The world disappeared.
No warning, no transition — the purple pillar struck him, and everything twisted open like a door he hadn't known was a door.
Sunny fell. Or rose. Or spun.
Direction meant nothing here. Up and down blended together, warped into something unrecognizable. His stomach dipped, then didn't. His body turned, or stayed still, or fractured into several pieces that immediately snapped back into place.
He drifted through a space that refused to agree with itself.
It wasn't dark. It wasn't bright. The colors weren't colors — just sensations that behaved like colors until he tried to identify them. Everything contradicted everything else, a living argument made of shapes that recoiled from being shapes.
Sunny blinked, though he wasn't sure he had eyes here.
Strange lights floated all around him, then stretched, then folded like paper being crumpled. A ripple passed through the void, and the lights reorganized themselves into lines… then dots… then something vaguely resembling a giant wheel made of glass-thread veins.
Only when it rotated did he realize it wasn't a wheel at all — but an organism.
Dozens of tiny, twitching mouths lined each vein. They weren't biting or chewing. They were whispering… or breathing… or echoing something he couldn't hear.
The creature drifted around him, twisting through dimensions he couldn't follow.
Sunny tensed.
The… thing… turned each of its countless mouths toward him.
Not to attack. Not to devour.
To look.
More shapes emerged from the distance — or from behind him — or from inside him. Hard to tell. The concept of distance seemed optional here.
A long, thin creature floated closer, its body braided like a rope made of glassy tissue. Small eyeballs dotted its surface, each spinning independently, blinking in slow, staggered waves. With each blink, its body elongated or shortened. Several times it split into three copies of itself, only for the copies to fold back into one.
All its eyes focused on Sunny.
Another creature blinked into existence. It was large — so large Sunny wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed it before. A massive sphere of smooth flesh hung in the air, peppered with holes of different shapes and sizes. Something inside those holes shifted, scraping against the inner walls, like claws being dragged across stone. Thin streams of colored vapor poured out, drifting upward… or downward… or sideways… and dissolving.
The holes moved. Not opening or closing — relocating. The sphere rearranged itself, placing a cluster of the holes on the side facing Sunny.
Its attention settled on him too.
Dozens more creatures approached. Some resembled tangled spiderwebs made of charcoal and bone. Others were little more than hazy silhouettes, fluttering like flags underwater. One looked like a massive, floating hand — five arms connected at the wrist, each arm bent in angles that weren't possible. Another fluttered closer on wings made of transparent mirrors, its reflection flickering into three different versions of Sunny, none of which matched his current position.
None of them made a sound.
None of them attacked.
They just watched.
Sunny swallowed, or thought he did. Hard to tell which parts of him were here and which were imagined.
He inhaled.
'Alright. Let's see… what you are.'
He allowed his perception to sink deeper — beyond the shape, beyond the surface. Into the soul.
…And found nothing. Not a single Soul Core, or anything resembling such.
Instead, there was just a small spark within them. Just waiting…
Sunny frowned.
'What are you?'
None reacted to his voice. None moved closer or further. They simply hovered, twisted, pulsed, rearranged themselves — all while staring.
He felt disoriented. The more he tried to orient himself, the worse it became. Space folded in on itself in front of him. Behind him, it stretched outward. The floor didn't exist. The ceiling didn't exist. Shapes drifted above him, except 'above' now curved underneath him as if directions were melting.
Sunny's body began to feel distant, as though he were watching himself from across a river. Or inside a reflection. Or through a dream.
The creatures drifted closer.
Still watching.
He took a step back — or forward — and immediately lost track of where he had moved.
The space tightened. Or maybe he was shrinking. Or maybe everything else was growing.
The whispering from the first creature's countless mouths grew louder — though he still couldn't hear anything. The holes in the sphere widened. The rope-creature bent in on itself, forming a spiral. Every eye on its body dilated.
Sunny's breath caught.
Something tugged at him.
Not physically — something deeper, like a hook buried under the layers of reality itself.
He felt himself slide backward, pulled by an invisible current. The world distorted, stretching him thin, compressing him, scattering him, reassembling him. The creatures turned their attention upward, as though something above them — or outside them — had called.
And then Sunny was ripped out of the impossible space entirely. A hazy white fog shrouded his vision.
The world snapped into place.
Reality solidified around him so suddenly it felt violent.
He hit a floor.
Sunny gasped, clutching at the ground. His head pounded. His vision swam. Everything was too bright and too real — the exact opposite of what he had been a moment ago.
Bookshelves surrounded him on all sides, towering overhead like walls of colored stone. The smell of paper was thick in the air, along with the faint scent of dust that never seemed to settle.
He blinked rapidly, trying to ground himself.
A voice cut through the haze.
"Sunny! Hey! Sunny!"
He felt hands on his shoulders. Someone shook him hard.
"Hey! Look at me! You're… you're back, right? Right?"
Sunny raised his head.
March was crouched in front of him, hair a little messy, concern pulling hard at her expression.
"Come on, don't freak me out like that! Where did you even come from?!"
Sunny opened his mouth.Nothing came out, so he weakly shrugged. So unnoticeable that March didn't even react.
His throat felt tight. His thoughts were scattered, like the pieces hadn't lined up yet.
March waved a hand in front of his face.
"Hello? Anyone in there? Did you get teleported into a wall or something? Did somebody hit you? Blink twice if you need medical attention. Or… actually, wait, no, blink once if you need help. Two blinks means something else. Okay, what's the system here…?"
Sunny managed a slow breath.
March leaned closer.
"Sunny?"
He stared past her for a moment, toward the shelves, toward the tall windows and drifting dust — grounding himself in the real, solid world.
Finally, he blinked.
March let out a sigh.
"Okay. Good. You're not dead. I mean, probably not. You look awful, though. Like you just saw a ghost. Or ten. Or… I dunno, something worse."
Sunny didn't respond.
He was still trying to remember the sensation of that place — the warped colors, the twisting forms, the creatures that watched without souls.
March gave him a small shake again.
"Sunny. Come on."
Sunny slowly dragged his gaze back to her. He leaned up, rubbing the ridge of his nose.
"I'm fine. I don't know where I came from. Yes, I'm in my own body, I think. I didn't get teleported into a wall… probably. Nobody hit me, hopefully. There is no system. Where are we? Where is the damn doll?"