Chapter 7: Echoes before Awakening
A beautiful clock, its face painted a rare marrs green, strikes twelve. Silvers of blue, red and greenish yellow ripple across its surface like water.
Roy was running, faster than he ever had, through a crumbling street, chased by a tsunami of bricks. The air quakes with their weight. They grind against each other like teeth that are ready to devour him whole.
His foot catches on a brick that started floating and gravitating towards the tsunami.
He falls. Face first into the brick-laid road, to fall into an empty abyss, swallowing him whole.
The silence was suffocating.
From the darkness of the abyss, eyes open. Dozens to hundreds watch as Roy falls further into the abyss. Unblinking and ever judging.
Roy hits something solid.
He's on the floor, cold and smooth like hospital tile. Then, pale hands, dozens of them, erupt from beneath the tiles, seizing his arms, his legs, his throat and his mouth. Roy screams through the hands, but it comes out muffled.
He blinks.
Now he is standing, on his feet, in the middle of a mediaeval village. Cobblestone streets, black smoke in the air. The smell of fire and rusted metal raided his nose. A bell rang, and Roy turned towards the sound.
Then everything shifted. Gravity shifted.
The world tilts sideways.
He falls into the sky, not down but sideways, buildings scattering like feathers as he flies past, unable to control his momentum, villagers going about their lives as if the world hadn't just betrayed physics for him.
He leaves the atmosphere at astronomical speeds, like he was being pulled by the Great Attractor; he passes by a nebula, floating through its swirling, celestial colours, violet stars and golden dust painting streaks across the void. It was breathtaking.
As if time slowed down.
His gaze changes.
Now, he's standing before a door. His hand moves on its own. It opens. It was a classroom; every head in that room turns to stare at him. But their bodies didn't move, just their heads.
All of them silent and lifeless.
He looks left.
A boy with his face holds a mirror and smashes it across Roy's head. Glass shards explode mid-air, each suspended in time. Each piece a window, a fragment of what could be:
One share: him laughing his heart out.
Another: him staring at the sky while lying down on the ground.
A third: him holding someone who he finds dear.
Another: him genuinely smiling
Then, he crashed into a field of blood. Dry like flaking paint. At the centre, a version of him curled up, whispering the same phrase over and over again.
He runs.
But the ground dissolves, and he sinks into a dark sea; as he swims back up, he realises he is in a black sea, his arms thrashing above the surface while glowing fish swim below, each one showing fragments of forgotten memories, possible lives and lost names he could have been called.
Then, a strangely serene garden. Flowers bloom in unnatural colours everywhere. Roy sits in a wheelchair, motionless. Stuck. A man walks past him. Roy recalls that he knew him but doesn't know from where.
The ground cracks like glass; he falls again, this time into thick fog. Everything is grey and silent; his body ached, maybe from being tired of it all.
From it, a figure in white emerges, face blurred by the dense grey fog, undefined. They raise a gun and calmly say, "This is your last."
The trigger clicks, a deafening gunshot. Darkness.
Then a voice within the dark:
"Time resets when you forget who you are… Wake up, Roy."
Roy gasps awake; the ceiling above him was plain, white and still. The hum of cars leaks through the dorm window. His shirt clings to his chest, soaked in sweat. His heart pounds against his ribs, but he doesn't remember anything, just a black wall.