Unmade Chapter 1: chapter 1: falling through darkness

Deep within a void of endless darkness, where no light could survive and even time itself seemed smothered beneath the weight of its vast nothingness, a storm raged without end. It carried no thunder, no wind, no lightning, only shadows. They twisted and tore through one another in silent fury, writhing like living things trapped in eternal agony. The darkness felt ancient, restless, almost aware, yet no scream or echo emerged from it. The entire abyss existed in absolute silence. Through that storm, a single white thread descended. It stretched almost endlessly downward, impossibly thin yet a perfect opposite against the all-consuming black. The thread trembled violently as it cut through the void, as though it alone carried purpose within a realm that had long since abandoned meaning. At its end, tethered like a falling star bound by its own fading light, drifted a boy. He was unconscious at first, his body falling weightlessly despite the merciless speed dragging him deeper into the abyss. Bruises and cuts covered his pale skin, while darker wounds hinted at battles he could no longer remember. His black hair streamed upward in the current of his descent, framing a face that looked strangely calm for someone suspended within a endless abyss. Torn remnants of what had once been a student uniform clung to his lower body, shredded and stained beyond recognition. The upper half, however, was simply gone, replaced only by that endless white thread trailing beneath him into the darkness. Time didn't seem to have a meaning here. Perhaps minutes passed. Perhaps centuries. Eventually, the boy stirred. His fingers twitched faintly before his eyelids slowly opened. For several long moments, he simply stared into the void surrounding him. There was no horizon. No stars. No sense of distance or direction. Only the silent storm churning endlessly around him. At last, his lips parted. “Where… am I?” The question vanished into the abyss unanswered. Only then did he become aware of the sensation pulling at him constantly, the endless downward fall that refused to stop. Confusion surfaced faintly within him, though it felt distant somehow, muted beneath an overwhelming exhaustion pressing against both his body and mind. Before he could gather his thoughts further, pain suddenly erupted through his right shoulder. Sharp, violent and unforgiving. A quiet hiss escaped him as instinctively he reached across his body with his left hand. His fingers searched for his right arm, and found nothing. His expression shifted for the first time. Slowly, and more carefully now, he reached again. His hand brushed against torn flesh near the edge of his shoulder, slick with warmth still leaking from the wound. The realization settled over him immediately. “My… my arm?” he murmured quietly. “Why is it gone?” Oddly, there was no panic in his voice. No anger either. Only tired disbelief. A faint smile even touched his lips, not born from humor or happiness, but from resignation. “What happened to me…?” Again, the abyss offered no answer. He searched his memories desperately after that, reaching into the fog filling his mind, but every attempt dissolved before anything meaningful could surface. Faces, places, voices, everything unraveled into emptiness the moment he tried to grasp it. There was no past waiting for him there. No identity. It almost felt as though he had simply awakened within the abyss already falling, with no beginning and no purpose beyond descent itself. Strangely, that realization did not frighten him as much as it should have. The exhaustion swallowing him was simply too heavy. Then he felt it. Something moved nearby. Fast and subtle. A presence brushed past him within the darkness, close enough that he instinctively turned toward it despite seeing nothing at all. Another followed moments later, then another after that. Soon countless unseen shapes moved through the storm around him, weaving silently through the void at impossible speeds. So