Darkness.
It's the kind of nothing that presses down on you, suffocating, as if you've fallen through the cracks of reality itself. I don't feel my body. I don't feel anything. Just this heavy, oppressive weight, as though the world has forgotten me entirely.
It's not loud, but it surrounds me. Inside me, around me, vibrating through the emptiness. I try to speak, but there's nothing to speak with. No mouth. No voice.
"You must be confused," the voice says, smooth and cold, echoing through the void. "That is… understandable."
I can't see anything. Not yet. But I can feel something—an unsettling presence, standing just out of reach, watching me, waiting for me.
I want to ask what's going on, but I can't move. I can't think. "Where am I?" I think.
"This is where you are," the voice replies.
I try to speak, but my voice doesn't come out. Only the thought, but it's too loud, too raw, like I'm shouting through the silence.
"Don't bother," the voice continues, its tone almost mocking. "You cannot speak the way you once did. You are… less now. Just a fragment. A lost thing."
I don't understand, but I'm starting to get it. I'm dead. I don't have a body. I don't have a voice. I don't even have thoughts of my own anymore—just this… thing, watching over me. But it's almost like I don't care. I don't have the energy to care.
"So what now?" I finally manage to think, the words heavy in my mind.
"Now?" The voice purrs, almost taunting. "Now, you have… options."
"Options?" I ask, my mind struggling to grasp the meaning.
"Yes," the voice replies with eerie calm. "You have a choice. You can go where you are supposed to go, or you can choose another path. But that choice is not simple."
I fall silent, the weight of those words pressing down on me, heavier than the darkness itself. "What do you mean?"
"No, never mind," the creature says, as if reconsidering. "I couldn't do that to you. I shouldn't have even considered it."
"Wait, please," I plead, my voice shaking as the memory of my father's face floods back. "If there's a way I can go back… find out why my father killed me… and stop him… I'll do it."
The creature's mouth twists into a wide, unnerving smile, sending an icy shiver down my spine. "If I recall correctly," it hums, "you wanted to die, didn't you? Did he not just help you?"
I hesitate, the words catching in my throat. "That was before all this," I say slowly, my voice faltering. "Something's obviously wrong. He wouldn't do this without a reason."
The creature's smile widens, its voice dripping with a mix of amusement and something darker. "Ah, but that is the question, isn't it? What is his reason? What was his true purpose in all of this? How far would you go to uncover the truth?"
"I'll do anything," I exclaim, my voice trembling with desperation. "Anything to understand why he did this, to make it right."
"I can send you back before your death," the creature said, its voice cold. "But that's all. Don't expect more."
I clenched my nonexistent fists, my voice breaking as I whispered "Please send me back"
The creature smiles, its grin stretching unnervingly wide. "Very well, then" the words dripping with cold amusement.
The creature's smile widens, and with a flick of its fingers, the darkness around me shudders. "Good luck," it murmurs, before everything goes black once more.
I awoke back into the world, but something was horribly wrong. I couldn't move my limbs. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Disoriented, I looked around. The walls seemed too high, too close. My vision was blurry, but then I saw it—the bars of a crib surrounding me.
My heart—or whatever was left of it—stopped. The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.
I wasn't in my own body.
I was in my baby brother's.