The world was swallowed into darkness. Caleb descended through an abyss, absent of his senses and form. There was no sense of warmth where he was. No reach of his fingers or wiggle of his toes. No sense of his heart’s beating or of ebbing and flowing breath cycling through his nostrils. No fear or joy—no emotion at all. All which there was was the sensation of descension pressing against him. All which he knew was that he was a blip of light in the dark, encroaching where he didn’t belong. A scant and diminishing sense of self his spirit was too enervated to shelter from the howl of the wind, in a world which he didn’t belong. After a lifetime of effort and struggle only to never be good enough, perhaps it was for the best that flame was snuffed to eternal silence.
Hundreds of hands arose from the swirl of darkness encircling him and gripped at his spirit. Their accursed claws penetrated his being. They ripped away at his light like the hands of the starved unto a fresh corpse. They pilfered chunks of what made him, him to be devoured into ravenous and blood-stained maws.
He relinquished himself to his fate and embraced the inevitable—or so he believed. His eyes were closed and his arms were splayed wide, but his fists were still clenched. His jaw was still stiff. His teeth were still grit. Another part of him resisted against the dark hands. Why? When he was so close to the peace he yearned, why keep fighting? Where was his indignation when it counted? But, resist as he may, at the end of that descent, he didn’t know how much of himself would remain—if any at all.
Then, something bright reached amidst the chaos—a beautiful hand of order. The hand bore an ethereal seedling of light atop its palm, holding it out in offerance as its dainty fingers gracefully unfurled before him. The horde of shadows didn’t dare reach within the light’s domain. That part of him screaming for survival did without a shred of hesitation.
The seed’s light was kindred to vision in a world of darkness—sense where there was nothing. It offered and his spirit accepted wholeheartedly, embracing it for all its worth. The diminished and dwindling mass of light surged brilliantly with presence, recapturing its vitality as he gleamed anew like the refulgent sun. An eruption of light burst from him and warded the voracious kind who lurked within the dark tides away. He was bestowed a variety of light—a quality of spirit—that wouldn’t be so easily diminished henceforth. A flame which would swell, tower, and burn brighter the greater the will of its host.
A wave of sensation cascaded over him from above. The shape of his body was highlighted within his mind. He was never falling, but floating. He tugged his arms and legs only for them to be snapped back into place as if he were tethered by a host of elastic threads.
Twin vortexes of illumination gaped open the darkness beneath him. Everything around him was black. A luminescent, silvery ocean was discernible beneath him. It stretched across infinity in every direction, like he was a flea peering at the light side of the moon’s surface.
And upon that stilled ocean was a reflection of himself. The reflection began as a baby, quickly maturing into a toddler, then a preteen and teenager before his eyes. All the while, his reflection stared back at him as it smiled so wonderfully and innocently—so naively.
His senses capsized into his reflection’s gaze. For flashes, he swore he was peering up at his adult self from the eyes of his young self. Bound up in silver threads born from his parents’ hands, the marionette of their play with shimmering tears falling from his cheeks. Bleeding waterfalls of deep crimson unto the silent silver waters from his stab wounds, infecting them with spreading hues of sanguine.
Blood splashing onto its face, his reflection reached beyond the waters and wiped his tears against its thumb. It mouthed to him as it smiled: “Leave me behind…”
Caleb’s eyes broadened. His tears rushed harder, dropping and splashing onto his reflection’s face alongside the blood dotting its chest. He writhed and struggled against his binds, neck veins bulging, teeth gritting, screaming from the visceral depths: “There’s still hope for you…! There’s still—!” But no sounds emerged from the cavern of his mouth. And his will to scream waned flat, body stilling, expression adopting a fatigued flatness—a dead hollowness.
“There’s so much more to life than us…” His reflection slowly aged into an adult. His wounds transferred to the reflection. Blood crept from the corner of its mouth and trickled from its nose. Red infected the silver ocean until all of it luminesced a crimson color kindred to a blood moon. “You won’t find it here… You’ll only find hollowness if you stay here with us…” Soon, its eyes dulled, its head falling limp to the side. It sank into the depths of the dark red’s opacity until it vanished.
A flash of the Seven-Eleven parking lot lanced through his mind. For a moment, it was as if he was looking down at his corpse from the clouds.
It dawned on him that he wasn’t dreaming. He was already dead. He’d long been dead.
But if he was already dead, how did he still feel so alive? How was his heart able to thrash so vehemently and know such turmoil?
His features scrunched up as he squeezed his eyes shut tight, body convulsing against his tethers, silent voice screaming and sobbing into the quietude which overwhelmed all things. His teardrops splashed. Ripples were spurred across the still surface. Silver repainted the ocean in spreading blots. An anger rooted in his sadness’s stead. Livid lines painted upon his expression a vivid red like tribal markings. That prismatic flame flared in an ardent pulse and towered in his core, reaching beyond the confines of his spirit as it engulfed him in a vibrant shroud. He pulled at his binds and they popped against his force. First, his arm, then his leg before his other arm and leg.
Freed, he plunged into the silver ocean. He spiraled through a realm of monochrome. His reflection sank alongside him, mouthing to him, “Let go… You can live again if you let go… Forget us… Live…”
Hesitant, he reached out halfway; however, his hand retreated alongside the veering of his gaze. Caleb relaxed his body, forfeiting his grievances and wounds into the water’s flow. Colorless eyes halfway closed, he allowed himself to sink toward the light.
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Countless reflections of himself of all ages emerged from the gray. They swarmed him, grabbing at his flesh and ripping it off like pieces of shedded skin. Except in lieu of his vessels, blood, and bones, there was more flesh—skin of a vivid fair complexion amidst the grayscale world. They tore off his face, revealing youthful, soft, and striking features unbelonging to who he once was with semi-elongated ears to pair. A pair of eyes painted a vivid mist blue in stark contrast to the reflections’ gray peered through the ocean. His hair broke off and floated away in clumps, making way for the chin-length mop of white blond flowing upward against the current like climbing seagrass. They didn’t stop ripping and shredding until he was someone completely new—until he’d been reborn.
Once the job was complete, the reflections dispersed into the gray ocean. A storm of racing, streaking lights coalesced into a bright, spherical mass before him. The sphere injected itself into his core to rest—ever-present yet non-binding.
[Prerequisite met! You’ve acquired a new skill: Tangible Will]
[Tangible Will Lvl 1] - (Spirit) - (Active): Rouse your spirit and conjure your will beyond the confines of yourself as a physical force. The potency of the conjured force is dependent on your Spirit attribute and strength of will.
“Sorrinn…” the woman’s voice echoed at a whisper’s pitch. “Sorrinn…” He caught a flash of her face staring down at him. She was beautiful. That warmth fluttering in his heart told him she was someone important to him. It told him she was his mother. “Sorrinn!”
All of the pieces connected. “Sorrinn… I’m Sorrinn…?” He—Sorrinn—reached toward her words, tears bubbling up. “I wanna live again. I wanna be a part of your family…”
“Then wake up. Wake up. Wake up and fight, Sorrinn. There’s no time. They’re here. They won’t let you escape.”
The light below enveloped him. Then his eyes shot open. He was back on the bench, but not as Caleb—as a reflection of a young-aged Sorrinn. An army of countless shadows smothered the walls of an imperceptible sanctuary born of his will to survive like demons trying to force their way out of Hell. Spreading cracks etched across its surface. It was to break soon.
The entity chitter-hissed on the other side. “Show me your despair.”
Sorrinn simply smirked and puffed, shrugging a lone shoulder as he shook his head. That aura of shifting blue-green flame washed over him from hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder. His eyes luminesced like an ethereal aurora draping over the night. Ghostly reflections of Caleb in every stage of his life sparked like igniting torches in a gyrating circle around him. The eldest of the reflections placed a hand on Sorrinn’s shoulder, smiled, and passed him an assuring upward nod. Sorrinn bobbed his head in return. “Sorry. I don’t have any despair to share.”
With a snap of his fingers, the Sanctuary fractured, then exploded outward in a hail of iridescent shards.
The swarm of shadows were pushed back in the pulse, although only for the moment. It wasn’t long before the mass came rushing in with the force and ferocity of a folding tidal wave.
A breath in. A breath out. As still, steady, and constant as the silver ocean. The effigies rapidly circled around him until they were nothing but a concentrated, galaxy-esque maelstrom of energy enveloping—protecting—all of his being. The shadows neared close enough to hook their claws around his limbs and the energy exploded outward in a radial flash. A pulse of blue-green washed over all things inhabiting that world, highlighting their silhouettes in prelude to their burning away to ash. All of the shadows, all of the memories, reduced to ruin and razed in an instant. Not even the cinders snowed around him. And when it was over, the energy unleashed from his spirit siphoned back into him in a beautiful vortex.
In the end, he was left standing in a strange meadow. Mystical flowers with glowing petals bloomed amidst the whispering grasses. An abysmal blue-purple-black ombre night sky embellished in a jewelish array of stars, shifting nebulae, and spiraling galaxies hung overhead. Woodland creatures reminiscent of animated constellations roamed the meadow, passing him inquisitive glances from afar as shrill hums danced through the air like wandering fae. The grass swayed and his hair billowed, but, strangely, there wasn’t any tangible wind breezing through.
The entity, singed and form half-exposed as the monster lurking within, hobbled across the grass toward him. Its shape mended over time, its hobble ramping into a bloodlusted sprint on its many hands. It roared. A adult reflection of Caleb intercepted it in its pursuit with an unletting, unyielding bear hug, an immovable wall born of his will. It writhed, hissed, shrieked, and clawed to no avail, unable to budge an inch or free itself. Overtime, it was infected by the remnants of Caleb’s will, pacified from its violence to its knees, where it and the reflection remained tightly embraced in silence. The reflection assimilated into the entity’s body. A pillar of blue-green flame towered from its abyssal maw like a sparked flare. Incandescent cracks formed across its flesh. Not a moment later, its body erupted into a flutter of smoldering ashes.
“Thank you…” Sorrinn whispered under his breath.
Glancing over his shoulder, there was a peculiar, ivory wooded forest bearing trees with distinctly crystalline, sapphire blue leaves. A shallow and thin stream flowing with a glowing blue substance more akin to a dense gas than a liquid meandered through the meadow’s center. For some reason, he knew by instinct he was in the deepest reaches of his existence—The Place Within; where the soul and its qualities assumed shape into a tangible world.
Just toward the meadow’s edge was a gateway leading out of that sacred place. It was sealed. He was still trapped.
Forcing it open was an option. Though he couldn’t say he was keen on potentially damaging his soul to escape by brute-forcing it.
He approached it, outstretching his hand toward it, and tried hoisting the portcullis with his Tangible Will. His skill was only able to raise it a hair before it locked in place, however, refusing to ascend any further. It was deflecting his skill, telling him his strength of will was too immature to surmount its presented hurdle.
All of his past life was spent pressed under his parents’ thumbs. He was hardly a person. He was whatever they wanted him to be and nothing more—a mere doll in their playhouse. If simply wanting to leave wasn’t enough, then he vowed the opposite for his second life. He’d live honestly to himself, tethered by no one and nothing but the bonds shared between those held dear. He would come to hold the very threads of the world between his fingers the same as his parents once held his. His only limit would be himself. He would ascend to the world’s pinnacle until he was the pinnacle itself.
Resolute, he outstretched his hand toward the gate again. His will squeezed it beneath his influence, nearly shattering it with its weight. With an upward sweep, it noisily clattered as it rose to the top.
He made his departure through the gateway, vanishing into the light within.