Chapter 3

"Fuck!"

Konlan's eyes burst open. His thoughts raced so fast that they threatened to consume him entirely.

"It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream! If wasn't a dream!" He repeated madly.

The violent pounding of his heart echoed so loudly in his ears that his chest felt as if it was about to burst.

Konlan took a shuddering breath. His emotions had overcome his rationality and he knew that he wasn't thinking clearly.

"Calm down." He whispered.

Forcing himself to breathe slowly Konlan lay still until his perception was no longer clouded by panic.

His reaction could not be helped. After spending a year living like vermin, ripped away from everything and everyone he loved, he was finally presented with a glimmer of hope.

That voice.

Konlan remembered everything.

From the day he woke up with his lungs filled with sewage, the voice had been whispering to him each night.

It had taken him a year to finally hear it.

Konlan clenched his fists. Whether the voice and the things it spoke of where nothing but the delusions of a broken mind he did not know.

But he had to see the truth for himself.

'I want to draw.'

In the dimly lit shack Konlan's bloodshot eyes glistened like gemstones. Every part of his being was focused with an intensity unlike any other. 

Trails of blood seeped from his palms as his nails dug into his skin, but the pain didn't register in his mind. 

Time moved forwards with a slowness that left Konlan trapped in an agonizing state of uncertainty. 

Then. 

At last. 

Something changed. 

Sounds become muted, colours faded away into monochrome hues of grey and black. Darkness surged forth, enveloping the world around him like the jaws of some eldritch creature. 

He was alone. Isolated in a void in which the only thing to exist was his own thoughts. 

A sense of suffocation that threatened to snuff out the very fibres of his being pressed down on Konlan's chest. 

Through unknown means Konlan had arrived in this domain far beyond the comprehension of man. This was not a space he was ever supposed to step foot. 

[ Do you wish to draw a multiversal character card? Note: The multiversal draw is only otherwise available every 10 draws. ]

Shudders coursed through the realm of darkness as the voice spoke. It's tone was cold and mechanical, lacking any trace of gender or identity. 

This realm rejected Konlan. It suppressed his consciousness to the point that his thoughts flowed so pitifully slowly, that at times he seemed to flicker in and out of existence. 

Only once the voice began to speak did the invisible shackles that had wrapped around and suffocated his spirit lift. Horror and realisation dawned on Konlan as he realised the chasm like gaps in his memory where this realm had succeeded in splicing his spirit from his body. 

"Yes! Yes! I want to draw, I want to draw now!" 

The endless shadows swallowed up his words the instant that they left his lips. In this realm sound had no place. Eternal silence was all that had ever been and all that ever was. 

Yet somehow, an incomparably weak and pathetic fleshy creature had squirmed its way into the realm. 

The darkness pulsated with fury. Tentacles that stretched on so far that Konlan's eyes could not comprehend howled towards him. 

For a moment Konlan wished that his thoughts could return to that silent unknown state. At least then he would feel no pain as his soul was ripped apart. 

But the pain he expected never came. 

[ A character card has been drawn. You will now be returned to your realm. Note: the malicious intent of a shattered world has been detected. The world shards shall be purged. ] 

The burning stench of rot filled Konlan's lungs. His already bloodshot eyes bulged in their sockets as waves of information rushed back to him. 

There were no sensations in that black space. Only darkness. 

Inhaling deeply Konlan rubbed his temples and took a shuddering breath. The time spent in that realm couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but his memories of the darkness seemed to stretch for a lifetime. 

Konlan pushed these memories to the back of his mind. 

Suddenly his eyes widened, "The card!" 

[ The multiversal character card has been drawn. Would you like to view or integrate the card? Note: it is recommended that you view the card before integrating as the integration process may cause some discomfort. ] 

The thudding beat of his heart made Konlan's cheeks flush red. The moisture vanished from his mouth as he choked out a few hushed words. 

"View the card." 

For a moment nothing happened. 

Then there was a twinkle of light.

Then another, and another, until a lustrous blue light washed over Konlan and gathered to form a semi-translucent blue panel that floated a few inches off the ground.

[ The character card is being viewed. To integrate you need only to will the process to begin. ] 

Traces of madness flashed in Konlan's eyes. The acute awareness that his future rested on that mechanical voice and the unknown blue screen made his blood turn cold. 

Hope, desperation, unwillingness and countless other emotions culminated into a single instant. Memories of the people he had killed and the awful things that he had endured overcame him. 

The times when all he had to eat were the disease-ridden rats that owned this ungodly place. The animal like struggle for survival of his first kill, the feeling of his own warm blood spilling out from a rusty iron rod buried in his side. 

Konlan had seen too much. Suffered too much. 

The promise of change was one he would not hesitate to die for. 

The lustrous blue light reflected in his haggard pupils. 

His mouth opened wide. 

"Fuck." 

The corners of Konlan's lips twitched, then they began to curl upwards. Unbridled glee spread across his face like a plague. 

His head tossed back to the skies and his throat rose and fell as a sorrowful laugh echoed in the dim blue light. 

"Fuck you fate." 

The dusty earth was stirred up by Konlan's foosteps as he walked slowly back and forth. His rapidly moving lips spoke of the complex thought processes taking place in his mind. 

The information revealed by the blue screen was enough to take him out of the slums forever, but he couldn't act rashly. 

Careful planning was what had allowed him to survive to the present day, and even if he were to suddenly return to earth in the next moment, he would not break this habit. 

After considering hundreds of possibilities Konlan arrived at a conclusion.

'I need to integrate with that card, now.'

Konlan walked on a knife's edge. At any moment he could be suddenly ambushed and his throat slit by a crazed drunk or desperate addict.

The allure of integrating with that card was beyond anything else. What it offered was a foothold, a fragment of the law and order of his previous world.

Since the kingdoms decrees could not protect him; he would rely on himself instead.

"Integrate."

The blue light immediately converged in the centre of the room, forming a bizzare yet beautiful ball of living energy.

The sharp contours of Konlan's face were bathed in light as the ball gradually floated torwards his head.

Fear of the unknown urged him to step back and avoid this strange ball, but the resolve in his eyes did not waver.

The ball came closer and closer, until it filled the entirety of his vision.

Then, it touched him.

And everything went black.