Credit goes to FanFiction user G.S.Phoenix (user id: 3111191) for the original characters and story. A big thanks to Phoenix for letting me use the idea and write it up to be published here.
Hope you enjoy this collaborative story.
A strange veil of darkness and silence lifted from my mind.
The first thing that I could feel was a cold and hard ground beneath me. My body was still felt completely numb but the sharp temperature of the floor seemed to tear away at this haziness, as if it was waking my body up from a long sleep.
Although it felt as if I had no control over my body yet, I could start to feel different parts of my body, mainly my hands. Even though I could feel heat and sense flood back through my body, I still couldn't muster any strength to move.
Initially I tried to move my left hand, but my body refused to respond with even the slightest of movements. The effort of thinking and willing movement out of my body seemed to bring a haze of confusion over my mind again. This feeling didn't last for long, however I had no real perception of time so there was no real way of being certain.
Once again I felt the rush of sensation throughout my body, this time however I felt strength in my body and I could think much more clearly than before. This time, instead of trying to move my hand, I tried to open my eyes. As I forced my eyes to open I could feel the cloudy fog coming closer to my mind and body again, this time however I somehow managed to fight it off.
The simple process of opening my eyes ended up being painfully slow, yet my eyes were now open and I could see my surroundings with a strange clarity. The floor, which I had been lying face down on, was flawlessly black, almost as if I was floating mid air. But it had a strange glass like quality to it that made a physical layer of material visible.
I moved my eyes from the ground, hoping to find out where I was. Instead I was met only with blackness in every direction. It didn't look like any form of fog or smoke, nor did it seem to be made out of any shadows. The only thing that made sense was that there was simply nothing other than the floor and myself.
All of a sudden my entire body twitched violently, almost as if an electric shock had run through it. The twitch moved my head a little showing me more intangible space around me. Given that my body had just moved itself I focused everything I had to try and move my hand.
My hand moved with a complete ease and speed that surprised me. It seemed to take no effort at all, much different than before. I assumed that this meant that I had control over my body properly again.
To test this I moved my hand in front of my face. My hand was most definitely there, a pink mass of skin and flesh that sported 5 fingers. Something at the back of my mind snagged on the sight of my hand though, but although I tried to surface the thought it remained hidden to me.
Knowing that I could now move myself, I pulled my other hand around and pushed myself up from the ground and manoeuvred myself into a sitting position. The change between lying face down on the ground to sitting up in such a short time struck me as strange, considering that I had barely been able to move at all not too long before hand.
Now that I was sitting up I took a proper look around at my surroundings. I was a little surprised to find that it was exactly as I had seen from the floor. A strange impenetrable darkness and a glassy black floor.
I looked down at myself to find that I was in a long and bare white robe. The snag at the back of my mind became very clear now. An image quickly flicked past my mind's eye. A man, in his late teens, short black hair, green eyes and most definitely not wearing a white robe.
"Where am I?" I spoke without even meaning to, but it made me aware of a deadly silence that had surrounded me. I could tell that there was something very wrong with my situation. Blurry images kept passing by in my mind, but I wasn't able to focus on them as I grew worried at my surroundings.
"That took longer than expected." A voice echoed through the darkness. It was a deep voice of a male and sounded as if it belonged to someone extremely old. What scared me was that the voice seemed to come from every direction and seemed far yet close at the same time.
"I suppose, given the circumstances, it makes sense." The voice once again spoke out from every direction and seemed contemplative.
"Where am I?" Not knowing what I should do, I simply reverted to the first thing that I could think of doing.
"Oh, but can't you see? We're waiting for the train to arrive." The voice came from directly beside me and sounded confused, almost disbelieving.
I flicked my head to where the voice had come from. All of a sudden my eyes were blinded by white light; it felt as if a bright light had been turned on directly in my face. I had to shut my eyes tight against the bright light, but once I was able to open them again everything had changed.
Without me even realising it, I was sitting down on a wooden bench next to an old man with long white hair and flowing grey beard. The man was looking at me with pure bright blue eyes, smiling. He wore an almost identical robe as I was, the only difference was a grey rope tied around his waist.
I looked past him to see light brick pillars and arches which spanned off into the horizon. I looked back around and saw that we were on a train station platform, with a large train track a few metres in front of us. Past those tracks was another platform, then more tracks, then another platform. This seemed to go on past the visible horizon, similar to the arches.
Everything seemed so real, yet everything held a strange whiteness to the colours. This strange colour however seemed to only stick to the surroundings, but not the man sitting next to me. He was crystal clear, his eyes and skin seemed rich with colour.
"King's Cross." The name was familiar, it held some importance in my mind but once more I couldn't pinpoint it. "So many have come through this lovely place recently. A portal to a new world, which so so many people hold dear to their hearts."
The old man looked away and over into the distance. He started to hum to himself and rock side to side. If he was humming an actual song I couldn't tell, but I had to resist a strong impulse to join him in rocking from side to side.
"Who are you and why am I here?" The only way to keep myself from following the old man's motions was to focus hard on something else, which came in the form of these questions.
"Ah, I'm just a lonely old man who helps people to their trains." He took a few seconds to speak, but kept rocking his head from side to side. "As for you, you're here to catch your train." He said this with a gentle voice as if he were speaking to a child.
"If I'm here to catch a train, where is it?" I was seemingly in some form of train station, but I hadn't seen any trains or any sign of them apart from the grey tracks.
"Your train...?" The old man seemed confused for a few seconds. "Ah, yes I remember now." He had stopped rocking his head and had once again turned to stare at me with old and caring eyes. "Hmmm, now that is a problem."
A wave of fear flooded through me at his words, "What do you mean a problem?" I had no idea what was going on and the only other person here had now said there was an issue.
"Oh, no. Nothing to worry about." The old man reached across and placed a hand on my shoulder and placed some pressure on it. This simple gesture seemed to relax my entire body and warmth spread throughout me.
"You're simply much earlier than expected for your journey." He continued with a voice that was tinged with sadness and in his eyes I could see that what he was saying hurt him in some way. "The pain of so many clings to you, pain that is much too soon for you."
The warmth that had somehow come from his hand turned ice cold for a split second, before turning to nothing. The old man took his hand away from my shoulder and held his hands down into his lap and looked down at them with closed eyes.
I didn't understand what pain he was talking about and, from his expression, I knew that I probably shouldn't ask. "If I'm early, could I not simply leave until it arrives?" As I said this a sudden sensation of loss and a feeling of longing crept into my heart.
The old man looked up again and looked directly into my eyes; he simply shook his head and turned back to his hands. "There is a path that might lead you home. However things may not be as you left them."
"What do you mean, not as I left them?" The longing feeling I my heart had been replaced once again by a dreadful and painful fear.
"You rest under the beds of Eden my son. What was once broken may never return." The old man seemed to be holding back tears. Seeing the old man's turn of emotions sent a shock wave through me which sent my own thoughts into turmoil.
"I can show you the way, but you won't truly retain your humanity." He had raised his head again and placed one of his hands over my own in a form of comfort, this time no warmth ran through my body at the touch.
"What do you mean?" The fear had remained and although I asked the question, I didn't really want to hear the answer.
"You will be sent back as one of human's creations. Life created by man, living but dead at the same time." The old man seemed to have controlled his emotions and was looking directly back at me again.
"What if I decide not to go?" Again I asked the question, but the look in the man's eyes told me that I had already made my decision.
"Then you may wait here, alone, for eternity. My dear friend doesn't like people to be early or late." He said this with a small, pained laugh to himself. The simple thought of being left in this seemingly endless and empty place, alone, was enough to firm up my decision.
"You seem to have made your decision." The old man gave a nod, before pushing himself off from the bench; he seemed to require a lot of effort to do this simple thing. "I can show you the way. But, if I may ask a favour of you my son?"
I was compelled to accept whatever he asked me to do, so I gave a nod and waited for him to speak further. "When you return, you will find others, similar to you. Given life, but at the same time life is withheld from them. I can give you the power to give them their flame of humanity. All I ask is that you save them and any others who may arrive at this crossing."
"How would I be able to give them something like that though?" Once more the old man didn't speak clear sense and once again I felt as if I didn't need an answer, as if I already knew what was going to be said.
"You shall see in time, do not worry." He gestured for me to rise from the bench. A strange force compelled me to do as instructed as soon as possible. As soon as I was standing the man placed his hand onto my arm and my vision turned to black and the veil of shadow was once more over my mind.
The next thing I saw was a burst of white. Within this white a large number of coloured circles rushed towards me and past me without making a sound. In front of my eyes letters begin to appear.
"Welcome to Sword Art Online"