Inside the void, Adam felt no up or down. He drifted in a space that felt endless and empty.
The eye drifted near him, almost like a predator forced into the same cage as its prey. He could sense its presence, cold and ancient, circling him even without a physical form.
A sudden pressure wrapped around him. It felt like invisible hands squeezing his soul from every direction, compressing him as if the void itself wanted to flatten him into nothing. The sensation grew stronger and stronger until he felt his thoughts distort.
"What now…?" he murmured, though his voice no longer had any sound.
The golden light from the pendant reappeared, gathering in small sparks around him. The tiny sparks grew, linking together like threads weaving a shell around his soul. More and more light joined until the sparks formed a complete cocoon—a soft, glowing sphere that surrounded him and separated him from the crushing force of the void.
The eye floated outside the cocoon for a moment, its dark gaze fixed on him. Then the golden light caught it as well, pulling it into the shell as if refusing to let the two of them drift apart. The eye resisted briefly, but the cocoon sealed, trapping them together inside.
The moment the cocoon closed, the compression intensified. The golden sphere trembled under the pressure, shrinking slightly before stabilizing again.
Adam felt every part of his soul being squeezed and stretched at the same time, but the cocoon prevented him from being torn apart.
He drifted forward, although he could not tell what direction "forward" was. The cocoon began moving through the endless space, drawn by some unseen current. Adam could not tell if they were traveling through a void, through time, or through something entirely different.
There was no sense of speed or distance just an endless movement.
After what felt like several hours, he lost track. Then he lost count. Eventually, the idea of time stopped meaning anything at all.
The pressure slowly became normal, almost comfortable and at some point, the strain on his mind became too much. His thoughts grew slower. His awareness dimmed. Even the fear began to fade as exhaustion crept in. He tried to stay awake, but the void pressed down gently, urging him to let go.
His consciousness slipped.
The last thing he saw was the golden light dimming, as if someone had lowered a lantern's flame.
Then everything went dark.
When Adam's consciousness finally returned, it came back slowly, like someone lifting a curtain one finger at a time. At first he heard nothing but a faint humming. Then he felt something warm against his skin. His eyelids felt heavy, but he managed to open them a little.
A blurry face hovered above him.
It took a few seconds for the shapes to gain clarity. He saw a woman with gentle lines on her face and strands of silver mixed into her dark hair. Her expression was soft, almost relieved. She was holding him close to her chest, wrapped in a thin cloth.
"You're awake at last," she said quietly. "I was beginning to think something was wrong."
Adam wanted to respond, but the sound that came out of his mouth was nothing more than a small cry. The realization hit him slowly and uncomfortably. His limbs were tiny. His vision was low to the ground. He could barely control his fingers.
The woman smiled gently. "There you are. You must be exhausted."
Nothing made sense. A moment ago, he'd been inside a collapsing underwater pyramid. A dark beam had hit him. His body had disintegrated. Something had grabbed his soul. There had been a golden light…
And now he was… here.
He attempted to lift his hand to his face, but his arm jerked in a clumsy arc, nowhere close to where he wanted it to go. His fingers curled weakly. He frowned, trying to understand why his movements were so uncoordinated.
The woman adjusted her hold on him. "Easy now. You're far too small to struggle like that. You'll tire yourself."
Small.
The word echoed in his mind, and he glanced down as much as his stiff neck allowed. He could barely see anything except a tiny hand wrapped in cloth. The fingers were short and soft. It didn't feel like his own hand at all.
A wave of dizziness washed over him.
His surroundings were equally confusing. The ceiling was made of wooden beams. A faint lantern glowed in the corner. There was no sign of diving equipment, no sound of water, no scent of the sea. Nothing resembled the world he had just come from.
He wanted to ask questions.
He wanted to demand an explanation.
But the moment he tried to speak again, only another soft cry came out.
The woman smiled. "You really are a quiet baby."
Baby?
The word hit him harder than everything else.
This wasn't right.
Nothing matched.
The size of his body, the weakness in his limbs, the lack of control, the way the woman held him—
His thoughts tangled together.
He remembered the void, the cocoon, the golden light, the crushing pressure.
He remembered the Eye drifting near him.
He remembered losing consciousness.
But he didn't understand what had happened afterward.
He tried once more to lift his arm, and it moved—slowly, clumsily, but unmistakably like an infant's limb. The truth pushed into his mind, not all at once, but as a slow, uneasy realization.
His body was tiny.
His voice was weak.
His sight was low to the ground.
The woman held him like he weighed almost nothing.
He wasn't an adult.
Not anymore.
Something must have gone terribly wrong in the void, for better or worse he had been reborn!