Vaeliyan felt the stream flowing around him, cool currents wrapping over his skin as his mind began to slow. The steady rush of water beca a constant hum in the background, a rhythm that seeped into his bones, deeper than breath. Each ripple against him was distinct, as if the world had been distilled into this single sensation, the night air crisp and almost tangible. Above, the starlight hung motionless, frozen in a perfect, impossible stillness. It wasn’t the world that had slowed, it was his thoughts, slipping into a strange, deep cadence where each mont stretched and breathed like it had all the ti in existence.
Then he was gone, drawn inward without warning. The stream, the adow, the night, they peeled away like layers of old paint, curling back to reveal the raw, unguarded self beneath. When he found himself again, it was as Warren. Even in that shape, he was falling. Downward. Deeper. He plunged past his monster, its massive, looming presence twisting in the void like a shadow cast across a fire that burned without light. But that wasn’t the end. There was no bottom. He kept falling, through layer after layer of himself, each one thinner, frailer, as though they were husks he had to slip past. They broke and drifted away as he fell further still.
And then he was no more.
There was nothing. Not darkness, darkness had weight, shape, presence. This was absence in its purest form, an infinite hollow without sound or substance. No air to fill his lungs. No ground to brace against. No current of ti to asure his passing. He didn’t even feel himself breathing. If he still had a body, it was lost to this emptiness. There was no up or down, no sense of self except for the lingering awareness that sothing had been here before and was now gone.
Then, sothing stirred.
It was soft. Squishy. And it was hungry. The hunger was simple at first, a dull ache without thought, but it carried a persistence that could not be ignored. It knew nothing of patience; hunger was its only truth. It did not see, not with eyes, but it sensed in ways more primal, tracing the faint warmth of life through scent, through subtle vibrations in the nothingness. It shifted, sluggishly at first, curling and uncurling with small, testing motions as though the act of moving itself was still new.
The hunger did not plan. It did not sche. It only grew. It sought what it needed the way rain finds a hollow to fill, without question, without hesitation. There was an instinctive greed in its nature, a need to consu and turn what it took into itself. It would take the warmth, the life, the substance, and make them its own. And as it stirred in the void, those impulses tangled with sothing almost human, a need to grow, to change, to beco more than the helpless thing it had been. To survive was to feed, and to feed was to live. It would stretch itself toward the source, and if the source resisted, it would only cling tighter, until the resistance stopped and there was nothing left but the quiet fullness of a successful al.
The space around it seed to pulse with its need, the emptiness folding inward as though drawn toward this small, relentless will. The scent of food was close now, almost touching. And with every mont, the soft, squishy thing’s movents beca more certain, more determined, as if its hunger was not rely an urge but the law that governed its existence.
The thing was soft and helpless, its form pliable and unshaped, built for nothing but taking in what it was given. It could not move with purpose, only shift weakly in the void, barely more than a tremor that might not have been noticed by anything beyond itself. It could not hunt. It could not flee. Its entire existence was defined by waiting and calling, sending out its need into the emptiness, a wordless plea carried on faint vibrations, a soundless cry that sohow pressed against the air, or whatever served as air here, like ripples pushing outward from the smallest drop in still water.
It thought, but not in the way of spoken words or deliberate reasoning. Its mind moved in shapes, sensations, and the cause-and-effect truths that defined its world. Hunger was the first truth it had ever known, but that hunger was wrapped in sothing else, sothing that clung like warmth and lingered long after feeding. The one it cried for was not simply a provider. This was not a cold exchange of need and supply. The presence was more than a figure that delivered sustenance; it was an anchor, a constant, sothing it understood as the center of its small universe. To the soft, squishy thing, this presence was as steady as a heartbeat, as certain as breath. It hovered at the edges of awareness, not defined by sight or sound, but by the rush of relief that ca with its arrival, the way the ache lted away as if it had never been there.
It knew the rhythm: the emptiness that began as a dull throb, the slow sharpening of that ache as ti passed, and then, presence. Warmth. Sustenance. The aching void inside would fill, and in those monts the world, as small as it was, felt whole again. It did not question the nature of the bond or wonder why it existed. To it, there was no separation. The presence was part of itself; the sa way breath was part of life. It called because calling brought the presence, and the presence answered because that was the order of things.
Its calls carried more than need, they carried trust. They were not frantic or panicked, but steady, insistent, certain that the answer would co. Sowhere out there, the one it belonged to would hear it, and would arrive, bringing warmth, balance, and fullness. And so, it called again, sending its need outward into the emptiness, the silent vibration reaching for sothing unseen. It did not know how far away the answer was or how long it would take, only that it would co. And in that certainty, there was a strange sort of peace, the peace of knowing the world would always tilt toward that mont when hunger gave way to comfort.
All the soft, squishy thing could do was eat and rest. That was the rhythm of its existence: consu what was given, sink back into stillness, and wait until the next call for sustenance rose from deep inside. Every need it had was t without question, without hesitation, by the presence that watched over it. Warmth arrived when it was cold, comfort wrapped around it when it ached, and food ca the instant hunger gnawed too deeply to ignore. It did not need to struggle or strain, for struggle was a concept it had never known. The world it understood was small, safe, and entirely full.
It grew to love the presence, not with fleeting affection, but with a deep, wordless certainty that reached into the very core of its being. This was the constant, the anchor that held its small world together. The answer to every call, the quiet shape at the heart of its existence. The presence was not simply there; it was woven into the squishy thing’s sense of self, as if they shared the sa breath, as if the presence’s continued being was as vital as its own heartbeat. In monts of fullness, it would drift into rest knowing that the presence would be there again when needed, as dependable as the cycles of hunger and relief.
In the quiet spaces between calls and feeding, it began to notice sothing new. At first, it was only faint, like a whisper buried beneath layers of stillness, but the sound grew more distinct with each passing cycle. They were other calls, voices not the sa as its own, yet carrying a rhythm and tone it recognized instinctively. There were others like itself. Their needs reached outward into the sa emptiness, their voices threading through the silence like strands of a web, connecting unseen points together. It could almost feel the shape of them in the spaces between calls, the subtle vibrations of their presence brushing against its own awareness. Each call was different, so higher and sharp with urgency, others low and drawn, as if weary. All of them were familiar in a way that stirred sothing deep inside.
These were not intrusions. They did not threaten the comfort or certainty it knew. Instead, they were curiosities, new points of light in the small universe it occupied. It felt them not through sight or touch, but through a shared resonance, a low hum of understanding that whispered of saness. Each call carried sothing it understood, the hunger, the trust, the certainty that soone would answer. And in recognizing this, the small thing began to understand a truth it had never considered before: it was not alone.
It rested between feedings, letting the sound of those other calls seep deeper into its awareness. Sotis they rose in a chorus, overlapping and weaving together, each one distinct yet part of a larger whole. Other tis, they ca as solitary echoes, singular voices reaching into the void just as it did. It could not na them, but it could feel the weight of their existence, the way they pulled ever so slightly at the edges of its small, contained world. When they called, it imagined, without knowing it was imagining, what their presences might feel like, whether they were warm like its own or sohow different.
And so, while it continued to call for the presence it loved, it listened. It listened to the others, and in that listening, sothing inside it began to shift. A quiet awareness spread within it, subtle but persistent. It could not yet define what that shift was, but it knew, with the sa certainty it had for the presence’s return, that its world had grown wider. The emptiness beyond its body was no longer only a place where calls traveled, it was a space that held others, a place it could almost picture, filled with shapes it could not yet na but longed to understand.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
It began as nothing more than a sense of difference. The small, soft being existed in a world without edges or walls, a place asured only in warmth and the rhythm of its own hunger and rest. But sotis, between feedings, sothing shifted. There was a change it could not na, a faint awareness that the emptiness around it was not always the sa. These shifts were small at first, like tiny ripples touching the far edge of its awareness, but with each passing cycle, they beca part of the background of its life.
It was not sight, not in the way others might understand sight. There were no clear shapes, no colors it recognized, no crisp outlines to grasp onto. Yet there were monts when the darkness seed to have texture, when a dim swelling or fading brushed against its awareness. It was like the subtle change in warmth when a shadow falls across the skin, or the difference in air when a breath passes nearby. Sotis, the nothingness felt softer in one direction, heavier in another. It learned these differences without realizing it, storing them away as part of the quiet map of its small world.
When the presence ca, sotis the darkness felt fuller, as if sothing vast had stepped into it and filled the space. There was a density in the air, or what it thought of as air, a weight that was not physical but could not be ignored. Other tis, the space seed to brighten. Not with light, not exactly, but as if sothing unseen had lifted. These changes never frightened it; they were the signs it relied on, the way it knew the presence was close before it was touched or fed.
There were monts when the change ca from far away. A subtle shift in the dimness would stir, just a little, and then fade again before the presence arrived. This made the small thing wonder if there were others, other presences, other shapes, moving in the nothing. The thought, if it could be called a thought, was strange and distant, lacking the urgency of hunger or the comfort of warmth, but it stayed, hovering at the edge of its awareness.
It began to notice that even when resting, these changes played gently over the edges of its perception. Sotis there was a pulse, faint but steady, echoing its own heartbeat in the quiet. Other tis, there was a slow wash, like waves it had never seen but sohow understood as familiar. These impressions might have been real or imagined, but they beca part of its inner world, woven into the fabric of calling and answering, hunger and relief.
It never reached for these changes, it did not yet know how to reach, but it accepted them. They were simply there, drifting through its existence like currents in still water. Perhaps they were the shapes of the space it lived in. Perhaps they were nothing more than the play of its own mind, dreaming between feedings. Either way, they gave the emptiness a kind of texture, making it feel less like nothing and more like sothing waiting to be understood.
Sotis, in those long intervals of quiet, it sensed the faintest suggestion of movent, slow, shifting patterns brushing against the boundaries of its awareness. Not seen, not touched, but known in the sa deep way it recognized the presence drawing near. These monts left it with the undeniable impression that the world was larger than the narrow space between one call and the next.
And still, it could not tell if these impressions were mories or inventions. Were they echoes of sothing it had known before, or simply the wandering paths of its own half-ford mind? It didn’t matter. To the small, soft being, the changes were real. They had always been there, and whether they ca from outside or within, they gave the void a quiet life of its own, a life it had co to accept as part of its world.
The squishy thing felt a tug, not on its body, or maybe it was on its real body, not this soft form it thought of as itself. The pull was strange, not painful but insistent, drawing it toward sothing it couldn’t see, sothing that felt distant yet intimately connected. The sensation deepened, wrapping around its awareness like invisible hands, urging it away from the stillness it had known. The tug seed to echo inside its thoughts, a silent demand that pressed until resistance no longer felt possible.
Its mind fell upward, an impossible motion that stretched on and collapsed in on itself at the sa ti. The sensation was dizzying without movent, rapid without speed, the kind of paradox that refused to be fully grasped.
And then there was not nothing. The emptiness shattered, and in its place stood an image, no, a certainty. A boy in a yellow jacket. The thought repeated in its mind, certain and uncertain in equal asure, echoing with a weight it could neither explain nor dismiss. No details shifted, no other shapes intruded, it was always, unshakably, a boy in a yellow jacket. The recognition ran deeper than logic, a knowing that felt older than the mont.
Then the boy, no, Warren, fell upward as well, drawn along the sa strange ascent. As he rose, he saw his monster. He didn’t fight it, didn’t flinch; he simply acknowledged it as one might acknowledge an inevitable truth. The falling didn’t pause for the eting, it carried him higher, faster, until his identity shifted again. Warren dissolved. He was Vaeliyan, and he was back beneath the stars. The starlight stretched cold and sharp above him. The stream flowed around his body, the current curling against his skin in cool, constant whispers, peeling away the last threads of the strange vision. Imujin stood on the bank, still and watchful, his expression unreadable but intent.
"So, " Imujin said after a mont, his tone more asured than casual, "how did your first dive feel? Did you and your monster talk?"
Vaeliyan straightened slowly in the stream, shaking his head. "That didn’t happen. I’m not sure what I saw… but I think I was a baby. And I think I felt my mother. Or maybe my father. Or maybe I was just tripping balls."
"Vaeliyan, " Imujin said, and there was an edge of genuine surprise in his voice, "it’s not supposed to do that. It’s ant to help you learn from your soul, to let you break through whatever’s holding you back."
"I know that’s what you said it should do, " Vaeliyan replied, holding his gaze. His voice carried a quiet defiance, but no hostility. "But that’s not what it did. It made feel like a helpless newborn, like all I could do was exist and be cared for. It wasn’t clarity. It wasn’t guidance. It was just… that."
The water swirled around him, cool and grounding, as he let the remnants of the experience bleed away. Each ripple carried a part of the strange otherworld back into the stream’s endless journey. The pull that had yanked him from the squishy thing’s world was gone, replaced by the steady weight of his own body and the night air curling over his skin. Yet the image of the yellow jacket lingered, stubborn and unshakable. The mory of acknowledging the monster clung to him like a shadow. And sowhere in the quiet space between the cool water and Imujin’s steady stare, Vaeliyan knew the trip had shown him sothing, sothing neither of them could yet understand, but that would not let him go.
The current carried the last of the trip’s weight away from Vaeliyan, but the echoes of what he’d felt clung stubbornly to him. It wasn’t the monster that stayed with him now, it was the squishy thing. That strange, helpless form, soft and dependent, still filled his mind with a sense of vulnerability he couldn’t shake. The presence lingered too, but it was the mory of that small, needful existence that seed to pull at him from sowhere deeper.
Imujin’s gaze stayed on him for a long mont, his eyes narrowing as if weighing what had just happened. That wasn’t a look of idle curiosity, it was the look of soone recalculating their expectations. “You’ll want to think on it, ” Imujin said at last. “Whether you believe it or not, your soul showed you sothing. Even if it wasn’t what I expected.”
Vaeliyan stepped out of the stream, water cascading from his clothes, his soaked footing squelching in the grass. “Maybe, ” he said, though the word lacked conviction. He didn’t like the idea of soone else defining what he’d just experienced, especially when he wasn’t sure if it was a mory, a hallucination, or sothing in between. All he knew was that the sensation of being that soft, helpless thing had been real to him in a way that went beyond the drug.
The adow had grown quiet again. The others lounged from their own rides, glancing at him as he passed but saying nothing. Yuri’s grin hinted that he thought Vaeliyan had seen sothing ridiculous. Thomas didn’t look at him at all, his attention fixed on the stars, jaw tense. Deic, however, watched him the longest, her eyes locked on him with an expression that was impossible to read, as though she was searching for sothing beneath the surface.
Vaeliyan didn’t stop until he reached the edge of the clearing. He settled with his back against a tree, letting the damp seep into his jacket. The cold night air bit at him, but after the stream it felt clean. His eyes drifted skyward, tracing constellations whose nas he didn’t know. Sowhere out there, he thought, was the line between who he was and who he would beco, and maybe, just maybe, the trip had pushed him closer to it.
He closed his eyes, and the night sounds replaced the echo of rushing water in his ears. In the darkness, the tug returned, not pulling, just waiting. The image of that squishy, dependent self filled his thoughts alongside the steady presence of his monster. For a mont, he wondered if they had both been there long before this night, if the dive had only revealed what had always been inside him.
When he opened his eyes again, Imujin had moved closer, settling against a nearby rock. “You’ll figure it out, ” he said, still not looking at Vaeliyan. “One way or another. Just rember, not all dives take you where you expect. So take you where you need to go.”
Vaeliyan didn’t answer. It was enough, for now, to sit in the cool air and feel the weight of what he’d seen, not as a vision to interpret, but as a piece of himself he hadn’t known was there. And in a place like the Citadel, maybe that was the only truth that mattered.
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