Silence.
Blissful, some would say, untouched by the chaos and panic of the moments that preceded it.
Darkness.
All-encompassing, brushing away the blurry, confusing and terrifying imagery, where the lines between reality and fiction had found themselves waning under the ever-increasing pressure of consequences that seemed far too horrifying to entertain any further than with a mere, passing mention.
Numbness.
Pervasive, absolute, yet subtle in its approach. A long-awaited reprieve from the violent siege that the mounting dread, stress and fatigue had been laying upon his body, not to mention the ever-traumatic process of taking one's own life.
These three factors contributed to a sensation for which the boy had been longing ever since the beginning of that day, or perhaps even far before than that.
There wasn't necessarily a single possible descriptor for it, or at the very least not one that his tired mind could pinpoint with ease.
But it didn't matter to him, not in that moment, at least.
In that moment, all he wished for was to abate his thoughts, to silence the voices and urges, to cast away all sources of distress, both within and without.
Had his psyche any semblance of fortitude left within it, there could have been an attempt at recognizing the irony of his predicament.
His situation had escalated to such an extent that the moment immediately after he had his senses abandon him would be the same moment in which he would feel the deepest sense of calm.
In that moment, there was nothing.
No fear.
No stress.
No expectations.
Not even the crushing grasp of loneliness, for the mind could not even so much as hope to acknowledge such a thing, let alone contemplate it long enough for it to pierce his heart.
But once more, as it seemed to be the case with many positive, soothing aspects of his time in this world, the moment was, or at the very least felt, short lived.
All he could witness before his eyes within that dim shroud of emptiness was a lone figure, barely distinguishable from what surrounded it.
From it, the faint echo of a voice ringed out, bearing an aura of dissonance to his ears.
It was soft, yet somber.
Its sound invoked within him a surging sense of joy, akin to the one sprung by familiarity with a loved one.
And yet the surrounding circumstances instinctively caused the voice's nature to sound… different.
"Have you… forgotten?"
To say that he barely had any time to process the words that had just been spoken to him would be a rather sizable understatement.
The moment following the most basic acknowledgement of those words, he was plunged into another realm with which he had grown fairly acquainted.
The realm amidst each long set of waking moments.
A realm that, especially in most recent times, had not been particularly kind to him.
Between dreams both surreal and unsettling, there had been times in which he dreaded falling asleep.
Although, given the circumstances he currently found himself in, sleep perhaps wouldn't have been too hideous as an option.
Soon enough, his consciousness was tumbling down within a precipice of oneiric origins.
The pace of his fall began to diminish, coming to a halt on what seemed to be a fairly unstable surface.
Trying to regain his balance, the boy's perception began to loosely define a road, down which he was trying to walk.
The emphasis would lie squarely upon the term "trying", as the road itself seemed to rock back and forth, left and right, becoming more and more unstable with each swing.
And with each of said swings, bits and pieces of it crumbled, revealing what lied beneath the cracks.
In spite of the hazy, vaguely defined and blurry nature of the dream, Subaru could discern with uncomfortable ease the flashing images strewn about the depths, their contents emanating sounds, sensations and memories he would never have wished to entertain again.
Amalgamates of each of his failed attempts at saving the lives of those he cherished littered the abyss below, the images within distorting and bending into the shape of long, spindly limbs that threatened to drag him down into a seemingly unending perpetuation of all the consequences of his shortcomings.
As for the road itself, so much of it had disappeared into the abyss that it resembled a plank.
The boy desperately clung to what little stability his precarious position afforded him, trying with all of his metaphorical might to not gaze downwards.
But in the middle of his struggle, as if to protract the cruel taunt even further, from above began to fall what initially appeared to be simple silhouettes, vague shapes of humanoid figures.
It did not take long for them to become more defined, displaying their appearance in further detail, much to his horror.
Each and every one of his loved ones were slowly drifting down, motionless as if merely asleep, towards the monstrous swirl of horrifying memories, which seemed eager to swallow them whole.
Acting on little more than sheer impulse, the knight stretched out his arms in an attempt to catch as many of the most important people of his life as he could, paying no heed to how said movement only caused him to slip down alongside them.
He had nary a moment to realize the extent of his nightmarish predicament, as soon after the contorted forms of his failures closed around him, resembling the vague outline of a cage.
Within it, he saw the confines becoming smaller and smaller, effectively collapsing on top of him, crushing him under their weight.
Throughout the whole process, he could do naught but frantically thrash around and scream at the very summit of his lungs.
Perhaps it was his constant struggling, or maybe some sort of outside intervention, that roused him from his slumber.
Or perhaps, it was the faint yet noticeable growling that originated from somewhere rather close to him.
Regardless, his consciousness finally returned, albeit the sudden nature of it all caused him to take a fair few seconds to truly gain an understanding of his surroundings.
It began with the awareness that he was not lying on a cold, hard floor as he was moments before he recalled his consciousness fading, which was presented by the warm sensation of sheets resting against most of his body.
Following it, his abruptly opened eyes recognized his outstretched right arm, the hand at its end clutched around a soft lock of cream-colored, drill-shaped hair, while the other hand was doing much of the same to the other lock of hair, its shape identical to the other one.
After his touch and sight, it was time for his sense of hearing to attend to its duty.
"I, in all my magnanimity, am going to interpret this incomparably rude gesture as my contractor's most misguided attempt at an embrace, I suppose!"
A high-pitched voice roared to the best of its ability against Subaru's eardrums, effectively snapping the entirety of his attention back into reality.
While this would have allowed him to more thoroughly take in his surroundings, he was still operating under the assumptions of his most basic impulses, which led him to release his grip on the spirit's hair only to immediately wrap his arms around her in a desperately tight hug.
"I'm sorry Beako, I'm so sorry! I beg you! Please please please don't leave me alone I'm sorry! I'm sorry I swear, I swear! Please please please don't leave-"
Each syllable rushed out of his throat, shaking and trembling with nothing but sheer terror.
"Ugh! J-just what is it with you! Grrr… and besides, are you truly so foolish as to believe that Betty hasn't yet learned how to deal with the aftermath of her contractor's bad dreams, I suppose?!"
His rambling turned to mumbling, which in turn took the better half of a minute to fully subside, leaving space for silence within the room.
Speaking of which, he could now recognize with relative certainty that this was the very same room that had been assigned to him.
The very same room in which he had woken up that day.
Alongside that silent acknowledgment came another one, almost as if it were a person in its own right clearing their throat to call the matter of their presence to his attention.
But presence perhaps wouldn't be the correct word, no, for it was the absence of a sensation that, now that he could think more lucidly, should have by all rights been there.
And yet he felt no pain at all within his throat, nor did he feel any scar or bruise when the tips of his fingers touched it, which caused him to steadily become increasingly aware of a morbidly familiar ascertainment.
As if to further confirm his suspicions, Beatrice's gaze was painted by a puzzled expressions, with her eyes fixed upon the fingers that were now nervously tapping his throat.
In that precise moment, the realization of what just transpired echoed across his mind like a silent yet thundering conflagration.
The realization that he had, in all due likelihood, returned from the throes of death.