Chapter 256
Anger
As IAM was covered in darkness, his body feeling like it had begun to cease to exist.
He had a sudden thought.
Maybe this is what it means to disappear—not to die, but to be forgotten by yourself first.
In that suffocating dark, the thought echoed through IAM's mind like a whisper from somewhere far away.
After all... Who was IAM?
In this expanse of nothingness, he could only ask himself that question.
Who was he?
As all life began to fade from his body, the void around him shifted, and suddenly he found himself deep—deep underwater.
His eyes opened slowly, the motion was sluggish, almost dreamlike. All around him stretched an endless blue, vast and indifferent. The deeper he sank, the smaller he felt—just a speck swallowed by an infinite ocean.
There was no surface in sight, no glimmer of light filtering through the depths. Only the heavy silence of the deep and the crushing cold that wrapped around him like an embrace.
He felt the weight pressing in from every direction, the immense pressure threatening to collapse him entirely. His lungs screamed for air, but his body didn't move.
He was drowning.
And yet, instead of panic, there was peace. A strange surrender that whispered—maybe this was always how it was meant to end.
End with him unable to resist, in the quiet where no one could see him.
As he fell deeper, time itself seemed to blur—passing like snow, drifting without direction, carried by some unseen wind. And when that flake of time finally landed, it didn't stand apart; it melted, merged, and vanished into the rest.
Everything became one.
IAM kept falling, deeper into the endless blue, waiting for death to take him. Yet no matter how far he sank, it never came.
Almost like he couldn't die.
It was as if death had forgotten him...
If he could, he would've chuckled—maybe even smiled. Was this his fate? To exist in a state between breaths, on the brink of death but never crossing over? To drift endlessly downward with the faintest spark of life refusing to fade, condemned to fall forever into the depths…
If so, he could offer no resistance—just allow himself to drift, to feel his body move with the ebb and flow of the cold blue.
Maybe this was what it meant to truly rest. To not exist in the eyes of anyone, not even yourself.
The deeper he sank, the quieter everything became. The world above, his pain, his struggle—it all folded in on itself until only nothing remained.
He thought of how fragile everything was. How easily the things that seemed so important—fear, pride, purpose and the like— all dissolved in the vast indifference of the void.
He wondered if the world would change without him.
Perhaps this was not death. Perhaps it was mercy—to be unmade quietly, and to become one with everything and nothing all at once.
But as he kept sinking, a strange thought surfaced in his mind… a ripple against the blue.
He wondered what was beyond—beyond that deafening, tyrannical blue that pressed against him from every side.
What waited above?
Was it heaven or ruins?
Was it nothing… or everything?
Or if he dared to look—if he could somehow take a picture of what lay past the veil—would it only be more endless, suffocating blue stretching into infinity, mocking him with its sameness?
The thought refused to fade.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, IAM felt something spark within him.
Curiosity.
What was above?
Deep in his chest, IAM began to yearn—a desperate yearning that burned brighter than the pain and the pressure crushing his ribs.
He wanted to see it. Just once.
The view above.
The world beyond this blue cage.
All he needed was a glimpse—a single look to satisfy his curiosity, and maybe then… he could finally be free.
But how?
He was drifting farther and farther from the surface, each second dragging him deeper into the dark. He could feel the invisible weight pressing harder against his body, squeezing his lungs though no air remained to give.
Still, somehow, he was alive—alive enough to suffer, alive enough to long.
The feeling of suffocation should have terrified him, yet it didn't. All that consumed his mind now was the burning need to see above.
He had to reach it.
That thought came quietly at first. But soon, it grew—steady and consuming—until it became the only thing that mattered. He had to reach the surface. He had to see what waited above that endless veil of blue.
Maybe it was instinct, that primal ache to rise, to break free of the weight holding him down. Or maybe it was something deeper—something born from that spark inside him that refused to die, no matter how many times the world had tried to drown it. Whatever it was, IAM could feel it clawing inside his chest, urging him upward.
He didn't know what waited for him. Heaven or ruin, salvation or another illusion—it didn't matter. What mattered was the act of reaching, the defiance in it. The stubborn belief that maybe, just maybe, he could still rise.
But how?
How?
The question plagued him and would not fade, circling his thoughts over and over until it became unbearable. He felt so small—so utterly insignificant—beneath the vastness above him. The surface seemed impossibly far away, like a reality that belonged to someone else. How could he ever reach it? How could something so distant, so unreachable, belong to him?
And then, as if the ocean itself had grown tired of his despair, the answer came to him— and with it came simplicity.
To reach the surface, what does one have to do?
Swim!
The word struck him like lightning in the deep. Swim. To rise, to breathe, to see the surface again—one only had to swim.
IAM almost laughed at himself then, at the absurdity of how easy it sounded. After everything, the answer was so simple it hurt. To live, one had to keep moving.
No matter how heavy the water felt.
No matter how long the darkness lasted.
All he had to do was swim.
As he began to move, a sudden truth struck him—he could always move. He always had the ability to. His body had never been bound by the deep; it was his mind that had shackled him. Somewhere within the endless silence, he had decided to stop trying, to surrender, to let the abyss claim him. He hadn't been trapped—he had chosen to be.
The realization was undeniable. All this time, it hadn't been the deep that held him down. It was him. His fear. His doubt. His acceptance that maybe he didn't deserve to reach the surface.
But now… now something within him stirred.
And with it, he began to move. Slowly at first, then faster, harder, more desperate. His limbs cut through the cold water with purpose, each motion filled with defiance. He could feel the weight peeling off him, the heaviness breaking apart with every stroke.
He was swimming—vigorously, endlessly—toward the surface.
...
In the vast expanse of beautiful flowers with the wind blowing warmly.
A patch of flowers stood out from the rest—so vivid and perfect it seemed almost unreal. The petals shimmered faintly, as though kissed by dew that never dried, catching the sunlight and scattering it into soft hues of gold and lavender.
Each bloom was large, their edges curved delicately inward, forming elegant spirals that seemed to draw the eye deeper and deeper toward the center. The air around them shimmered slightly, dense with a perfume so sweet and pure that breathing it in felt like tasting honey and spring rain all at once.
For a long time, there was nothing but the sway of the flowers.
When suddenly, from beneath, a hand burst through... And it was reaching for the above!