A little over half a decade ago – just off the side of a distant shore near the oceanic darkness washed up the crashed wreckage of a small boat.
It was daytime, but even then, an unmistakable trench was dug deep into the ground on the beach sands. This was the unmistakable border put up to remind others that come nighttime, the darkness would cover this entire area from the line.
The beach sand was a murky black. On its shores, were washed up parts, and footsteps. They had probably been injured because each footstep was dragged out, making it seem like they were dragging their feet struggling to stand.
The path led deeper into the beach, a few more footprints along the shoreline – it seems the other survivors had all washed up further ahead. At some point, the footsteps all gathered into one march, and were currently all sitting in silence.
"We should start moving soon… I don't know how I feel about being this close to the trench line."
"We will, just give us a second."
They had lost more than half of them, and no-one from the captain of the boats crew made it. They were all thinking about the captain and his crew – the ship wreckage was proof enough that they had not survived. Thoughts about their own comrades surfaced. Droal, Gorsal, Otain, and mostly Folis.
On the shore – Bex, Tzic, Ai-Yin, and Helim lay on the ground after Tzic told them they had to go, and Bex being temporarily in charge said they should take a breather first. Ai-Yin was silent, making not even a peak – some kind of trauma was surfacing within her. Her happy to go behaviour didn't even attempt to surface – truth be told she was in love with Gorsal – he had saved her from her suicidal thoughts after her city fell.
Everyone knew the volatile nature of life on this planet – in a single day – everyone in a town could be obliterated. She had never even told him – even if he knew. Gorsal used to tease her, pretending not to see that she liked him. She was not going to make a scene because the others were just as precious to her, and they had lived.
No-one could wipe from their minds the clear visuals of the blood splatter made on the deck as the god-monster brutally gouged Folis. Droal and Otain had fallen after being hunted by monsters in the water. Otain was the strongest of them, and could have survived, but she died trying to protect Droal who was badly injured, but the monsters swarmed them, killing them both.
Helim then looked at the sea, she was just a recent recruit, and even though this was a rough first mission, she had not expected all this for her initiation. She may have not known the others well, but a pang in her heart made her ache. But what made her ache even more was lady Mavi.
She lay right next to them, lifeless.
She picked up her body, putting it on her back. The others picked up the salvaged supplies that had washed up after them in the early morning. Helim felt the cold touch of Mavi on her body. She smiled though – because she could still feel her heartbeat, barely two per minute, but enough for her. They just had to make it to Revel Arc.
'Don't leave me okay – I'm just a recruit; I won't make it that far without you. Also, you have to take responsibility for hiring me.' She said to Mavi in her head as they began the march.
Ladi Mavi, had actually gutted and butchered the monsters in the sea, making a path for them, she was too late to save Otain and Droal. Gorsal had died shortly after making sure that the exhausted lady Mavi survived. He had died whilst leading the god-monster away from them – after it delt with the captain, it tried to hunt them down.
They walked far off into the distance, even managing to making it far out of sight of the trench line as the night approached. They watched the horizon close off far in the distance and in object terror, they watched the same horizon as it darkened further as the darkness covered the land.
Slowly, they lost their vision, their hearing, and all their other senses as the covered them, reaching darkness far ahead of them.
'What's happening…' – Helim thought.
'No way…' – Ai-Yin, falling to her knees.
'There is no way…' – Bex thought.
Tzic didn't jump to conclusions first, but there was nothing else she could think of that could describe this. 'Does this mean the Oceanic darkness has really moved that far up the shore, I'm sure that trench line was made a few days ago – is our information that out of date, and how is that…?'
It then dawned on her – the darkness must be moving way faster than predictions. From their estimations, the trench line they had far passed, was supposed to mean the darkness was far south of it.
Just like most people she too, could not hear her own thoughts, but she had extremely high knowledge stats, enough to convince her mind that something had been thought – this was nothing much for their strategist though – even if this was making her panic as well, her duties to being a strategist came first.
She kept thinking glossing over the situation. At most they had a split second before the destroyers started appearing out of nothing like the knights had tried to explain to the public. But …
She was right about the fairly recent part. 'The line had been crossed just a few years back and been held back by knights from the Sharli legion. But another trench line had been promptly made. What is happening right now is that the trench line has been crossed once again, and this time even further than before. And most of the time, the knights don't send someone in to clear the previous one. Meaning this must have happened while we were on boat, right after Otain gave a report from the base.'
She kept gleaming such details, that's when she came across something potentially deadly. The fact that they had not been in view of the knights, this meant the safety point was way beyond the horizon – thus they weren't going to accidentally come upon help. There were far deep into the darkness – no help was coming.
'There's nothing I can do – truly… apologies my lady, I have failed you again…'
Tzic was way more well off than the others, unlike them she had the mental fortitude to recognise her thoughts even if she still could not hear them, just like them. So, even if she could think, she could not think up of a way for them to survive.
In here, they could not feel all hundreds of their common senses – no sense of time, sense of location, sense of reality, sense of space, sense of loss, sense of anything. They were unable to feel the force of the ground on the soles of their feet's, so it felt like drifting up, down, and sideways, at the same time. Being shrunk, being expanded – it did not matter, they could not tell.
Even worse, they could not feel their body, they could not tell the position of their bodies to themselves – pure and utter loss of any and all senses. It was just beginning though, and as such they had not yet descended into madness.
In the void, worldly beings could not exist. But summoning it, did not remove the air from the area, it did not suddenly teleport them into space, it did not immobilise them.
Ironically enough – incredibly so – this sense of nothing ness only existed to people who had unleashed the first seal and reached power level 0 or 1. Humans that were just not even register as power level 0, the powerless, as they had not earned or realised any authority within them – making them unworthy of power, did not experience as much.
The unleashed, however, possessed what one would identify as heightened senses. And these were all but paralysed with the void. This was because the void stopped anything that exerted a pressure from being able to exert any at all – it did not rob them of their senses, they were sensing too much for their own good.
This was the result of them trying to feel the void; thus, they felt it, nothing.
They had not lost their senses; this is just what happens when someone sensed nothing itself. Numbing ones senses did not help either – it worsened it even further. Afterall, trying to feel for nothing when you feel nothing, is a madman's game.
Only those of the void or associated with the void, or those the void could not detect because they did not even possess enough existential effort to sense nothing, were moderately affected. The Knights, and the certain few led by chance and luck, possessed what one would describe as the set of abilities that made them specialists without senses.
Helim tightened the ropes on her and lady Mavi. Then she grabbed everyone's hand, they could not even feel the sensuality of this pull. She then sprinted with them in tow, running out of the darkness – as fast as she hoped she was imagining.
Helim could not see or hear in as much as the others, but she knew where everyone was and where they were. Centuries of being a guide had been ingrained into her, and all trying to guide them out of this. These particular set of skills was all she had to show for her life – but it was just enough.
She did not sense their location, neither did she of what was around them. What she was relying on was no sense. Tzic was not hearing her thoughts; she was just recognising that they had been though, even if she thought nothing.
In a similar accord, Helim was updating live locations into her mind. As she ran, it felt more like they were running in the same spot, or in circles, or even sinking or flying. But she had absolute, unwavering, unfiltered surety that they were walking in a straight line out of this place.
Her mind had already memorised maps – and had scouted this area before the night covered darkness shut her senses out. She also possessed a guide – this meant her actions were not orders send through the mind, or even feedback system in which she used her senses, she merely knew – through all this confusion, all of it, that she was doing it – doing nothing.
Their screams echoed, none could hear them, but Bex – knew that these screams existed, thus he screamed further, even if he had nothing to reference.
Those of the void, simply known in this world as destroyers, were upon them.
Then Helim stopped, she did not know that she had, but something had just touched her paralysing her on the stop. Her soul was being tugged on, pulled on, ravaged.
She still didn't know what was happening. They had just been caught in the cross hairs of a destroyer.
Right before they were felt, a massive clang echoed, so powerfully that they heard it.
The next thing they knew, was suddenly being flooded by senses as they left the darkness, welcomed by the night stars. The laid on the floor, screaming their heads off like infants. They were held down by the squires, as they tried to claw their own eyes away. who wanted to see anyway? They tried to kill themselves on the spot, hoping dearly for some kind of reprieve.
They cried deeply, filling the night with their immense sorrow. It felt like they had been in there for eons, and for others it had been just a single second filled with extreme overexertion, pain, and blinding grief. But in reality, they had been in there for just a few hours, which was well over the recommended amount.
Any longer and all of them would have turned into mad monsters. They felt free but also felt bound. Conflictions that existed in them, at contradicting points, and somehow at equilibrium. An example would be feeling out of place, feeling too comfortable, and just at peace – all in a single beat, and multiple such feelings.
This rebound was to be expected. Going from zero, to any number, no matter how small through multiplication, will always define the multiplicator as an infinite larger than zero (cardinalities). As such, they were experiencing this uncalculatable shock. Even a single neuron movement sent them through a world that did not exist. Anything compared to nothing will always be too much, no matter how small.
Usually no-one survives this. Either they get eradicated or become monsters.
They were like this for days. Filling the knight camp with chilling noises as if someone had poked a hole in hell and these compressed noises were all escaping at once. The knights were used to these noises.
Usually, evacuation of people would be done within two to three hours at max, and by estimations they had almost been in there for the whole night, their minds and being were worn down to nothing. All four of them were okay.
***
A few weeks later, they finally attuned to their senses, finding a blinding balance.
Helim woke up after Tzic. Her mind had coped through pumping any and all its sources into perfecting the guide in her. In fact, although she was unaware of it, she had actually become stronger, a few levels even, also gaining the rare skill: [Ship].
She got up, putting her hand on her head. She was experiencing a headache for the first time in her life – because nothing was supposed strong enough to induce such pain. Her shock almost cleared it all – this shock came from looking at those lying next to her.
Mavi was not there. Ai-Yin lay there, all the hair on her head grey – her eyes having lost of any and all colour. She looked like a typical victim of the darkness, which is when she remembered. She panicked and fell to the ground. Stumbling around, fighting the images concocted during her venture in the darkness and the unusual and calm sight of the room.
Her mind was just too shaken, just wondering why the room is so calm.
'Has the world gone mad?'
It was a strange thought to have. Because her being was simply just so confused, why in the ever-living queen, was it that the world was not trying to end her, consume her, comfort her, doom her, save her, or do anything – it was acting like a normal room.
'No-!'
She screamed endlessly as she closed her ears, everything was too loud. She curdled into a ball trying to shut out all of the sensations of the world.
She was rejecting them.