1 The Feeling of Death - Part 1

There is one phenomenon that's rarely mentioned or questioned. It is but a scary and dangerous subject which everyone avoids at all costs - Insanity.

Few had braved trying to decipher the meaning behind it or trying to understand how it feels and what comes in the package with it. Where does it originate from? Can someone who underwent the baptism of insanity still be considered a normal person? It is but a huge mystery that is commonly shunned as being 'wrong' and shouldn't be experimented with.

But are there 'right' and 'wrong' in the first place, and if there are, what are they? Who decides what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'?

Yet there was such a man. The lonely soul belonging to a different world from the one he lived in.

There was a lonely scientist - Asura Ryuu.

The one who walks the path of insanity. On the endless road belonging solely to himself.

Situated in a faraway forgotten land of an ignorant bunch, considering themselves the greatest in the entire universe.

Alas... how dumb it sounds, yet somewhat true.

-----

Two misty eyes opened in the unknown place, quite different from the familiar sight of life and greenery he was accustomed to - the planet Earth.

"..."

Besides the endless silence, nothing else greeted him in this strange place.

There were countless shiny dots in what's supposed to be the sky, but it wasn't a daytime. Some of them small, just a bit away from fading into darkness while others were as big as our moon, some even bigger, but he couldn't see them.

A variety of feelings surged up inside the person with those peculiar lifeless eyes.

An endless barrage of questions assaulted him followed by a feeling of fear, but something was different this time. There was no corresponding 'feeling' associated with it - he only remembered there should be something to associate that with, but the 'feeling' itself was absent.

"Weird...", a weak 'voice' crawled out from him somehow.

But even his voice, which should have been something he was long accustomed to, differed from before. As if it wasn't his voice, rather being only its shadow.

His misty eyes gradually regained their usual aura as clarity replaced the previous lifelessness.

But something was still different, even though everything about himself should have been the same as usual.

"..."

He tried moving his limbs, but then...

Nothing.

Shock instantly appeared in the deepest part of his eyes, which meant it even crept into his soul.

"How can this be? Why don't I feel my body?"

After some time needed to overcome the instinctive shock, he recollected himself and tried to 'lower' his eyes.

But that only resulted in a condescending feeling of shock once more, yet only for a moment this time.

He could see nothing. The feeling of something being in his vicinity existed, but he couldn't see anything. As if he didn't even have eyes, but they were surely there - he knew because he 'saw' the darkness.

The feeling was the same as if one suddenly went blind in the middle of what they were doing. You knew you could see a second ago and now there's only eternal darkness.

Naturally, what followed was the feeling of terror and intense dread. There wasn't anything that made him feel such fear up until that moment. How could he, the great scientist, go blind?

Yet at that moment, a voice broke his train of thought, preventing the endless abyss of despair from swallowing him whole... for a brief moment, at least.

---"Finally awake?"

It was unknown whether the voice was male or female, more like it was both at the same time.

But the darkness was still there, which once again reassured him that he had gone blind. After all, how could one see nothing yet hear someone? He surely must be blind.

---"Don't be scared, let me help you.", the melodic voice once again sounded, pacifying his raging emotions.

---"You aren't blind, don't worry!"

That one sentence, as if bane of demons, instantly dispelled many of his questions, but confusion was still there. Yet, if it was any normal man they wouldn't blindly believe this voice and would instead be even more afraid of the unknown. But he was different. Why? Because he was...

Asura Ryuu.

---"There's no need to fear a thing because you're not blind. You just forgot to do something very important...",

The voice rang out within his mind, yet this time there was no shock. Actually, he somehow had a familiar feeling when he 'heard' that voice in his mind but he couldn't quite recall from where.

Not yet, at least.

"What have I forgotten?", he asked with confusion and expectation.

But instead of the answer, a phrase which almost made him swear came forth;

---"Figure it out yourself!"

"You motherf-...", he thought.

.

.

.

Time ticked away yet there was no feeling which came with the passage of the time, not even for the briefest moment. The more Asura Ryuu thought about it, the less he trusted his own sanity.

At one point, even the thought: "Has the insanity finally won over my reason?" flashed in his mind.

But, as usual, the silence didn't give an answer he was looking for.

He once again thought about what the voice said: ".... because you're not blind. You just forgot... something very important!"

"I'm not blind, yet I've forgotten something important. But I can't see. What did I forget?", he asked himself as if trying to find the answer within his mind.

How ridiculous, isn't it? Trying to find an answer to something from yourself, yet you don't know it. Truly ridiculous.

But is it?

Obviously not. Why?

Because Asura Ryuu had found an answer exactly that way.

"I forgot something... I don't see. Oh, right! Could it be... I forgot to open my eyes?"

---"Heh, heh. There you go.", the same voice resounded yet again.

"But something is different here, isn't it?", he asked.

---"Hm? What is different?", the voice asked as if somehow surprised, but... the 'fluctuation' which should have come with surprise was absent from the voice.

"Well, I don't know how to put it but...", Asura Ryuu said, yet didn't immediately continue.

As if contemplating whether he should ask such a question in the first place.

"Am I dead?"

"..."

"..."

Yet again, the familiar silence. The only familiar thing in this vast new world.