ECHOES BEYOND THE DOOR || Hisoka X OC

003 || Voices in the Streets

Dust settled around her, clinging to her clothes and skin, her breath still coming in shallow bursts as she took in her surroundings. She could hardly believe it—she had fallen from the sky, crashed into the earth with a force that left the ground scarred... and yet, here she was, unscathed, steady on her feet.

The world around her was vivid, alive in a way the hall of doors had never been. Every color seemed sharper, every sound crisper. She looked up, noting the sky above, stretching wide and endlessly blue.

Quasar climbed her way out of the crater, the impact zone now fading into the background as she stepped forward, surrounded by towering trees. The forest was dense, thick with the smell of damp earth and pine, its canopy casting a cool, green-tinted shadow over everything below. She breathed in deeply, taking in the unfamiliar scents, the hum of life all around her. Every sense felt heightened here, every rustle of leaves, every shift of sunlight through the branches.

The stillness unnerved her. She had grown accustomed to the quiet of the hall of doors, but this silence was different—alive, watchful. She scanned her surroundings, half-expecting someone or something to appear through the thick foliage. Yet, as she moved forward, her footsteps softened by the bed of leaves and moss, there was no sign of any other presence.

Quasar steadied herself, her mind reeling with fragmented images from her fall. The chaos of the descent had overwhelmed her, blurring everything into a whirl of colors and shapes, but certain moments lingered, vivid and jarring in her memory. She remembered tumbling through layers of clouds, seeing patches of land flash beneath her like fractured pieces of a vast, unfamiliar puzzle. She couldn't make sense of it then—everything had come too fast, slipping past her in a frenzied rush. But now, as she pieced it together, she felt a stirring sense of awe mixed with unease.

The world she'd fallen into was... enormous. She could barely grasp its scale, the sense that it extended far beyond anything she'd known. It was like tumbling into an endless sea, a world wrapped within a boundless ocean, with isolated lands scattered like fragments across the water. But what looked like a boundless ocean, could be more accurately described as a lake in comparison to the sheer size of this world. During her descent, she'd glimpsed the faint curve of distant horizons, lands that faded into mist far beyond reach, an expanse that seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction. And somewhere within that vastness, she had landed on a continent within that lake.

Now, surrounded by the towering trees of the forest, those dizzying images faded into the back of her mind, leaving her with a sense of smallness. She was only beginning to understand that she'd arrived in a place so vast, it felt unknowable. And yet, the vastness called to her, a strange magnetism urging her forward, even as she fought to make sense of the world she'd been plunged into.

She walked carefully through the forest, her footsteps soft against the bed of fallen leaves and moss. It felt strange to move through this world with her feet on solid ground, after the chaotic freedom of the sky. But each step grounded her as she followed a winding path through the thick trees.

At last, the trees began to thin, and she found herself on a gentle slope where sunlight spilled through the gaps in the branches, casting long shadows across the ground. She paused, her gaze drifting downward to where the land dropped off, revealing a sprawling view of what lay beyond the forest.

Nestled below was a city, not enormous but large enough that its presence broke through the quiet solitude of the forest. From her vantage point, she could see streets winding through it like veins, connecting clusters of buildings that rose stories high. The architecture was simple but solid, a mix of homes, shops, and large markets. Brightly colored canopies dotted the city streets, marking the vibrant pulse of marketplaces, each one bustling with energy she could almost feel, even from this distance.