Void…

    The absence of everything. Which sounds like that in itself would be something. This feeling was of true void. It was more akin to a blackout. A hollowness that sits inside you and clamors to your brain that something is supposed to go here. It was that feeling after waking up and you can’t remember where you are or how you got there. Or how time passed so quickly when you slept and yet you remember none of it. Void was the lack of existence itself. Void was all I knew. 

    Then there was… something. A sense of feeling. It was as if time were relevant again. Time slowly tried to assert its inexorable will upon my being. Tried, and failed. Like oil trying to mix with water. Touching me but unable to become one with my person. Then it smashed around me like my body had been submerged in ice and frozen solid.

    My mind stirred slowly awake. Gears that felt like they had never turned before started to spin wildly. I experienced something else for the first time, pain. All around me felt so cold that it burned for an infinite amount of time. I tried to move away, to be rid of this sensation that fried the edges of my being.

    Then I became aware of a new sensation. Sound reached my head for the first time. Then another sound reached me. Two separate sounds bounced inside of me for a short time and I tried and failed to understand what was happening. I had no knowledge to understand anything that was happening to me. No foundation to fall back upon to piece together what this was. I felt like a blank slate being written on for the first time. No comprehension or core memories to fall back and explain the phenomena going on around and to me. Just a consciousness trying to figure out what was happening to me.

    All of a sudden my surroundings fell silent and the pain stopped. Knowledge flooded into my head. I experienced data, feelings, and thoughts. The experiences of what felt like 10 years was forcefully shoved into my brain and I was made to understand. My mind went from a newly born babe to a teenager in the span of an instant.

    A sharp crack resounded in my ears and felt like it would push that knowledge away. I grasped onto that knowledge, however, like a drowning man. The experience given to me solidified and sank into my being and I felt it become ingrained in me. I felt a slight warmth encapsulate my head. Something slid slowly off of my wet head. I opened my eyes for the first time in my life. And was greeted by a skull gazing at me.

    My shocked mind mechanically took in the details and I soaked in one of the most fascinating sights of my life. A black skull, one so heavily accented in gold that it was hard to tell which one was the original color. Purple eyes, surrounded by midnight skin, pierced into my own. The skull was framed by two braids of hair, one black and the other gold. I then spoke the first words of my life.

    “Why is your skull outside your face?” I said, voice tinged with worry. As the knowledge that I possessed told me that this was not normal at all.

    The eyes widened and silence reigned. Then the skull let out a feminine peal of laughter as her eyes scrunched up and she folded over her belly.  A robe that was underneath a mix of scale and plate armor adorned her body.  I also noticed that the rest of her armor and robes matched her skull with black with gold etchings.

    “I think we can keep him,” she called out melodically. “He seems to have no recollection of anything.” Her eyes grew even more intense before she spoke again. “Although his body doesn’t seem to be necessarily new… Strange.”

    “Strange indeed.” A new, masculine voice sounded, “Many strange marvels have occurred at this Matronage Ceremony. I am glad it was so fortuitous.”

    I looked for the man that was speaking directly behind me. Well, I tried to at least. I found my body unable to move. The reason behind this was that I was encased in red and white ice, completely. My face seemed to be the only thing outside of the ice.

    This prompted me to finally see the surroundings. We seemed to be in the middle of the cosmos. A kaleidoscope of colors greeted my eyes in a dazzling array of beauty. I felt the need to explore it so its secrets would be mine to know, awakening something within me. The desire was so intense that it forced me to look down. Upon looking down I saw that we were in the middle of a large caldera looking out upon a serene lake. A frozen lake… with two dead people. Their faces screaming in tortured agony.

    There was a man and a woman side by side, kneeling and looking in our direction. The man wore a full set of extremely battered plate armor, painted deep crimson with white etchings throughout it. He was half frozen, his helm crushed and tossed to the side to reveal his face. His large head was shriveled up and looked comically small upon his large frame. The fact that the ice had frozen him was the only reason the armor stayed together. Two spears of bloodied ice jutted from his eye sockets. The top and back of his skull were similarly sporting ice spears.

    My eyes moved to the woman’s corpse, also on both knees next to the man’s. The woman’s robes were a frosty blue and had red markings in a similar design to the man’s white markings. It was scorched and torn to where large chunks of her flesh looked charred and melted away. The hood of her robes were thrown back and atop her body was a perfectly bleached skull. More disturbing than the slack jawed look of the skull was the neck that was not bone, but still flesh and blood. That was, until  you reached a line of cauterized flesh just below the jawline.

    The male voice behind me coughed abruptly, shocking me out of my staring. “Ahem… Sorry for such a gruesome first sight after awakening. Let us introduce ourselves.”

    My frozen capsule abruptly whirled around to face the male speaker. I was able to see a fully armored being with a similar black and gold color scheme to the woman I had first seen. The armor’s pauldrons and gauntlets were thick, well carved pieces that he carried with ease. A flowing black material laced with gold ran under his armored upper body and flowed down and around his waist to just above the ankles. It was open in the front to show matching heavy greaves and boots.

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    My gaze traveled back up his body to see his head was also a deep black skull, though more subtly lined in gold. On this skull sat an ornate crown with the tips rising above his head like slender spikes. Deep blue, slanted fiery eyes peered from the skull.

    I heard a rustle behind me and the woman from before seemed to float down beside the man. She interlocked her hand in his and they both slightly bowed their heads to me.

    “I am Autumnal Matron Alyx,” the woman solemnly recited. “And this is my newly wed spouse.”

    “Arch Lich Maximus, a pleasure to meet you,” he stated with a curious tone. It was as though I were a new discovery and held secrets that he wished to unlock.

    “Thank you, my name is…” I started to reply automatically, only to have my brain short circuit. The knowledge I had gained made me think that I needed to respond in kind but I had no name to give. I couldn’t remember or think of one. I reached for one and felt nothing but void.

    “My apologies. I sensed a great deal of distress from you earlier, but when I attempted to commune with you I received only an emotion of confusion. Like that of a newborn who is first discovering life. I gifted you the knowledge that a young adult of human descent on an ungifted world would have. I figured it wouldn’t be too much information as I use it on many of my bipedal undead to make them more useful but it seems as if your consciousness may still be processing it.”

     He tapped his gauntleted finger against his chin as if thinking. My immobilized body was moved forward towards him so that he could scrutinize me better. I felt slightly uncomfortable being so close to such an intense looking figure. Especially since it seemed as though my life was held easily in the palm of his hand.

    “It seems that you have also been encased in the blood of the two celestials back there, for some reason unknown to me. We just found you in one of their dimensional storage containers, however…” He trailed off to ponder momentarily. 

    “I do have a theory as to why you may be encased in such a prison. I also feel like I know why you may be such a blank slate of a being yet also look to be a prime youth of your homeworld.” He gave Alyx a questioning glance to which she nodded back. His skull snapped back to me. Causing me to try and flinch, unsuccessfully.

    “However, I would like to research it a bit more first. As I would hate to overwhelm you any more so soon after what seems to be a reawakening.” He became suddenly serious as he focused back upon my face with great intensity. 

    “Do you really have no memories before now?” His blue eyes flared as he brought my face to within inches of his own.

    “I’ve…” I searched furiously for a time before now, only to meet the great void that was my absence of existence before now. I felt like I would have shuddered but I couldn’t even do that in my current bindings.

    “No… there’s… nothing… Just a void.”

    The Arch Lich nodded and seemed pleased with how I had answered. He moved my body back a bit. I felt as if I was out from under the shadow of a hunting predator. This man set off instincts in my very DNA that warned me of danger.

    More so than the fact that he had a skull for a face, or was it a mask like the woman’s? I realized that she was wearing one after my consciousness finally pieced together the fact that skin did not grow under a skull, at least to my knowledge. The Arch Lich interrupted my train of thoughts as he began speaking again.

    “I have placed your form in a state of stasis so that the ice around you does not begin melting and absorbing into your skin. It seems to be celestial blood, given to you so that your body may absorb its latent power. No doubt it’s from both of the dead celestials who lay in the middle of the lake.”

    The gruesome deaths behind me flashed back into the forefront of my brain. Alyx turned towards Maximus and sounded concerned.

    “Does this mean that they were that close?”

    “It seems so, we were extremely fortunate to have found them before they had taken the next step.” He gave her another look with that emotionless mask of midnight and gold before continuing. I did not like the way this conversation was going and dread built in my heart.

    “This process, while giving you immense power, would be extremely painful to someone with such a new consciousness. It would sunder your very mind to pieces. You would then be nothing more than a husk with immense power at your fingertips.”

    The more I learned about this prison I was held in, the more I began to feel confined and fearful of it. Was that what the original pain that I had felt upon being awoken to this world? Why would celestials, which my mind told me to associate with gods, want to do this to me? What was I? Was this thing even telling me the truth?

    Questions began to spew from my lips as a sudden desire to KNOW filled me. I had to fill the void within me that I feared so much. Knowledge seemed to be the best way to do this as my head clamored to know the workings of this place as it seemed all that I knew was the most basic versions of everything.

    The man held up a hand as if to stall my tide of unending questions and he laughed. However, even I noticed him become concerned when my desperate questions seemed to intensify. I couldn’t help it. I needed to know that I wouldn’t be reduced to nothing in this prison. Especially after glimpsing such a beautiful sky out there. I wanted to know all there was so that this void could be filled. And suddenly my face froze except for my eyes and the words died in my throat.

    “Ah, it seems like you are having a bit of a meltdown now. I should have expected this and tried to be a bit more gentle. Now I am going to put you in a certain sleeplike state. I will, however, make sure to have dreams running for you so that you never feel like you were before you… became aware. This should help calm you and I shall also throw some educational value into them. Old nursery rhymes and other such things to teach you morals and hopefully help you find your own personality.”

    The manic desire seemed to slow a bit more as I thought that this would be just what I needed. A time to adjust and learn. A time to fill this void in the core of my being that wanted, demanded, that I fill it.

    “I will also give you time to digest these things so that your consciousness truly learns from this. We shall see each other again soon. Until then, good night.” As he finished speaking he gave me a farewell wave of his hand. My overwhelmed mind was gratefully put to sleep.