Against The Rules

Michael couldn't tell if his mind was playing tricks on him, but the more ground he covered, the dimmer the world around him grew. Maybe his gut feeling was actually accurate and something sinister lurked at the end of his path, or the panic he was going through was just that suffocating.

He tried desperately to calm his wildly beating heart but it was not that easy to shake off the apprehension.

Why was he walking in that direction? He could just stop, it was well within his means. He had questioned himself after he took the first few steps, as if he had done it against his will. However, did he want to?

The child wasn't a fan of him not following the direction he pointed. At one point he had actually stopped, a crippling fear freezing him in his tracks. What was it's source? Michael had felt fear before, two times in the recent past and was no stranger to the feeling. However, this was fear of a different kind. It was as if an executioners knife was breathing down his neck.

Despite, the fear and uncertainty creeping in, when the young boy tugged at his pants, probing him to keep moving forward, Michael obliged; begrudgingly of course.

All the while, the child didn't utter a single word. As the apprehension grew, Michael peppered him with question from what was beyond where he pointed to what he knew about the Void. Silence met every of his questions leaving his curiosity unquenched.

They kept moving forward in an awkward silence, the child keeping his face to the ground holding on to Michael's clothes guiding him towards something only he knew off.

Was this the best course of action, to keep at his current path. Many would argue no. However, Michael had tried to ignore it, but something deep inside him compelled him to follow the child.

Maybe the connection he had to that thing was the cause, or maybe his mind was just that far gone; his sense of how long he had been here slipping with it.

Regardless, against better judgment, he walked on, trying to snuff out the icy claws of terror that were closing in on his heart.

A feeling had also been nagging at him since the hallucinations begun. The more time passed, the more he felt his mind being submerged into a deeper well that made him feel more connected to this barren place. Initially, it had only been that; a barren land of perpetual darkness, until he met the boy of course. But now, it felt like more. The eerie feeling of belonging shifting his perception of this place profoundly.

Something else happened the more they walked in the direction the child led him. At first he had dismissed it as a hallucination, but after a while; just like with the boy, he begun to think it real.

The air around him became slowly filled with strings of kaleidoscopic light akin to light being bent by the surface of a bubble. They shifted and danced in place, making for a beautiful sight. It was an intriguing phenomenal that distracted him from the looming danger that plagued his senses.

At first, it was just specks of refraction, like rainbow dust floating around him. Overtime, the specks turned into threads, as if the dust turned into a liquid and begun to flow towards the surface. Instinctively he raised his arm in an attempt to capture one of this strings only for them to disappear upon contact akin to mist in the winter.

That brief interaction, however, felt weird. Michael couldn't quite place it but a part of him stirred as the string of fractured light flowed into nothingness like it never existed. He gawked at the weird strings as more and more appeared filling the space around them with dancing rainbow lights. Michael stopped in his tracks, the fear from before gone, replaced by awe.

It made no sense, but his mind was ignorant of this; choosing to instead bask in the weirdness of it all. When had he speculated about the workings of the Nether and the Void and unraveled it's mysteries anyway?

The strings danced around them, moved by an invincible wind. Michael felt his skin crawl with goosebumps as if kissed by a cold breeze. What was this feeling? The profound connection, the feeling of belonging like a lost child returning to the comfort of his father's house. For once Michael felt like this was his true home, as if the void had been his destined throne all along.

It was weird, he was so used to the hollow feeling of being shunned and unwanted that this new welcoming feeling was almost intoxicating. Where was all the fear from before, why had he felt it anyway? He wondered as the strings flowed from somewhere above and onto the surface. And it glistened in response.

Michael felt overcome with a feeling of vertigo as he watched the surface dance with patterns of light that wove themselves into weird unfamiliar shapes. It was confusing, yet surprisingly beautiful and... peaceful. He wanted to remain vigilant, to remain apprehensive. Had he not felt fear mere seconds before the light show? Yet his body refused to feel terror now. No, more accurately, there was not a reason to feel fear. The ominous air of oppressive horror that loomed was no more.

His heart beat wildly as the anticipation from before resurfaced. He was here for his awakening was he not? Was this it, the essence of his journey to the void finally achieved. Was this the culmination of all the mind fuck? He thought it worth it, the memory of the mental toll the place took on him dissipating as his body and mind shook with renewed vigor and excitement.

Finally, he would have the strength to survive the Nether. He hated that desire to commit his life to fulfilling the purpose of something that robbed him off his free will. But the benefits were too good to pass by. His awakening was finally within grasp. It also felt surprisingly easy. Walking along the boy he had imagined all kinds of horrors befalling him at the end of his journey, yet this was not in any of those thoughts.

"Make this worth it" A voice uttered beside him, ruining his moment and demanding his attention.

In the place where the boy had been up until a moment ago, there was now a mass of shadows swirling around the small figure. The light in the void dimmed even further as the shadows begun to rise higher. Michael was not prepared for any of this and briefly he remained there; standing his eyes wide with shock and confusion as the child terraformed into something akin to smoke from a raging fire.

What was Michael supposed to feel in this moment? Fear? Relief? Joy?

His body, once again, refused to move. His thoughts remained frozen. Every time something unfathomable had taken place, Michael was always perplexed trying to make sense of things. It was partially futile and partially not, because the situations promised to make sense. Yet this situation was unlike the rest. He had not seen anything like this before, the last time the shadows rose like so was that one time and even then he understood none of what happened.

Besides, the being of light inspired devotion and demanded reverence, the being that was being birthed from shadows demanded worship and to be feared.

Michael felt his heart pound in his chest, his emotions frozen in time as a cold sweat made for a second skin. An even numbing cold seeped into him, and he felt as if his very soul was cocooned in it.

Hadn't this been a child mere minutes ago? Staring into the shadows, he saw faces move within it. Some wore cruel sinister grins that inspired such terror making Michael desire to look away from them but he couldn't, his body yet to respond to any of his commands. Others were frozen in grotesque expression of terrified screams and Michael could almost hear the echoes of their dying breaths.

Had this not been his path to awakening? Did Caster really send him to his death? He begun to worry as the figure toward above him. He had put off this thought, but faced with the thing before him, he revisited it. Shock was painted on his face his gaze transfixed on the mass of shadows as it grew in size.

Then it swirled into the skies and his gaze followed it. The strings of fractured light did not interact with it, the mass fazing through them like they weren't even there. He was unable to shack off the eerie feeling of... being connected to this thing. Was it one with the void? Was it of the void? or was it just another thing like the being of light? Questions, questions and more questions but no answers.

To his horror, the shadows surged into him without warning. It happened so fast and so sudden that before he could react, the orifices of his body burned as if a flame was being pumped into his body. He wanted to scream but the shock disallowed him. So he remained there, a grimace of pain frozen on his face.

Luckily, it didn't last long. He saw the face of the young boy flash before him for a brief second. He recognized it, it was his face. Then the world turned dim and then plunged into darkness.

Was that the end?

[Authors note: Enjoy! Your feedback is much appreciated. What do you think of the book so far?]