A young man laid motionless on a mound, his eyes—brimming with obliviousness, flew open, darting frenziedly in the dark while he gasped for air.
"Huhhh, huhh."
A barrage of pants shot forward before his breathing became a tad stable. His wide open eyes, ready to pop out at any moment, relaxed slightly but he's yet to blink. He took three deep breaths and closed his eyes before Opening them again. He repeated this maneuver until his frenzied mind calmed down a bit and he attained his rationality and senses.
As soon as his senses came to him, he immediately raised his right hand in front of himself and brandished it; followed by the other three limbs. His limbs were obscured by darkness and he couldn't see them clearly, but he confirmed that they were intact and not severed.
Though he struggled to raise his limbs as his entire body felt stiff and barely in his control.
It was as if he was in a power struggle with some external forces to gain authority over his body back.
It might be because they were separated from my torso a while ago…
"A while ago..." he mused.
"That's right! I died after I jumped off the train."
Askia sluggishly raised his hand and directed it to his chest–slightly left from the centre, and felt his heart throbbing rapidly.
Am I still alive?
Askia braced himself and gathered his thoughts. He tried to recall the eerie incidents that had happened to him ever after he stepped inside the railway station—starting from him being called out by a stranger for his missing Shadow especially when every soul refused to notice his presence, to him witnessing a strange outburst of light in his mind twice fojumping off the train and his three limbs being detached to him hallucinating about the world getting devoured by darkness as the sun-
Correct, the sun went through a total solar eclipse and then i lost control over my body.
"What happened to me?"
This question seemed to break the barrier that was occluding his thoughts and as a result, his mind was inundated with several questions and doubts in a mere second.
Am I still alive?
Did I die?
Whether I died or not, what is this?
How did I end up here?
Why are my limbs intact like nothing happened?
Why am I not feeling excruciating pain?
How can I think straight like nothing happened?
And how come I remember everything vividly except that stranger's countenance?
Askia, while recalling the sequence of events, tried to recall about the stranger that he had encountered twice, but to no avail. He was unsure about whether they were a male or female.
As innumerous thoughts buzzed and swamped his mind, an ache surfaced in his mind. This is the only pain he had felt after opening his eyes and it was a significant observation.
Askia was suspecting that he had died and was in the afterlife since his limbs were intact and he wasn't feeling any pain which was very strange. It made him believe that he had died since dead people don't feel anything.
Well it's a different thing that dead people can neither think like me, but yeah it seems like I'm alive.
The more Askia cogitated about the questions he had, the more questions surfaced in his mind. It was stifling. For a second, Askia wondered if his mind was filled with quick sand.
…..
After a period of contemplation and ruling out several possibilities, Askia came to a conclusion that he might very well be in a coma.
Askia doesn't know what happens in coma but in his current predicament, coma is the only reasonable assumption he can think of. Except for the coma, the other assumptions were based on the supernatural.
And ofcourse, supernatural events only take place in a fictional world, not in reality.
Hence, after ruling out other plausible reasons, coma is what he decided on.
Fuck it!
The worst outcome that he had thought of before suiciding presumably became a reality for him.
I must be in a coma.
His countenance grimaced upon the thought of being stuck in a coma.
He tsked and mocked his destiny. As per his research before suiciding, the mortality rate was 80-90% and out of 100 victims, only 5-10 were supposed to fell in prolonged or transient coma. But looking at his state, he guessed that he was in the former state.
Does that make me special? I mean I am encountering a rare case. I've been unlucky my whole life, but from a different perspective, I've been eerily unlucky in the 'dark side'. I sure am a lucky fellow but in an unwanted way. He mused and mocked himself.
What do you mean? That's hard to understand.
A foreign and strange voice reverberated in his mind.
Uhmm, if you find it hard to compare then take it as I'm the fastest horse in a race but I'm running backwards - away from the coveted outcome.
He explained in a simpler words and the other voice replied.
Hmm… I got it. In simple words, you are just an unfortunate and miserable fellow who could never participate let alone win a race.
The voice remarked and chortled to mock the 'lucky' guy.
"I know that very well you-",
While he indignantly replied to the foreign voice, he looked around and saw no one. The words remained inside and his jaw dropped while his body petrified. All this time, he conversed with the voice as if it was normal but as soon as he realised the abnormality a certain fear struck him.
Fear of the unknown!
You? Who are you? Who are you ! I can't see anyone. And the voice didn't land on my ears, it directly communicated with my mind. How's this possible? Is this the telepathy that I read about in webnovels and webtoons? If it is then who's talking with me? Wait, it must still be hearing my thoughts. I should communicate with him.
He exhaled deeply, closed his eyes and mouth and tried to calm himself down but his body was trembling and he was anything but composed.
A possibility that clicked his mind was that he might be in the afterlife and the person who communicated with him through telepathy or some other way, was the ruler of the underworld or the underworld daoist, an honorary title he read in a web novel. But he rejected that thought because -
An underworld daoist wouldn't be this dumb.
I'm not dumb. You're the one who's dumb. I'm a part of you!. The foreign voice replied furiously.
You can't even figure out that you're still alive. What was that pessimistic and childish response? Coma and unfortunate?
He lost his composure and his thoughts muddled his mind as a myriad of questions flooded his mind.
He's a part of me? I'm still alive? And I'm fortunate? How!
He asked those questions to himself but the foreign voice heard them all as if they were sharing a single body and while it had access to his thoughts, the opposite didn't seem to happen as the foreign voice only answered upon his questions and its thoughts, if there were any, weren't audible to him.
This is not the time, you can find those answers once you escape this predicament. The foreign voice said succinctly— graveness apparent.
What do you mean? I can't understand?
The foreign voice laughed cracked up as it said,
See, you're the one who's dumb.
It made a sound as if clearing throat and continued in solemn tone with no trace of humour,
In simple terms, you're in an ordeal. Look around and see for yourself. I believe you can see everything clearly.
Askia promptly understood what the unknown voice in his head insinuated. Ever since he was born, along with not having a shadow, he was bestowed with one more 'blessing' from the God— night blindness. He couldn't even outline objects or beings, much less seeing them.
But, miraculously his night blindness was cured—not only it was cured but also his vision had enhanced. He had gained night vision.
As per its instruction, Askia darted his eyes around to not inspect himself but to inspect the place he was at. He was so occupied with his thoughts that he had forgot to take a look at his surroundings and assess the situation he was in—which could result in fatal and pernicious demise.
He had overlooked the principel he always tend to follow,
'No matter what situation you're, you must first calm yourself and assess the predicament you're in.'
Reflecting on his mistake, Askia darted his eyes around hastily and noticed many things he had overlooked before.
His body was resting on a heap of a crop—unsure of what crop it exactly was.
He realised that he was in some kind of warehouse after looking at the heap of crops and grains placed around him. It wasn't a strange thing, but Askia's felt quite apprehensive after scrutinizing the architecture of the warehouse.
It had slightly sloped roofs with a large wooden door at a distance—which seemed very far to Askia due to his body stiffness. There were other farm produces too like cotton. And a few unlit oil lamps hung still in the air. Nothing abnormal.
But what made Askia uneasy was the fact that the warehouse was built using wood, stone and bricks, which were very outdated, entirely different from the current architecture style which made use of steel and concrete and was supported by many machines and electrical appliances —-which were nowhere to be seen.
Askia could differentiate between them because he had once tried to sneak into a warehouse of goods in an attempt to satiate his ever-lasting hunger. But he was caught and thrashed till he lost his consciousness.
Askia shook his head vigorously to not remember those excruciating memories and also so that he could focus on his present.
Another thing he noticed was that there were many cracks and holes through which sunlight could seep in, but still it was nowhere to be seen. A reason could be that it's night time, but his intuition told him that the reason was something entirely different.
As Askia was reading his surroundings and famialarising himself with it, all of a sudden, the stiffness in his body vanished into thin air. His body felt very light, as though he could fly. He had surmised that the stiffness was obvious and would've lasted way long, but suddenly riddance from it didn't look like a good sign to him.
As he was contemplating the never ending sets of questions like-
Who was the owner of the strange voice?
How his limbs are still intact?
How is he still alive?
Why doesn't he remember anything about the stranger?
Where was the warehouse situated at?
Why it's architecture style differs so much from modern architecture?
What was that outburst of light and the two miniature suns he had witnessed in his mind?
These were the questions that were hovering in his mind above the surface of the sea of questions.
So overwhelming that i might die again due to a headache. Well, not sure if i should use again or not though.
As he humored to calm the tempest of questions gnawing on his mind, the warehouse suddenly got blanketed with pitch black darkness —with a hue of dark blue of ink. The darkness shrouded, in fact devoured the warehouse challenging Askia's 'night vision', almost rendering his new found ability useless.
Askia who had just gained control over his body was about to get up and rush like his life depended on it, but he got petrified.
The sudden petrification was a result of the change in the atmosphere.
An oppressive aura permeated in the air as soon as he realised that his body stiffness has gone.
A strange feeling of death numbed his senses.
A cold sweat ran through his spine and his mind froze, no other thought rang in his mind except for one.
I am going to die!