When I opened my eyes, there was only darkness. Just complete darkness. Then suddenly, consciousness hit me like a truck, and this sharp pain exploded through my head - like someone was going at me with a hammer, over and over. The burning pain made me roll around in that darkness, clutching my head.
But as I rolled around, I noticed something weird - my body didn't feel heavy at all. It was like I had my original body weight back. There was this relief in my chest, you know? But when I looked around, all I could see was just... nothing. Pure darkness. I couldn't see shit, but I could feel that pain clear as day.
After a while, the pain started to fade. Then this weird sense of familiarity washed over me - comfortable, like I'd been here before. Let me think... when was that? Oh right! This is the same feeling I had when I was in my inner world. Yeah, that's it.
I was in my inner world, surrounded by nothing but darkness. But then something changed. I wasn't lying down anymore - I was floating in the air. And right in front of me was that massive white tree.
The same white tree I saw when I was forming my cores. Second time seeing this thing, and damn, it looked even bigger now! Learning from last time, I didn't try to compare myself to it and just looked up at its flowers. Still wrapped up in those threads.
I floated around the place, looking everywhere. Again, I was blown away by that huge river of energy beneath the tree. But then I looked at my floating cores and thought - how the hell did I get here? I didn't even concentrate to enter my inner world.
That thought got pushed aside when I turned my head and saw my beautiful purple core. Man, thinking back, I still don't know jack about this core. It's not my self core, not my key's core, so what the hell is it?
The purple core was gorgeous, but those threads wrapped around it made it look less... I don't know, less perfect. I floated closer to it, and my eyes just locked onto it. I couldn't look away. Before I knew it, I lifted my hand and touched it.
The moment I made contact, there was this warmth that made me want to stick to it. With that warmth came something familiar! I couldn't quite place it, so I stayed close for what felt like an hour, trying to figure out what that familiar feeling was.
After that hour of being stuck to it, I finally got it. It was the same... the same as Ray.
I'm not talking about the obvious stuff - his kindness, the warmth in his voice, how he cares about people, blah blah blah.
But I'm talking about the actual connection between my unknown core and that feeling I get from Ray. Now that I think about it, I was always drawn to him because of this familiar feeling!
If that's true... if I was drawn to him by this feeling, then he must have this type of core inside him too ! " Basterd "
It's just a theory, but it answers most of my questions. Why was I drawn to Ray? Was he special? No! He wasn't special, but whatever's inside him was special. That's what drew me to him.
He has a privilege haa ?. From what I remember, Ray doesn't know about these threads, so it's must mean his core isn't bound by this threads. Lucky bastard.
Me and my luck are way too similar. My life's always screwing with me, and from the start I was destined to meet Ray. One way or another, as a brother or as a enemy I was destined to...
I took a long breath and pushed those thoughts away because I knew they'd all lead to that one single word which I couldn't accept. That word would drive me crazy eventually. I was just avoiding it, but I know it'll catch up to me someday. Why was I learning the truth now of all times? Why now?
"FUCK!" I screamed, pushing those thoughts aside.
"So I need to break these threads to see what you really look like," I said, looking at the purple core and suddenly I felt something under my hand.
"It's trembling?" The core was shaking like it was responding to what I wanted. The trembling got more intense, and I could feel my hand shaking with it. Then something unexpected happened - the threads around the purple core started breaking. It was like last time, but there was anotherunexpected thing happened the black fog ! It started come out of my body ! "
"This shit again? What the hell is this fog?" But actually, the black fog was eating away at the threads wrapping around the core. Slowly but surely, the threads were disappearing. I felt like something big was happening right now
Just when I thought all the threads were going to get eaten, similar threads came out from inside my body and started sucking the fog back in. But before the fog completely got sucked back, my hand moved on its own. An orb of that dark fog formed in my hand, and my hand swung back toward the great white tree.
After a few seconds, all the black fog had been sucked back into my body. I felt like a complete idiot who didn't understand what the hell just happened.
"What... what the hell is wrong with me?" I screamed, pissed off at myself. Then I ran my hands through my hair and sighed, only to see the threads around the core were still there, but not as many as before.
"Thud!" A sound came from behind me. When I turned around, it came from down where the tree roots were.
I floated down to the roots and found a flower wrapped in threads being eaten by black fog.
"How did...?" I stopped. "Oh, it was because of me. Well, not entirely, but kind of. My hand threw that black orb - it must've hit it."
I was about to move but couldn't because of what I saw. It wasn't a flower anymore but a flower bud. All the threads around it had disappeared, leaving just the bud.
That's weird. I definitely saw this as a flower just a moment ago.
"Hmm... weird shit keeps happening today. Not my day, I guess." I flew closer to it, and my first reaction was "Holy shit!"
My reaction doesn't matter, but what matters is why I reacted that way - because it was huge! When I saw it from above, it looked small, but it was massive. Even bigger than me.
I touched it, trying to figure out what it was, but got nothing. It was blank, or I just couldn't read it. I stared at it for a while, thinking about what to do, and then I started opening the big bud.
Layer by layer, they opened up smoothly. After what felt like hours, the bud that was my size was now the size of a small box. When I opened the last layer, there was this dark, glossy fruit like a grape with a smooth surface and subtle blue-purple highlights. The weirdest part was the seed visible through the clear skin - it looked like a stylized leaf with glowing purple-pink lines along its edges.
"What the hell... how is there a leaf inside a fruit? And how is there even a fruit inside a bud....?"