was a deep violet, the stars twinkling in an array of different hues, each twinkling and shining brighter than any other star I had seen in reality. It looked like an artist's rendition of the milky way and galaxies beyond, even.

But the strangest part was that the sun was high up in the air in twilight, like it was late in the afternoon but not quite sunset.

I turned to face the voice.

A woman sat in the room behind me, swaying back and forth in a rocking chair. The room was pretty plain, and reminded me of a barebones dorm room in Kaleidoscope Academy.

The woman, however, was one of the most hauntingly beautiful people I'd ever seen in my life, and I found my eyes drawn towards her.

Her long, pitch black hair flowed in the wind from the window, and her face was covered with a veil of pure white. She was wearing an orange sundress that matched the fields outside, and a straw hat rested atop her head. If I had to guess her age, she looked like she was somewhere in her early to mid twenties.

She was singing, and she was crying, swaying back and forth in a rocking chair. Her eyes glowed orange like the sun itself as she looked down at the book she held, tracing her finger along the pages of the old leather bound book as she sang the melancholic lullaby. "Ano yama koete, sato e itta..."

Her aura radiated sadness, loneliness, and loss, a feeling of grief that made me want to cry.

I couldn't bring myself to speak as I watched her from afar, mesmerized by her beauty and her voice. She looked like she was in her twenties, but she felt... ancient.

I stepped forward, approaching her cautiously, but she didn't notice me. Her eyes remained fixated on the book in front of her, tracing along its lines. She was oblivious to everything else in the world except the story that was unfolding in her head and heart. A story that seemed so sad, and so lonely.

I took another step closer, my hand reaching out towards her, hoping to get her attention somehow. But I stopped myself before I reached her, afraid of what she might do if she noticed me there.

"Again, and again have I tried, but I cannot change your fates," She murmured softly as her finger traced along the lines of text, tears streaming down her face as her aura grew darker and more pained, the sadness in her eyes deepening.

I briefly noted that she had a faint Japanese accent, and was speaking in American English.

I frowned, and decided to take a chance.

I slowly walked towards her, clearing my throat and trying to make as much noise as possible, but she still didn't acknowledge me.

"Excuse me?" I called out. She continued to ignore me.

"Hey! Can you hear me?"

No response.

"Please!" I begged, feeling desperate now. "I need your help! Please!"

This was... like the time in the bunker. But how did I get here? Did something in the horde manage to transport me away? Where were my classmates? Were they okay?!

She looked up from the book she was reading and frowned, standing up from her chair. A scowl crossed her face as she stepped forward, walking across the room.

I turned, following her stride, only to realize the room was far larger than I'd first realized, filled to the brim with books.

No, that wasn't quite accurate.

The room looked like a regular plain modern apartment, but it was attached to an ancient, arcane-looking library complete with a glowing blue circle in the middle of a large open area. I walked alongside her as she reached the edge of her room. The modern, stone floor seemed to blend seamlessly into ancient oakwood. I looked up, marveling at rows upon rows of long, continuous bookshelves that lined every inch of wall space, stretching upwards into infinity in a spiraling pattern.

Each bookshelf held millions upon millions of books, all neatly arranged and organized according to some unknown order that made no sense to me.

The woman's room looked almost unnatural juxtaposed against the library it was placed in. As she continued to walk through the library, her face hardened as she took a deep breath.

And then, she broke into a sprint, dashing toward the books at a breakneck speed, right arm raised as she threw a haymaker seemingly at empty air.

...Only to scream as she slammed hand-first into a glowing transparent glass-like wall that appeared in front of her. I could hear the crack of her wrist as it broke, the sickening sound reverberating through the entire library as she cried out in pain.

A series of thirty statues that were carved in a marble-like substance formed around her, all of which radiating a glow that filled the library with a kaleidoscope of colors.

They all looked humanoid. But beyond that. If I had to actually describe them, they looked like divine idolatry, even. Pieces you'd find in a museum, spanning a wide range of cultures and art style.

"Stupid....System! How could you all be so stupid?! Your dumb experiments won't work!" She screamed, slamming her hand into the wall again, her tears flowing freely now as blood trickled down from her palms. "Fuck your World System!"

She buckled at the knees as the statues collectively drowned her with a thick, golden sheet of energy that seemed to directly press down at her form.

"We... can't do this forever! Don't you understand that? We can't keep doing this! We have to stop!" she cried. "We have to stop, please! You have to let me go!"

The wall rumbled as it began to crack under the force of her repeated blows, and I watched as she continued to slam her fists into the glowing barrier, over and over again. She screamed and cried, her voice echoing through the endless library.

Her fists bled and her arms began to bruise and break, yet still she fought on.

"Stupid!" She yelled. "I told you all! We're not going to make a difference if we keep doing things the way we've done them for god knows how long! I need to go back! Please, let me go!"

Her aura radiated pain, sorrow, and grief as she continued to punch at the invisible barrier, and I couldn't help but feel pity for her as she continued to struggle in vain against the wall that kept her here. The invisible barrier that held her in her cage of a room. The barrier that kept her here, locked away from whatever she was trying to reach.

She stopped, falling to her knees as the twelve statues glowed again, their auras radiating outward in a wave of energy. They glowed so bright it blinded me, and the world shook as a deafening roar reverberated through the air around us.

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by the crash of thunder and rain. The storm raged outside the walls of the library, and it shook the foundations beneath my feet.

"Screw you, Hephaestus! And screw you especially, Inanna! Using me as a fucked up battery and processor. And screw the rest of you too!" She yelled. She punched at the wall one more time before collapsing to her knees in defeat.

"Screw... all of you... I'm... so sorry..." She sobbed quietly. "Iz...i. Ik..."

The statues radiated power as she slumped to the floor, defeated, the wall around her cracking as her blood seeped into the cracks and the air around us grew cold and silent once again.

"I... I'll save you all... I promise..." the woman murmured as her eyes fluttered closed, the last words leaving her mouth before she fell unconscious on the floor in a bloody heap.

The glow from the statues slowly beginning to fade away along with the library, leaving nothing but an eerie void.

The world shook, and the world around me blurred and shattered, shattering into a kaleidoscope of color.

And suddenly, I found myself staring up straight into concerned, warm and familiar brown eyes.