A Necessary Sacrifice
Time had no meaning.
Here in the vast nothingness of the pocket dimension, time did not exist.
Or it shouldn't.
XueYa felt no hunger, no thirst, only ever persisting fatigue that wore him down little by little. The darkness was becoming a part of him, empty, hollowed out.
Despite this, the sea serpent took it upon itself to feed him food that was conjured up with magic that XueYa couldn't understand, something far older than any sorcerer knew off. It painted their surroundings in false colours and imagery - be it glimmering lakesides or vast mountains standing against the unnaturally clear blue sky.
But the real world had no such scenery.
XueYa had pointed it out to the serpent as he was made to sit by a bamboo table, looking out to the ocean blue with cranes flying above.
It was all too perfect, too unreal for XueYa to fool himself into thinking of it as anything but a mirage.