A place with no concept of a beginning, where an eternal, cold, all‑consuming darkness stretched into infinity. A vast black canvas of existence that seemed to contain nothing at all. But… if you looked closer, tiny embers smoldered upon it, infinitesimally small in comparison to it. Shimmering with different colors, they were endless. Yet they all shared one thing.
They were all slowly burning away, dragging out their meaningless existence as they waited for their doom. Such is the law of the universe—to blaze anew, you first have to go out.
Everyone would go through this… Or were there exceptions?
A tiny soul drifted in the bottomless ocean of what would later be called oblivion. Inside an almost transparent sphere, a gray, slightly murky core glowed. This small planet wandered the expanse, rhythmically emitting a barely visible haze that quickly dissipated into the darkness.
But then, the glow went out.
Was this it?
The walls of the sphere rippled, and the core began to flicker.
An instant later, the little planet was engulfed in a blinding white flame, many times brighter than its former smoldering. Faint hints of gray flashed within it, but in the gloom you couldn't make out the rare black sparks bursting outward. Another instant, and the colors inverted. Now a barely discernible black fire birthed a myriad of almost white specks that exploded in bright flashes. Another moment, so brief you wouldn't have time to blink, and the fire froze, as if time itself had stopped.
A flash—and the swollen blaze was swept away by a wave of gray energy, scattering into countless sparkles. The darkness swallowed everything, except for it...
Once again, the small planet drifted in the ocean of oblivion. But now, right before your eyes, something was happening to it. Something light gray began to ooze around it, as if from nowhere, like a thick, viscous liquid. The color was somewhere between that of the almost transparent sphere and its murky gray core. And finally, after enclosing the orb, it suddenly started to swell into a shape. At first it was just an ellipsoid‑like blob, but it quickly gained detail until a human figure hung suspended in the endless murk.
It twitched once, a shudder running through its entire body. Trembling hands reached up to the face of the hunched‑over figure, and barely visible pulses of energy began to burst out of it.
"So... cold..."
My thoughts were all over the place, my body felt like it had a mind of its own, pulling me in different directions. A chill pierced me to the bone. My fingers were icy against my face. Everything cramped up in a spasm, and I pulled my limbs away, opening my eyes. There was darkness all around… in which I could see my own glowing, semi‑transparent hands…
"What the hell?"
A reflexive attempt to draw a breath was cut short.
I couldn't. No air was coming in.
Panic washed over me.
Goosebumps ran up my spine, and a tugging warmth spread through my chest...
My gaze dropped back to my own limbs. What I saw made me freeze, forgetting all about trying to breathe.
The question stayed the same.
The numbness almost receded, quietly replaced by calm. Had it always been this easy before? Ah, yeah. Almost.
I looked around, but saw nothing except my own body. My gaze slid down to my chest, and I froze, staring for about a minute at the glowing little "planet" inside me.
A thought flickered somewhere in the back of my mind: apparently, I wasn't going to need to breathe anymore. The transparency of my body only backed that up.
I needed to remember what had happened... My head was a mess. Trying to focus, I started to recall the most recent events, like watching an old film reel in reverse. A heaviness grew in my chest...
It all started that evening. Those memories were the clearest. It was raining, dark clouds over the city pressing down on everything. I just felt like buying something sweet—my weakness...
Leaving the building entrance, I headed for the nearest store out of habit. I walked without hurrying, knowing I'd get soaked anyway.
Why didn't I take an umbrella? I shouldn't have been in a rush… and that didn't just apply to me, but to the drivers tearing down the road along the sidewalk. One such speed demon hit a puddle and drenched me from the side, so I ended up wet not just from above. Wonderful...
Soon I was standing at a crosswalk, waiting for the green. The only one I needed to cross.
"At least I didn't forget you," I thought, fishing my earbuds out of my pocket.
Hunching over the case to shield it from the rain, I quickly put the earbuds in and started some music on my phone. The loud track drowned out the gloom.
As soon as it turned green, I stepped forward without looking… and immediately felt a sharp impact from the side that threw me several meters. A flash of pain shot through my entire body, the wail of a car horn punched through my music, and then a new, even stronger wave of pain hit from the same side. The crunch of my own ribs in my chest... then everything blurred and an icy numbness came.
So I got hit by a truck or a minibus... Most likely a minibus, considering the city and the way people here drive.
My hands clenched on their own, but a cold melancholy settled in my head... So, I died. And now I didn't feel anything. That was probably for the best. Looked like I'd already made my peace with it.
Endless darkness... so this was the afterlife. I'd been expecting something more colorful. There'd been so many interpretations of it back in my world.
Whatever. I... what was my name again? My fingers involuntarily touched my abs. Memories of gym workouts floated up. But I couldn't remember my name... The chill spread through my chest again, and I reached for it on reflex. My parents' names, the people close to me—I couldn't even recall their faces... But the feeling that those memories had been important wouldn't leave me.
At least I don't have to take my finals, an ironic thought flashed through my mind.
I didn't even remember my own face, but I knew I'd survived one whole set of finals. How old would that make me? I couldn't remember, so I had to count. Eighteen, huh.
"And what am I supposed to do with that info?" I tapped my chest, as if addressing the spheres. The only answer was a growing numbness.
Was I just tired? That's how I decided to interpret the feeling... Hm. And I kind of wondered what I looked like. I'd probably never find out now... Man, I was really getting pulled under...
The thinking wasn't helping, and without even realizing it, I let go of my thoughts and sank into something like sleep.
About ten hours later
Waking up in a pleasant haze was great. Nothing around me made a sound, my body didn't give off a single negative sensation; on the contrary, it was filled with warmth spreading out from my chest. Yeah... almost worth dying for, just for this... Horrible joke.
Sitting up, I started thinking about what to do next. The answer came up: nothing. That state of affairs didn't exactly thrill me. Then I noticed the warmth spreading through my body again.
"Wasn't I a bit... paler yesterday? And also..." I brought my hand closer to my eyes for a better look. "Did I get a glow or something?"
And sure enough, my entire "skin" was giving off a faint, barely noticeable grayish light. Hm, maybe I was being paranoid, but it really felt like this transparent little planet with the core inside me was behind this weird phenomenon—as well as the temperature thing going on in my chest.
When I was alive, I used to read a lot, and I didn't skip anime either—even though a lot of people think it's, hm, a weird hobby. And this little ball was suspiciously similar to some kind of mana core… just a strange, two‑layered one. Although, considering I'm dead and wasn't a mage in my past life, it's more likely a spiritual energy core, or something like that.
When I looked at it more closely, I added another fact to the pile: there was something else in there. It seemed like something almost transparent was flowing very slowly out of the inner core. Some kind of substance, like thick jelly. And the same stuff was flowing out of the outer core as well.
Should I try meditating or something, to feel the Force? Weird idea. Even if I did die and end up in this equally weird form of existence... yeah, against that backdrop the idea doesn't even sound that strange.
I sat down in the lotus position—I had no idea why—closed my eyes and focused on my chest. A second, two, a minute... No idea how much time actually passed, but subjectively "soon" enough, and to my surprise I really did feel a flow...
It was a strange feeling of something shifting, like suddenly noticing a heartbeat that had always been there. As if it had been with me all along; it felt completely natural.
Not wanting to stop there, I tried to make a sort of channel leading from the top of the outer sphere. And after a few moments that felt longer than before, I managed to catch that inner effort, that thought‑property, that made the energy condense and stretch out of the sphere in a thin cord, before dissolving back inside my body.
For a good ten minutes I honestly just played around with it, pulling out… this stuff into cords of different lengths and densities.
Watching and doing all that from the sphere's point of view was really interesting. I could see in a full three‑hundred‑and‑sixty‑degree circle. Me‑as‑the‑sphere inside my chest, once I more or less got the hang of it, could, by sort of jerking myself up and down, jump over the cord I'd made like it was a jump rope. Of course, that was only after I smacked myself with it a few dozen times.
Even then, probably only thanks to the sense of rhythm I'd built up in life, I managed to do a series of ten "jumps" over this... whatever it was. I had no idea what to even call the stuff inside me... Soul energy? I could be totally wrong about its nature, but whatever. After another minute, mentally huffing and puffing, I was already doing a set of fifteen jumps when something in my mind started itching...
Maybe I was missing something?…
!
Right, I should be seeing through my eyes! What the hell is wrong with my memory that I'm being this dense...
With that thought, my point of view almost literally drifted and stopped at head level. What had been a spherical, all‑around... sphere‑o‑vision turned into the usual view of human eyes.
And then, just by wanting to, my view shifted back to how it had been a moment ago.
"Amazing," flashed through… the sphere, as I switched between those two points of view a few more times and, in the end, was able to literally look through my finger.
I examined myself from the outside. Inside my semi‑transparent shell—in my head, and even down in my groin—there were no brains to be found. Apparently I was thinking with the little planet in my chest. It was the only thing in the body that really stood out.
Interesting picture. As I realized after a few dozen experiments, I was most likely perceiving reality through energy now. I simply didn't have any other organs. I could even "see" with the energy that leaked from the contours of my body.
By the way, the glowing outline that passed where my skin should've been was slightly thickened... like skin. You wouldn't notice it at first because of the glow.
Back to vision: I could sort of see out to about a couple of meters away from my body. In all directions at once, which was important. And it didn't really overload my "brain"—quotation marks now.
Well, I was discovering a new side of myself, heh. Literally.
My body looked familiar to me, so it didn't really trigger any emotions. A lean guy, far from a bodybuilder, but clearly someone who knew a thing or two about working out. Standard haircut with medium‑length hair and, as had been trendy for a while, shaved sides.
A "young man"... wasn't I a bit too young to be using that word? Ah, whatever.
What should I do next?
A cord of energy drifted over me‑the‑sphere.
Well, after getting something that was basically magic, what else was I supposed to do besides mess with it? Although… I could probably hurt myself if I did something wrong with this substance... On the other hand, I'm dead, there's nothing around, and even if I cause myself pain—well, what can you do. At least existing won't be so boring... how fatalistic.
But back to a more positive wave. Energy... let's try pushing it outside—beyond the "skin."
A stream about a centimeter thick rushed out of the core and passed beyond the limits of my body without any obstacles. No issues there.
A few minutes later I was already trying to control two "snakes" of energy. They could easily be merged into one, and I tried braiding them together.
After another ten minutes of this fun little activity, my brain steaming like crazy, I was already trying to make a weave of ten threads—one from each finger.
Another notable thing: I didn't have to pull the energy straight out of the outer sphere—which, as I was vaguely starting to feel, was the main reservoir. In much smaller amounts, the same substance was in my body, and I could draw it not just from the "skin," but even from the "glow."
The experiments with shape manipulation dragged on for another couple dozen minutes, ending with me checking how far I could stretch a thread of energy—a tendril, basically. Turned out to be about two meters. Weird sensation, like how an arm can't physically reach further, and in the same way I couldn't push the energy any farther.
After that I moved on to trying to change the properties of my energy. Up to now I'd just been changing its shape, which is also a "property," kind of. But you can take that concept a lot further.
Right away, a small flame popped up over my finger, like from a lighter. It was gray for some reason... ah, there we go, at my command it turned into a normal color.
"Hmm... looks like I've got the makings of a masochist," I muttered, holding my other hand over the flame. "Nothing... Oh, right, I need to assign the thought‑property that the fire should be hot... Hotter... hotter... Oh fuck, not that hot!"
So I could hurt myself after all. When I was "jump‑roping" as the sphere and smacking "myself" with the energy cord, I hadn't felt any damage. I'd clearly felt that I was touching myself, sure, but there were no real injuries.
I looked at my hand, now nicely filled in with gray... Well, at least I checked whether my "body" has regeneration. I hope it does.
Now I could move on to the sphere and its core... Over time, I was feeling their work more and more clearly: how the outer sphere bled excess energy out of the body, and how the inner core radiated energy into the outer sphere as if from nowhere.
Then a not‑very‑smart idea came to me, but its quality didn't stop me from trying it. As always, obeying my will, the outer sphere stopped radiating energy and started slowly overfilling.
After a minute I felt uncomfortable. After three—more uncomfortable, and a problem cropped up: I could barely hold the sphere back. It wasn't showing any signs it was about to burst on its own. In fact, that lack of an "I'm gonna pop" feeling was what kept me going, because my senses were telling me I could still keep holding it.
Even with my newly discovered self‑torture tendencies, I still didn't want to hurt myself that deliberately. If I'd felt like I was about to burst, I'd have let go.
With a low hum, the energy tore free of my control and gushed out of me in a powerful stream of light.
Ugh... tired again. I don't know what exactly in me gets tired, but this time the feeling came not only from the mental work, like before, but also from working with the energy itself. The energy, by the way, was still there in full. So apparently it was the manipulation that wore me out.
With that, I decided to push the next experiments off until "tomorrow."
Just like last time, I cleared my mind without effort and again fell into something like sleep.
Some time later
Alright, what else is there to do?
Guess I'll keep working on containing the energy.
With a light effort, the inner core kind of switched off, stopping its radiation. That took less effort than holding back the outer sphere. However... yeah, if I stopped focusing on it, the core would just "switch on" by itself again and start pumping out its "jelly." Hm...
What if...
I focused on my "glow" and immediately tried to snuff it out, as if corking the energy up inside.
Starting from the "skin" on my fingers, the glow began to fade. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, the process of "fading" got harder and harder. My mind was practically boiling by the time my hands had "gone dark" up to the elbows...
Failure.
After rethinking what had happened a bit, I felt a slight dissatisfaction with the experiment. Sure, I'd never gotten everything right on the first try anyway. But this was just a mess: I'd failed to pull something off—that just didn't sit right.
As the experiments with form had clearly shown, my skills grew with time. And now I had... a lot of time. Hm... First I'll try making different‑colored glows. I wanna learn how to puke rainbows...
A week later
"Come on... you... I mean, I can do this!" I stared at the fading toes on my feet. At first the progress had been fast. After about an hour of work, I'd managed to "extinguish" my hands. But the farther I went, the more the progress slowed down, even if not too sharply. By my feel for it, I'd already spent something like ten hours actually working on it. Plus an unknown amount of time in between, spent "sleeping." That's how long it had taken to reach where I was now.
Though I hadn't been grinding only this one trick. I'd also been progressing in other areas of energy manipulation. I'd pushed my overall control to the point where I could stretch energy—and therefore "see" with it—up to five meters away. And, by the way, my "body" did have regeneration: the burn‑like injury had healed up over several sleep cycles.
But right now the important part was that I'd done what I set out to do. Straining hard to keep my "skin" from leaking energy, I could only squeeze out a pained smile.
Finally managed to snuff out all the glow from my skin. Now all I'm missing is a bell chime and a "Quest Complete" pop‑up over my head, I thought, my smile becoming a little less strained.
And... what's this...?
Suddenly I started to feel something vague, like my "skin" was getting "thicker"... or rather, denser, soaking up energy to do it. Was it because of the pressure I was putting on it right now?
For a few more seconds I held the energy inside, watching that slow process. But since it was taking real effort, I was just about to let go of my control when I suddenly felt a jolt from below.
A few seconds later, I was being pulled somewhere. My control slipped, and the pent‑up energy gushed out of me in a torrent. But I could still feel that my acceleration wasn't dropping; something inside told me I was moving through space. After another, fairly short stretch of time, I felt the "atmosphere" get thicker, like I'd gone from air into water. I wasn't sure this space—which, as it turned out, wasn't empty at all—had any kind of actual atmosphere, but that's exactly how it felt.
The denser "atmosphere" turned out to be energy, different from the stuff I'd been manipulating. It started slowly soaking into me, and I instinctively felt that this substance was very good for me.
For the first time in a long while, I felt hunger—and I knew clearly that this stuff outside could satisfy it.
With a push of will, my "skin" opened up instead, and the flow of absorbed energy shot up many times over.
Pushing even harder, I started yanking that energy into myself as much as I could.
I didn't really have the strength to look closely, but as it washed over my soul, that energy almost immediately made the outer shell completely transparent, while the core barely changed—its gray color just turned... grayer.
Strangely enough, even at peak strain, I didn't get tired for a long time. My control was actually growing stronger.
After a while of letting the energy pour through me, I felt... younger? And, like I just mentioned, stronger. However... my stamina still couldn't keep up with the power of my efforts. I hadn't totally lost my mind, and I noticed that as I went, so I eased off the pace. All so I could stay conscious longer and absorb more energy.
But as I kept pulling more and more into myself, fatigue still crept over me in a slow wave. And after a while, I couldn't fight it off and slipped into unconsciousness...