Silence.
It was the first thing Leo became aware of when he opened his eyes.
Or at least, he tried to open his eyes.
No way to know for sure.
Darkness extended infinitely in all directions, thick and suffocating. It weighed down on him like something that didn't exist, covering him, overwhelming him. No light, no shapes, no shadows.
Nothing.
He took a step forward—at least, he thought he did. But nothing. No noise from his footsteps, no noise from his breathing.
He pounded the ground harder.
And nothing.
Leo's heart was pounding in his chest, but even that made no noise. The silence was suffocating, crawling into his head like some secret stalker.
"Where am I?"
His voice didn't resonate. It didn't ring out. The words in his mind formed perfectly, but when he attempted to pronounce them, his lips moved, but no sound came.
Panic threatened to burst in his chest, but he pushed it back. He had lived through worse. He had fought, bled, and suffered through death's hold too many times to shatter here.
There had to be an exit.
There had to be.
With stubborn determination, he took a step. And another.
Then he started to run.
He did not know where he was going. Forward, backward—did those words even exist in the emptiness? His legs continued on, his arms moving, but without sound, without sight, it was impossible to tell if he was moving at all.
But he would not quit.
Days passed.
At least, it felt like days.
Without light, without noise, without means of measuring the passage of time, all blended together. Sleep meant nothing—if he slept. There was never hunger, never thirst, but a hollow emptiness building in his belly informed him that more time had passed here than any man should ever be able to survive.
Nevertheless, he gazed.
There was no wind against his skin. No ground beneath his feet—only a hard, unyielding surface that was neither warm nor cool.
There was only the odor.
It was thick and suffocating, like rotting flesh left outside in the sun to decay for days. It clung to his skin, filled his lungs, burned his nostrils. But even that was unchanging. It didn't shift or fade—it just existed.
The emptiness yielded nothing but that terrible, choking stench.
He had no idea for how long.
Weeks?
Months?
Years?
At first, he'd tried to keep track. In his head, he'd repeat numbers, trying to have some kind of measure on time. But the numbers started to muddy, lose themselves, slide away into the boundless darkness.
Memories became more tenuous.
At first, he could still see their faces.
His classmates. His family. His home.
The world he'd known.
But the further he walked, the harder it was to recall the details. The voices faded, faces blurred. They vanished one by one, like grains of sand slipping through his fingers.
What was he searching for, anyway?
He knew there was something.
Something important.
But the thought was a rumor in a hurricane, lost before he could grasp it.
And yet, he kept walking.
Because what else could he do?
What was he?
That was something else that began to slip away from him. His name—what was it? It had meant something, hadn't it? But no matter how he tried to recall it, there was nothing.
Time passed eternally.
A hundred years? A thousand?
There was no way to know.
Finally, he stopped walking.
There was nothing. No destination. No difference.
Why keep going?
Had he ever gone at all?
Had he always existed here?
Was there even a before?
Had he ever lived anywhere but this nothing?
The thoughts flashed in his mind, distant and indistinct.
Until—
A warmth.
Something soft brushed his cheek.
A sensation so strange, so alien in this empty space that his body stiffened at the contact.
A sound followed.
A soft, wet sound. Something he had forgotten long ago.
Then—light.
A faint, flickering light.
His eyelids—when had he last blinked?—opened.
A golden glow. Small, tentative. Warm.
His vision wavered, indistinct. A throb thudded dully within his head.
Something pushed into his chest—a small, warm, living shape.
A whimper. Muffled.
He twitched, his hands spasming into fists. The alien movement of his own body—the response of his own limbs—felt remote.
Another sound.
The damp contact stroked across his cheek a second time. A tongue.
Slowly, slowly, he turned his head.
Golden eyes stared into his.
A white-furred little animal, the fur shuddering minutely, pressed its face against his.
The boy blinked.
His head was empty.
No memories.
No past.
Nothing but the warmth of the small creature against him and the shattered remnants of a mirror in the earth