I opened my eyes, expecting to see the back of the seat in front of me, only to find a dull grey... something... filling my vision. I stared up at the grayness for a few minutes, not really having much of a will to do anything but lay here and go back to sleep when I realized it wasn't just this graphite grey sky that was out of place: I had fallen asleep sitting up on a plane, not lying on my back in the dirt.

Dirt?

Now curious enough to move, I found the task to be much more difficult than I expected, a splitting headache rearing its ugly face as I brought myself to a sitting position. Despite the pain, I slowly took to observing my surroundings, not liking what I had found in the slightest: The dirt that I had assumed I was laying on wasn't really dirt at all, unless dirt had suddenly decided that it was black as night and felt like a hard pillow, that is. Perplexed, I stood up, gritting my teeth as I realized it wasn't just my head that was aching.

What the hell happened?

Looking down, I found that my clothes were splotched in blood, dirt, and grime, and my arms were oozing more of the red stuff from several different places. Cringing at this discovery, I bury my face in my hands, finding it damp and dirty as well. Whatever had happened, it really did a number on me. Not that I cared when I remembered my friends. Immediately upon remembering them, all thoughts of myself were shafted aside, and I snapped my head op to take a better look at my surroundings.

Where's the wreckage?

It wasn't anywhere nearby, not that I could see anyway. All I could see was the grey of the sky and the black of the... earth? Ground? Neither word seems to really describe this stuff... I pondered the material for a short minute or so before shaking my head and setting my train of thought back on the right tracks: I had to find the others, and soon. So, with no sign of where they might be, I set off at random, jogging off into the dull world around me.

I didn't get too far though. Turns out that this place defies the laws of physics as well as creeps the nerve out of me, because I can ascertain if the Laws applied here the black I was standing on wouldn't be floating fifty feet above another patch of black floor. Having no way to safely climb down, I look around again, finding more of these floating...

Layers?

Indeed, it does seem as if this place- no, this iworld/i consisted of more of these great floating masses of blackness, each one at a different level than the rest. And each having no visible way to get to the others besides flying. Discouraged, I sat down to try and think of a solution other than growing wings, eventually realizing that the only way to continue on was to jump off. And I've got vertigo too.

Just fucking great...

Still, with no other viable options, I found myself leaping off the edge of my piece of blackness... Only to find gravity had decided it really didn't like me anyway and let me just keep on going up! After a few seconds of confused floating my head cracked against the a small island of dark above the exponentially larger one I had just abandoned. Reaching up to cover the lump undoubtedly forming on my head, I felt my back thump against something solid as the platform had evidently convinced gravity to draw it to me instead the ones below it. Its either that or gravity just liked changing things on me.

After a short respite, I stood up on the underbelly on the small thing that I was now stuck on, trying to figure out what had just happened. While the process took what felt like a good-half hour of thought and throwing some of the coins I somehow still had in my pockets out towards the some other island-platform-layer-things, I eventually came to realize that gravity didn't really seem to give two shits what happened in this place, letting the space play by its own set of warped rules that vaguely resembled Sir Newton's law. In translation, things only seemed to be drawn to each other so long as some part of one of the two remained within six inches of the other, which explained why I could run on this stuff but jumping launched me into open space.

Sighing in combined annoyance and relief at figuring out what was going on, I pushed off the black beneath me once more, aiming for the platform I had originally been trying to get to in the first place. Much to my relief I landed where I had intended after a handful of tense seconds floating through nothing, after which I looked back up at this grey sky, which hadn't changed since I had first woken.

"Its going to be a long day isn't it?" I asked nobody in particular, just wanting to hear my own voice again and know it still worked. Satisfied that it did, I moved on, making my way from island to island, progressively moving deeper and deeper into this strange land of dull shades.

{[(O)]}

Eventually, I could not go on anymore. My aching legs eventually had gone numb, then from numb to stiff, then from stiff to jelly, giving way underneath my weight. I sighed and resigned myself to my fate, having given up on finding anyone else days ago. Well, what felt like days ago. It may as well have been a month for all I cared at this point: the black and grey of this world never gave me any clues on the passage of time anyway, so how could I keep track? All I knew is that I had walked until I couldn't walk anymore, and that my soul was oh so tired...

And yet... I couldn't sleep. I lay there for an eternity, trying ever so desperately to pass out, to pass on, but I never slipped off. I was stuck here, condemned to wander until this wretched world until I fell apart... Or was I? Eventually, when I stopped cursing the pointlessness of it all, I noticed something I hadn't before. A sound.

Static.

Confused and tired of moping around, I found the will to sit up and look around again. In the distance I saw a dull glow, something I didn't remember seeing before. Though it took a while, I eventually made it back into a standing position finding that laying there had restored some of the function to my legs. Having nothing else to do with myself, I made my way over to investigate.

What I found was a shimmering pool of silver water, glowing gently against the black of the ground around it. Drawing nearer, I soon realized that the static sound was emanating from the waters... And that being near the stuff made me feel uneasy. Still, I stayed close to it. It was the only source of actual light that I had come across in this land of infinite gloomy dusk, and I wasn't keen on wandering back out there. So, I sat beside it, looking at it until a concept formed in the back of my mind: Escape.

Now used to the sound of static and the glow of the pool I recognized that uneasiness as apprehension, fear. But not just any fear, mind you, as it felt only similar to the fear that I had felt back when I left home for boot-camp: the fear of the next chapter. I pondered why this was for a while eventually coming to conclusion that this was a way out... But to where?

It took a while, but I eventually decided that I really didn't care. So long as it wasn't more endless gloom, it would be better, right? Operating on that sentiment, I stood up and turned my back to the sparkling waters, saluted to somebody that wasn't there, then leaned back.

The last thing I remember before the dark behind the pool consumes me is the sound of a roaring sea of static.

A/N: Wait, what? What the heck's going on? Who is this guy and why is he stumbling around this strange land? Why is he hurt and rambling about a crash? WHERE ARE THE MUFFINS?! You're probably asking yourself questions similar to these after finishing this prologue, and truth be told that's the point and don't worry, answers will be given out in the coming chapters. Just read on and see~ ;3

Until next time, NuclearPoweredGinger out.