"Is anybody here?" Neal's cry pierced the eerie silence, frustration oozing from every syllable as he grappled with the uncertainty of his surroundings.

After narrowly escaping the clutches of savage beasts, relief turned to dread as he found himself engulfed in a shapeless void, where darkness swallowed him whole, leaving him struggling to discern even his own form.

"Hello!"

He shouted in a pant, his voice filled with desperation.

Suddenly, under his feet came hands, scrambling for his legs as their razor-sharp claws clung to his feet, tearing his skin; sludge liquid was crawling down his feet, while the metallic tang of blood hung heavy in the air, assaulting his senses with a sickening wave of nausea and dread.

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Terrified by the beast still chasing after him, Neal screamed; his scream reverberated off the walls of the void, a primal cry of anguish and fear.

A patter of footsteps shattered the oppressive silence, and a light emanated from the right and left sides of Neal. It was like a ray of light from an unknown street light, granting Neal a fleeting sense of direction in the formless void.

Before and behind him, darkness loomed, an oppressive force threatening to swallow him whole. But to his left and right, the light beckoned, promising refuge from the encroaching shadows. Neal felt adrift, suspended between realms, lost in a space between light and dark.

In the upper left corner, Neal saw a grand old-fashioned clock. He watched the minute hand ticking with furrowed brows, wondering why the clock was there and its purpose.

When the clock ticked on twelve, it chimed, and people, dressing in all black, began to run out of darkness; they looked like shadows. Vehicles materialized from one side of the light and whizzed down the other side.