The silence within Shinji's sealed mind was absolute. Not the quiet of an empty room, but the profound, suffocating absence of all sensation. He drifted in a formless void, a consciousness untethered from sight, sound, touch, smell, or taste. He simply was, adrift in an ocean of nothingness.
Then, sensation returned – but only one. Sight.
He found himself observing, a disembodied awareness within a colossal, obsidian cave. Its walls stretched into impossible distances, smooth and featureless, absorbing what little light existed. He couldn't turn his head, couldn't blink, couldn't scream. He was a prisoner behind his own eyes.
His gaze was drawn upwards. The cavern's "sky" wasn't rock, but a swirling, impossible tapestry. Twelve distinct patterns pulsed with inner light, each a complex, shifting mandala of colors and geometries that defied comprehension – one blazed with fractal gold, another writhed with liquid emerald fractals, a third pulsed with deep cerulean spirals. They weren't just patterns; they felt like fundamental laws made visible.
Interspersed among them, dominating the lower expanse, were seven colossal spheres of pure, light-devouring Darkness. Not black, but the negation of existence itself, voids that seemed to warp the patterns around them, pulling at their light like black holes devouring stars.
Horizonward, twelve points of intense, radiant light shone like captured supernovas. Each burned with a unique hue and intensity – blinding white, searing violet, calming turquoise, raging crimson. They felt... alive. Potent. Ancient.
His fixed perspective shifted slightly, drawn downwards. Two figures stood on a distant ledge, silhouetted against the glow of the distant lights. Their forms were indistinct, blurred as if seen through warped glass, but their movements were animated. One gestured emphatically, the other stood with arms crossed. They were clearly engaged in a heated discussion, mouths moving rapidly.
They're talking! Shinji's mind screamed, desperate for sound, for meaning. But the absolute silence pressed in, a physical weight. He saw lips form words, saw expressions shift – frustration, perhaps urgency, maybe even fear – but no sound reached him. The frustration was maddening, a scream trapped in a soundproof box. He was an audience to a silent play of cosmic significance, utterly denied the script.
Then, agony. It erupted without warning, a searing, bone-deep ache that tore through his non-existent body. It wasn't localized; it was everywhere, a violation of his very essence. Terror, cold and absolute, washed over him. *Why? What's happening?* But there were no answers, only the silent, horrifying spectacle and the excruciating pain.
His vision flickered. The obsidian cave walls seemed to ripple. Then, his sight began to crumble. Like fracturing glass, his field of vision splintered, dark cracks spreading across the image of the cave, the patterns, the lights, the arguing figures. The cracks deepened, widened, swallowing the light. The ache intensified, becoming a white-hot scream within his silent prison. His sight shattered completely, plunging him into utter, absolute blackness.
He was back in the formless void. The ache remained, a phantom torment. But then... a sound. Faint at first, then growing, echoing in the sensory vacuum.
"Transcend..."
A single word, spoken in a voice that was neither male nor female, ancient nor young, but resonant with impossible depth. It echoed, not through ears, but directly within the core of his fractured consciousness.
"Transcend..."
Again. And again. A relentless, haunting mantra in the abyss.
"Transcend..."
YOU ARE READING
Trascender : The Fourth Gust
FantasiWhat happens when death becomes impossible? Nineteen-year-old Shinji Kazuhiko's life shattered the night a masked killer invaded his home. Left for dead, he made a horrifying discovery: he cannot die. And with each death, something inside him grows...
