False Alarm.

I was back in my apartment.

It was full of the same old same old, overdue bills and heaps of bagged trash piling up in the kitchen- something I'm far too used to even bother dealing with.

I guess I really did die, huh? Maybe it was a delayed kind of thing, and my body couldn't actually handle it.

I look down at myself- I'm in my boxers and usual t-shirt I wear to relax at home, it full of countless stains of food from over the years.

Pudgy fat could be seen spilling out from under my shirt, yep, I'm back.

I let out a long-defeated sigh, the emptiness of the apartment itself making me feel even sadder as the sigh lengthens.

I lie onto the mattress on the floor and lay there motionlessly, recounting what had just happened.

I was a homunculus, a magic puppet made by some weird old guy who apparently was really good at magic.

waswaswaswas... was was was!

Ugh, can't believe I let that new life go just like that- just because I wanted to act like a hero.

Or whatever those knights called me, that- what was it? Ahru? Ahnuman?

"Ahriman." A voice spoke out, scaring the living daylights out of me as I shot straight out of my bed- a shadowy formless mass was standing where the hallway from the door outside leads into the studio-room.

I stared at it, wide-eyed as it stood motionlessly. It was like I was staring into the deepest, darkest, pit of pure void that I had ever seen. It made something in the back of my mind itch maddingly, as if warning me to not peer too deeply; a primal fear.

"Bold of you, vessel." It spoke once more, this pitch void.

"Bold of you to embarrass the Goddess as such then, as you did. It gave me great joy to see her own manifestation of power be used on her own apostles as such in that twisted manner." The pitch void twitched erratically, maybe it was laughing?

"But, now she knows of your presence."

"This will make our journey far more arduous now."

I blinked, and the pitch void disappeared- now re-appearing next to me on my left, I felt my heart stop from the sudden surprise.

"Vessel. Hear me, your goal is to arrive at the Terminal Gates-" It erratically shifted, now appearing in front of me- my eyes peering into its nothingness.

"Once there, we will meet once again."

Then, nothing.

A vast blackness, I felt like I was dropped into an ocean of black ink.

///