There are three questions I would like the answers to:
"Where am I?"
"Who am I?"
And maybe even, "What am I?"
As I lie in this pitch-black abyss of lights these thoughts pierce my mind over and over relentlessly. Wait, how long have I been here?
His thoughts had dwindled to nothing more than mere observations by now. His thoughts had become repetitive questions that would never have answers, for there was not a single person there to answer them. Thus, he found himself lying still as can be in the void of lights.
The lights shimmered with an unusual chatoyancy in shades of magenta, blue and yellow. Alas, this was the least unique aspect of this peculiar prison the young man had found himself in.
"Oh! You're so sweet!"
"I can't do it! Leave me alone!"
With a pique in curiosity, the youth's steely-blue eye peeked to his left. Unstable, yet still clear were a plethora of varying imagery, visuals playing like televised programs floated by little by little. Every now and then voices would come through and, just barely could he make out the scenarios playing in these screens. The images seemed to have no limit on the genres that were played. They were as wide ranging as nonsensical mish mashes to sword fights and fallen kingdoms.
Despite this vast array of content, the youth found little interest in any of it.
I just want to know my name...
No, I'd like to know my purpose.
Despite this hunger for knowledge, he continued to remain still, his eyes steadily coming to a close once again.
He wanted to know. But for how long had he wanted? He remembered the first time he opened his eyes. He wasn't panicked, he was just confused. Those same three questions were used for the very first time that day, and it most certainly wasn't the last. He wandered around but was fearful of his surroundings. He didn't know what would happen if he strayed too far or if he touched anything. After a while of this, he stopped and waited, thinking, "Maybe someone will find me here. Maybe someone will help me."
He waited...
He waited a little more...
He gave up.
The youth began to wander again, this time with more curiosity. He touched the screens that floated around, but he felt a painful shock and thus, decided to leave them be. He ran his fingertips through the boxes of light that inhabited this realm alongside him. There were no curious sensations or pains so he believed these were safe. He continued walking. But as he walked he grew more and more tired. This place seemed to be never-ending and he was ready to give up. So he did.
The youth dropped down to the ground and sat.
What was he to do? There was nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to talk to.
He was all alone in this space of nothing. A place with no beginning and no end and no life other than himself.
Yet he wasn't feeling scared nor was he becoming belligerent and losing his sense of reality (though it is debatable as to whether he had this to begin with or not). He had come to accept this world as his truth.
No one would come for him. No one would save him. This was all there was to it.
He couldn't even be sure there were really others like him out there somewhere. How could he be sure? Of course, there were the visuals he was seeing every day and all day, but what these could be he hadn't the foggiest idea. How could he know what any of this was? He had to stop seriously questioning this. No answers would ever come.
This was all there was to it. No more.
"O-oh... O-oh m-my... H-Ho...s"
This peculiar audio caught his attention.
The youth had drifted in and out of consciousness as he was accustomed to doing at all times. Due to his lack of concentration on anything in specific, he had only caught pieces of this, but the last word had turned his stomach, a sensation he could recall feeling before, but no situation was associated with it. What could it mean?
He glanced at the passing visuals in search of the source of the voice. The audio was always fading in and out, so he would never get a full story, but he could at least focus on that voice in particular and try to use the hazy sound as a guide.
The youth's gaze fell from one face to another as he strolled past the walls of imagery. It took almost no time at all for him to cross the source; a gloomy picture with heavy shadows, but blaring lights that his eyes strained to focus on.
He didn't like this one.
But that fascinated him.
The youth watched with an intensity that was new to him. He moved closer as he watched this visual, the increasingly slow pacing, the heart-wrenching atmosphere, the shattered glass sparkling in the blaring lights across the ground at this young woman's feet, seemingly sprinting with all her might. Softly, but with a force that sounded like it shredded her throat, came the word,
"Hollis!"
"Nghhk!"
The boy's stomach felt like it was turning and he toppled over on himself, gripping at his abdomen and clenching his mouth to keep it shut. That name felt all too familiar. Pairing it with those visuals made something in his head click in a painful, blinding way.
He climbed back onto his feet and inched away from the large visual, his face lowered down to keep that horrible image from his sight.
Only a moment before, that image had his full attention, but now he wanted nothing to do with it.
Hollis? He asked to himself. Who is Hollis? Am I Hollis? Is that...bad or good?
What could all of this mean?
Head clenched in his hands, he tried to think. Was all of this important? What does it mean? What am I missing?!
The young man had stumbled back from the imagery. His head was spinning with thoughts. Nothing like this had happened before.
What does it mean?
He wanted to forget that he had seen this. He wanted to forget that he had heard this.
But...
This...is this... Is this some kind of sign?
In all the time he had dwelled within this space, nothing such as this had happened before. What else could this be if not a sign?
Now, the only thing left to do was to decide...what to do.
If he ignored it, he could continue on in his carefree, albeit boring existence without having to deal with the consequences of learning whatever it is that audio was. But if he followed the trail...
With a deep inhale, he decided to take the bait.
Approaching the visual as it floated along, he reached his hand to the picture. That familiar shock that had once startled him snapped at his fingers, but he pushed through.
If there's something here for me...I have to try whatever I can.
He continued to push. A slight force was pushing back, but it took almost no time at all for him to feel said force give way and then his body was pulled forward.
He felt his feet leave the ground and a feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed him as the image he had watched grew foggier with each passing second.
"Ho...llis."
The heavy shadows created an air of futility. The bright lights illuminated the heavy fog and the shattered glass covered the ground for seemingly miles, though whether miles even existed here was questionable. The youth blinked once, then twice. He had entered the visual that he had been merely observing a moment before, it seemed.
"How did I...?"
His mind was now filled with questions anew, but he couldn't stand here wondering. He felt that he needed to take some kind of action. But what kind of action? He couldn't see much of anything here. There was glass littering the ground, flashing lights with seemingly no source, fog and smoke, and that young woman, running in a dreadfully slow pace, as if time was moving at two different speeds for them.
The more he watched, the more he felt panicked, the more he wanted out.
He didn't need to be here, what was he thinking!?
But now that he was here, he didn't know how to leave.
Well, he was going to try.
Turning on his heels, he ran away from this scene, darting into the pitch blackness that seemed to cover the area on all sides. He ran through the shards that littered the ground, hearing the pops and crunches beneath his boots.
Run away...
he heard himself say in his mind.
You don't want to know what's going on anyway.
I'm really that kind of coward...
He was ready to re-examine his actions, to rethink his plan. From what he could remember, he never liked characters in books and movies that opted to ignore their chance at truth. Characters that had a chance to learn what they had sought, only to turn around and realize they were too scared. Now he was doing just that.
Before he could turn back, he heard the crinkle of glass stop and felt the solid ground beneath him suddenly give way.
"Wha..."
He felt his blood run cold as gravity began to do its work. He felt himself picking up speed as he was consumed by the cold, bleak emptiness that somehow felt even bleaker than the darkness he had just left. How was that possible?
What's going on? Am I going to die? This... I shouldn't have left!
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He wanted to scream, but he felt so overcome with fear that his throat had closed up. His heart was throbbing in his head and his ears, and his body was breaking into a sweat as he tumbled and spun through the air.
Was he going to die?
He wanted to clamp his eyes shut and hope he would somehow reappear in his comfy, quiet space with nothing to really worry about. He wished he hadn't done this!
Suddenly, something unexpected happened.
As he tumbled through the air like a rag doll, the darkness began to fade away, growing paler and brighter. He went from falling through darkness, to falling through light.
He blinked once, then twice. He really had fallen into light. This place was more complicated than he had thought, but he was still going to die, regardless of the color of his surroundings.
He thought this, but after a few moments more, with no visual cues, he felt himself fall through...something.
It felt like his body hit something the way it did when he was pulled into the first visual, but this was a little different.
He groaned when he felt his body hit dirt. Wait...
"Hm?" He was rubbing his head in pain, but feeling a cloud of dust hit his face, he opened an eye and found that, indeed, his face was lying in dirt. Dirt... When was the last time he saw this?
He blinked a few times before sitting up. The sky was a deep orange with streaks of red painting the sparse clouds. Red maple trees littered the grounds around him and tall, red minka and machiya houses spotted the lands before and below him. It was like a beautiful feudal Japanese fairytale.
To him, though, this was a scene he had come across a couple of times back in the comfy emptiness he called home. It was a visual about fighting in some fantastic kingdom at twilight. He never saw the whole thing. By the time he started to see this one he had grown bored of them, so he only ever caught the beginning or middle, whichever part it was.
He pushed himself up to a stand, brushing his clothes clean. There didn't seem to be any people around here. A large plaza with stone groundwork spread out in front of him with buildings on almost every side, but it was totally empty.
He hesitated but took a step out into the open.
There was a sudden clash of metal against metal. Looking up at the roof at the far side of the plaza, he could see two silhouettes, their swords clashing fiercely against one another. Though he had little interest in this before, he watched with a renewed intensity now that he was seeing it like this.
"What...how is this possible?"
Managing to pull his gaze away from the roof, he turned to his side. Faintly, he could have sworn he had seen some clothing pass by one of the rooves, but it was gone now. If he wasn't seeing things, that would mean there are other people here.
Other people... Is that good or bad?
Regardless, he gulped.
Still, he thought. If there are other people, I should at least ask what's going on!
He opted not to follow what he thought he saw, and instead headed down the stone stairs that descended at his left. As he headed down the steps, he passed signs with unfamiliar words scrawled on them in a fancy writing, and plants growing in clumps along the patches of dirt between the stones and houses. He wanted to stop and admire this new scenery, but his first priority was to find out what exactly was going on and how could he get back to his so-called home.
Once he passed a bend in the stairs that took him around the corner of the building, he came to another open plaza that was, unlike the first, filled with people dressed in brightly colored red clothing; kimonos and yukata, varying Japanese clothing he wasn't familiar with.
He didn't move from his spot. The crowd before him seemed to watch the battle taking place upon the buildings where the youth had just come from. He felt anxious, but if he was going to make any progress, he needed to say something.
Approaching the young woman closest to him, he cleared his throat and asked, in a clear voice, "Excuse me. Could you tell me what's going on?"
The woman turned to look at him, her bright eyes sparkling cheerfully and her round face sweet and charming. "Hello!" She said with a youthful naivety, "..." She paused, as if suddenly lost in thought before looking away. The young man blinked a few times before craning his neck to look at her face. She had returned to watching the battle on the rooves above.
What is this...?
There was a sudden panic beginning to set in again. If everyone was weird like this, he wouldn't be able to get any answers. If he couldn't get answers...
He grabbed her shoulder and she turned back to face him. She looked startled at first, but eventually smiled and simply repeated things exactly as she had before, then returned to watching the fight still taking place above.
He was at a loss. He didn't remember people being like this, although he remembered nothing about his life outside of the void, so how could he know whether this was true or not?
Feeling defeated, he backed away from the crowd. His knees felt shaky and his pulse was racing. It had been a long time since he felt like this. He had felt like hope had been dangled in front of him like bread to a starving man. When he chased that hope, he realized how little he could truly handle anything outside of what was now normal—how scary anything else would be—and now, because of that hope, he was stuck in what seemed to be a truly hopeless situation!
Feeling ready to drop to his knees, he tried to calm his breathing when, from behind a voice called out.
"What are you doing here?"
His heart jumped to his throat. He was startled so much he nearly collapsed. Hesitant at first, he eventually turned back to the voice whose source was, to his surprise, a young man. Though he was young, he was quite tall and had a unique intensity to his very being. He was dressed like the others, his clothing Japanese fashioned, likely jinbei, and dark blue in color with dark red borders.
This youth had a presence all his own and our young protagonist was unsure how to respond at first. This one felt different from these other people.
"Wh... I'm sorry. What did you say?"
"I asked, 'what are you doing here'." He seemed to sneer as he took a step forward. "You're not one of these NPCs. What's up with this?" This intimidating stranger pointed up and down the youth's body. Stopping in place, he continued, saying, "So, who are you? You're new I take it."
"Ah..." Clearing his throat again, he said, "I...don't really..." He stopped mid-sentence. He wasn't sure who this mysterious boy was, or what any of this was really, so he had to be careful about what all he said. "I'm Hollis."
"Hollis? Alright." He briefly crossed his arms as he seemed to think about the name for a moment. After feeling satisfied, he returned his flaming gaze to Hollis. "Alright. Call me...Ambrose."
Hollis gave a simple nod. After that, it finally dawned on him that he had been speaking with this boy. An actual conversation!
With a sudden start, he asked, "What's going on? What is this place?"
Ambrose seemed alarmed by this question. He stared unblinking at the shorter boy before scoffing, a wry smile over his lips. "What? You're joking, right?"
With a stone-cold expression, Hollis shook his head. Ambrose shifted his weight after re-crossing his arms, head falling to the side as he stared with a severe intensity into this strange boy. "How do you not know? I can't think of any reason you wouldn't. If you're messing with me, I'm gonna be pretty pissed."
"No, I'm not. I..." He cut himself short. He hesitated to explain himself, but if this guy was going to be a threat if he didn't, Hollis felt like he had no choice. "I can't remember anything. So I don't know what any of...this is."
Ambrose's eyebrow screwed up and his head seemed to fall even farther. "You can't remember? You have amnesia?"
"Look. I don't know what any of this is, but if you're not going to help, fine. I'll just find my way back on my own." Hollis gulped, turning away. He didn't want to waste any time trying to explain to this guy. This is time he could spend trying to find his way back, right?
"Hold on, there."
Hollis paused and turned back with reluctance. The young man strolled over to Hollis's side; a smirk rested on the brunette's face as he eyed the shorter boy.
"We should talk somewhere else. In a few minutes this whole place is going to burn."
"Burn?" Hollis tried to hide it, but his surprise was clear. Ambrose nodded. "I've been to this one quite a few times. The ending never changes." There was a low chuckle in his voice.
With no warning, he grabbed Hollis by the wrist and pulled him back up the stairs. Hollis wanted to resist, but the young man was too strong, so he gave up. Well, if he died, he died. It was his own fault for leaving that void.
Ambrose chuckled as he ran. When they reached the top of the stairs he said, "I'm going to jump. Come on!" Hollis gulped, but before he could give any response, Ambrose did just as he had said. Hollis felt his stomach sink as they leapt into the air. Once again, he felt weightless. How is this...?
The pair landed on the roof of a machiya before jumping down at the back. They ran through the grove of maple trees and, in the distance beyond the trees Hollis could see that familiar light from his previous fall.
"Here we go!"
Before Hollis could understand what happened, they jumped.
If I'm not dead now, Hollis thought, I'll be dead here soon.
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