It's dark. Very dark.
It's also silent and... Cold. I cant feel anything, like i spent several hours submerged in fluid. My arms aren't numb; I get a tingly feeling, and still flail them about at least slightly.
What am I lying on? What's going on?
Where am I?
I can pinch myself awake, but am I even asleep? Am I even moving? Can I do anything other than hyperventilate and hope that I'm actually breathing?
...What happened to me? Have I died? How, and why? What happened? Am I dreaming?
How do I get out of here?!?!
Where is here?
...I'm not waking up from this, am I?
...What even is this... void? Why am I even here?
...Is this all that lies ahead?
Long lost knowledge slowly trickled out of the deepest, most cherished parts of my mind as I brought up an ancient tongue to calm my nerves. It was familiar enough for me to form three proper questions.
Et Nigrum Inanis?
A Tenebris Abyssi?
Is that all there is to look forward to?
I can't feel my fingertips. Oh my god, why can't I feel my fingertips? What's going on? Someone, please, help me! please!
I stuck my right hand pointer finger into my mouth, and it's edges are still there. It feels thick, clunky, and meaty. my fingernails are also exceedingly small; in a state of growth.
Thank god
'My teeth are gone' should have gone through my mind instead of that, I thought in a moment of rational retrospect, as it all should be, my gums slightly throbbing.
I closed my mouth around my finger again, desperate to feel myself again, and accidentally bit down too hard. The pain lit up around my hand, fluid seeping into my mouth, my hand throbbing, every part of my finger alight in pain, the-
...
I tentatively pulled my bloody(?) finger out, before sticking my middle finger in, and bit down.
It hurts. I can feel it through pain. I can use this if it spreads.
I heaved a mental sigh of relief, before replacing my middle finger with the ring finger, and chomped down, repeating the process until every finger had feeling. I enjoyed being whole again, even if it was through pain.
The numbness is spreading. can't feel my toes, nor my palms. I've started scratching my hands to keep feeling something there. I feel blood dripping onto my wrists and forearms, but I don't care.
I hurts. It hurts so much, yet... I can't stop.
I suppose I enjoy the feeling pain over nothing.
I'm seeing things; hallucinations, I hope. Spirals and swirls of color, circling in erratic patterns and soft voices whispering sweet nothings to me, soothing my frantic mind. It took far too long for me to realize that they were fake.
I like some of them; the beautiful ones, at least.
The other ones are grey and dreary, with formless humanoids robotically floating about, without purpose or function. I feel a sense of amusement when watching these creatures, a sense of irony that I don't understand.
The dark hallucinations are getting more and more common, and the beautiful ones, less. I dislike that.
...How long have I been here?
In an increasing number of random panic attacks, my brain always seems to revisit this question in some form or another.
Hours? Days? Years? Seconds?
I don't know.
I can't feel my arms, or legs, anymore. It's only a matter of time until my head and body do the same.
I can't remember my name anymore, or my family, my job, or my fucking education. It's scary, knowing that your entire life is drifting away from you, hovering just out of reach, and all you can do is drift in nothingness.
I've taken to clawing at my arms- what I assume are my arms, and I've been scratching myself whenever the hallucinations start again. The sweet voices and pretty colours are gone, and nothing but flailing limbs and tendrils and glowing white eyes remain.
I'm not sure if they're hallucinations or not, and each time one of them bumps into to me, I get even less sure. What derranged higher power made these... things?
I want to kill whatever did.
Did you HEAR me? you can go and burn in hell. If that doesn't exist, make it, and agonize for all eternity, you deranged fucker!
(Abyssus ferebatur. Non placet quod dixi.)
...Something is circling me. I can feel it; writhing and squirming and shifting through the dark nothing. I can feel its confusion, its hunger, its manic curiosity. A curious beast finding a new creature to prey on, and I know that I can't defend myself.
This hunter is scaring away the abyssal horrors with it's mere presence. A being that has seen the rise and fall of a dozen civilizations, and has fought every being within them enough to catalogue each and every one.
A sharp stabbing pain surges through my throat, and I let out a silent scream, digging my hands into the chiten-covered claw, now jammed into my adam's apple. I couldn't even force it's finger to budge; I tried to scream, but nothing but bloody gurgles came out, the noise lost to the void around my and my murderer, the beast tilting it's massive head to the side at my pained flailing, six slanted eyes glaring impassively at my struggle.
Deeming me nothing of interest, the skeletal behemoth tossed me away, casting me away to float in the inky fluid, calmly sinking down to the bottom of the sea, where it would use it's powerful legs to propel itself into the surface, where it would sink again.
Its right in front of me.
I can feel the powerful movements it makes as it adjusts itself, each writhing limb creating a current in the fluid I'm currently within; trapped, too weak to move, and stuck with a writhing mass of limbs and tenticles that's right in front of me.
I try to shift around, but it seems that I can't even move in the water (Water? Why would it be water?). I lean my head back, trying in vain to move away from thi-
PAIN.
MY THROAT!!! WHAT IS IT DOING TO MY THROAT?!?! IT HURTS SO MUCH!!! OH, MY GOD!!! IT HURTS IT HURTS IT-
My throat currently has an unwelcome guest: a tendril from the abyss, piercing into the open gash in my throat, tiny needles secreting a fluid that amplifies any existing pain, a useful tool for stunning prey. Unfortunately, that isn't something that I can currently appreciate.
I can't move anymore. Even with my heart pounding with adrenaline, I can barely wiggle my fingers and open my mouth in pain as it wraps it's barbed tenticles around my body and Oh it hurts it hurts so much of my go-
I blacked out. My throat's now another numb point on my body, slowly, agonizingly, spreading to my chest and head, where I'll just.. God, what'll happen
My body has been absolutely destroyed, tp the point that I don't know how i'm even alive, my mind is failing, the thought of even keeping my rationality a fever dream. All of my knowedge is breaking, warping, seeping out of my brain, into my throat, and out into the abyss.
...
Thump-Thump
I... I can feel
I can feel
I CAN FEEL
I CAN FEEL
SO MUCH
PAIN
PAINSOMUCHPAINITHURTSSOMUCHOHMYGODITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSPLEASE STOP THIS PAIN!
FOURTH FREAKING REWRITE COMPLETE
I HOPE YOU HAVEN'T COMMITTED TO MY IDIOCY YET.
