The air was filled with the steady hum of static. It resonated across a sheet of bare white. There was no sky, no apparent horizon, no clear line to distinguish between the ground and the air above it. There were also no shadows; a steady pristine light illuminated everything, seeming to emanate from every direction at once.
The white vista was empty, or very nearly so. There was one person, sitting with his knees pulled up and his head pointed straight down. His clothes were black and his body was black, but if looked at the edges of him, he seemed to radiate brilliant blue from his clothes and red from his body. It was almost like an aura, except the light didn't fade or mix with the air around him. Quite simply, he was outlined.
There was one part of him that was not black, and that was his fingers. These were red up until the last joint, at which point they became bright yellow. The yellow, red and blue tints and outlines on his person were to be honest rather ugly shades, like the default colours in an old version of Paint. His fingers were thin, though not especially long. This was because they were bones, and this person a skeleton.
And yet, despite being a literal skeleton, he was not dead. His shoulder rose and fell with a rhythmic pulse that could have been mistaken for breathing. But skeletons do not breathe. The curled up figure was sobbing, quietly. Each sniff was a little weaker than the last one, and so each time his shoulders moved less. Eventually his body became totally still, and after some dull contemplation of the perfectly white ground beneath him, the skeleton looked up.
Now, a normal skeleton would look a little unsettling if it were moving about on its own. This skeleton however, was anything but normal. His left eye socket was swollen to an immense size; about an extra half larger than it ought to have been. In contrast his right socket was an extra half smaller. On top of this both eye sockets seemed to show the inside of this skeleton's skull as being the same red as his fingers. And yet there were no shadows cast inside of his sockets. Set inside of these fluorescent red holes were two eyes that were as disproportionate as the sockets they filled. The right eye was shrunken, with no iris or pupil, and instead of white it was bright yellow. The left eye was enlarged so as to match the huge socket it occupied, having yellow 'whites', a bright red iris and a blue pupil. Bizarrely there was also a small black dot in the centre of this blue pupil, like a second, even more precise one. Over the top of these strange eyes was a pair of circular, red framed glasses.
To match his weird eyes the skeleton had an equally weird mouth, it being bright yellow. Blue streaks also ran from the bottom of his eyes sockets, down to the bottom of his jaw. They looked disturbingly like tears, but they were not.
The skeleton looked around the white abyss before him, unable to discern any kind of movement, shadow or change in colour. The lack of shadows was actually rather disorienting.
"heLLo?" called the skeleton, and then jumped as his own voice seemed to hitch and squeal slightly on its way out. He gave a cough to clear his throat and tried again. "HEllo?" once again his voice squealed unpleasantly.
He was surprised when somebody answered him. "Hello," they said, voice brimming with apparent excitement. "This is so cool!" they exclaimed.
"whAt iS?" asked the skeleton, voice still screeching as he looked around in vain for the person he was talking to.
"You," came the reply, as if the skeleton should already have known that.
"oh. UM, thAnkS, I guESs."
"Of course," continued what was apparently a ghost of some kind, "we still need iron out a few bugs: you've got a few, errors, here and there."
"No kidding," cut in a second voice, laughing. "He looks like he was drawn by a 1st grader."
"hEY!" snapped the skeleton, a little insulted.
"What's his name?" asked a third voice.
The first voice 'hmmed' for a few moments. "How about Error?" teased the second voice.
"Actually, that's not bad," agreed the first voice. "All then buddy, your name is Error."
"THanKs?" replied the newly christened skeleton. "buT uh, whERE Am i?"
"Welcome to the Anti-Void!" said yet another voice. Or, was it one of the first three? Error wasn't sure.
"This is a place beyond the beyond," explained a voice. "Technically it shouldn't be able to exist, but we manage anyway."
A great ripple of chuckles filled the air around Error, prompting him to glance around frantically. "HoW mANy of yOU GuYs are THERe?" he asked.
"No idea," said one.
"No one ever bothers to count," said another.
"WhaT ARe You?"
"Oh, just people."
"Bored people," cut in one.
"Yeah, really bored. But you can give us something fun to do Error!"
"whAT?"
"We have some things to teach you," explained what Error thought might be the first voice. "We'll teach you how the Multiverse works, and what you need to do in it."
"thAt soUNdS, OK, I gueSS," said Error. Then he remembered something. "I waS upSEt bEForE WE staRTED TAlkinG. wHAt waS I UPSEt aBOut?"
"You're mistaken," said the first voice. "You didn't exist before you started talking to us. This is where you were born Error; we're your family."
"huH. thATs nIcE," said Error, smiling.
"Now get comfy," said a new voice. "We have a lot to teach you."
"And then," said another voice, anticipation heady in their tones, "Then we can really begin."
Error pulled back the hood of his jumper, which had been half cast over his strange face. He then crossed his legs and put his hands in his lap. "ALl rIghT," he said, unbothered by the way his voice warbled, "I'M lIstEnING."