Chapter 2: Fantasia Online / Grimm_Eden

{Welcome to Fantasia Online}

Those words, sparse in nature, occupied the boy's mind with little remorse. They were the sole semblance of life he could spy within the seemingly infinite cosmos of darkness that swirled around him. Night clearly reigned supreme in whatever realm he occupied, yet, those few words managed to break free from the umbral constraints of the land and glowed in a radiant white akin to that of a biblical creation.

They lured the teen onwards, enticed him with their atypical existence until suddenly they vanished, leaving him alone within the desolate macrocosm. Seconds, minutes, maybe even hours, the child had no means to gather how much time passed before him, for even his mind, as oblique as it may be, failed to create the most ethereal of thoughts. Everything felt fleeting. From time to his very existence, the sensation was almost maddening, and yet, the boy could do little more than helplessly submit to the imposition of the umbral land, to allow himself to be obscured by its cloak of night, until, finally, light shone once more amidst the void.

{Please select a username}

{(Be aware whatever name you select is permanent and will be used to address your achievements to the rest of the playerbase)}

The biblical light of the text glowed, spreading its gospel throughout the boy's mind with every second he allowed it to brew. A username, the teen understood the concept, or at least he did in theory, for he had never had the opportunity to create one, having never played a "Video game" once in his life due to his impoverished nature, the boy could do little more than mull over the idea. Whatever he chose would be his identity, his legacy, the name the world would forever know him by should he be successful and yet, he couldn't come up with anything complex.

For a second, he pondered the idea of naming himself after some legends of history and folklore as a whole, from the great king Arthur to even the angel of death, Azrael and the British guardian of the wild hunt bearing the name of Herne, yet, he could never fully attach himself to such a christened being, they felt too distant, it felt wrong.

'This is strangely difficult,' The child inwardly monologued, having grown accustomed to the swirling darkness that plagued his vision and the blights such an odd situation carried, from the marring of his apperception to the point where even his hand that the child assumed to be hovering directly above his eyes could not be seen to the strange lack of sensations altogether; The child would mull over such a notion for what must have felt like hours to the youth but, in reality, was little longer than seconds before eventually, his mind started to spark with an idea even a toddler could create, a name that would forever be recorded in the akashic records of both worlds, a title that deserved both reverence and fear.

'Grimm Eden,' The boy inwardly commented, as the world around him began to morph, or more particularly, the rapturous radiant textbox which would soon fill with such a title did, one that was far from complex or even well thought about, for what replaced the stanza of god was merely the child's name put in reverse for the boy bore the name Eden Grimm.

{Username: Grimm_Eden}

{Confirm Username}

{Yes/No}

The mystical text asked once more. However, this time there was little apprehension in Eden's mind, for within the span of a second, he had already affirmed his answer. 'Yes', The teen commented, to which the screen vanished once more. Nonetheless, this time, its absence was merely ephemeral in nature, and within but moments, it reappeared once more, though the contents it bore had drastically changed.

{Status}

{Username: Grimm_Eden}

{Race: Human}

{Sex: Male}

{Titles: —}

{Class: —}

{Level: — }

{Stats}

{Strength: 1}

{Agility: 1}

{Fortitude: 1}

{Mana: 0}

{Total Stat points: 3}

{Allocatable Stat points: 0}

What graced Eden's view was not the same screen of confirmation he once accommodated throughout his mind but a new stimulus, one which appeared to record every detail regarding his person and equated them into stats, and yet, they were low, incredibly low, Whatmore the teen hadn't even been offered nor accepted a class, a detail the boy himself was unaware of, for he merely observed the screen with placid ignorance before with time it vanished, replaced by a panel that failed to cleave through the darkness of the world around him, one which spoke in a more eerie tone of writing.

{Creation has been complete}

{Please enjoy your journey in the world of Fantasia}

The screen read, yet, despite bearing words of departure upon its face, the realm around Eden did not change, the darkness did not dissipate, nor did the helpless feeling of being numb to the world vanish, instead a new sensation joined the choir of despair, a repugnant stomach lurching sense that plagued both the boy's mind and body, it was as though Eden was falling, for the teen felt weightless and yet, controlled by little more than the strange sense of gravity that now riddled his still cryptic form.

With each second that passed within the darkened plane, the motion would do little more than grow to the point where even breathing, one of the most essential apparatus the human lungs existed for, became a chore to perform. The air around Eden felt vapid and without use while his stomach struggled to suppress the urge to let loose all the gastric fluid that sizzled within its fleshy prison. He hated such feelings, and yet, he could do little more than relent to the world's wiles. Incapable of fighting back, the boy could do little more than prey that he would soon be brought out of such retched hellscape that he found himself indoctrinated into.

Still, no matter how much Eden prayed, no god would free him from such torture, nor would any devil come to claim his soul, for unknown to the boy, the world around him had already begun to morph and contort, the darkness that once riddled the realm in a perverted manner akin to that of a maggot infesting a rotten malformed corpse was broken as streams of dingy light bombarded the youths back, revealing a sight that could only be described as harrowing, for the sensation Eden was experiencing was not without cause.

The child was falling, tumbling ever downward through what appeared to be an infinite corridor, one that such dissonant light failed to completely illuminate, yet from what could be seen, the space, at least width-wise, was the complete antonym for its length. It was claustrophobic, with walls that wished to crush Eden should he unknowingly stretch out an arm, yet they were not structures made of wood nor brick, but dirt, as though the youth was falling down an incredulously large rabbit hole, one he had no knowledge of stumbling upon.

Every moment felt like a tortuous eternity for Eden who struggled to suppress the now blistering urge to let loose both the intents of his stomach, yet, just when he was about to give into such grotesque wiles he saw hope in the world around him, for one of his many obscured senses suddenly gained use.

*Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock* The low rhythmic sound of what appeared to be a clock echoed from a distance, its resonance occupying the very forefront of Eden's mind as it quickly became the sole thing he could focus upon. The noise was odd at first, for as far as the boy could spy in his shadowed view, there was no land that could bear the brunt of a clock, let alone one of stature enough to produce such a seemingly incredulous sound.

It had to be at the bottom of the hole.

That was the only sane notion that appeared to pass in the boy's mind, yet, what he would soon see would flip such very belief upon its head, for the once dissonant light that his body obscured soon increased in radiance, though not through the courtesy of the blazing sun that remained to be seen, nor a passing cloud that may have veiled such light, but instead a myriad of flickering candles that postured themselves upon the very walls that wished to embrace Eden's falling figure.

Their colours were unique, with some occupying forms constructed of bronze that appeared to all but glimmer in their brethren's light while others assumed a more glossy silver look. Some possessed ornamental forms from that of China and greater Europe, with low-hanging candelabras randomly littering the freakishly close realm to the boy's flesh, yet strangest of all was the seemingly mismatched time all the items appeared to come from. Few were modern, being little more than a stub of wax, while others were great heaping bulks of iron that would most likely stay alight for weeks on end.

The sight of such items was simply baffling to the falling child who could now finally gain closure upon his condition, and what he saw only left him worrying about this game's penalty upon death. He was hopeless. If Eden stuck out an arm in an attempt to grab such candelabras as means of stopping his fall, only two possibilities would occur, that of his arm and, by extension, shoulder and spine being gouged and wrenched from his figure in a bloody show of the power of gravity or he'd simply rip out the candelabra, his effort never to prevail and his fall never to halt.

Still, before the boy even had time to mull over such treacherous options, he would find new stimuli in the world around him, for the once distant sound of a ticking clock now all but boomed in his ears. However, its tune sounded distinctly odd, different from before. There was no rhythm to its song but rather a weird sense of cacophonic discord. Its ticks and tocks were out of sync. No, that wasn't it. To say that it was merely unharmonious would be an understatement.

It was too loud, the noise was almost deafening, and what more, it did not originate from but one spot, for as Eden's gaze fell upon the walls around him, he would be met with an added portrait that lingered amidst the mass of golden glows.

Clocks, hundreds neigh thousands of ornamental timekeepers, lay intermittently inserted upon the dirt corridor's surface, their purpose unknown to the tumbling teen whose ears and body were suddenly racked with a bout of tinnitus from the overwhelming sound such instruments produced. The noise they birthed was jarring, aberrant and eccentric, for not once was there a second of silence for Eden to regather his thoughts. Every moment of possible stale air was filled with the creations' putrid sounds as they overlapped their noises in a vile display of lust.

It was maddening. An inescapable urge to simply quit the game rose from within the child's mind, yet, he couldn't do it, not because his willpower outweighed the desire to stay and see what arose from such a mystical introduction but because he simply didn't know how, the game had not instructed him upon anything, merely seeing it fit for the youth to discover and explore the world as he saw fit.

'Will it please just stop!' Eden inwardly exclaimed, his hands instinctively reaching for the sides of his head in a vain attempt to ostracise himself from the cacophony that swirled around him. The boy knew his plea was useless. In fact, he saw little value in his complaint at all, and yet, by the time such thought escaped his mind, the world around him grew quiet. All the while, a new, eerie sensation pressed against his form from the front, blanketing his chest with its granulous body.