"Please. Remember me." Said the eyes in the shadows.

John couldn't say a thing in response. All he could do was look into one set of the many eyes that filled the sky.

John's face was pale, his heart was thumping in his chest with enough force to shatter his ribcage and his eyes stung with tears.

~Something. Anything. Give me a way to escape.~

John didn't know how. And he didn't know why. But suddenly, he was on his feet.

Before him was a long hallway lit by the occasional floating blue-white orb. Behind John as a wall of those same eyes he had seen while frozen.

"Remember."

John began to run. Or at least he moved at a pace that he thought was a run. It was really just a slightly fast walk.

"Remember. Remember. Remember. Remember." The wall murmured.

John could do nothing but speed walk forwards. The wall slowly squirmed towards John. Somehow it was only slightly faster than John's speed walk.

"Remember. Remember. Remember."

All John could do was stagger in response to the sound. He couldn't run. He was too heavy.

Pretty soon, the wall was touching his bum.

"Remember."

Heart thumping… Lungs shivering. Body quivering. All John could do was stagger. He was in pain. But all he could do was stagger.

The wall was touching his back.

Then, it was touching the back of his head. Then, half his body.

~Pleasenopleasenopleasenopleasenopleaseno~

The start and end of words began to bend as terror-built thoughts filled John's mind.

Then, the shadow immersed him.

.

…

...

...…

John floated in pure darkness. He saw nothing. He felt nothing. There was no sensation other than weightlessness. It was true dark.

"Son….." Spoke a voice from within the shadows.

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"Remember. The cellar. The test."

"NO!"

John screamed.

"Re—————" And before John could say another word.

The dream shattered.

.

…

...

John held a book in a white traced-out hand.

He was in a familiar library. One with empty shelves. A convently sized chair. And a blank oak table.

~What is this?~

John looked down at himself. Below him was the shape of his body. But it was not his body. It lacked the colour. The shades. The life. He was just a traced-out black-and-white image.

"Wait….You….. You look like someone from a dream."

John turned his head to the voice.

Standing before him was a bald woman covered in scars. She was completely nude.

"But I remember you. You're the fat man." Said the woman

"Are you dying in your sleep?"

"I'm dying?"

The woman jumped at least three meters into the air.

"HOLY MACARONIE WACKAMOLE KING GEORGE THE THIRD!"

"How the heck can you speak? You should be dreaming! You should be sleeping! Sleeping minds shouldn't be able to process things!" The woman yelled

John simply squinted. Or did the equivalent of a squint, it's a bit different when your eyes are just circles.

"I don't know. But am I dying?" Asked John

"Yes, John. As you are right now. You're going to die. Do you have more of that Green light to save you?" Asked the woman.

John simply continued to squint.

"Maybe? I don't know."

"Maybe you should just put that book down. End the pai——"

Things flickered with darkness.

Then John was out of the library.

.

…

...

"John was in darkness. And in this darkness, he could hear the sound of a trumpet."

"Once long, long ago. There was perfection. And perfection can be defined in one simple phrase. sloth. This Sloth was loved by all of the nothingness. Then came the flickering, fluttering transient evil. Then came BlifeB. And with life came an even greater sin. Dilligence. It was a sin, forever evil. A sin unforgivable."

The darkness flickered.

And before John was a young girl. She wore a green sundress. She was deathly pale and had circles around her eyes that were so dark that they almost looked painted on.

"So Sloth made a noose. A beautiful rope that was tight always close to death. One that would create true BslothB. Put the book down, John. Drop it. Let it fall and let your soul fly free."

John simply looked at sloth

The trumpets grew louder. They grew to a dissonant cacophony of sound. They cut at John's ears. And they brought back flickering images of a time he had mailed to the future.

"Let it fall. Or you will suffer."

Bubbling through John's mind was something unforgivable. Something truly incorrigible. Bubbling in John's mind was an urge.

No.

So much had happened. John had almost forgotten about it. But that desire was still there.

"Maybe one day. But I have to meet my mother first."

Sloth smiled.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

...….

Sensation. It was something that was woven into every part of every person's life. It was something that most people couldn't do without.

And it was something that in this moment. John positively loathed.

His bones hurt. His eyes hurt. His brain hurt. His lips hurt. The tips of his toes hurt. Everything. Every last piece of John was covered in pain. Pain more searing than the sun. More massive than a galaxy. Pain more complex than causality.

It was sheer agony of the highest degree.

But it was also kind of peaceful.

Because the pain was everything, there wasn't the usual humdrum of a human mind. There was just agony. Silently and endlessly burning.

Time passed.

John wasn't sure if that time was years, minutes or days.

But regardless. Time passed.

{Skill gained!: Human constitution}

The pain melted.

John was lying there in his bed.

Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.

~This new world. The world that the apocalypse has made. It's all too much.~

The memories. The trumpets. The pain…

John wasn't sure if he could take it all.

But he was here. And he would have, too after all, that was his life's mantra.

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