There was void all around. It wasn't darkness, because darkness can still be seen.This was something beyond that—utter nothingness, a realm stripped of color, sound, and time.
A figure floated silently within it—a man's body, though not of flesh. His form shimmered faintly, translucent like a spirit. His features were refined, his face calm and symmetrical. In the real world, that face might have been called beautiful, the kind that could belong to an artist's muse or a philosopher lost in thought.
Slowly, the entity opened his eyes.
"Where is this place? Am I not dead?" he murmured, his voice echoing without sound. "This… void. Hard to believe, but my imagination of death wasn't far from reality."
Before him, a faint light flickered, coalescing into a torn, static-ridden screen. On it, scenes from his past life began to play—his childhood, his isolation, his struggles.
He smiled faintly. "So I still remember everything."
He looked at the man on the screen. "That's right… I am Zen. No surname, no family name. Just Zen—the orphan boy from the government shelter."
From a young age, Zen had always been different. He could recall every detail he ever saw, every sound he ever heard, every emotion he ever felt. A photographic memory, they called it—but it was more of a curse than a gift. It turned him into an anomaly. Children avoided him; teachers watched him with wary eyes. Some called him a genius. Most called him a freak.
He could sense the smallest twitch of discomfort in others, the lie hidden behind a forced smile, the disdain veiled beneath polite words. He could read micro-expressions, notice patterns in speech, and feel the emotional pulse of those around him.
At first, it frightened him. Then, it exhausted him.
No matter how much he tried to fit in, the truth was always too loud—people lied to survive, to be liked, to belong. And Zen could see through all of it.
He became quiet, observant, and detached—not because he lacked emotion, but because he had too much of it. The more he saw, the less he wanted to feel.
But even detachment has its cracks.
There was a girl once. She wasn't special in any obvious way—no breathtaking beauty or brilliance—but her presence was… soothing. Her smile was honest. Her voice didn't tremble when she spoke to him. For a brief time, Zen thought perhaps he could love.
But he never approached her.Because he feared that once he did, he would begin to lie to himself just like everyone else.And so, he watched from afar until one day, she vanished from his life as quietly as she had entered it.
As he grew older, Zen's understanding deepened. He learned faster than anyone, consumed books and theories at a rate that startled even the most gifted minds. Psychology, quantum mechanics, biology, philosophy—nothing escaped his hunger. But with every piece of knowledge he gained, his distance from the world grew wider.
It's said that the more one understands the truth, the further they drift from happiness. Zen became living proof of that.
In his final years, he began questioning the meaning of life itself. He wanted to know why humanity existed—why anything existed. He studied patterns of evolution, the concept of self, and the ancient philosophical theories of consciousness. Eventually, he formulated his own belief:
"Life is the point where the circles of the physical world, the spiritual world, and space-time intersect."
He believed that consciousness was the bridge between these realms—a manifestation of the universe trying to understand itself.
But then, something unexpected happened. His brain, unable to handle the depth of his perception and constant self-awareness, overclocked itself. His thoughts became recursive, feeding into each other endlessly as he tried to comprehend the ultimate reason for existence.
One night, his consciousness simply… slipped.The doctors called it a coma. His brain activity spiked beyond measurable limits, then dropped into silence.He was declared brain dead.
But Zen was not dead.He had merely crossed the boundary of his physical and temporal realms.
Now, in the void, he finally understood.
"Guess my insights were true," Zen whispered. "Life truly is where the three realms connect. I lost the physical and the temporal… only the spiritual remains."
He paused, studying his surroundings. "Then this place—could it be an alternate dimension?"
A voice answered, though it came from nowhere and everywhere at once."It is an alternate dimension."
Zen wasn't startled. Even here, his composure held. The voice was familiar—it was his own.
"This place exists outside the bounds of space-time," it continued. "In this state, you cannot interfere with other dimensions. The reason you fell into a coma was that your spiritual dimension—your consciousness—reached saturation. It overwhelmed your physical self."
Zen nodded slowly. "That makes sense. So, I was right again."
"To understand it better," the voice explained, "imagine the three realms as circles. Every living being exists at the point where they intersect. The more one expands any single circle, the more unstable the equilibrium becomes. You expanded your spiritual realm too far."
"So this void…"
"Is your consciousness," the voice said. "Every corner of this place is a fragment of you. You've achieved the state where your mind can divide infinitely and converse with itself. This is your eternal reflection."
Zen smirked faintly. "So I became my own god and my own prison."
"Indeed. But even here, you're bound by the rules of the universe. According to the conservation of energy, nothing—no soul, no thought, no dimension—can remain truly at rest. The universe must act upon you eventually."
Zen thought in silence. "You're saying the universe won't let me fade away."
The void pulsed faintly, as though agreeing.
"Do you remember the theory you once read?" the voice asked. "The one about how life began—not from divine intervention, but from a cosmic accident? A burst of stellar energy that altered Earth's genetic code and gave birth to self-replicating matter?"
Zen nodded. "Yes. The universe doesn't make mistakes; it adapts. Maybe that's what's happening to me too."
A faint smile touched his lips. "Maybe I'm about to be… rewritten."
Suddenly, a blinding light appeared at the far end of the void. It spread slowly, devouring the nothingness.
"Perhaps this is what I was waiting for," Zen said, his voice calm, almost relieved.
The light grew until there was no void left—only brilliance. And as it swallowed him whole, Zen closed his eyes once more.
But this time, he knew it wasn't the end.It was only the beginning.