Chapter 1: Prelude

The little girl was sinking like a stone.

She could not move her body, nor could she open her eyes. Everything around her felt awfully cold and heavy, like she was slowly drifting down the bottom of a deep, gloomy lake.

Nothing of hers was tangible. Not her body, not even her thoughts. Her mind felt like it was enshrouded in a mist of grey fog; her thoughts broken into tiny particles floating all around her. Whenever she tried bringing up a memory, to reach out to one, it seemed to turn to ash in her grasp.

What was going on? How had she ended up in such a strange place? She did not know. She did not--

She knew nothing. So many questions came to her then, circulating, overwhelming her. And then they did not.

There was a voice. Nearby--no, far away? It sounded both proximate and distant at the same time. It was speaking to someone.

She tried focusing on this sole sound...

And then everything fell utterly still. Her senses were all working in tandem to hone in on this sound. Even time itself seemed to cease at her wish and will. Everything except for this voice that echoed all around her. It reverberated in the empty silence...

It was a woman's voice. She was certain of it.

"...iate… ink…"

At those abstruse words, the girl's body began to feel even lighter--as light as a feather. She was slowly losing herself the deeper she plummeted down this bottomless pit. Her entire being felt like it was disappearing, bit by bit, deteriorating into nothingness. Her thoughts and memories felt like fluttering cascades all around her, one by one, abandoning her.

Her very being.

All that she knew.

All that she was.

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Was being swallowed by this black abyss.

And it was as if the girl was being born anew. Not a single trace of who she was before would remain. All that was left was her body falling and falling and falling, and there would be no end to it. Like a nightmare she could not awaken from.

What was her name? She did not know.

Was loneliness always so terrifying? The little girl wanted to scream. She tried but she couldn’t even hear her own voice.

She was even robbed of expressing her grief.

How cruel. How painfully cruel. Who would put her in this terrible place? And why wasn't anyone helping her? She would scream and shout and beg if she had to. But she knew that all of the shouting in the world would do her no good here. Instead, she mustered the strength to utter a shiver below a whisper.

A whisper so faint it was barely even perceptible. One would have to be trying so desperately to listen to hear this faintest of whispers. But who would be listening in such a place? The girl had no clue. A hero? Don’t be a fool. Such things didn’t exist.

But she knew she had to try.

And try she did.

She could feel the tension tightening in her chest. Her breast heaved and convulsed as she desperately tried to find the breath to release her cry.

She could not hear herself but she could sense her lips moving. And all that came to her right then, all that her lips mimed were two simple words...

“Save me...”

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