What happened instead was the creature turned slowly toward his bed, as if also perplexed by what was happening. Being the focus of its full attention was somehow horrifying enough to send a chill down Robin’s spine. He didn’t let panic take hold of him though. All this couldn't be anything but a dream.

“But, should I be able to move during an episode of sleep paralysis?"

He froze.

The creature seemed to interpret his stillness as an act of aggression, and responded by surging toward him.

The elemental had the speed of a viper and the size of an adult gorilla, only without any of the weaknesses having a body would entail - no eyes to poke and no balls to kick.

Not that it would have mattered anyway if it did have a weak point; it only took a moment for it to completely envelop Robin and start pressing on him from all sides. Not only was it preventing him from breathing, but the monster was pressing hard on every part of Robin’s body, suppressing any movement broader than a twitch. It was like being strangled by and amorphous Boa on steroids.

Robin had been fairly alarmed when he saw it initially, but now it was morphing into something closer to terror because he hadn't woken up yet.

Then, he started to full-on panic when he properly realized just how real everything felt.

He was soaked, he was getting colder and colder, he ached all over and his ears were popping, more painfully each time - he imagined this was what it felt like be at the bottom of the ocean.

At this point he tried screaming, but due to the creature forming a perfect bubble around his whole body, his plan backfired.

Not only did he not manage to make a sound, but he also presented the creature a great opportunity for it to fill his innards with water, which it instantly did.

From that point on, it was pure agony. Every second he thought it couldn’t get any worse, and every second he was proven wrong.

First his eardrums ruptured, ringing and pain filling his head. Then, his eyes started turning to mush, the nerves making it feel as if he was being electrocuted throughout his whole body. His body was no longer trembling from fear, but spasming from overloading sensory input.

The only other moment he could discern one source of pain from the rest of the amalgam of agony was when his lungs collapsed.

This was how he was going to die; he was sure of it.

He was over the "Why me?'s" and "How?'s" at this point, he just wanted it to be over.

He felt like he’d spent hours inside that bubble of torment, which now had a red tint, before his consciousness finally started showing signs of faltering.

As he was mentally thanking every god he knew that whatever was happening was going to finally end soon, everything stilled.

The pressure on him eased and even the pain had been first reduced to a dull general ache, and then completely wiped away.

And at that moment, everything was silent and peaceful. Robin thought he was finally dead, the spirit unable to feel the torment that his body produced.

As if to prove him wrong, instants later he felt something touch him.

For an instant, the agony came back and Robin feared this was going to be his hell - an eternity of repeated drowning and getting crushed, with pauses of nothingness in between.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

But then the touch he had felt now had a grasp on him and pulled, and he found himself dragged out of the elemental, trading all the pain and terror he was feeling for his hearing and sight back.

As all the chaos was confusing him even more, the force pulled harder, dragging him first through the roof, then through the clouds, and then further and further up. The bigger the distance between himself and the ground got, the more he accelerated.

He left the atmosphere, then the star system, and then some time later the galaxy, rushing faster and faster towards... wherever the thing pulling him wanted him.

Somehow, Robin's exhausted mind still found the energy to admire the beauty of what he was seeing. He'd already felt the pain of death, and it seemed to grant him some kind of clarity. The beauty of this world... no, the beauty of everything was overwhelming.

It was one thing to see small dots of light in a sea of black when looking at the night sky. But it was a completely different experience to see them like this, when he was among them. There they were, more than everything he would ever see – more than humanity would ever see – right in front of him. Dazzling spheres of fire, sliding across his sight and weaving into a celestial tapestry that would put every piece of art on Earth to shame.

His continued acceleration was now causing galaxies in his peripheral vision to wind and bend, as if a clumsy god got the universe wet accidentally and was now trying to wring it dry.

Stars of all varieties started streaming in every direction, like a flutter of fairies that were too curious to stay out of sight, yet too frightened to stand still. It was magical.

Unfortunately, Robin only had a few seconds to feast his eyes upon the celestial dance, because then something happened; he passed some kind of threshold, and everything became void.

Once again, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear... honestly he wasn't sure if his senses were gone again or if there was just nothing that could reach them anymore, considering his speed. And just like that, he simply became a drop of consciousness in a sea of nothing.

***

Robin had no way of knowing how many hours or days had passed since the last time he had felt something. Only warm memories from his past kept the cold nothingness of the present from turning him mad. He was now pretty sure this was his actual hell, as there didn't seem to be any end to it. But just as he thought that, he passed some kind of threshold again, though this time it felt very different.

A tremor ran through his whole being. Robert felt every nerve that had been forcefully disengaged during his… whatever it was, now reengaged all at once. The familiarity of it was soothing, but extremely uncomfortable and nauseating. The small pool of stomach acid at his feet was a testament to that.

Robin got up slowly, making sure his stomach had no objections to the shift. A sense of balance now returned to him as he found himself in a huge, white room. There were no windows or obvious sources of light, but he could still see clearly around him.

“Greetings, mortal.” Thundered a voice, startling the soul out of Robin.

Now, after everything he had been through already, he decided to just give up on things making sense and accept them as they were.

“Hello?“ Robin answered as he straightened.

“I am called Nydros, mortal. Unfortunately, my influence is limited and therefore so is our time together, so listen well.”

Unsure if the voice saw him or cared what he did, but feeling it was somehow right to show his approval in some way, Robin nodded.

“You have been brought here because of my failure to properly handle dangerous elements in my domain. The reverberations of my ineptitude have been so powerful that even you, a being from so far away has been affected... For that, I am truly sorry."

“I mean, everyone makes-“ Robin started, but Nydros was apparently not interested in dialogue.

"However, as regretful as I am" the voice continued, regaining its composure as if the earlier sadness it expressed had just been a formality.

"The Ascended are limited on how much they can interact with mortals. And whether you believe it or not, transporting one through the Void, from one Universe to another, is a pretty taxing activity.

What I mean by that is fundamentally this; If I am to share with you every piece of knowledge that I am allowed to - which would be most advantageous for you - the amount we have left will not be enough time for me to also answer any questions you may have."

A defeated "Alright, I'm listening" is all Robin needed to say for the voice - "Nydros" as it called itself - to begin.

 "Now, this Universe is a different place than your own. Most natural laws are the same, but there lies a very significant discrepancy between the two; here, we are fortunate enough to be within the reach of the Nexus' influence. This influence augments the physical limits of every plebeian form of existence in its scope, appraises and translates their potential at any given moment into numerical values, and enables them to learn and perform feats that would otherwise be impossible, all of this by enabling them to sense and utilize #$%#@ - the closest concept to it that you have heard of being Mana.”

And with that introduction, Nydros began a pretty comprehensive lecture on Stats, Grades, Skills and geography.