Chapter 2
Part of Void
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'Half my soul is tearing apart
Cast it into hell!
Half that remains in me,
Under the sky of a cold cruel world!
Far better is hell
For its fire warms my half
Half my soul tore apart!'
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An infant is dreaming!
He is inside a cruel labyrinth of dream, a dimension of beyond that has cut him off from the world and made him forget his dear mother's face.
He is desperately searching his mother's face from his memory which he can't access in this continuous anxiety spread world.
The infant is dying!
She sees a silhouette of a bird, circling down in the abyss, while she feels that her soul is lifting upward higher in the void.
A faint cry she could hear and the silhouette changed its shape, slowly becoming a magnificent creature yet unnamed, for none living had ever peered into the depth of darkness and its creatures remain to be mystery.
A part of her thought, this must be some nightmare. The other part of her consciousness realised, this may not be a real living world, this may not be happening in the real world, but …
As if her soul had been thunderstruck, she felt her soul tearing apart. Bizarrely, she realised the part of the soul being torn apart was not her own but made of her own.
It was her baby.
She woke up!
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The mother heard some disturbances in the other room. It wasn't the reason she woke up at midnight. An innominate melancholic voice called her to wake up.
She panicked; an intrinsic intuition led her to rush towards her baby. She rushes and finds her baby unrestful, deep in sleep on the cosy bed.
She takes him in her arms.
Connection!
Warming love from his mother, the infant let out a cry out and started crying in his sleep. Mother sits, thinking 'maybe the boy is hungry.'
She breastfeeds her sleeping baby. The infant haphazardly sucks on her milk and chokes, chokes so hard he breaks the wall of dream, finally out of the hell, into the arms filled with heaven's everlasting happiness. He wakes up. He gazes at his mother's face of pure love. Unconditional love conveyed without uttering any words, just the glances and the radiating love from her eyes. He smiles and laughs.
Mother is confused, 'why is he laughing? Wasn't he just choking moments ago? He didn't even drink much milk either.'
The boy gripped the mother's clothes and buried his face in her bosom, time and again stealing glances to her face. The boy kept mother awake all night. He didn't sleep no matter how many lullabies his mother sang.
An intrinsic fear from sleep is developed in the infant, and this way onwards, the mother raised her insomniac child.
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I found myself running. I was sweaty, my chest was throbbing. I kept running, uncertain when I started, neither did I know where my destination was, the only thing certain was I had to run away. I felt I was beheld by something. Soon I couldn’t run anymore, I was worn out. I had to hold on to catch my breath.
When I observed, I felt my feet stuck in thick mud. I pulled and pushed but I couldn’t free myself no matter what. I felt my feet being sucked in the earth. But still I didn't dare peek under my feet. It was an inherent fear preventing me from looking down at what was stopping me. Distant whispers could be heard. Something was near me, not yet in the field of my eyesight. Something caused my sight-field to narrow down. Soon my eyes were half closed, I tried my best not to let my eyes give in to darkness. Swooop!
I woke up. I was completely conscious. But, I couldn't figure out where I was. It was pitch dark. My senses were sharpened. I could hear disturbances far away, the sound would get loud with a gradual mixture of noise and would fade out slowly, like a mourning symphony. I tried to get up. I dared myself to walk, heedless of the absence of path knowledge. I went on walking until I unravelled the mystery. I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t awake. Come what may, the words wouldn’t be enough to describe the anxiety I was materialised into. Had I drugged my real self? I wouldn't remember anything that had passed, as there was no time, or perhaps time had stopped. I stopped walking after a dim light was cast upon this dark realm.
The light approached me as if to strike the life out of me, it enlarged.
Visions returned, my eyes were teary, the images I saw were blurry. I heard the voices, a conversation, maybe it was momentary.
‘Sclaera ought to free the #&%@.’
‘So, I would tell you this way forward, Mr Inis, I hate you. I would kill your little toddler and eat his fresh flesh without any bit of remorse, you hear me’
‘I would not let you collect the poor souls for your sorcery, you witch, you whore Sclaera’
‘The one to decide that is none of us, but the one who listens.’
‘Who listens?’
‘The one who crossed the void’
‘No one can cross the void but the cursed ones.’
‘Indeed the cursed one shall decide the fate of #&%@.’
‘The fate of the #&%@, so’
It was too dark all around me, I couldn’t see anything, but only a point of light.
Soon, the point of light spread. As if approaching towards me, with the greatest velocity it augmented. I was consumed in the light. This was my only dream that I remembered.