The Escape

It had been a very, very long time. By now, Arnold had no idea how long he had been there. At first, he tried to count, but on the first day he realized that there was no way to check how much time had passed. Sure, there were people who were confident in their time tracking skills, but even they couldn't be sure if their guesses on how much time had passed were correct. Li Wei insisted he had been present for millennia, but there wasn't a way to check.

And so, rather than focus on how long he had been in this blank world, Arnold focused on how much he had done. After a few… days? Months? In any case, after some time, Arnold grew accustomed to being in the space, which everyone called the soul space.To his surprise, souls talking about their former lives was quite common. He expected it be like the internet, where sharing important personal details was a strict, yet unmentioned taboo. However, once he thought about it, things made sense. Revealing personal details meant that others wouldn't forget who you were, and there was no need for privacy in the first place. What was someone going to do if they found out an embarrassing detail about you life, ridicule you for it? The only thing they would be doing would be to waste their time. Without the restrictions or responsibilities of society, most people didn't really care about others unless they were friends.

Arnold found many new people, some who he liked, and others who he didn't. There was a stuck up arch-mage from another world who Arnold had a love hate relationship with. The (self proclaimed) arch-mage was really knowledgeable about manipulating energy, and taught Arnold a bunch of useful things about it. On the other hand, the arch-mage refused to lose to others and Arnold was always getting into fights with him because of it.

Having grown up on Earth, one of the many planets lacking energy, Arnold had no idea what to do at first. But once he started to get the feel for it, he advanced very quickly according to some of the other souls. His drive to beat the arch-mage made him advance quickly, and within some amount of time, Arnold finally beat him, to the arch-mage's dismay. Soon afterwards, the arch-mage lost his conviction and belief that he was the best magician ever. This ate away at him, and he became more and more faded away. Eventually, he just disappeared, and Arnold never saw him again. From this, Arnold learned that you should always try to improve yourself, or you would be overtaken by more dedicated people. In a way, it saddened Arnold that someone so accomplished could fall so easily because of their pride. There was no doubting that the arch-mage was a great magician, he was easily one of the best even amount millions of other souls. Yet he couldn't accept that there was someone better than him.

The arch-mage wasn't the only one who faded away however. As Arnold learned many new things and met new people, he also saw many of them disappear. Li WEi, the first person Arnold ever met disappeared after many, many years. It was horrible to watch. Li Wei became more and more transparent, and forgot everything about himself. Sometimes he would randomly recall some of his memories and become better, but he couldn't last forever. The last words that Arnold ever heard from him were "Please Arnold. You're one of my few friends left. Don't forget me, who I was what I did. Don't forget…" Then, Li Wei dissipated, and his particles scattered away.

Besides Li Wei, there was the old witch Trisha, who taught him about curses, hexes, and potions. She was always cranky, but she was also kind, even if she refused to admit it. There was Rose, a redheaded girl with a shy personality. She was quiet, but would sometimes randomly talk for what seemed like days on end if a topic that interested her was mentioned. She would also win every argument and was a great talker in general, despite the fact that she was shy. John, a great musician who took pieces of his soul to create various instruments and play them. He was great at all instruments, bu when he took out an instrument similar to a cello called a klen, the entire area would become entirely silent. The Arnold saw a lot, and learned a lot. However, he noticed that as time went on, he became lazier and lazier. This was due to two things, the first being that he had all the time in the world to do everything. Unless there was a pressing need to do something, Arnold had no reason to hurry. Sometimes Trisha would try to drag him off saying "Get up you scrooge, if you dare ignore me, I won't teach you anything until you've apologised and I'm satisfied."

To this, Arnold would reluctantly get up, saying " You cranky old bat, why do you need to be in such a rush? I'm just trying to enjoy myself. We're all already dead anyways."

"We may be dead, but we're still here as long as we don't become lazy like you and fade away." She replied.

Eventually, Arnold learned how to manipulate energy to increase his gravity just to spite her. After that, it was impossible for her to drag him onto his feet. With things like this, time continued to pass by, even thought nobody could tell exactly how much time. After what he estimated to be a few thousand years, Arnold had little left to learn. He just spent his time researching the energy particles that allowed people to do what some called magic, or chi, or something else entirely, and how to best use them, something that few had ever tried to do. To make a single breakthrough would take years, making this extremely unpractical for anyone who lived less than at least ten thousand years. Arnold didn't know, but he had retained his consciousness without it disappearing for eons. However, even with all this time, he couldn't find a way to escape simply because there wasn't enough energy floating around in the air. The only time new energy would appear was when it floated in due to spatial fluctuations connecting the space to some outside realm.

Strangely enough, Arnold never seemed to lose grasp of who he was, and instead just became more and more solid as he gained more experiences. Of course, because of this he had so much time to do whatever he wanted that after he had learned about everything he wanted and more, he just went to sleep. Occasionally he would wake up to see if there was anything else he could discover, or to try to find the answers to some questions by experimenting himself, but he would spend most of his time sleeping. He would sleep for thousands of years, occasionally wake up to move around, maybe try to escape, and fall back asleep.

However, one day, when Arnold was trying to figure out the best way to grow in power from a newborn state, a dark tear suddenly appeared in the space before him. Within it, space seemed to swirl mysteriously in little curves and loops. Arnold had seen these many times before, but he was never close enough to escape out of them. Despite having been lazy for so long, right now he was filled with an indescribable energy. His thoughts raced through his head.

'What do I do? Should I really leave this place behind?' Arnold was frozen like a deer in headlights.

However, as the rip began to close, he saw all the souls that he had once met and other souls who he didn't even know shouting at him "GO. LEAVE WHILE YOU CAN!" Unfreezing himself, Arnold made his decision. He would not let this opportunity go to waste. For everyone who had been with him all of these years, he made his decision.

He shouted behind himself "I'LL RETURN FOR YOU GUYS!" Arnold stopped thinking, and ran forwards. Rocks, air energy particles, and more pushed against him as he ran forwards. However, he struggled forwards even still. One foot at a time, he inched his way to the gap, while using energy particles behind him to try to push himself forwards. Even as the debris ripped pieces of his soul away, he continued. As the tear began to close he screamed. "AAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH."

Using the every last bit of effort he could, he propelled himself forwards and through the gap. Arnold looked behind himself and as the rip finally closed, he saw a smile on the faces behind him. His flew forwards, his soul battered and weary, as he headed to a new beginning.