Mican’s hands loosened from their balled state, his eyes relaxed, and his quickened breathing turned once more into long, deep breaths. Having six more companions, albeit sleeping, in his strange journey through the void helped him to ease his nerves and relax the tension that was threatening to break out in his body.

As he flew alongside the six orbs, he took the opportunity to ponder the questions he had been wondering about on the orbs and where they came from. Seeing these individuals in the orbs, he felt that his speculation on the nature of the orbs was all but proven.

As they emitted light, air, and acted as a vehicle for the occupant in the void, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that this meant they were for the protection of the occupant, meant to deliver them safely from one destination to another. The reason why he had no orb himself, was likely because only the first entity or object to enter the portal was eligible to receive it.

Something felt strange to Mican though. The planning behind the scheme and the execution felt fundamentally flawed to him, in very obvious ways.

What if a fly had entered the portal instead of Gerald? Or what if Gerald had decided to stop by the drugstore for a snack? Would the person who had planned all of this on the other end have to make do with a fly? It was almost as if they only had a rough outline of Gerald’s schedule and decided to just make do with it and pray for success.

What was the similarity between these people, if someone chose them specifically? And if someone had the power to create a portal to transfer someone into the void, how could the execution be so coarse? Of course, Mican knew this as fact only in the case of Gerald. The execution with the other people could have been flawless, or maybe they entered the portal willingly like him.

Who knows, maybe whoever did it had an innumerable number of opportunities, so it was alright if things were done sloppily, but that also brought up the question of why there were so few orbs visible in the void.

“Auuuunnnghhh.”

A piercing wail echoed out from the unknown, shattering Mican’s train of thought.

The young man’s body immediately froze up out of fright, having let down his guard due to the sense of security the orbs and the people brought with them. His speed having slowed down slightly, the spheres of light shot forward, flying past him.

Mican immediately relaxed his body and paid no heed to any further sounds in the darkness. His survival instincts screamed at him to catch up to the light, or else he would be left to the mercy of whatever that was lurking in the darkness with him.

Staring at the light, Mican blasted forward, catching up with his orb in the span of a few seconds. The young man’s head spun rapidly in the darkness searching for the source of the wail within the limited field of vision the balls of light granted him.

“Urrrrgghhh.”

Another hideous moan sounded out in the abyss, shaking his emotions and brain. The moan was reminiscent of the call of a whale, only much more harrowing, as if a whale could scream its lungs out.

Prepared this time, the young man had sharpened his hearing and had shifted his attention to his ears. Mican counted the moan out to four seconds long, the sound echoing in head and breaking his concentration. He gritted his teeth harshly and swiveled his head in every direction, continuing to try and locate the source, but his attempts proved futile.

The sounds came as if they were a part of his imagination, as if he had imagined the noise in his head. He could not make out any specific direction in which they came, as if they came from every direction at once.

The confusion gnawed at his mind, but he forced it away and focused on the only true path to survival in front of him, the spheres of light. Focusing his gaze entirely on his sphere and its contents, he flew forward, no longer giving any attention to any further noises surrounding him.

Mican understood well that if he were to lose too much focus, the orbs would not wait for him.

“Arngh- “

“Ahhh!”

“Unnnghh.”

Ghastly moans, wails, and even screams rang out in the void, each one longer than the other. Even with Mican’s attention being occupied he forced himself to think of the situation, in an attempt to gain even the slightest tidbit of information, to improve his chances of survival. Even with his limited capacity to think, there were a few obvious characteristics he was able to take note of with the sounds in the darkness.

Firstly, the noises only came one at a time, as if there was only one individual making them. Secondly, there was no gender apparent in the sound of the voice, or at least not one that Mican could make out. Finally, there seemed to be deep emotion in the cries, emotions that the young man could identify at first sound.

It was great joy and delight, to the verge of laughter, but not the conventional sort of joy. This joy was a sick one, and it gave Mican a chill down his spine. Goosebumps rose on his arms from hearing it.

It gave off a large sense of satisfaction from an action of deep immorality, akin to murder or adultery. Why Mican felt it to be this way, he had no clue. It was a feeling that just came to him, from hearing the dreadful cries.

A quick few minutes passed by as Mican flew along with the formation. His back was damp with a cold sweat and his eyes were dry and aching as he stared at the orbs, but he refused to so much as blink.

The only thought that went through his mind, and one he clung onto, was that he had to keep his eyes in contact with the sphere.

“Ah…A-ahahahaha.”

The voice in the darkness grew louder with and a hideous laughter sounded out, appearing to Mican as if it was mocking him for his efforts. Noticeably, the voice was very apparent in location this time around, sounding as if it was right next to the young man’s right ear.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Despite being wary, his nerves were stretched as taut as they could possibly be, having never experienced a terror so great. He swung his right arm beside his ear, his eyes widening to their largest extent and his fists clenching to the point they almost drew blood.

The young man shot upwards, crashing into one of the orbs of light that contained one of the woman.

He blew into the sphere right arm first, and a loud crack sounded out as the momentum of his movement flattened his arm between the sphere and his body.

Uncaring, the orb continued rotating in the formation’s counter-clockwise movement, flinging the young man to the side, toward another orb. This time, his face made contact with the sphere, and a horrid crunch echoed throughout the void as his nose shattered on the transparent orb.

The formation continued moving, but this time the orb Mican was flung to was his own.

The air in his lungs flew out along with the small amount of bile left in his body as he crashed stomach first into the orb.

Weakly opening his eyes, the young man grabbed onto the orb with his free arm, wrapping himself around it. The orb was only large enough to encase a glass cup, its size being what saved the young man’s life.

The orb flew along with him in formation, as gleeful wails sounded out in the abyss. A warm liquid trickled down Mican’s chin, staining his shirt, as he flew along with the hexagon, his broken arm trailing loosely behind him.

An unimaginable pain was shooting through Mican’s head, but he had barely any time to pay it any regard as, yet another chain of events began happening.

The orbs of golden light began shining increasingly brighter, directly after Mican bounced into them. As if reacting to the external stimulus of the other lights, the other orbs also began shining brightly, including Mican’s own.

The light was very gentle in Mican’s eyes, and it did not harm him at all even as he was staring directly at them. Shining together, the formation was almost akin to a very large lamp in the pitch black of night, continuously spinning counter-clockwise, mixing the golden trails of each orb as it was doing so.

The young man’s breath caught in his throat at such a sight, feeling a profoundness that he could not put into words.

The light continued shining brighter and brighter, as if akin to a giant star in space, gently encasing Mican and reaching further into the void, revealing what lay in the darkness.

Inside of the formation, Mican was able to see outside of the light without struggle. It felt similar to using a flashlight to him. There was far too much darkness for the formation to cover, but what it did shine on was completely visible under its light.

Mican forced his eyes wide open, ignoring the pain. He wished to see the thing that had been lurking in the darkness, gleefully wailing and laughing at his expense.

The first thing Mican saw, many kilometers below him, was a giant black cable, bundled together. Upon a closer examination, great terror grew in Mican’s heart.

This “cable” had an innumerable number of scales, each the size of several humans put together. As the light grew and began reflecting off the scales, the young man saw the cable for what it really was.

It was a massive black snake of immeasurable size, curled up in a sleeping position. It was absolutely gargantuan, and from what Mican could see, even in its fetal position its width took up at least eight hundred meters.

Mican shifted his eyes further beyond the ground. Hundreds upon hundreds, thousands upon thousands, tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of scales. The light shone farther, pushing the darkness in the void back and revealing a sight that numbed his mind.

It looked to Mican as if there were an uncountable number of the black snakes seemingly in formation as they lay there quietly. It was as if a giant hand had placed these snakes in a row, all facing the same direction.

Strangely enough, there appeared to be no ground upon which these snakes lay, just empty darkness.

As Mican watched on, his mouth slack from horror, one of the snakes far below him began to open one of its massive eyes, the size of several two-story houses.

The man’s head was frozen in fear, and he could do nothing but watch on as the gargantuan eyelid slowly opened.

“Aaaaarrrhghhh.”

A familiar, terrible moan broke the man out of his stupor, and his head shot up to meet the source of the sound. Looking forward proved to be no better, though, as with the formation’s light in full blast, the previous unknown void was exposed entirely.

The first thing to meet Mican’s eyes, was a massive, gelatinous sort of wall. As he flew past, the young man realized that it wasn’t a wall at all, but instead a giant body. Flying farther away, the body came into full view.

It appeared to be the body of a giant, fat worm, faded pink in color. However, the worm’s width seemed to match its height, very different from your average worm. It was a bit similar to a grub in that aspect.

The worm was around one hundred meters long and wide, and there were three-meter-tall brown spikes that lined its body, yellow at the tip. The spikes didn’t stand up like a sea urchin, but instead appeared wilted like a flower. Flying away from the worm, the young man noticed that it was facing the direction opposite to him.

Taking another look at the worm, there were some very obvious problems with it. Firstly, was that it was completely lifeless, and second was that there was a very roughly made, gaping hole on top of the worm.

The further up Mican went, the more he was able to see inside of it. Dried red blood covered the surface around the hole, and several large bones were carelessly tossed outside of the gap.

The light soon unveiled a dark silhouette, sitting inside of the hole. From what the young man could see, the figure was humanoid in shape, sitting on what seemed to be the exposed skeletal frame of the giant “worm” inside the hole.

The figure was huge, and Mican estimated it to be around ten meters tall in size. It had its back turned toward the young man, sucking at a giant cracked bone in visible delight. Its arms and body swung slightly as if dancing to a tune, and Mican could hear loud wails and screams of joy when it paused its sucking.

It was very obvious to Mican that the source of his troubles in the void had been from this creature. As the formation moved up entirely, the dark figure was completely bathed in light.

The figure jerkily halted its movements, its cries fading away.

As it stood up and turned around, using an arm to shield its eyes from the light, its appearance was exposed to Mican in full.

The figure wore nothing but a few discoloured rags. Its body was covered in filth and muck, but through the cracks in the filth he could see pale, blue skin. It vaguely had the head of a human male, but there was a strange mane of some sort that covered its head and face entirely, reaching down to its chest. Its arms were slightly longer than a human that was of the same size would be, appearing disproportionate. Its hands were wrinkled like that of an old tree, and red blood stained a part of its beard-mane, likely being where its mouth, or the organ it used to eat, was.

The figure raised the arm covering its eyes and looked directly at Mican.

Two large, shining white crystals stared at the young man directly.

Mican felt his body and thoughts freeze and slow down, as if he was encased in a block of ice. While he could not move, he could tell that his mind was slowly being torn apart, and he felt a pain so agonizing he would describe it with his very soul instead of his body.

The two figures looked at each other silently in the void, one flying away on a shining star, and the other standing on a giant corpse, slowly being devoured by the darkness.

As if annoyed by the light, the being pointed directly at the small orb of light in Mican’s embrace and opened its mouth once, speaking a single unintelligible word.

“*****.”

The orb of light being held by Mican immediately stopped moving, the rest of the formation quickly leaving them behind.

As the dark figure turned around to sit, the orb detonated in complete silence, and blinding white light filled Mican’s vision.