Nothingness. That was what Callum saw as he floated in the endless expanse of the void. Thoughts and impressions slipped away like sand through a mesh sieve. Senses were turned nil, and any semblance of feeling was thrown into oblivion. He couldn’t even feel his body, the abyss burrowing into his psyche.

Then, he jolted awake, the whispers of the void too loud in his head.

The first feeling he felt inside this non-existent realm was panic. Anxiety gripped his heart as consciousness grew disconnected from reality. He tried moving his arms, yet his mind told him there were no longer appendages to move.

The feeling of being nothing but a thought drifting through this dark realm was so unsettling he couldn’t help but feel dread. Then he remembered how he got into this hellish world.

A stab in the back, his best friend the perpetrator to his demise, and his girlfriend an accomplice to the murder. Then the lights, symbols, pain, then the void. It all came crashing back like a wave, leaving his emotions in disarray.

He felt betrayed. The people he had known for years had killed him and put him inside this void. Not only that, but they tortured him with those symbols they conjured out of thin air. The searing pain of flesh and bone being branded was unimaginable, and the betrayal made it worse.

However, he also felt confused and disoriented. There was no build-up, no signs that led to this betrayal. He can’t even think of a proper motive as to why they’d murdered him. And with these convoluted feelings, he felt anger.

Callum was angry at the betrayal. Their life together for so long now felt like a lie. Days of happiness and laughter he and his girlfriend Catherine shared are now painted red, and some of that anger is directed at the one who stabbed him, his best friend Jake.

The nonchalant outgoing guy who always brought them cans of beer took some of his fury. The smile he always has now felt annoying, replaced with a shit-eating grin. He knew that in the back of his mind, the guy was much better than him. His height, physique, personality, everything about him was much better than Callum, and his inferiority complex did not help. Maybe they planned his death to take his insurance money, then fuck-off to wherever the two would spend their lives together. However, most of his anger is turned towards himself.

Self-deprecation he thought he had grown out of during his university days came back in full swing. He called himself an idiot for falling into a betrayal that he had no way of knowing. His inadequacies resurfaced, and he spiraled into depression.

Why did they do it? Why did they betray him? Was it because he wasn’t enough? Was it because they weren’t satisfied with him? That he was bringing them down without his knowledge? Multiple questions assaulted him, and all of them went unanswered.

The void is a quiet place. If anything, it’s beyond quiet, and his thoughts were the only thing that accompanied him in his lonesome. These thoughts were mostly questions and guesses. Some were hurtful, some logical, yet the only thing that answered was the stillness of the void.

With nothing else to do, Callum reminisced. Memories that he had long buried came back to the forefront of his mind.

There were the bad ones like his traumatic childhood at the hands of his mother, and the good ones like the years he spent with his amazing father. Yet the worst memory that he’d kept deep inside his mind was when his father disappeared 12 years ago.

It was as if he’d disappeared from the world without any trace. He tried to find him after he graduated, to no avail. Yet he refused to believe him dead hence why he scoured the whole of America, up until he met her.

Catherine was the best part of his life, yet now, he wasn’t so sure. Memories of her now felt bleak, only leaving him confused the more he tried to find answers. However, the stillness of the void offered no solace to his racing mind. It only gave quiet, until existential dread overcame him.

His drifting soul quivered, the pressure undeniable. The once-still void turned aggressive as Callum felt his whole being about to be extinguished by an invisible entity.

Then a slit of white overcame the horizon. He didn’t even have the time to conjure a thought when it suddenly blinded him. The light was so immense it washed away the dread that came with it.

Shellshocked, Callum rapidly blinked his eyes to regain his vision. He felt his tired arms move to cover his face as he suddenly heard birds chirping above him.

As vision came back, he was met with an orange sky. Trees that weren't part of the clearing before now surrounded him.

He stood there for a few more seconds, stunned by the sudden stimuli, before he fell backward. It might not have been the best choice he made that day, as pain surged up his spine when he hit the ground, drawing a curse from his lips. But he couldn't do anything except fall, the grass beneath him stained crimson.

A chuckle left his mouth, which turned into pained laughter. Then it turned into a sob and tears streamed down his eyes, arms trying and failing to stop the flow.

The life that he had planned together with his bride-to-be was gone. His dream to start a family had turned to ash. The chance to see his children grow and go to university was thrown out the window. He was prepared to work his body to the bone to provide, and yet he was met with a knife stabbed in his back.

The pent-up frustration of the situation came with bouts of tears and whimpers. He was confused, angry, and sad that the life he’d built up had come crashing down.

Blood continued to flow out of his system. His body turned colder as his life slowly left him. The sound of his heartbeat grew quieter, and his body felt tired.

Years of work to find a trace of his father, the multiple times he caught the flu by overworking, rude customers, frustrating foremen, and unreasonable demands from managers. It was no wonder that he couldn’t keep up and had to take a month-long vacation, and yet everything life threw at him he conquered, and now he was forced to rest forever.

It could be a blessing. He doesn’t have to worry about his finances or what work he has to do tomorrow. He doesn’t have to think about what life would have in store for him. His only regret is his inability to live life to the fullest and achieve his dream. But it’s okay now, death’s embrace is coming soon enough.

Callum’s breath grew shallower. His skin had turned pale from the minuscule blood left in his body. His eyes had turned blurry, and it was hard to keep them open any longer. Only the slow beat of the darkness accompanied him, the sound of the outside turning into a muffle. It was different from the darkness before, yet as seconds went by, it grew familiar.

Bu-dum… Bu-dum…

His heart tried its hardest to beat with the limited resources it was given. However, death was inevitable. Callum couldn’t even move his body anymore, only left to feel his energy slip away.

Bu-dum…

He thought of his father, his friends, acquaintances, and every person he’d met through his journey, he remembered them as his mind flipped through his memories one final time.

Bu-dum…

He remembered his promises, his secrets, his most embarrassing moments.

Bu-dum…

Then, he remembered his time with Catherine, the good and the bad, and the betrayal that came with it.

Bu-dum…

‘I guess this is it.’ Callum thought.

The last of his energy left him, his body unmoving as he finally closed his eyes.

Bu-dum…

His heart took its last beat, Callum’s consciousness turning nil. The world turned dark and coldness coated his soul…

The call of the void once again beckoned him towards it. It grew louder, softer, quieter until he was only left in silence…

At least, it was supposed to.

Callum’s mind was still in full swing. His consciousness hasn't left him. If anything, he was more aware of his situation.

He could feel his chest constrict him. Muscles that he could control before are now ignoring him. He could feel the coldness creep in, and then, he could feel everything.

Callum’s conscious mind screamed as he felt every cell in his body. The sensation of thousands of minuscule specks of matter dying one by one was unbearable. He could feel the millions of strings of his clothing turn into razors, and any contact made with his skin was like small pinpricks of needles stuck in his flesh.

Not only that, but he was suffocating. His mind tried to swallow any air around him, yet his body was already beyond his control. He couldn’t even scream when the bacteria in his stomach started to eat him from the inside, and no matter how much he prayed for the Grim Reaper to come, he was only met with pain.

Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours. His body slowly decomposed yet his mind only grew sharper. He felt every nook and cranny, every blade of grass on his back, and the wind sweeping through the clearing he was in. He could feel it all.

Furthermore, his sense of hearing was beyond what he could handle. Every wisp of wind sounded like a hurricane, and the chirps of birds he heard before now sounded like loud whistles blown inside his head.

He was bombarded by sound for hours, the sensory overload too much for his feeble mind. Callum wasn’t even sure if he had been dead for days, weeks, or months. A question that was answered when the sun dipped below the horizon and the temperature of the clearing dropped.

When night came, the chill of the wind felt like ice picks. Without his body’s natural way of heating itself, he was left to feel its biting cold. Yet, even with the numbing pain, Callum was still beset with decomposition. His insides continued to eat themselves, and he felt his body begin to bloat from the trapped gases his stomach was producing.

The pain was excruciating, and Callum’s consciousness turned on and off throughout the evening. It was only when morning came that Callum had a moment of clarity until it came.

***

A crow watching from afar flew and landed next to him. Its black beady eyes examined his corpse, and it let out a caw. It waddled closer, flapped its wings to perch on his head, then pecked.

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It was like being hit by the point of a skyscraper, an explosion of pain ripped through Callum’s mind as his consciousness screamed. Yet his screams grew louder when the crow pecked once again.

Reasoning was destroyed when unimaginable pain consumed him. The crow took his left eyeball out, sending him reeling inside his mind. It burrowed deep within his head, taking bits of his brain as the crow savored its meal. The pain was akin to a migraine, the world spinning around him and turning upside down.

Yet, as if fate wasn’t done with him, other crows landed on his body and feasted.

At that moment, all Callum knew of was pain. The feeling of his brain being eaten was agonizing. He could feel himself being digested by multiple birds at once as the crows merrily ate his corpse. He was on the roller coaster of hell, and he was the only passenger.

It was hours later when the crows left, their appetite satisfied by the flesh his body provided. Callum’s mind was a jumbled mess for the next few hours. Any thought was scrambled after the hellish torture he went through.

One thing was for sure though, he now hates crows. The little shits have given him one hell of a ride through painland, and his clothes are ruined by their incessant pecking. They are monsters, the very picture of death incarnate. Yet, he can’t bring himself to fear death at this point. If anything, he fears pain.

The hours of pecking are like knives stabbing him. Any man would have lost their mind through the experience, and Callum wasn’t sure if he was completely sane either. However, he was still conscious.

After taking almost a day to compose himself, Callum assessed his situation as best he could.

He was dead. He was confident he was dead. He was left desecrated, and bits of his intestines were splayed on the grass next to him. Yet, he was still aware of his situation. He could still feel his cells decomposing by the second, but it was nothing to the pain of being eaten alive by a dozen crows.

He could hear the forest he was in. He could taste the blood in his mouth when the crows pecked his cheek open to bite his tongue. Though he couldn’t breathe, he could smell the pungent remains of his corpse.

In conclusion, Callum was still alive, in the sense that he had retained his consciousness inside his carcass for some unknowable reason.

The idea of being stuck inside his dead body threw Callum into the depths of despair. The more he thought about it, the more he felt fear grip his heart. However, no matter how hard he prayed, or will himself to wake from this nightmare, nothing happened.

It was then that he remembered the two people who were responsible for his predicament.

Catherine and Jake. They did something before he blacked out. The symbols that had seared themselves into his body were the culprits of his prison. He was sure of it.

Callum felt fury bubble within him. Thoughts of resentment took precedence as Callum spewed profanities into the air. He felt betrayed, and now, he was being tortured. He can’t even think of a reason why they would put him in this predicament, and that's what angers him the most.

No motives, no clues, not even a hint of what they were planning. It was as if they were replaced by someone who had taken their form, it was his only explanation. His mind felt hot as his anger continued to build up. He tried to find any answers and none came. His frustration grew, and he was on the brink of insanity.

Until a growl made its way through his rotten ear.

A pack of wolves have found themselves near him. Their snouts sniffed the air, hoping to find food for their kin. Lucky for them, they stumbled to the broken corpse of Callum, and unlucky for Callum, he had to go through another gauntlet of pain.

The leader was the first to take a bite, then howled to invite the others. Multiple wolves ate his flesh, his bones fractured from the might of their jaws. Teeth easily punctured meat and sinew. Callum was broken apart as each wolf stuffed their stomach with his flesh.

His right leg was torn away from his torso, and both his arms were nothing but bone. In the depths of his mind, he was screaming. He could feel the acid of their stomachs dissolve him from within, flesh further broken through digestion. After the feast, the wolves continued their journey, and he was once again left in a much worse state.

Callum’s mind was on the verge of madness. The pain of being eaten was beyond being pecked by birds. He could still feel parts of his flesh being taken through the forest, most likely the meal for their pups.

During their feast, Callum thought of his life and what decisions led him here. However, the only ones responsible for his death were the two people from before. The anger in his heart was then nurtured through the pain, letting him keep his mind sane through hell.

However, now that there weren’t any sensations other than his decomposition, Callum could focus his thoughts. This is his new life now, maybe one day he’ll see the pearly gates that lead to heaven. Even purgatory would suffice if it meant freedom from his bodily coils. However, the sting of little canines digesting him left him wondering if he’ll ever get the rest he needs. At least he gets to feed the local wildlife with his body.

***

Days went by as Callum recuperated. He learned to muffle his senses to give his tired mind the rest it needs. He kept his thoughts floating, not focusing on one of them. After all, it would only lead to an hour-long train of guesswork and anger. Not even the maggots born from his decomposing body broke his focus.

As this happened, Callum’s mental energy was slowly replenished, the days of torment from being stabbed in the back, pecked by birds, and eaten by wolves left his psyche battered and abused. And his rest was long overdue. However, he can’t keep himself fully asleep.

The feeling of his flesh rotting kept him awake, and the thoughts grew louder as his mental energy refilled. After weeks of trying to be catatonic, Callum finally focused on the loudest train of thought circling his mind

What’s with those symbols?

Before dying, Callum was put in some sort of painful ritual. The symbols burrowed their way into his flesh and bones, burning him in the process.

Magic comes to mind when he thinks about it. There was nothing on Earth that could conjure a light show out of thin air without any equipment—unless there was some new technology he wasn’t aware of. However, the pain he felt doesn’t add up. No gadget or contraption could magically create lights that could enter his body without leaving any scars. So, the only conclusion he could reach was that it must be magic.

The thought of magic being real excited him. But where would he even start? The idea of magic is fantastic, sure. However, deep down, he can’t fully believe it. Magic was only something you see in videos and movies. It comes up in fiction.

There are magicians on Earth, but they use tricks and sleight of hand to entertain the masses. He knows of a couple of magic tricks too, but they can’t manifest symbols of light that could brand a person’s flesh and bones.

However, being stuck inside his own body could be magic of its own. It’s one explanation, but this is death. He doesn’t know what happens after death. Well, he didn’t know, until now—unless it was those symbols that kept him from truly dying.

I hope it was those symbols that kept me from moving on to the afterlife. I hate to think that everyone who dies would go through this.

A shiver ran through his metaphorical spine as he thought of the millions of people who get cremated each year. Thinking more on the subject, it might be better since it means they won’t have to go through the slow process of decomposition inside their casket.

Callum metaphorically shook his head to derail that train of thought, coming back to the idea of magic, lest he spirals into a morbid rabbit hole.

The image of his ex-lover flashed before his eyes, a moment of anger bubbling up inside him. But his heart was left confused when he remembered her crying during his demise.

What the hell did I do?

***

Weeks went by as Callum’s body continued to break down. He didn’t have a choice in the matter, and the flies born out of him were a minor irritation after getting used to it. He has been dead for more than a month, and a couple of discoveries have been made during this time.

One is his awareness of his surroundings. He can see the world in a black-and-white sphere around him. He deduced that his mind was trying to process the overbearing amount of sound he was being buffeted, letting him “see” through sound.

Not only that, but he found out that after being eaten and digested — a process which is wholly unpleasant to feel— he won’t be able to sense his digested parts. This meant that after multiple years, his consciousness would be long gone.

Though, it would be decades before his last wisp of thought was extinguished. But at least, he won’t be an unmoving dead immortal that would feel every bit of his being turned into compost. The idea may seem too bleak for everyone else, but Callum would take that rather than spending god knows how long as a skeleton.

His second discovery was his imagination. He found himself easily creating a mindscape of his own making. The scenic view of his friend’s farm he used to work at in Italy became his blueprint.

Frosted mountains covered the horizon with rolling green hills filling the expanse around him. Since the forest he’s in looks like it’s in the middle of spring, his mindscape is bathed in perpetual sunrise, flowers adorning his surroundings.

He thought keeping count of the years through the seasons would at least keep him grounded as much as possible, the plan is that each season would relate to a time of day inside Callum’s mindscape; morning for spring, noon for summer, afternoon for fall, and evening for winter.

In this world he created, he was free. He could live here until the last vestiges of himself were consumed by the outside world. However, it isn’t perfect. There are times when he would be brought back to reality from sudden pain. With his body still being feasted on by insects and other critters of the forest, escape from reality became impossible.

However, his third and last discovery at least gave him some things to watch outside. It was this discovery that gave him a rope to hang onto before he fell into the abyss called insanity. It was so unbelievable that he denied it the first time, even after the experience he’d gone through. But the scene in front of him told him otherwise...

A hare hopped in his periphery, its head adorned with antlers that branched out from its base. A creature that was only said in myths and legends. A jackalope in the flesh, and it's nibbling the grass just at the border of his senses.

Seeing the creature made Callum warm. It had been weeks since he was thrown into a hell pit of pain and despair. However, seeing something so innocent calmed him.

It’s like watching one of those cat videos on the internet, a pastime he did a lot when he had free time working as a store clerk. Yet, discovering the mythological rabbit isn’t his biggest discovery. It was the possibility of what it entails.

Magic and mythical creatures aren’t something known on Earth. It’s something impossible that couldn’t happen. However, that isn’t the case when it’s from another world.

Callum knows of a couple of books and shows having plots about his predicament. A protagonist is called to another world to save it from some demon lord. Another possibility is some LitRPG where a system suddenly integrated their world into the multiverse. On the other hand, it could be some cultivation universe where cultivators and immortals exist to defy the heavens. These ideas would be cool if it were true… But he can’t really experience having supernatural powers if he’s a decomposing husk of rotten matter.

Sighing, Callum went back into his mindscape. At least he could imagine himself conjuring flames out of thin air. Although, that’s all he could do for now. He can’t imagine the fire moving away. If anything, it consumed his arm until he was lit aflame. Yet, he can’t feel himself burn even if he imagines it to be as hot as it possibly can. It might be his mind trying to shield him from further inflicting more pain on his soul, or he’s just so used to feeling pain that being burnt didn’t even register.

Taking a deep breath, Callum extinguished the flames and tried again. However, no matter how hard he tries to picture the fire flying out from his palms, it keeps getting stuck to his arm. His psyche has been drilled to imagine fire acting as fire. Even if he created it out of thin air, the moment it was born, the very nature of fire only capable of burning and spreading was the only thing in his mind. Earth has conditioned him that fire can’t be hurled with bare hands. It needs oxygen, fuel, and heat for it to come alive.

Does my world even have oxygen in it?

The moment his question was put into thought, the fire in his hands was extinguished, which caused him to sigh once more.

“I guess I need to keep practicing my imagination.”

Looking to the horizon, he could see the mountain peaks shift once in a while. Focusing on it would lead him to stand at its top, ruining the landscape he’d conjured. It’s like a dream he can’t control.

He never was good at trying lucid dreaming no matter how much research he did or what tricks he tried. Resetting his mindscape meant going outside to his deceased corpse, so Callum looked at the hills instead.

The next few years of his life would be spent in his mind, and observing the wildlife. Of course, he’d have to deal with the pain, though he has no way of controlling that.

Thinking about the past won’t do him any good. It’s painful enough to know that his life would be spent rotting on the earth, any mental pain would just leave him broken.

A sad look adorned his face. Memories of his life could be forgotten, but he can’t do anything about it. All Callum could do was continue his imaginary practice.

Conjuring another flame on his palm, Callum thrust it forward. It didn’t leave his hand, yet he was determined to make it. This would be his new normal, whether he liked it or not.