My name is… It doesn't matter; names are for the living, and I'm finally dead…
Hahahaha, finally!!…
I was so sick of being hooked to machines and poked by motherf*cking crazy scientists who thought my body somehow held the secret to life without a disease.
I mean, sure, I was born very sick, like the doctors predicted my death minutes after I was born kind of sick, but I didn't die… and then I went on and contracted more viruses and diseases along the way and still didn't die—still I wasn't healthy either!!!
I was f*king bedridden my whole life, but who can reason with crazy? Not me, that's for sure…
By the time I died, I probably had every f*cking disease known to man in my body, and those crazy motherf*kers still couldn't figure out what was keeping me from dying…
Incompetent motherf*ckers!!!!…
I wish they all die in the most horrific way possible…
.
Anyway, where am I??
I looked around and began to notice that I can move… and somehow I can see 360° and that shouldn't be possible—No horizon, no up or down—just endless void pressing against my senses like static
It's very weird, you know? Being able to move after a lifetime of not knowing how or what it feels like. My limbs—if I even have limbs—hum with a lightness I've never felt
It's a very contradictory feeling…
Anyhow, let's stop thinking and start moving, hahahahahaha.
This is amazing!!!
Being able to see, move, and feel something other than pain.
It's exciting?
Hmmm? Maybe that's what I'm feeling now; I mean, besides this liberating sensation, which in my humble opinion is what freedom feels like—Or maybe it's just the absence of needles jabbing my veins— I don't know and I don't care either.
After moving, laughing, crying, maybe a little cursing, and madness, which lasted for a little while, I started to calm down…
Okay, maybe not "a little," but you try releasing 16? or maybe 17 years of pent-up, jumbled, and all-the-way fu*ked-up emotions and you'll see what happens. You can't? Then Imagine a dam breaking, but the water's made of screams… that's the most apt discerption I can come up with at the moment…
Now that I have calmed down enough, I began to actually think about where I am? And let me tell you… I Don't Have The Slightest Idea.
I mean, I can't even comprehend what this place is, let alone actually knowing where or what this place is…
For starters, it's dark, but at the same time it's not.
Oh yes, time. There's no time here.
Are you asking how I know? Well, I don't; I can just tell.
Here, in this place? No time, space, or physical law exists, or maybe just the ones I'm familiar with don't.
I can hear your disbelief from here, but think about it.
Every being that has existed inside these laws for long enough can just tell they are there no matter what, but here, I just can't.
So I just continued moving somewhere?? I mean, there's no point in sitting still, plus now that I can move ^~^, I am not staying still for even a little…
I don't know how long I have been moving, but I didn't mind, so when I felt something coming my way.
How? I don't know—instinct maybe.
Anyhow, when I felt it coming my way, I too moved toward it. Toward the first flicker of—something—in this nothingness…
Perhaps I would find out what this void is??…
Ugh!!!!! Pain!!!
Pain like I had never felt before assaulted me. And coming from me, that's an accomplishment…
Looking for the source of my pain, I let my instinct guide me and found myself tearing apart and devouring what looked like another soul.
How did I know it was a soul, you ask? Heh~
There's something else within this soul that's trying to take root in me now. A parasite or something? I don't know but I don't like it…
Alarmed, I did the only thing I could, which was to tear out the part of my soul that had this thing in it and shred it apart… I succeeded, mostly, but the more I shredded, the more it resisted, so I threw whatever was left and moved away…
You know, maybe this was a blessing instead; the soul that I devoured was human.
I instinctively knew it was a soul when we touched, and I knew it was a human soul by the memories I had seen so far.
There are no meaningful memories about his personal life in the memories I have; it may be with the part that I threw away along with that thing??
Eh, who cares? So how do I know he is human? Well, in his memories, of course, and there are some that match the knowledge I have about history and stuff. I mean, even though I am not the most knowledgeable, I still know some things…
Though, most of his memories are about stories, either visual or written, they were entertaining.
These stories are interesting. I mean, I didn't know what a manga was nor what a comic was. I still found them very interesting. Still, I will look into these memories thoroughly later; for now, I need to inspect myself and see what happened.
So, after looking over and over again, inspecting my soul, I concluded that nothing was wrong aside from some of my personal memories being missing.
Not like I needed them in the first place. What good are memories of hospitals, laboratories and white coats?
I think they are with the part of me that I shredded and threw away.
Anyway, it doesn't matter at the moment because it's time to look into what these two balls of swirling energy I found are doing in my soul.
My instinct tells me they're something good, so as I started studying them—which by the way was me poking at them and seeing what would happen—I figured out what they are.
And of course I would figure them out; I was smart, plus I poked and nudged them long enough that I felt like they told me just to stop…
Anyway, it turned out these swirling balls of energy were skills that the other soul somehow had, and if I had to guess based on the stories I had seen, then the soul I somehow devoured had met what the stories call a ROB and was stupid enough to believe it could make wishes for free.
I don't know for sure because I don't have memories of its encounter, but that was my best guess…
So that would also mean the thing that I threw away was the so-called system, huh? Good, I probably dodged a bullet there, huh.
I guess there's a lesson here: "Always trust your instincts."
Anyway, this skill is interesting.
After examining them for a bit more, I discovered what they are… These things are preprogrammed masses of energy that engrave what they can do into a person's soul so that they can use them as if they were their own.
So instead of letting them do their thing, I tried to devour them the same way I did before with the soul, and it worked. I mean, I instinctively knew I could, so I tried, and it actually worked…
Now I have two new skills that feel like I have always had them, and the best part is that they can never be taken from my soul in any way, unlike before, even if something tears my soul apart.
Hahahaha! Sure, if something tried to tear apart my soul and devour it like I did, maybe they could? I don't actually know…
Anyway, these skills are interesting.
The first skill is something that made me into a natural-born sage, which means I will always be able to use natural energy—Whatever that means…
What's the use of that? I don't know yet, but if the stories I have are anything to go by, then that means I will become powerful. Sure, I can't use it now, but that doesn't matter.
On the other hand, the second skill, which is called 'archmage's qualification,' is something that I can use now, which's great for me.
Why, you ask?? Because this skill enables me to build a magical core that can accommodate any kind of energy—which was great and all, but that wasn't the important part…
The important part is that it gave me an intuitive aptitude for anything I want to study, and guess what I want to study? This place!—This beautiful, horrifying, endless void…
I finally have a way that may as well become my ticket out of this void!!! Yay me!!
The first thing I did with my newfound ability was, of course, using it to study my own soul, and well, I found out that my soul has a somewhat weak ability to adapt to outside stimuli; that's also the reason I still have consciousness/move and other things while staying in this void.
Furthermore, I started to be able to manipulate my own soul without relying on my instincts, so I started by organizing my memories, old and new, by creating a place to hold them. Sure, I loosened the connection between these memories and the feelings attached to them so that I won't be swayed by feelings like those dumb MCs in the stories I had seen so far when making decisions in the future—Emotions are liabilities and I've had enough of those…
I also found out that my emotional center—as I called it—is heavily damaged, which could be the result of multiple things, one of which was my ripping apart my own soul earlier, but hey, I can fix that in the future? Maybe??
After a while, I started studying this void, and after numerous tries, I miserably failed to understand anything beyond the fact that I wasn't strong enough to. It's like I was a newborn trying to comprehend how the universe works.
What I mean is that I don't yet have the capacity to understand—like a level 0 being that doesn't have the knowledge, power, or the qualifications needed for level 1000 knowledge, if that makes sense—Which maybe doesn't. But hey, progress!…
Though the good thing I found is that this place does have energy, which means I can start creating my magical core.
I don't know if I will be able to, but that won't stop me from trying…
Heheheh… I did it!! After so many failures, I was able to create a magical core—A tiny, flickering thing—but mine!.
My very own magical core… I am going to be an archmage!! Suck it, scientists!!
After a tedious process of trying to sense, draw, and guide the smallest and faintest traces of energy and failing repeatedly, I had finally done it!! And now I feel tired and sleepy—The good kind of tired, for once.
But can I sleep here? Ah, it doesn't matter; I will sleep.
Still, before sleeping, I enveloped my soul with a layer of my newly acquired void energy to shield myself, and then I slept…
---
While the soul slept, not caring about anything, it kept drifting in the 'void' as it called it, somehow guided by the energy around it, until it stopped suddenly in front of what could only be described as the personification of the void.
This being, as if disturbed by the newly arrived soul, shifted a little and began to look at it. For a while, nothing happened—until it did.
The void suddenly shook slightly and then stopped.
The soul also shook slightly, and the energy around it fluctuated a little.
For a time, this occurred again and again.
From an outside perspective, it appeared as if the being was having a conversation with both the sleeping soul and the void simultaneously.
Then, the being moved and slowly took a small part of the void, molding and stretching it as if creating a veil, and then it placed the veil over the still sleeping soul.
The veil dissolved into a small, dust-like energy and entered the soul, completely disregarding the shield around it…
The being then gently picked up the soul, and they left, leaving no visible traces of them ever being there in the first place.
…
I am rewriting using my old phone, so it's taking more time than I would like but that doesn't matter now,
tell me if you like this version better in the comments
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