Dorian knew something was wrong when he struggled awake and found himself floating in utter impenetrable darkness. Floating because no matter how hard he tried he couldn't move his limbs or feel them for that matter. The feeling was a decidedly weird one, of existing as what appeared to be just eyes and nothing else, and it moved from weird to panic-inducing when he tried harder to move and he still couldn't.

With a colossal effort of will, Dorian managed to stave off the oncoming panic and hysteria. Situations like the one he found himself in didn't happen unless something went very wrong, and a look back at all his recent idiotic blunders he was more than overdue for whatever this was.

Further attempts at moving produced no results other than breaking the thin veneer of control Dorian had over his emotions. Panic came on and it came on strong causing the Hunter to struggle mightily, all to no avail. Trying to control his breathing, an impossible task given his seeming lack of lungs or a body for that matter— Dorian resorted to the core within him to free himself.

As he reached his mind out to his core, Dorian froze and for the first time in a long while really thought about what he was doing. The realisation was a bolt of lightning to Dorian's floating consciousness, he'd been doing what he'd been about to do for far too long— pushing boundaries on a power he didn't understand and paying for it. Case in point, his current situation.

Taking another breath through nonexistent lungs to calm himself, Dorian logically thought through his situation and tried to come to a solution without simply lashing out and decided to use his head for a change. Minutes into using his head Dorian knew it was a lost cause, there was no scenario or plan to escape from his current predicament— hell he didn't even know where he was to escape from.

The one thing he did know was the actions that led to his current predicament, his attempt to fix his core using pure concentrated echo from a dragon core.

‘What the hell was I thinking?!' Dorian thought angrily.

The answer was he wasn't or he was but not deeply enough, the decision sounded like a good one at that moment but he had friends with cores he could have asked for help after helping them fill theirs. The one thought he had been trying to avoid finally struggled free, the thought of his friends and his disappointing them. That thought led to another he had been adamantly ignoring, there was a very real possibility he was dead from his recent blunder and this was the afterlife, a very bleak place but rather fitting seeing as what caused his possible death.

With allowing the thought of his possible death to blossom, Dorian mentally worked through it and with acknowledgement came acceptance. The process was in no way smooth with the hunter railing against what he thought was an unfair death but with nothing but time and the mental strength and fortitude of a hunter he managed it.

A weight was lifted from his metaphysical shoulders and Dorian breathed out in relief, marvelling at the ingrained idiosyncrasies that was being a human. He followed such thoughts along a meandering line of thought, allowing his mind which had been struck in a rut to blossom and almost reshape his way of thinking.

When his thoughts began to turn dark Dorian simply thought of his friends and locations that meant things to him and then eventually moved to scenes that always saw him shoot awake at night and grab the sword he kept at his side whilst he slept.

Scenes of slaughter of bloodshed of knowing the only thing separating him from the jaws of death were how much and how hard he could swing his leaden arm to kill the monsters before him, to stop his blood not running and creating treacherous footing to not joining the field of glassy-eyed corpses around him. In those days the monsters didn't kill to eat, they just killed.

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The thought of going through that hell only to be relegated to worse than dirt by the very people he'd fought for fanned the flame of resentment he carried. Knowing the inevitable conclusion of following that thought process would lead to, Dorian decided to think of something else. He cast his mind thinking of what to think about, the irony and settled on what actually put him in his current situation.

His core.

Dorian didn't want to admit it but it'd taken a colossal effort of will to stop himself from pulling on the powers of his core, assuming he even could. With trepidation, he imagined his core or at least what it looked like only to be shocked when with a dull thump it appeared before him.

Dorian was stumped for a minute or it could have been years, time meant nothing in this space. Not believing his eyes for a second, the hunter 'moved' to inspect the core and either he moved or the core moved but something moved because the next moment it filled his vision. The thought of something else in the space aside from Dorian and his thoughts did wonders for his sanity not to mention his core, his slightly changed core.

For one the core was smaller than it previously was and the crack marring it was a hairline where the previous gaping crack had been. A further inspection had Dorian thinking the core and the darkness it contained were much deeper. With nothing for it and having inspected the core for as long as he could and finding no fault with it, he spun the core, amazed he could and received his second surprise.

The core began spinning and releasing bursts of energy that flowed outwards and into thin vein-like structures that lit up when the energy moved through them. Supremely intrigued, Dorian watched as the energy spread and lit up more of the vein-like passages before he realized something. Dorian was watching his own core in action and the pathways that carried the power it produced. But as more of the pathways lit up he began to worry, there was something wrong with his pathways.

When the final pathway finally lit up, Dorian was certain things were wrong it was staring him in the face. There were portions of his pathway that were flickering and others dark as if blockages were stopping the flow of energy. Dorian was worried for the briefest instant before his altered mind seized upon the obvious. He'd fixed his core kinda, but also created a new problem— that was bad yes but it meant he wasn't dead or at least he hoped he wasn't and the space whatever it was clearly a learning tool.

He'd been shown his errors and that had some serious implications, first off how badly did he have to mess up for this entire space to be necessary and much much worse— the Systems fingerprint was all over the space and the insight he'd gained. Previously such a situation would have left him stunned and confused about how to proceed but now he simply acknowledged it and moved on, he couldn't change it and the general consensus was the System wasn't with humanity. This was just further proof.

After inspecting his pathways from every conceivable angle, Dorian knew his time in the space was up and no matter whatever gains he'd made here he swore to never come back. Now the only problem was figuring out how to get out which upon further thought looked impossible, he tried everything up to manifesting a door to walk out— it all failed. Stumped at least for now Dorian thought back to what the space wanted from him.

What did it want from him?

To think obviously, he'd already done that. What else was left?

The light of his core and pathways, the only light in the dark space clued in him to the second thing the space demanded.

To see.

To see the parts of him he'd been avoiding, to see the damage that'd been done to him though he'd failed that part and to the damage he'd done to himself and then accept it.

Acceptance.

Spurred on Dorian somehow approached his imperfect power, like everything in his life it was battered and broken and he accepted it.

The power enveloped him and he knew no more.

Dorian woke to such blinding light it gave him a pounding headache. With tears in his eyes he looked around at his blurry surroundings and was elated to see the outline of objects, he moved to lift his limbs in what felt like years and found them bound tightly to the bed he slept upon.

It took a lot of his newly gained mental maturity and outlook to not reach for his core and lash. But no amount of mental strength was stopping the word he uttered;

“Shit.”