2. bright new beginning

It's dark, not you're kind of average, the power went out where's the candles kind of dark. No, it is the kind of darkness that's all-consuming, like it's been around before the universe itself and will be here long after it. An absolute void of nothingness that shouldn't exist or maybe it doesn't even exist. Who knows, I'm not sure. What is strange is that you think I would be freaking out and hyperventilating or just straight out having a mental break down, but I'm not. I think I was though but I can't quite remember, I can't remember much of anything. Things feel a little fuzzy here, just trying to think at all here seems to wear me out never mind trying to remember things. I do have this odd feeling that I should be mocking gravity because I can't seem to fall here, no idea what that is about.

I try to take a deep breath to calm my wandering thoughts so that I can focus but then I realize, well I can't. I quickly realize that I can't breathe here and I almost start freaking out again before I reel myself back in. It seems that it's not that I can't breathe, more like I just don't need to. Wonder if I can still smell, nope nothing. why do I seem so glad about that, my thoughts seem to be wandering again. Speaking of feeling and smelling, I can't really sense anything, not in a physical sense anyway.

I don't mean that just because there seems to be a gaping chasm of nothingness around me either, it's like all my physical senses are simply gone and I'm just sort of floating around in wherever the heck this place is. You think all this should be freaking me out again, but strangely I feel like I've never felt so at peace. like something is trying to soothe my very being and I need that right now. I think I was upset about something but I can't remember what, and the thought that I can't remember whatever that was, makes me both angry and annoyed at myself for forgetting. I'm not sure why that is though, which only makes me more irritated.

Every time I start to get a bit emotional about it, something weird happens. I feel something warm wash over me. It's like I've been sitting in a frozen waste all my life when suddenly someone comes along gives a big blanket and turns on the heater, but times a thousand. You could say the collective consciousness of the universe itself is welcoming me home and telling me how much it missed me. That's when things get weirder. Every time the darkness embraces me and the warmth seeps through my soul, my memory becomes clearer, like pieces of a puzzle I'd lost somewhere are being slowly brought back to me.

Time slowly ticks away with my memories steadily returning, it could have been a thousand years or a second and I wouldn't have a clue. Sure as hell felt long though. I'm finally me again, all memories are back and I can think clearer than I ever could when I was alive. As a result, I'm pretty annoyed with myself now.

Turns out when I first got here, after my tragic death at the hands of the evil garbage and the conniving gravity. I did freak out, bad. Upon showing up here and taking a couple of seconds to realize that I died. On top of that, I discover my body is kind of gone. I had what you would call a mental break, a really bad one.

I realized after a fair bit of panic that no matter how I tried to calm myself or focus on something it just didn't work, I was like the sea in a mega-storm and no matter what I did the waves just got bigger and wilder. It wasn't all my fault though, it was this place. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it was like it was amplifying everything I felt up to max volume and trying to blow the speaker. I didn't know that at the time though.

I started freaking out even more when couldn't get myself under control. The more I freaked out and lost control, the more of me I lost. It started to get hard to think and I could feel my memories draining from me, fast. Needless to say, I freaked out even more. This was not my brightest moment.

I'm not sure how I did it, things were getting fuzzy by this point, just as I was on the edge of really losing myself, I somehow managed to snap myself out of it. I don't remember much from that point, all I knew was that I had to hold on to that tiny piece of myself that was left. Somehow, I did.

Unfortunately, thinking was somewhat of a luxury for me at this point, but I had finally calmed down. Not that there was much left of me to freak out. That's when it happened, in that state finally free from my amplified emotional interference, but not being able to think clearly or much at all, I felt IT.

This place had a will of its own. The best I can describe it is like a loud car that was far away slowly getting closer. As the 'car', or the will of this world in this case got closer, the 'noise' got louder and clearer. The more that strange feeling washed over me the clearer I could feel it. This place meant me no harm, if anything, it is filled with an infinite feeling of affection and care. I know this is not directed at me specifically but more like at literally anything and everything.

As it turns out I did lose my body, only your soul can travel here. The problem with that is a soul is basically a ball of raw emotions and feelings and without a body to "house" and "control" those feelings, well let's just say it's a bit much for most if not all to take in. How do I know all of this you ask, no idea. It appears the darkness has returned more knowledge than just my memories.

When a soul comes here and can't handle all their raw emotions, which is almost always, it throws them away. To stop itself from collapsing the soul starts cleansing itself of all those memories and emotions until it can stay stable on its own without the help of this place, which forcefully holds them together until then. Problem is that process usually keeps going until there is nothing left but a blank soul. Once a soul is stable, it gets washed away to one of the many universes to be born again. That's right plural, universes.

Turns out there is a lot of them. A lot of the fantasy worlds we come up with apparently actually exist! Turns out even after being cleansed of all those memories and emotions do not just disappear, they stay here. I'm not sure if this place is sentient or not but it definitely "feels" and has a will of its own. So just before my soul was completely cleansed I somehow managed to stabilize it and then this place helped me slowly put the pieces back together and as it did it added all these little tidbits of information. So every soul always comes here and leaves pieces of itself here but sometimes they take little pieces with them.

These pieces are the inspiration for some of the fantasy worlds we have in our games, movies or even anime. Of course, these are only small pieces so there are differences but most are similar. Now, most souls aren't conscious enough to choose which world they 'flow' towards and are just carried by the "current" here, but me, I'm different. I can choose! It might be a reward for finally being able to "talk" to someone, but I can tell that I'm now connected to the will of this place in some strange way. It's through this connection that I knew all this stuff. I can also feel that all this mind-blowing information is not even half of what I'm getting through this connection. I can't tell what else it's giving me yet, all I can tell is that my thinking is a little quicker and sharper than before. That feels more like a side effect of what's actually happening to me, all I know is that I'm changing somehow in a way I can't comprehend.

Whatever, it's done nothing but help so far so if it's happy I'm happy, I mean I'm already dead, what else could happen. So while that's happening I've been swimming around and seeing what other worlds there are without actually going in, once I'm in death is the only way out. I've seen a lot of other souls around too, all blank though. I avoid them as much as possible, with no idea what touching one of those will do. You can't tell much trying to look into the worlds this way but you can get a broad idea of what it's like inside.

I have been searching for a while now (I think) and originally, I was looking for my original world but then I realized. Even if I go back I'll be born as someone completely different, and even if I somehow managed to track my family down what would I tell them, seriously what because I have no idea. Worst of all I still have no idea how time works here if there is such a thing as time here. For all I know I've been here thousands of years and wouldn't have a clue, I could have already gone past my homeworld and not even realized because of the passage of time. Long story short I've given up that quest, now I'm just looking for somewhere exciting, someplace that will get my blood pumping. There are so many cool places here so I've got to pick a good one right. That's not to say I'm suicidal, I want to live in this new world as long as possible and some of the worlds are downright terrifying!

After searching for who knows how long, I finally think I've found the one. I think I decided on this one the second I realized where this was, it's a little different but this is definitely the one I'm thinking of, so many of my childhood dreams are here! After looking at it for a bit more and getting more excited the more I look. I race in as quick as I can without a second thought. It's finally time to start that new chapter of my life. My life in a new world as a Pokémon master!!

What I didn't realize is that this world was nowhere near as easy to live in or as safe as I thought, because Pokémon are scary! Too bad it's too late now, I'll just have to live with it, or die and see if I can try again but I'd rather not try that.